Thanksgiving Dinner at our family gathering is always a lavish affair. Everyone brings their favorite dish to share; there is plenty of food for several meals. Leftovers. What does a person do with all the leftover turkey? 

This year, Kristie made the most flavorful and tender turkey in a roaster so there wasn’t much left. However, I had roasted a turkey earlier in the week and had several ideas of what to do with all my leftover turkey.

I ran across a suggestion for making Turkey Reuben Sandwiches. I love Reuben Sandwiches which are made with corned beef, Thousand Island Dressing, sauerkraut and served on rye bread.  Substituting turkey for the corned beef worked just great. And turkey is lower in fat and healthier than corned beef.

I also made my own Thousand Island Dressing. So easy, and wow, so much better than store purchased dressing. Plus I rarely use this dressing, so making a homemade version saves having to purchase a large jar.

Thousand Island Dressing is typically made from mayonnaise, ketchup, sweet relish with some sugar added. So sweet. I modified my ingredients to omit the sugar and I like my homemade dressing much better.

Just mix the ingredients in a small bowl. Very simple. For my Turkey Reuben Sandwiches I used sliced turkey and Provolone cheese, my homemade dressing and fresh pickled cabbage (shredded cabbage, carrots, colorful peppers in a sweet sour dressing) and toasted rye bread.

An easy lunch! Here’s my recipe for the homemade Thousand Island Dressing.

Here’s Kristy and Grandma Jeanne with Kristy’s turkey. This is the first time Kristy had roasted a turkey and it turned out great. That will have to be another post as will the recipe for Vickie’s Vegetarian Cornbread Dressing shown in the first photo. The dressing was very tasty; not an easy task to make dressing.