Turkey: it's what's for dinner. and lunch. and breakfast. for all eternity.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving this year. John's mom and sister drove up from Provo, bearing gifts and blessing us with their company. It was fun, and we stuffed ourselves silly. We had a TON of food. They insisted on leaving empty-handed.

We still have leftovers.

Needless to say, we're having turkey for dinner! Again!

I do so look forward to Thanksgiving every year. Just imagining my dinner plate piled high with roasted turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, candied yams, green bean casserole, cranberry salad and "Maurer Power pretzel rolls" makes my loins quiver with anticipation. Oh, the precious, artery-clogging splendor of a holiday meal. Are there many things in life more enticing than comfort food? Even the promise of leftover-turkey sandwiches has me foaming at the mouth as late as the morning of The Feast.

Five days later, however, I remember why we only cook turkey once a year. I can't stand the stuff.

I'm usually a beef-chicken-pork kinda gal (no seafood in my house, no game, "exotic" poultry or gourmet vegan concoctions), and I can think of dozens upon dozens of uses for anything beef-chicken-pork related. Leftovers? p'shaw! Anybody can do leftovers with beef-chicken-pork. Bring it on!

Not so much with turkey.

For me, turkey's only good freshly-carved and accompanied by the aforementioned Thanksgiving sundries, or on a white bread sandwich with lots of mayo, salt and pepper. Even then, after a day or two (tops) the novelty (not to mention the freshness) wears off and it's not remotely appealing to me. Unfortunately, I have what appears to be 3 pounds of turkey meat in my refrigerator right now and I am loath to take one more bite of it, no matter how hungry I am.

Thanksgiving leftovers = the best diet ever. (because I'd rather starve than choke down one more piece of turkey.)

"So why not just incorporate turkey into something else?" you ask.

I still shudder at the famous "chicken" casserole incident of 1987, wherein my wonderfully talented, loving, well-meaning mother substituted turkey for chicken in one of our family's favorite dishes. OH THE HUMANITY. We couldn't let it go to waste, though. There are starving children in India.

And then there's turkey-noodle soup. ("It tastes like feet!") Turkey gumbo? Turkey pot pie? Turkey hash? Bah, bah, and BAH again.

I made the mistake the other day of making a "turkey salad" sandwich, hoping to pull myself out of my "turkey leftovers" rut. Hoping that it wouldn't be so bad. Regrettably, I ended up paying for my error in judgment and had to force myself to gag on turkey salad for 2 whole meals. I needed the protein, after all (and there are still starving children in India, although I doubt they'd want tainted turkey meat salad). (btw, I managed to find it marginally tolerable when I held my breath, chewed-n-swallowed at lightning speed, and chased each bite with double-strength pink lemonade. Okay, marginally tolerable is a conservative estimation. I only gagged twice.)

I've since gone back to eating "plain" turkey sandwiches (if I must), but ...ugh, it's getting old. The pathetic part is that I have no other choice. We're living out of our pantry right now, so we're making do with what we have for a while. Unappealing food is better than no food. I don't begrudge what we DO have. Last night we attempted a detour from turkeymania by "branching out" and eating a Broke Food mishmash. Shellz-n-Cheez was neither filling nor nutritious. (Also, it's horrifying. What's in that nasty stuff anyway? Troll mucus? Never. Buying. Again.) So, we supplemented our defunct "main-side" dish with... Huevos Rancheros.
ummm.... DO NOT eat eggs after consuming fake cheese. Dude. Throwing up never felt so good.

So we return to available, digestible food by eating turkey for yet another meal. :( The drama unfolds tonight in the Maurer Kitchen. 6:00 pm Mountain, 5 Pacific. ("If you haven't seen it, it's new to you.")