My theory on Thankgiving is that I don't mess around with tradition when it comes to the actual day but after that, all bets are off. The leftovers are the perfect excuse to try something new because, after all, if it totally tanks, you aren't really wasting brand new ingredients. My other criteria is that leftovers should be fun but not too ambitious. I'm a lazy cook, especially after Thanksgiving, so nothing too time-intensive or messy would do.
I originally planned to make sweet potato ravioli but since a Thanksgiving elf ate a lot of the sweet potatoes leftover (I think it was the dash of Cointreau that made them so irresistible) I ended up combining mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes to make gnocchi.
Gnocchi are relatively simple. I mashed the potatoes and sweet potatoes together, added an egg, some garlic, salt and parsley. Then I threw in enough flour to make them stick together. The labor intensive part of gnocchi is always making them but since this is leftover day, I completely went the low-energy route on that too. Instead of flouring up a surface, I just coated my hands in flour and rolled informal gnocchi balls as I went along. I then boiled them.
The sauce was also recipe free. I already had some chopped onions leftover from Thanksgiving. I sauteed them with some baby bella mushrooms, a little leftover cooking sherry and sprinkled in some sage. Milk was another leftover since I don't usually have it in the house, but bought it for mashed potatoes. I added in the milk and a bit of flour as a thickener and ended up with a flavorful sauce. Overall, it wasn't half bad, especially considering that it was a leftover. The sauce was excellent but next time I will proabably pan fry the gnocchi so that they are a little less leaden and maybe add some spinach or arugula for a touch of green.
