Poor Barney.
Who likes leftovers?
***Raises Hand***
Not the ‘Leftover Parfait’ variety of Malcolm In The Middle in which leftovers are saved and on the seventh day arranged in layers and heated up. At some stage, one layer of that parfait would be the leftover parfait from the previous week. Ugh!
No Leftover Parfait for me, but give me leftovers any time. My favorite breakfast is something heated up from last night’s dinner. I leave the toast and cereal in the dust if there is pasta, pizza, enchiladas, stir-fry, burgers….you name it. (I also include leftover cake, pie, brownies and all things sweet as excellent starts to the day).
Repurposing leftovers for future dinners that my family will enjoy can be a little challenging in that not everyone is as fond of the leftover thing as I am.
Enter the Leftover Turkey And Swiss Panini. Expect “OOOOOHs” and “AAAAAAHs”.
If you have some leftover turkey and cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving, give these paninis a try. Even if you didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving this week, bookmark this recipe for the next time you have the ingredients on hand.
These paninis are all at once sweet, tart, crunchy, and nutty with Swiss cheese oozing all over tender turkey, cranberries and pecans. Delicious.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a panini press. I use a grill pan and weigh the sandwiches down with a cast iron skillet. Alternately, you can make the sandwiches in a heavy skillet and press down with a spatula to compress the filling.
Finally, go visit Ree Drummond’s website (link for The Pioneer Woman is below) for some beautiful photos of these panini being put together. My photos don’t do the recipe justice and I admit I rushed though taking the pics. Sometimes, camera be damned, one just wants to eat!
Leftover Turkey And Swiss Panini
Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups leftover turkey, shredded
1/2 cup leftover cranberry sauce
1/4 cup chopped pecans
2 Tbs fig or apricot jam (I used a combination of apple jelly and orange marmalade)
4 Tbs Dijon mustard
8 slices Swiss cheese
8 slices bread
8 Tbs butter
Directions:
1. Spread four bread slices on one side with jam and Dijon. Top four slices with turkey.
2. Mix together cranberry sauce and pecans and spread over the turkey. Top with slices of Swiss cheese, then a slice of bread.
3. Spread both sides of bread with softened butter and toast in the panini press (or in a grill pan, pressing down with a heavy iron pan as they cook).
4. Slice in half and serve.
Serves 4
Recipe from The Pioneer Woman
One of my fellow Contrastians (Hi Rick!) posted ‘Whole Lotta Helter Skelter’ on Facebook today. I really kinda liked it in that retro 70s, rock ‘n’ epic roll kind of way.
Turns out that Soundhog is Ben Hayes, a DJ, producer and composer based in Wales. He describes himself as a “Standard underachiever. Better than most, known by few. Makes music, listens to music, meddles with other people’s music, buys other people’s music, plays other people’s music to deserving ears”.
I had fun going through the masses of music Soundhog has posted on his website and on Soundcloud. Really terrific mash-ups of so many unexpected combos.
Check out Soundhog on his Website and Soundcloud, where you can get the music.
Cheers!
