Easter Leftovers: Ideas

It is a Sunday morning that is barely holding on in the last days of a season that is barely holding on. Forget the end of hockey or the beginning of baseball because I am seeing the last of the Easter season. A few bones of ham and turkey are simmering for stock to go into the freezer for the return of fall or winter.

I guess it is apt that finding ways to squeeze as much out of leftovers is a good post for a time when winter seems to be squeezing out its last from us. I am not a lover of the big-huge-gigantic-enormous-gut-wrenching-and-busting meals of family holidays. Well, I like to eat them but it is always within a certain range of enjoyment. There are few surprises in the meal and more in the conversations. I prefer the conversational surprises more. This year, however, the ancillary meals, the ones that tide you over between big meals and the ones that happened after made me a little more happy.

I want to share some of the recipes and ideas because I am obviously self absorbed and feel that may take on food is so important...or, maybe I wish that a few of these will help bored eaters everywhere on what to do with those meals that you kinda hafta have.

We used to have a fresh ham and have it all done up with mustard, brown sugar and cloves but nowadays we have a prepared smoked spiral ham. Given the compressed schedule, this was served on store bought croissants with swiss cheese and mustard, or ketchup for the pre-teen crowd. It was a good break from the last few years but we had a whole bunch of croissants and a ham bone leftover.

So, with Easter chocolate in hand, we unwrapped the eggs onto the croissants and placed them in the microwave for a little while and had an instant dessert that we repeated a few times.

Leftover turkey and Christmas' turkey got made into a ramen. This was really good. Very little adjustments had to be made for the turkey. A little of the same herbs and spices that were used in stuffing were added to bump it up and corn for some crunch.

Ham stock was used in an attempt at cheeseburger ramen but I will leave that for another post. It was a partial failure and worth an examination on its own. 

I wrote this post about leftovers and other ways to look at the holiday meals but I realize that in some ways, this attitude stretches the holidays in terms of memories and flavours. It is rare to get together with extended family. Those times are often compressed and stressed with very little time spent talking and reconnecting. Some of these ideas get at a way to do less and get more during the holidays and some of these ideas stretch those holiday feelings.