Earlier this week, I was faced with a familiar dilemma.  What do I do with all the turkey leftovers?  I love preparing and hosting a big turkey dinner.  The aroma of turkey baking in the oven is intoxicating, but the real advantage of hosting a big dinner, is all the leftovers 🙂

I am a huge fan of leftovers.  I like mixing all the odds and ends that are left into a pot and seeing what happens.  This is the creation that I came up with this week, and I think I might keep it my back pocket for our Christmas leftovers.

Jamie actually came up with the name for this dish.  Since it was prepared with Thanksgiving leftovers, he thought the name Pilgrim Pie was fitting (think Shepherd’s Pie but with turkey).

I started by pulling all the leftovers out of the fridge.  We actually didn’t have a lot of ingredients left, except an abundance of turkey.  It seemed reasonable for me to cook a 15 pound turkey for four adults and a four year old 😉

I started by dicing up the leftover turkey.  I saw a leek in the fridge, so I sliced that up along with some onions and celery.  Of course, we had bacon thawed out, so I fried up a few pieces of that too.  I wasn’t sure what I would do with it, but I figured the worst case scenario was that I would eat the bacon while I was preparing dinner.

I cooked up the leeks, onion, celery and turkey in some bacon drippings.  I added in a bit of chicken stock and some Worcestershire and tamari sauce.  Yep, that was going to be a great bottom layer for this turkey casserole.

After placing the turkey mixture into the baking dish, I started with the middle layer.  I cooked up some carrots and parsnips (the perfect combination for fall).  I had a broccoli in the fridge as well, so I figured we could throw some of that into the middle layer as well.  While rooting around in the crisper I came across a zucchini, I figured I might was well throw that into the mix.  Just when I thought I was done, I found the leftover Brussels sprouts from Thanksgiving dinner.   Perfect!

After layering all the vegetables over the turkey mixture, I went on to figure out the top layer.  I had accidentally purchased an additional cauliflower for this past weekend.  I just got carried away at the grocery store, not realizing that I already had one at home.  I steamed up a whole head of cauliflower and puréed it with our immersion blender.  When I saw the bowl of crispy bacon, it called to me, and I added it to the cauliflower puree. 🙂

After I layered the cauliflower on-top I put it into the oven for 45 minutes.  The end result was a pretty delicious and healthy use of turkey leftovers.

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Ingredients:

Bottom Layer

• 4 cups cooked turkey, chopped
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• 1 leek, white part only, thinly sliced
• 1 onion, diced
• ½ cup chicken stock
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 ½ tsp tamari
• Salt and pepper (to taste)

Middle Layer

• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 parsnip, peeled and diced
• 1 cup broccoli florets, chopped
• 1 zucchini, diced
• 2 cups roasted Brussels sprouts

Top Layer

• 1 head cauliflower, steamed and puréed
• 4 strips bacon, diced and cooked crispy

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Cook bacon to desired doneness and reserve bacon drippings.
2. In pan over medium-high heat, heat one tablespoon of bacon grease. When hot, sauté onions, celery and leeks until soft (about five minutes). Add in diced, cooked turkey and heat through. Add in chicken stock, Worcestershire, tamari, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and place in bottom of 9×13 baking dish.
3. In same pot, over medium-high heat add another tablespoon of bacon grease. When it is hot add in carrots and parsnips. Cook for about five minutes and add in broccoli and roasted Brussels sprouts. Cook for an additional three mintues and then add in zucchini. Cook for three more minutes and then layer over turkey mixture.
4. Add crispy bacon to cauliflower purée. Smooth mixture over vegetable layer. Place in preheated oven for 45 minutes.
5. Remove from oven, and enjoy your turkey (leftover) casserole. This is very, very hot. You may want to wait a few minutes before serving