Thanksgiving break is such a tease. I love it before and while it happens, but when it’s all said and done I start to wish we had just gone to class all week. I’m sure many of you are in the same boat as me, but I have SO much work to do over the next week and a half!! My goal is to still give myself time to appreciate the gloriousity of the Christmas season while I’m studying/working my hiney off, but that goal is starting to look a little lofty.

I did achieve one goal in the past week, though – I finally had my Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich. Two, in fact. They were absolutely glorious. Perhaps it was because I helped with the cooking so much, but this year I found myself savoring the leftovers even more than usual, especially the dressing.

Funny story: My dad somehow forgot about a pan of dressing he put in the oven while we were eating, just to get it out of the way. The next morning, I thought it was weird that we only had a small-ish square left and began looking for the rest of the dressing. I looked in the outside fridge, all inside the kitchen fridge, then felt compelled to check the oven. Yep, we left it in the oven all night. The oven wasn’t on or anything, but pork and eggy bread at room temperature for 12 hours is bacteria city.

I probably still would have eaten it, had my dad not said to throw it out. It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever had to do. Until next year, delicious dressing….

Anyways, the sandwich. There were actually two versions. One with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce and one with turkey, cranberry sauce and a little green bean casserole. And before you start shaking your head in disgust at using green bean casserole in a sandwich, just think about it…with all of the cream of mushroom, green bean casserole actually makes an excellent glue to keep the bread stuck to the turkey. And it tastes pretty good, too. Stuffing seems to be the more popular ingredient, though, so here’s a picture.

See how the bread is falling off the stuffing? The green bean casserole would have prevented that atrocity. If only I had thought of it sooner… But yeah, something about poultry and fruit spread really floats my boat. Like today, I had leftover turkey in a wrap with pumpkin butter, cream cheese and slice pear. Amazing. Go try it.

And yes, that’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the background. I reread the series every Christmas, and it’s absolutely glorious!

Also try turkey in a salad, possibly with pomegranate seeds. Those tasty little seeds are a delicious new discovery for me – I love how they burst when you bite down, releasing sweet yummy juice. Getting to the seeds, as I discovered, is a little tricky. Cutting and seeding a pomegranate is kind of like breaking into an egg sac, or performing an autopsy on an alien life form. Gross, right? It actually wasn’t that messy or even that hard, just very time consuming. I basically just followed this tutorial on Fashion Meets Food.

Just cut a square off the top and four slits down the sides and slowly peel off the layers, popping off the seeds as you go.

And blue is written on the side because I got it from a girl at work, who got it from her plant science class. But look at the inside….I had no idea what to expect once I got past that first layer – I was surprised to see so many pockets of seeds!

Oh well. I have the seeds now, which are perfect for topping salads, for putting in cookies , or for straight snacking!

And now it’s homework time. Godspeed to all the other student bloggies out there – we’re going to need it!