Left over Turkey Lasagna - Better late than never Thanksgiving Leftovers

Thanksgiving has been gone for about 2 weeks now, and I'm just now getting around to doing a left over post about it.
You see I've been busy and have been having a problem getting to the computer and actually writing about the food I made a couple days after Thanksgiving. I got the pictures. I actually cooked a turkey, green bean casserole, stuffing, the whole thing for that turkey day in the US, because having a family where everyone is from different countries (if you don't know, I'm from the United States, the hubby is from Portugal, and our son was born in Canada, which is where we all live right now) we wind up with 2 Thanksgivings, the Canadian one and the US one.

But with all the getting ready for turkey day again (the first one I didn't do turkey, just the appetizers that would normally happen for turkey day considering there are only 3 of us, if I did the whole thing on either Thanksgiving we'd either wind up without yummy stuff or it would wind up not getting eaten!) as well as dealing with a couple weeks of colds (them mainly, but I had a small one) and then just feeling blah I've just been trying to recover.

Now that it's only a couple of weeks until Christmas, I'm also finding myself busy with getting presents, doing baking for my little one's school bake sale they are having at his school and trying not to go crazy with getting everything done. On the bright side I've also had some very good news that I will share in a later post when I know everything is perfectly solid.

Anyways you aren't here to listen to me explain myself but for the food, so I will get on with the important stuff!

Like I said, like so many others, I cooked a turkey on November 26 to celebrate Thanksgiving. Well I'm not doing a recipe for that. My recipe is about what I did to my turkey left overs. I made a turkey lasagna. It's definitely not a traditional lasagna, but it's well worth trying.

Take mainly the white meat of the turkey and shred it with your fingers, about a breast of it will be more than plenty (dark meat works too, but I made sure not to get any of the fat or skin in ours), and set to the side. Cook your whole wheat lasagna noodles as they say on the package (I will one of these days make my own pasta, but if you saw the size of my kitchen, you'd understand why I don't yet) and drain them.

I hate to admit it, but I was in a hurry so I used a can of cream of mushroom soup for the sauce. Heat the cream of mushroom soup with a can of water, salt, and pepper to taste in a sauce pan on medium heat, stirring well to combine. Cook this for about 5 - 10 minutes and let cool a little as you start to assemble your lasagna.

I don't know if traditionaly you put the sauce down first in the casserole dish or the noodles, but I always put the noodles down first. Put 3 lasagna noodles on the bottom of your baking dish, using a ladle pour some of your sauce on top, not too much but enough to coat the noodles, but not make them swim in it. Take a handful of shredded turkey and spread it around over the noodles and sauce.

Either shred a cup of regular cheese or do as I did which was use some ricotta that I had left over from my cannoli filling, and sprinkle it over the turkey. Spinach is another great way to add in some veggies to this so I used some spinach leafs to lay out on top. You can also add in thin slices of tomato if you like but of course it's not a necessity.  Take 3 more lasagna noodles and start the same thing over again. Normally I would do this with 3 layers of noodles finishing with the cheese and tomato on top, but I only had 6 noodles at the time so I only did 2 layers.

Cover with tin foil and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes at 350F. Take out and uncover, put the broiler on and put it back in the oven to brown the cheese a little for about 5 minutes. Take out and let cool before serving.

I don't know if I would use ricotta cheese by itself for the cheese in my lasagna again as the taste was a little plain, but I liked the more grainy texture a lot. It just needed more flavor... If the ricotta had more salt in it, it would have been perfect for me :D. The hubby loved it, he didn't even complain too much about the tomato and the little one seemed to like it, though not as much as when I use ground beef or chicken and regular grated cheddar cheese. Though considering turkey breast is very healthy, the spinach as well and the fact that I managed to come up with something other than turkey sandwiches, I'd say it was a success even if I do want to tweek it next time!