It's no secret that Americans waste a lot of food. Inefficiencies in the food supply system and poor planning in the kitchen both contribute to 40 percent of all food in America getting trashed. And this Thanksgiving has been nothing but ordinary. According to the NRDC, 204 million pounds of turkey meat were wasted November 22, and that's not including bones.
I don't know about you, but in our house the turkey was the first of the leftovers we finished. The stuffing quickly followed. They barely lasted Black Friday, or as I call it, make-stock-and-rethink-drinking-half-a-box-of-wine Friday. But what are we supposed to do with heaping bowls of mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, squash that was never even cooked due to lack of time? Imagine how much of that stuff goes to waste. With all the money I blew on a turkey (I'm getting two chickens next year), I wasn't about to let anything go to waste. Not a fucking bit.
With the turkey, stuffing and gravy cashed days ago, a plate of protein-less leftover leftovers was just far too depressing to even think about. I didn't give thanks days before just to force down a plate of unloved sides a week later. WIth that in mind, I poured a cup of coffee, took everything out of the fridge and got to work on breakfast.
Kevin's Leftover Thanksgiving Fuck-All French Toast Casserole
Ingredients
mashed potatoes
mashed sweet potatoes
1 apple, diced
cranberry sauce
1 delicata squash, cored and sliced
3 eggs
4 slices of bread
bacon, chopped into tiny pieces
cheese, grated
1 pinch cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg
salt and pepper
Directions
Preheat oven to 325. Line the bottom of a casserole dish with mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes. Toss the delicate squash in salt and pepper and distribute, along with the diced apple, atop the potato base.
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Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk in cinnamon and nutmeg. French that toast over medium heat for just a second, flip it, and place in the casserole dish. A quick blast of heat will keep the bread from getting soggy in the oven. Sprinkle bacon and grated cheese (I used gruyere) over the french toast and drizzle with cranberry sauce. Cook in the oven until the squash are soft and the bacon ain't raw.
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The beauty in this mess is that you may have different T-Day leftover's than I did. We were out of butter or I would have thrown some on the 'taters. We used all our onion and garlic or a caramelized layer would have done nicely near the French toast. You're an individual, and a hungry one at that, so use this moment of totally American decadence to clean out your fridge, eat something horrifying yet comforting and call yourself a hero for saving food from a landfill.
