Thanksgiving Leftovers Pizza

I just realized, to my shock, that I'd never posted this recipe on the cooking blog. It was such a fun Christmas experiment, and it turned out to be so remarkably delicious, that I'm surprised I forgot to post it.

This all resulted from the great pizza-for-Christmas-dinner scandal of 2010. Wonderful Grandma Hale was trying to make Christmas dinner easier for everyone (and more acceptable for those younger grandchildren with limited palates) by proposing that we all just make or buy pizza and have a pizza potluck for our Christmas Eve dinner.

And though my sister Annie is usually loathe to state her opinion strongly, she ventured out of her shell to say, "What!!!! Pizza! Must all of our Christmas traditions be so profaned? As an american teenager I am so thoroughly sick of pizza that chain logos make me nauseous. And as a college student I am so generally deprived of wholesome holiday food the Christmas commercials make me weep. If we must have pizza can I suggest one topped with mashed potatoes and gravy? Maybe some turkey too? Beef Jerky? And how about we remove the crust from beneath the potatoes and instead serve it in circular roll-like bits? Just a suggestion."

And though my brother Jon responded by saying, "This girls does not speak for american teenagers or college students, or she would not say what she does. Hurrah for pizza!" I thought Annie's suggestion was brilliant.

So on Christmas Eve, my family assembled a couple of pizzas based loosely off the suggestions of online recipes for Thanksgiving Leftovers Pizza. (Like this one or this one.) Basically you take either pizza dough, a store-made prebaked pizza crust (we used Boboli--yum!), or biscuit dough, then use gravy for the sauce, mashed potatoes for the "cheese," and whatever thanksgiving leftover-type toppings you please for the toppings: turkey of course, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, whatever! It was mostly as a joke, but it turned out so delicious that I fully plan on making one next day-after-Thanksgiving.