turkey tetrazzini

After many years I have finally come to terms with the fact that I am not a natural cook. To this day, I have no idea how to prepare a lobster, nor do I care to figure it out. Heck, for that matter, the same is true for a turkey, the preparation of which I have completely managed to avoid to this point in my life. The thought of it gives me the vapors. Even the sweet potato dish I was asked to bring for Thanksgiving almost reduced me to tears, and required significant input, in the form of multiple phone calls, from my parents.

But there is one thing I am really, really good at: using up leftovers. Give me a cup of this and a bit of that and I will turn out a pretty decent, and upon occasion extremely delicious, dinner in about 45 minutes flat. These dinners are usually in the form of casseroles, which lend themselves quite well to the use of such varied ingredients. I am beast at making casseroles. My family is pretty much resigned to eating them.

Tonight's dinner fell into the realm of extremely delicious, if I do say so myself. It is leftover turkey season, and I had a hankering for turkey tetrazzini, though I didn't have any fresh or canned mushrooms on hand, which most tetrazzini recipes seem to require. Here's what I came up with instead.

Ingredients
16 oz linguine (or some other sort of pasta)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1¼ C milk
¼ C white wine
1 T chicken bouillon (or 1 cube)
1 T dried chopped onion
salt and pepper to taste
1 box frozen peas
2 C or so chopped cooked turkey
3 T melted butter
½ C flavored breadcrumbs

1. Cook linguine in salted water.

2. Prepare sauce: put soup in bowl, then whisk in milk, then white wine, then bouillon, then onion, salt and pepper.

3. Slightly defrost frozen peas in microwave (about 1 minute), and stir into sauce mixture along with turkey.

4. Drain cooked pasta, reserving ½ C of liquid. Stir sauce and liquid with cooked pasta, then put into casserole dish.

5. Mix melted butter and breadcrumbs, then spread over top of casserole.

6. Bake at 400 degrees F for about 30 minutes.

Yum.