It was a moment almost right out of The Waitresses 80s holiday song “Christmas Wrapping.” I’d just finished cooking the turkey, had placed it on the table with the corn, potatoes and gravy, when I realized, “Oh damn, we don’t have any cranberry sauce.” So my husband grabbed his wallet and keys, and dashed out to SuperFresh to save the day. Thankfully, this “oh, damn” moment hadn’t happened on Thanksgiving but instead just tonight, which is Sunday.

You see, like so many other Americans, I “earned” a free turkey from my supermarket, based on how much I’d spent this fall. However, since my husband’s mom and her sister were hosting Thanksgiving this year, I didn’t need to cook a turkey. But I’m not one to pass up a free dinner, so last week, when picking up my groceries, I also picked up my free 21-pound turkey (which would have otherwise cost me $22).

After spending the weekend painting inside the house and putting up Christmas decorations, we decided that today would be the perfect day to cook up our free dinner. Thanks to the November 2007 issue of Cooking Light, I found an easy (and healthful) turkey recipe, one for which I already owned all of the ingredients. Five hours later, dinner was on the table (save for the cranberry sauce, which was a last-minute addition).

Now, we are a family of four (plus the dog), so you can imagine how we barely made a dent in this 21-pound turkey. At this point we need to brainstorm creative ways to use up the turkey, and I’m hoping that this week, I can figure out a way to work turkey leftovers into at least one meal a day. For example, tomorrow my husband and my daughters have all agreed to take turkey-breast sandwiches to work/school. I’ll probably have something similar for lunch, too. Tomorrow for dinner, we might have a mixed salad with cold turkey, or I’ll mix shredded turkey with chopped celery, dried cranberries, slivered almonds and mayonnaise to make turkey-salad sandwiches.

The Renaissance Faire folks would be proud of the turkey legs and shanks we have left over, and unless we’re planning to have a Renaissance-like dinner (which we’re not), I’m not 100 percent sure how best to use these leftovers for dinner. I’m thinking some kind of turkey soup, but having been raised on Jewish chicken soup, turkey soup will be a whole new cooking experience for me.

In fact, beyond traditional Thanksgiving dinner and cold turkey sandwiches, I’m drawing a blank on creative ways to use turkey leftovers in after-Thanksgiving meals–considering my kids picky palates. If anyone out there has some great links to share or recipes to tell me about, I’d love to hear them.