We went grocery shopping a couple weeks ago and came away with what looked like a medium sized turkey. It was ‘free’ because we spent more than $250 at the store – not hard to do when it’s a big shop day. I’ve made only 1 roast turkey before so I pulled out my battered copy of the ‘Joy of Cooking’ and called the family Turkey Expert.

We invited friends for Sunday dinner and 6 of us ate Meal #1 which included potatoes, gravy and roast vegetables. We carved off the majority of the meat and put it in the freezer and our friends took the rest of the turkey home planning to make turkey soup. They had enough to make turkey pot pie, turkey soup and turkey stock. They gave us some soup and stock. I’m not sure how you count that but I think that’s another 3 meals.

I used the frozen turkey meat to make a huge turkey pot pie – my first ever. I put in vegetables, potatoes, turkey stock and the left over gravy and baked it all in homemade pastry and that was Sunday dinner. It was also lunch today and there’s enough to go in the freezer for another meal for 4. I think that takes us up to about Meal #7.

This turkey was tagged at a $30 value and with some vegetables and effort thrown in 1 turkey has produced 7 meals for between 2 and 6 people at each meal. Not bad!