Welcome to a special edition of the RRSB.

If you did it right you should be sitting on oodles of leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner. Some say that the leftovers are the best part of the meal. But there’s no reason to repeat exactly the same dinner over and over this weekend.  Here are two ways to add some spice – pumpkin pie spice – to your leftovers.

Nothing is better than a turkey sandwich Friday afternoon. Hot turkey with stuffing and gravy between two spongy pieces of store bought white bread. That’s lunch! But you can make a satisfying lunch with a cold turkey sandwich also. Add some pumpkin soup. You can make this soup literally in the time it would take you to make a hot turkey sandwich.

Chopped up a small onion and cook it in butter, vegetable, or olive oil until just translucent in a 2 or 3 quart saucepan. Add enough flour to make a roux (1 to 1 flour to fat) and let it cook out for about 5 minutes. Whisk in 3 cups of chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add one can of pureed pumpkin and bring the whole thing back to a simmer and keep it there for 10 minutes. Ladle into bowls, top with a fresh grating of nutmeg, and serve with that cold turkey sandwich that you made while the soup was simmering. You just made a warm and comfy lunch, perfect for taking a break from putting up the Christmas decorations.

For dinner you have the turkey and you have the veggies (nobody ever finishes all of the green bean casserole) left over from the main meal but the potatoes were long gone. Here’s a way to turn that leftover bird into something airworthy – pumpkin risotto.

This isn’t going to be a fifteen minute preparation like the soup was. Risotto takes time, but it’s worth it. Figure on using about the same amount of pumpkin as you will Arborio rice. For 4 side servings use 1/2 cup of rice and 1/2 cup of finely chopped fresh pumpkin. Two cups rice or enough to feed most of the neighborhood needs two cups pumpkin. You get the idea. If you don’t have a fresh pumpkin leftover from Thanksgiving’s tablescape you can use canned pumpkin. Change the directions below to add it to the mix after with the first addition of stock.

In your pan, heat olive oil until shimmering, add a medium onion, finely chopped, and the finely chopped pumpkin. Cook until the onion is tender. In another pot, bring 4 cups of chicken or vegetable stock to just below a simmer. Measure the rice into the pan and allow to cook for a minute or two. Add a cup of dry white wine and stir until the liquid has been absorbed by the rice. Then begin your additions of the hot stock, stirring after each addition until all of the liquid is absorbed and continue until the risotto is silky and creamy and just right. You’ll know. Top with nutmeg and allspice before serving.

It’s work making risotto but it’s worth it to see their faces when the tuck into it after a day of Black Friday shopping (which the way stores are plugging it means you can make this dish anytime over the next week or two).

There you have them, to ways to pump up the pumpkin in your leftovers. Take the day off, enjoy those leftovers for as long as you can before you have to start baking the Christmas cookies.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

(Don’t forget, tomorrow is Small Saturday. Patronize small business because all businesses started as small businesses.)