I was sitting, well, kneeling, in Mass this morning, post-communion, when a little thought wiggled its way into my head: “You know, green bean casserole is just the base of Shepherd’s Pie with some crispy onions added to it.”

Oh. Ohhhhh. Yes, yes it is. At least, the way I made it this year.

Naturally, that’s all I could think of for the rest of church and by the end of the final hymn, I had built all the layers in my mind, completely made up of the Thanksgiving leftovers sitting in my fridge.

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I was determined to make it for dinner and when I told my husband about it and my plans to thaw some ground beef as soon as we got home, he suggested I make it a true Thanksgiving pie and dice the leftover turkey in the fridge.

Genius. Of course. Even less work.

But wait, isn’t it a bit early to have Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge?

Technically, yes.

However, one of my brothers and his family left this morning for a week at the coast and my husband is on shift on actual Thanksgiving, so we decided to do family Thanksgiving yesterday.

Hence the leftovers.

Now, since I’ve just devoured/attempted to savor the finished product and I’m eager to get back to enjoying my book and glass of wine on the couch, I’ll get right to what I did to make my new favorite Thanksgiving meal.

I’ll spare you the details about how I was so bored with how I typically eat Thanksgiving leftovers and complete life story/trauma dump so prevalent in blogger recipes today and just give you the actual recipe. Sort of.

Here it is, as more of a general overview vs. super detailed recipe (I hate those, just let me cook):

On the bottom of your casserole dish spread out all of your leftover green bean casserole. Mine is a very simple mixture of drained green beans, this homemade cream of mushroom soup recipe, made gluten-free by using potato starch instead of flour, and cripsy fried onions, or whatever they’re called. Sometimes I get the gluten-free ones and sometimes I just deal. (Sorry, tummy.)

This year, I had just enough mushrooms to make a double batch of the casserole and then decided it wouldn’t be enough for the 20 people who would be here so I made another double batch after I remembered the frozen chanterelles that my husband and daughter foraged (I was determined to not go back to the store).

Turns out the initial batch would have been enough because most of those people were teens and thus averse to greens. Who raised these kids, anyway?

The result was a ton of leftover green bean casserole with both mushrooms. (My husband actually combined all of the leftover green bean casserole into one casserole dish and put it into the fridge like that so I didn’t even have to get out a new dish for dinner tonight. Huzzah.)

Okay, back to the “recipe.”

Once you’ve spread out the green bean casserole, top it with diced turkey. As much as you want. I did a thick layer, because protein.

Then top that with freshly shredded cheddar cheese. Again, I did a healthy layer, because cheese.

Next, you’ll grab your leftover mashed potatoes (we always have the fewest of those) and spread them out over the top of all that.

This is when I put it in the oven, covered with foil, at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes.

My initial plan was to top it with leftover gravy and another layer of shredded cheddar and bake it covered like that, but my brother and husband each decided to add their unsolicited two cents as to what I should do, which was to warm it up and then add the gravy and cheese and bake it uncovered, and I reluctantly agreed.

(My other brother stopped by to show us his hardboiled egg cooker that he couldn’t stop talking about yesterday at dinner and made us a dozen hardboiled eggs with it. It is actually pretty cool.)

So, after 40 minutes the internal temp was 135 degrees in the middle (if you don’t have a kitchen thermometer, what are you even doing with your life?), so I spread on a layer of leftover gravy (again, gluten-free thanks to potato starch instead of flour) and then topped that with a layer of shredded cheddar cheese.

I baked it uncovered for another 15 minutes, which was perfect. Twenty minutes would have given me a lightly browned cheese, but I was hungry and impatient.

The verdict? Absolutely delicious. And when Ian remembered that he’d wanted to put a little of the cranberry sauce I made on top? OMFG, stop. It was even better.

And that is now the only way I intend to eat Thanksgiving leftovers from now until forever.

You could, too.

So there you have it. A delicious, less boring, mostly gluten-free way to use up Thanksgiving leftovers that isn’t just throwing stuff on a plate and heating them in the microwave.

I’m going back to my book and wine now.

Ciao.

Bake covered for 40 minutes at 400 degrees then add the last two layers.

Bake uncovered for 15-20 more minutes.