Turkey Cranberry-Goat Cheese Egg Rolls and the Great Thanksgiving Tragedy

Little pockets of leftover deliciousness made two ways.

I have a secret to share.  Leftovers are my favorite part of Thanksgiving.  Granted I love the excitement of the day of Thanksgiving and how we all pause to be thankful.  But the leftovers just make me weak in the knees!

A few Thanksgivings ago there was a great tragedy.   Don't get me wrong, the actual Thanksgiving Day went off without a hitch.  We were at my parent's house.  I had pre-ordered and purchased a free range, organic, humanely raised turkey from Native Sun.  He was expensive but he had a good life (I hope) and got to eat good food so I had less guilt about cooking him for our turkey dinner.  There was cranberry sauce, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato pie, pumpkin and pecan pie...you name it we had it. 

This fateful Thanksgiving I had my plate and took some smallish portions and enjoyed myself knowing the best was yet to come.  I was saving myself.  After the meal I cleaned up, I packaged the leftovers neatly in separate containers and made sure to get it in the fridge before it had been sitting out too long so as not to spoil.  I went to bed that night satisfied and happy.  Eagerly waiting for the following day's bounty.

The next morning I woke early with one thing on my mind.  Could it be too early for turkey?  I think not!  I picked up the phone to tell my parents I was on the way over to eat some of my carefully packaged leftovers.  Here is a snippet of our conversation....

Phone rings and is answered...
Me: "Hey, I'm coming over to have some leftovers."

Mom: silence

Me: "Hello?"  "I'm on my way over, ok b-"

Mom: "Dad threw all the leftovers out."

Me: "HAHAHAAHHAhahhaahahHAHAh."

Mom: Silence

Me: "Hahahaa...woo.  You're kidding right?"

Mom: "No he didn't want them so he threw them all out."

Me: "What the *&^;@$#!?"  "I preordered that turkey months ago!  He was free range. Organic. Humanely raised.  And now he died for NOTHING?!"

And on and on for about thirty minutes the expletives went.  My poor, dear parents will never live this day down.   This outburst only to be rivaled by a fateful trip to the Grand Canyon as a teenager; a two week camping trip in the desert with my parents while experiencing boy deprivation and lack of showers and being eaten by no-see-ums as my parents disappeared to listen to a geology talk when I thought they were right behind me on the way to the car to get the hell out of there before I was eaten alive.

Turkey Cranberry-Goat Cheese Egg Rolls

Turkey Cranberry-Goat Cheese Egg Rolls

printable recipe

Ingredients

9-10 Egg Roll Wrappers

Extra virgin olive oil spray

Filling:

1 1/2 cups chopped cooked turkey (aka. leftover fried turkey from Thanksgiving)

1/4 cup chopped green onion

3/4 cup chopped fresh cranberries

1/3 cup canned cranberry sauce

2 oz crumbled plain goat cheese

Salt, pepper and onion powder to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the filling together.  These are all estimated amounts so add more or less to your taste.

2. Lay your egg roll wrappers in a diamond shape to you and put about two heaping tablespoons of filling in each wrapper. 

3. Fold the sides over the mixture then fold the bottom corner up.  Wet the top corner with a bit of water and roll the whole wrapper closed.  It will look like the below photo.

4. Spray a baking sheet with EVOO spray and place all the egg rolls evenly.  Spray the tops with more EVOO spray.

5. Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.  See below. 

**Another variation I made was with some turkey that had been injected with Louisiana Hot Sauce.  I simply chopped some up, added goat cheese and topped the three egg roll wrappers I had left with this mixture.  It was excellent too.  You really can fill these things with anything!