Cal and Christa DeMercurio
Join Chef Cal and Christa DeMercurio as they dive into creative and delicious ways to use your Thanksgiving leftovers. This episode offers practical tips to help you make the most out of your holiday feast remnants.
- Transform turkey bones into a rich and savory stock.
- Layer turkey and cranberry sauce on a Hawaiian roll for a tasty sandwich.
- Create soups like loaded potato or turkey rice.
- Make unique dishes like turkey quesadillas and Thanksgiving breakfast burritos.
- Use leftover turkey to make turkey hash with tater tots.
- Discover how to turn your mashed potatoes into pancakes.
- Learn how to prepare homemade turkey pot pies.
🎉 Fun Fact: Did you know Chef Cal once turned leftover pumpkin pies into a warm, velvety pumpkin pie soup!? It was a hit at his restaurant and it’s an ingenious way to bring new life to those extra desserts. You can even add a dollop of whipped cream for that extra touch!
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Timestamp Overview
00:00 Send leftovers home with others: solution.
03:21 Old pumpkin pies turned into popular soup.
07:59 Mashed potatoes turned into pancakes with gravy.
10:09 Creates hash with tater tots and turkey.
15:17 Ensure Brussels sprouts are fully cooked inside.
18:53 Root vegetables, squashes: roasting spaghetti squash rounds.
19:55 Frozen vegetables good; canned vegetables bad.
Transcript
Christa DeMercurio:
Hey, food fans. Welcome to Cooking Like a Pro with Chef Cal and me, Mrs. Chef his wife, Christa DeMercurio. We’re dishing out culinary intuition, insights, and imagination to spice up your meals and make cooking more fun. On today’s episode, my chef husband and I discuss things you can do with Thanksgiving holiday leftovers. From Turkey to mashed potatoes and stuffing to cranberry sauce. Dig in. Today’s episode was broadcast and recorded live on AM FM radio.
Chef Cal:
Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to Cooking Like a Pro. You’ve found us once again on the day before Thanksgiving. So very excited to be here. We’ve been talking about Thanksgiving for the last couple of weeks, and we’re not going to really break in that theme. And this is Chef Cal and my wife, Mrs. Chef Christa. She was kind of. It was on her heart to just talk about leftovers.
Chef Cal:
So you’re just ready to go? I guess. So you know what they’re going, you know. No, ahead of time. No ahead of time.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, today I went to Winco. It’s been an hour there with the masses. But I wasn’t buying food for tomorrow for Thanksgiving. I was buying for the day after, things I can use the leftovers with. So I was in preparation mode for after Thanksgiving, you know, but it’s.
Chef Cal:
It’s kind of like. Well, I was just talking to my brother Ben a few minutes ago, and, you know, it’s just Thanksgiving. It’s just one of those days. It’s like you do turkey, but it’s kind of the only time of the year you really do it. You don’t do a whole lot turkey. And you might, you know, it’s kind of like St. Patrick’s Day with corned beef and cabbage. That might be a little more obscure, but.
Chef Cal:
But the reality is you just don’t do it that. That much. And so I guess that’s why people gorge, you know, gorge themselves.
Christa DeMercurio:
The thing is, I don’t. I eat hardly anything. I eat a normal meal, and then I want some more later.
Chef Cal:
Well, there’s always extra, I guess if you were, you know, really thinking through and thinking ahead and you really, you know, knew how to. How to portion things out and time about. Then, of course, one of the things that. That prep guide that we. We. You showcased, we showcased last week that kind of talks about the variety of things going on for the entire week, including what do you do with your leftovers. And number one thing is probably send them home with other people.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, so the first leftover, I would say, is you got to take the bones from the turkey. Once you have carved everything off the turkey, save those bones and make some beautiful stock to use in future soups.
Chef Cal:
You know, one of the easiest things to really do is just soup. You’ve already got generally a broth. You got a turkey, you’ve got a gravy. There’s almost, you know, it’s really a no brainer. Matter of fact, some you do is add some mashed potatoes. You got mashed potatoes left over, throw them in with your gravy and throw in your, you know, your bacon, cheddar cheese, sour cream and some green onions and you got loaded. Potato soup.
Christa DeMercurio:
What other types of soup could you make? Can you make like a turkey rice soup? What kind of combinations come.
Chef Cal:
Well, when I think about soup, the first thing I think about, of course is pumpkin pie soup.
Christa DeMercurio:
Okay, definitely need to do this.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, we’ve talked about that before. It was the Dean McCarroll’s restaurant, you know, decades ago, this would have been probably in the early 90s and maybe around February. And I look in the, in the freezer and there’s like five pumpkin pies in there that have been in there obviously for several months. And I’m like, what do I do with these here? I’m frugal, so I didn’t throw anything away. So I had these pumpkin pies and I just threw them in a poultry stock and you know, blended it up with a stick blender and put it served just a warm pumpkin pie soup, a little dollop of whipped cream on there and my goodness, you would have thought, I remember it was extremely well received. People are just like, they’re.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, it’s very similar to a squash. Better not squash too because you’ve got your squash and then you, your pie, your. What do you call it, the crust. The crust is basically acting as your roux to tighten it up.
Chef Cal:
Exactly. So you got your flour in there, plus it’s already cooked.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah.
Chef Cal:
So you’re not going to have a lot of that sticky, you know, taste again. Over. You know, I was thinking about that too because we talked about you never want to over whip your mashed potatoes and. But if you end up getting your potatoes become a little bit gluey, warm up some cream or milk and try to fold that into it because sometimes you can save them that way because there’s nothing worse than gluey mashed potatoes.
Christa DeMercurio:
We talked about that last week. Now can you also add a little bit of potato buds to it to kind of step them back up a little bit?
Chef Cal:
I don’t think. I think you’re just adding more and more starch.
Christa DeMercurio:
More starch.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. So I think you just do a little bit, a little bit of cream probably help. But again, soup is probably kind of one of the first things I think about. But when you start thinking about ethnic. I know last week we did talk a little bit about having maybe a seafood season themed Thanksgiving or an Italian themed Thanksgiving. I don’t even know. Maybe I’ll have to have Ben look it up because I don’t know if. I mean, Thanksgiving is an American holiday.
Christa DeMercurio:
But they do celebrate up in Canada. I was talking to our friends in Canada and she says they do not do the typical green bean casserole. They do cabbage rolls. And they’ve already said Thanksgiving.
Chef Cal:
Well, capital. Yeah, their Thanksgiving is a little earlier than ours. But also cabbage rolls are, you know, are a good staple as well. But you can turn around, make cabbage rolls out of, you know, any kind of a protein. You just cook off your, your cabbage and the next thing you know you’re, you know, you can stuff with whatever you want, some kind of rice and.
Christa DeMercurio:
Then whatever, you stuff them with stuffing.
Chef Cal:
Whatever. Yeah, stuff them with stuffing. There you go. That’ll work too. You found us cooking like a pro. We’ll be back. Just a moment. Welcome back to Cooking like a Pro.
Chef Cal:
No, I did not pick out that bumper that I did. That was my wife. Anyway, welcome back to cook like pro and his chef Cal and Mr. Chef Christa. We’ve been talking about Thanksgiving leading up to it. We have a great meal planning and prep toolkit. It’s available that. Where do they go to get that, that free toolkit?
Christa DeMercurio:
Culinarilyours.net and you should get a nice little pop up that says holiday prep Guide.
Chef Cal:
Is that still a banner?
Christa DeMercurio:
There is a banner and there is a pop up. Both.
Chef Cal:
Okay. All right. So, yeah, it’s, you know, it’s not too late. Never too late. And, and just if you want to double check and say, okay, am I missing anything? Like, there are things that people miss. Like, did I get the right napkins? Do I have enough garbage bags? Do I have the stuff to send people home with leftovers?
Christa DeMercurio:
And do you have enough towels to clean things up?
Chef Cal:
Towels to clean things up? Yeah, we always think about that anyway, you know, so a cranberry sauce is one of those things. And I’m, I’m in charge of that tomorrow. And I’m not going to make cranberry sauce. It’s not blasphemous or anything.
Christa DeMercurio:
I’m actually, I actually Bought a can today for the people that are here. There’s some pure canned people. Right.
Chef Cal:
Well, I’m going to make a dark cherry sauce. Okay. So it’s going to be similar, but it’s going to be dark cherries instead of cranberries.
Christa DeMercurio:
And so what kind of flavors? You can add, like any nutmeg to it or.
Chef Cal:
Oh, that’s going to be a surprise. You’ll find out tomorrow and talk about it next week. But, you know, I’m going to do celery and onions. So it’s going to have a, you know, similar to. I have a great recipe I got from a friend decades and decades ago, and it was actually made with dark cherry jello. So that’s kind of the direction I was going. But cranberry sauce, quite a few things. You have smoothies.
Chef Cal:
That’s always a good thing. You know, you can use your cranberry sauce up in a smoothie and then just a variety of things from, you know, cranberry Danish, you know, cranberries, kind of like applesauce, goes great with pork.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, actually, I always, after Thanksgiving growing up, would take applesposs and smash in some cranberry sauce, make an apple cranberry sauce and then serve it with, you know, like a pork or chicken.
Chef Cal:
Mashed potatoes are something that I like to do. If you’re going to do. What I would do is I take your mashed potatoes. They should already be well seasoned enough. You’re going to fold in, you know, some eggs, you’re going to mix up some egg and add to it and then just cook them more like a pancake. And, you know, you can do, you know, gravy as gravy, you know, almost. Almost gotta treat it like a, you know, you know, I don’t know, biscuits and gravy. But, you know, I mean, I like potato pancakes.
Chef Cal:
And to me, it’s just one of the.
Christa DeMercurio:
We always used to make them, not necessarily after Thanksgiving, but we would always have meatloaf and mashed potatoes. And the next morning or the next day I would do the potato pancake and. And then grill off a slice of the meatloaf. So it’d be a nice breakfast.
Chef Cal:
And if you’re not going to use it right away, just get in the freezer. If you’re not sure, just, you know, portion it out into whatever that portion is and just throw it in the freezer and, you know, and that’s, you know, if four, five, six times you need mashed potatoes, all you gotta do is pull them out. Thaw them out and, you know, bring them up to temp.
Christa DeMercurio:
And the key is small portions, not putting a big old giant one gallon block. And they’re used portions you can pull out and use periodically for, you know, last minute meals.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, depending on the household. I mean, you know, like we have three in our household. So depending on what you have, you have two. If you have 10, whatever it is. But yeah, portion it out and get it in the freezer. Almost anything you can turn into hash, that’s something that also a lot of people will use. Dice something up, do a quick saute on it. Again, that can be with your stuffing.
Chef Cal:
That can be, you know, because your stuffing already is going to have your onions and your. And your celery in it. And what is. What’s that one seasoning that you just can’t get away from? You have to have it. If you don’t already have it, you’re probably in trouble. The one, the one. Oh, no, the one overall seasoning that just says Thanksgiving. All right.
Chef Cal:
Poultry seasoning. Yes, it’s a poultry seasoning. And you need to get some. It’s just going to make everything taste Thanksgiving. And it’s got a, you know, I mean, a sage is a big one, big one of the ingredients, but it’s got some thyme in it and it’s in powdered form. So it really makes a great seasoning for just about, just about anything.
Christa DeMercurio:
So I always growing up, hash is something that used to be something that I would make in our household, and I do it a little different. I don’t use the stuffing. And I actually got the ingredients today I get tater tots and I bake them off of the oven again, nice and crispy. Nice, crispy tater tots that are seasoned. And then I will chop those up with the turkey. But I also will saute up a holy trinity mirepoix with bell pepper and celery and onion and garlic, and then add the turkey and the crispy tater tots. And that is such a really nice treat for the next morning.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, I like that. I like that. Again, if you want to go different directions, things like turkey quesadillas, you know, I mean, you know, breakfast burrito, Thanksgiving breakfast burrito. How about that? Anyway, mashed to pancakes. We talked about that. Also, you know, one of the things that especially because I noticed that, you know, we had some meat trimmings that were left over from today. You know, you make a great shepherd’s pie and just use it.
Christa DeMercurio:
Oh, pop pie.
Chef Cal:
Those mashed potatoes.
Christa DeMercurio:
That would be great. I love. That’s what my go to the brie calendar’s. Turkey pot pie. That’s my. Get you through the night. Haven’t had time to cook things. So having a homemade turkey pot pie, how would you.
Christa DeMercurio:
How would you do that?
Chef Cal:
Well, I mean, you just make your dough, you know, make your. It’s just a veloute. Volute is basically your turkey gravy is a volute. Right. It’s a turkey stock that’s been thickened.
Christa DeMercurio:
So if you make a turkey stock and they add some milk to it, because usually it’s not so gravy. Ish.
Chef Cal:
Well, I mean. Or more stock. I don’t know that. I mean, it could be a little bit creamy. Veluta is just a. A thickened either chicken stock, fish stock, pork stock or veal stock, white beef stock. And those are all volutes. That’s just one of the.
Chef Cal:
That’s the blonde. One of the blonde mother sauce.
Christa DeMercurio:
And then what would you use as a pastry over the top? Do you get like a puff pastry if you’re tired, next day. You’ve been cooking all day. How we use up leftovers quickly with canned biscuits across the top for a pot pie.
Chef Cal:
Yeah, yeah. Puff pastry can. There’s a variety filo. I mean, there are so many different, you know, puff pastry, different things that are out there. Generally you’re going to use either pie dough or puff pastry. Puff pastry might get hot too fast, but vent it, you know, so you know your inside gets cooked and the under if you don’t vent. So that’s one of the problems people have when you don’t vent it and then not. It doesn’t cook on the underside of the.
Chef Cal:
Of the pastry. So. And you don’t want raw pastry. But I do like the shepherd’s piece idea. So this is cooking like a pro chef Cal and Mrs. Chef Christa, back in just a moment. You found us here cooking like a pro, you know, and so winter is here. I don’t.
Chef Cal:
It’s not official.
Christa DeMercurio:
Not officially. Not yet.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that when it’s cold, it’s raining. I think we. And there’s snow in the mountains. I call it winter. I’m not sure when it starts.
Christa DeMercurio:
It feels like winter.
Chef Cal:
Yeah. So. So anyway, so fruits and vegetables coming up. You know, I really enjoy just being able to experience the different harvests and the different seasons. And the one thing about the fruits is you end up getting one from pomegranates. I had a pomegranate off my tree. I don’t know, three or four hours ago, I was walking around out on the property, and it was like, they’re just. They just starting to crack.
Chef Cal:
I mean, they’re just beautiful. So anyway, just kind of ate it almost like an apple, you know. They’re great pomegranates. I mean, they’re so good for you. We talked about it maybe about a month or so ago, but they’re so good for you. They’ve got minerals, vitamins galore. So very, very good for you. And one of the things that I like to use them for is almost like sprinkling croutons like on a salad.
Chef Cal:
But just use pomegranates. I mean, especially if you’re trying to stay away from carbs, you know, then you got something that nice sweetness to it.
Christa DeMercurio:
You know what’s interesting I tried last week is after Bible study, we had a soup and salad gathering, and one of our gals made a salad with pomegranate seeds in it. But she also incorporated pistachio. And incorporated pistachio. With it being a little bit softer. It made the. I have a hard time eating pomegranate seeds because they just. They’re not a pleasant experience for me. But adding pistachio kind of helps temper the crunchiness of the seeded pomegranate.
Chef Cal:
And then for your vegetables, you’re going to get a lot of your sulfuric vegetables. You know, your cabbage, your cauliflower, of course, Brussels sprouts, you know, very sulfuric broccoli, very sulfuric. So, you know, those are. When you have a vegetable that’s sulfuric, really all you want to do is shock it, you know, meaning prep it. Prep it to the size you want, drop it in boiling water, pull it out. When it’s al dente, broccoli might take two to three minutes. It’s going to vary simply because of the size you cut it, how much water you have, and you know how hot your boil is. Is it a rolling boil? Is it simmer? But you want it to go until it’s pretty much al dente, you know, which is, you know, Italian for to the tooth.
Chef Cal:
You know, you’re just a slight resistance between your teeth, and. And then they break through. So it’s not crunchy, but it’s also not soft and, of course, not mushy. So you can do that with your brussels sprouts and your broccoli and cauliflower. One thing about brussels sprouts is make sure that you do put that plus cut in them, because remember that for it to cook, you’ve got this light outside cabbage leaves, basically, and this little baby guy. And then you got this core that the heat can’t get to and can’t cook. And I tell you, I don’t know that I’ve ever had Brussels sprouts in a restaurant that they actually were cooked all the way through. They’re usually crunchy and they’re bitter because they still have that sulfur that hasn’t had a chance to get cooked out.
Chef Cal:
But, you know, carrots, of course, this time of year. One thing about carrots this time of year is they can get a little bit woody, especially if they’re a little bit too big. But the one thing I like about carrots that I used to always do is when I cooked them is, you know, prep them in whatever shape you want, A julienne, a dice of whatever it is. Then I saute them and deglaze them with a little bit of seven up. And the seven up just added that sweetness back to it. Because there are certain times of the year where your carrots just, you know, they’re not going to have the, you know, that sweetness that you want. So that’s just one of one little trick or hack or whatever you call it. Squash, kale, turnips fall in that same category.
Chef Cal:
Leeks. The problem with leeks is, you know, you really want to, I don’t maybe try to grow them. It’s just so expensive. There’s so much waste. There’s not a lot you can do with the top of that. Unless you have pigs, maybe. But all of your, you know, your kale, we were raised on Swiss chard, anything, any kind of a green that you can cook down.
Christa DeMercurio:
Well, today I was pulling up my. My stuff online, and the farmer Lee Jones, who was Charlie Trotter’s farmer, giving him a lot of his food, he was saying that spinach is now in season. He’s talking about how the density and the crunch of it now is the season for spinach. It’s at the prime peak right now.
Chef Cal:
Very good. Well, Brian gets the spinach. We had spinach salad tonight. It was very good. And then you said you were talking to somebody that also gave you an idea that was more. Was themed. Right. There’s more theme to, like a cultural theme.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yes. She’s a follower of our podcast, and she listened to it on YouTube and she said that her family on Thanksgiving always has gumbo. There she is from the Midwest. And then I asked her back, I said, do you have all the other traditional size and somewhat similar, but they have a cornbread dressing that they always have her grandmother’s recipe. And they have a sweet potato souffle. So their Thanksgiving meals, gumbo, sweet potato souffle, and cornbread dressing, a little different.
Chef Cal:
Sounds delicious.
Christa DeMercurio:
It does sound delicious.
Chef Cal:
Delicious. Yeah. I mean, well, anything sounds delicious after saying. I mean, after tomorrow, I guess anything different is probably going to sound delicious.
Christa DeMercurio:
So here’s my leftovers. I went and got my King’s Hawaiian rolls, and on that I’m going to put a nice slather of mayonnaise, some of that leftover turkey, a little bit of that leftover cranberry sauce, and either do some of that spinach or some sprouts or microgreens, and that’s going to be just this little sandwich, a mini sandwich. It’s just a little leftovers all wrapped up in one package.
Chef Cal:
And then, like, best food, mayonnaise, right? Not like that. No.
Christa DeMercurio:
It’s got a true mayonnaise.
Chef Cal:
Like, best miracle.
Christa DeMercurio:
No, no, no, no, no, no. Real mayonnaise. Hellman’s or vegetables.
Chef Cal:
And then really the root vegetables start coming in. And the things that, you know, they’re lesser priced, for one. And when you’re looking at root vegetables, you’re looking at, you know, not just your carrots, but anything that’s a root and your beets and your turnips, but anything that’s just down below the ground, you know, Jerusalem artichokes. And then, of course, above ground, you’ve got all of your squashes, right? Your acorn squash, your butternut squash, your spaghetti squash. Actually was looking at an article today on spaghetti squash, and what this was, I thought was actually kind of interesting, that when they roasted their spaghetti squash, they cut it into rounds. So just imagine the spaghetti squash straight across it like a tire, right? And then they lay it on there, and then they bake it that way. And then they just flake it with a. With a fork.
Chef Cal:
And I thought, well, that looks. Yeah, looks. Looks better. Because, you know, I usually steam it. But when you boil it and you’re just taking all the flavor out of it.
Christa DeMercurio:
No, you gotta roast it or something like that to keep that flavor and get some. A little more zhuzh to it.
Chef Cal:
And something else that gets kind of a bad rap here, too, is frozen vegetables. There’s nothing wrong with frozen vegetables if they’re frozen, right, and they’re in a container where they’re protected. The thing you really want to stay away from is canned vegetables. Because when you’re looking at something that’s canned. First off, there’s almost always going to be sodium added, but, but you really have the vitamins and minerals are just pretty much destroyed. And the nutrients that are found that were found in that are pretty much done.
Christa DeMercurio:
When it comes to frozen, I would say the frozen young sweet peas and frozen sweet white corn, they are fantastic.
Chef Cal:
Frozen.
Christa DeMercurio:
Yeah.
Chef Cal:
So there’s some things you’re out there. Fill the freezer up with that.
Christa DeMercurio:
Thank you so much for spending time with us. Until next time, we hope you’ll be cooking up a storm in the kitchen. So we’ll be with you again next week with food, flavor and fun right here on Cooking Like a Pro Podcast.
