“The Thanksgiving Aftermath

One thing I noticed when I first attended college was how much I missed home-cooked meals. The spine-tingling aromas, the delicious taste you experienced after every bite of food and how full you we’re after your second helping of dinner.

For the first couple months in college, you don’t get to experience that. You either have a meal plan card, which acts as a debit card that helps you get food, or you buy your own groceries with your OWN money.

As most of us know, college students don’t budget their money whatsoever. I tried to this semester, but it didn’t work out.

There is always some party out there you have to go to or some item you have to buy. So with the budgeting skills of a rich teenage girl during a shopping spree, you can just imagine how many trips a college student makes to the grocery store.

Some of us travel back home to wrap our moms around our fingers so they can get us groceries, but the other 40 per cent of us don’t usually have that opportunity.

So how do we manage to eat well and survive a semester of school? Well it’s simple: Thanksgiving Day.

Every student usually goes home for Thanksgiving weekend with one important goal: bring back as much food as you can. At the actual holiday dinner, we just sit there during dessert trying to figure out how much food is left over.

Depending on the type of family you have, you can either get away with a lot of food or just scraps. This year, I managed to get maybe four pounds of turkey, two whole pies, gravy and tea biscuits; talk about not having to buy groceries for a couple weeks.

As time went by, I started to get bored of eating the same old turkey sandwiches all the time. So I decided to come up with some new ways of using turkey that are delicious and not boring at all.

Leftover turkey usually equals turkey sandwiches, which is fine, but what do you add to the sandwich? I found the best ingredients to use for an amazing turkey sandwich, are: lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and any type of salad dressing you prefer.

Sure salad dressing does seem kind of gross, but it also depends on what kind you use. Any kind of creamy dressing will work and so will vinaigrettes.

If you’re tired of using the same old bread, then try switching things up a bit by using tortillas (for wraps) or even pita breads to make a simple lunch that can be eaten on the go.

Instead of having another sandwich for dinner so you can use up the turkey, why not try it in a soup? When making a soup like creamy chicken or chicken noodle soup, just shred some leftover turkey and add it to the mixture when it’s almost done.

For dinner, you can also use leftover turkey in a stir-fry dish. Once the stir-fry is almost done, just add some shredded turkey and let it cook for a couple minutes while stirring occasionally.

If you want to be old-fashioned, you can also make mashed potatoes and cook mixed vegetables to go along with the turkey to create a smaller version of a Thanksgiving dinner. Just make sure not to eat the same amount you had at the last Thanksgiving!

You can even use turkey when it comes to snacks. If you have some friends over and you decide to make nachos, you can easily use leftover turkey to create a new experience for your taste buds.

Before the nachos are almost done in the oven, just toss some shredded turkey onto the chips themselves and let it cook for a couple more minutes. Once it’s done, you have a hearty snack you can enjoy!

These are just some examples of how you can use turkey left over from Thanksgiving; you can pretty much substitute the meat into anything you’re making for lunch or dinner.

You get to save money for other things than groceries and aside from creating a wonderful meal, the turkey is also used up faster in a way you never thought was possible.

Some may say this is just a cheap way to eat, but it’s a dream come true for college students across the country.