Crispy Turkey Tostadas...

Tonight's dinner, Crispy Turkey Tostadas, would be an excellent recipe to have handy when you are deluged by tons (literally it feels some years) of leftover Thanksgiving turkey!

To sauce up a few cups of shredded turkey meat (you could always use chicken here too), fire-roasted diced tomatoes with green chilies are cooked in a saucepan, along with a sliced onion, until the juices have a chance to concentrate down and the onion softens. If you don't groove on spicy foods, opt for tomatoes that don't have chilies included.

While the above was simmering away, we lightly coated rounds of white corn tortillas with olive oil spray, sprinkled each with a few grains of salt and tossed them into the oven until golden and crisp. We then smashed an avocado together with salsa, sour cream and fresh cilantro to create a sauce to spread on top of those now-crisp tortillas. You can control the heat level here too - since we were using somewhat spicy tomatoes, we went with a medium salsa - however, go mild if you want just an inkling of spice or go crazy and use those diablo XXX salas's and clear your sinus's!

When that combination of chunky tomatoes and onion was done simmering, the shredded turkey was added in to heat through - the mixture is then piled on top of a light bed of shredded romaine that covered the creamy avocado spread. With a sprinkling of mild Monterey Jack cheese on top of each assembled tostada, Jeff had almost finished off one mound before I even sat down - I knew that was a good sign! Besides adding a burst of bright flavor, that slick layer of mashed avocado and salsa worked well as an anchor to keep the rest of the ingredients from sliding off. Our tomatoes had softened enough that they broke down while stirring, with the help of a sturdy wooden spoon, but if your mixture is still fairly chunky, you may want to either blitz it a couple times with an immersion blender or use petite diced tomatoes if you can find them - this will allow the turkey to blend in better.

Recipes
Crispy Turkey Tostadas