How a $7 Turkey Can Feed You for 3 Weeks

So my boyfriend is British. Have I not mentioned that? Really? I tend to mention that.

And because he is British, he a.) loves roast dinners, but b.) is skeptical of the validity of Thanksgiving as a holiday. In the absence of Thanksgiving feasting, his family across the pond takes the opportunity to roast a turkey on New Year's day. It's only their second big roast of the year, you see, and they're entitled as much as the rest of us. So now Stephen and I have gotten into the habit of roasting our own New Year's turkey.

I know what you're thinking: three massive roast dinners in one holiday season passed decadent a long while ago on the road to gluttony. But the thing is, when Stephen and I were shopping one fateful New Year's eve, we discovered something magical. Turkeys go on sale after Christmas! They do! They're really cheap! It's almost like people get sick of them after eating them twice within a month! And we gleefully went home with a 14-pound turkey in our arms, only seven dollars (seven dollars!) poorer, laughing at all of the people who foolishly cooked new things to ring in the new year.

We called around a bit to see if any friends wanted to come over for our last-minute feast, but everyone was predictably busy with their own New Year's plans. The following year, we dispensed with such excuses. Let's be honest--we didn't want to share the bacon-wrapped sausages anyways, and as it turns out, having a massive amount of leftover turkey is kind of awesome.

And now, we present you with a menu plan for enjoying a seven-dollar turkey* throughout the month of January:

January 1: Roast turkey dinner, with stuffing, potatoes, gravy, Brussels sprouts, bacon-wrapped sausages, what have you.

January 2: Leftover roast dinner (don't mess with a good thing).

January 3: Back-to-work turkey and stuffing sandwiches.

January 4: Take a few days off. Strip the carcass, and freeze servings of white meat and dark meat. Simmer the bones to make stock. Eat some salads/smoothies/sushi. Go on some guilt-ridden jogs. Curse the day you ever met a bacon-wrapped sausage.

January 8: Turkey soup with wild rice and ginger.

January 11: Turkey-walnut salad wraps. (I'm partial to alfalfa sprouts, here.)

January 15: Turkey and wild mushroom pot pie with puff pastry crust.

January 22: Shrimp, andouille, and turkey jambalaya.

January 29: Madras turkey curry. ("Turkey curry buffet!" Just imagine Mark Darcy wearing a terrible Christmas sweater.)

And this is just the beginning! There are so many things you can do with turkey!

*In the interest of full disclosure, I grudgingly admit that this year's turkey did not cost seven dollars. He came from Whole Foods, and so far as I can tell, Whole Foods is allergic to sales, turkey or otherwise. But the original New Year's turkey of yore really did cost seven dollars! And I'm not going to let scruples about accuracy stand between me and a good theme. I'm an English major, and we can get away with this sort of thing.

Cheese Envy

Having spent a great deal of time bashing my head against the fact that no, clotted cream can not in fact be found in satisfactory form in San Francisco, I devolve into a sniveling fit of despair. I've recently come back from three weeks of travel in England and France, and as expected, it's a bit of a letdown. I find myself pouting in grocery stores. I stomp a foot and declare there is no more bitter form of disappointment than standing in front of your neighborhood cheese counter. (What do you mean, there are only three types of chevre?!! You call yourself a cheesemonger? I can't even smell your Camembert!) It's a pretty serious case of greener pastures. I want to live there, not here! I want what they eat, not mine! Everything is better over there, everything lacks luster over here. I whine, I pout; in short, I want vacation never to end.

Never mind that if I actually lived in Europe, I'm sure I would miss buttermilk nearly as violently as Fortnum's finest Devonshire. My imagination has not crept so far as to a Saturday morning without tangy, tender-crumbed pancakes. It equally ignores Thanksgivings without turkey and yams, and skips blithely over California summers filled with carne asada, avocados, and Mexicoke.

Fiction-lovers fall into this trap. We love worlds other than our own. As a reader, one of my favorite things is to crawl between the pages into someone else's life. There are innumerable places to explore and retreat into, and whenever you finish or tire of one, there is always another volume on the shelf to unfurl before you. A reader's curiosity is perhaps not so different from a traveler's itch, in both instances, there's a certain measure of healthy discontent. It is a life of endless sampling, never quite sated.

But for those of us who really can't get over the clotted cream thing (it's seriously just not as good!), well, there is of course one other option. It is not for the faint of heart. You'll need to set aside a large portion of your weekend, store up some patience, and brace yourself for the deprecating comments of practical people like boyfriends.

Homemade Clotted Cream

Honest-to-goodness English clotted cream, hailing from Devon or Cornwall, is made from unpasteurized milk, which is why nothing that travels over the Atlantic in a jar will be anywhere near as absolutely wonderful. If you have access to unpasteurized cream, by all means, use it.

1 pint organic heavy cream, such as Straus Family Creamery

1 quart organic whole milk

Pour the cream and milk into a large, heavy pot or saucepan that will moderate heat well (a trusty Le Creuset Dutch oven does the trick). Cover the pot and place it somewhere cool, but near the stove, and let stand for several hours, until the cream rises to the top.

Gently transfer the pot onto the stove, disturbing the upper layer of cream as little as possible. Warm over the lowest possible heat, for about an hour. Do NOT allow the milk to simmer. When the surface has developed a butter yellow skin and starts to crinkle, turn off the heat, cover the pot again, and let stand at cool room temperature, overnight or up to 24 hours.

Skim off the top layer of yellow skin and cream into a small bowl. Place this in the refrigerator, and chill until thickened. Certain sources claimed this would take a few hours, but my cream didn't really set up and take on the proper blobby, thick-but-spreadable consistency until it had sat in the fridge for another 24 hours. (I know. I told you! Not for the faint of heart.)

The remaining milk can be used for baking, which is great! Because you ought to start whipping up some scones right about now. I put currants in mine. However the spirit moves you.

Finally, at long last, put the kettle on. Sit down with your warm scones. Slather them with hard-won clotted cream, and top with curd, jam, marmalade, what have you. Finally, don't forget crack open a novel. Because, let me assure you--where your reading might fail to transport you, 55 percent butterfat indubitably will succeed.