Friday Pie

I am rather well known for cooking for an army; it is sort of a running joke in my family. Holiday cooking offers me license to revel in my culinary abundance, after all the leftovers are where creativity comes into play. Someday I’ll write a book called 1001 things you can do with your holiday leftovers.

My girls and I have developed a routine for baking and cooking for Thanksgiving; Wednesday night they do the baking and I am the Sous-Chef de Cuisine and keep up with the dishes, Thursday the roles reverse and I do the cooking while they offer assistance.

In keeping with the theme of gluttony, this year the girls made apple pie, pumpkin pie, pear bread pudding, pumpkin cheese cake and a pear sorbet served in hollowed out frozen pears. Not to be out classed by my girls, I made a 24 pound Herbed Port Wine Turkey, a , Un-stuffing, a , a Cranberry and Apple Butternut Squash and traditional Sweet Potatoes.

Secretly I think that most people enjoy Thanksgiving for the company and the next day for the food.  As the 101st infantry did not happen to pop in for dinner, we ended up with lots of left overs after the twelve of us did our best by the meal. Perfect for me since I love turkey soup, sandwiches, pot pie and all of the other standard deviations on using up leftovers; but my favorite way to serve them up is in what we call Friday Pie.

So named because I usually make it the day after Thanksgiving, it is the whole meal made into a casserole. I start with a deep casserole dish and make a crust out of stuffing, layer in turkey, green beans, sweet potatoes, squash, a little apple pie and cranberry, pour some gravy over it and make a top crust out of mashed potatoes; bake this at 350 for an hour.