Comments on: Nine Creative Ways to Utilize Leftovers from Common Meals

By: suburbangrandma

suburbangrandma — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:14:12 +0000

I LOVE leftovers!!!! As others commented, leftovers can be served the next day,or so, in its original form, or transformed into a totally new dish. I make ghocchi from my leftover mashed potatoes, by adding some flour, egg, and cottage cheese. It is quick, and my family loves it.

By: Jodi

Jodi — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 05:30:16 +0000

Wow, leftovers are a problem!? Who knew. I had always thought that they were an excellent way to avoid cooking three times a day. I have never thought that leftover spaghetti, ham, mashed potatoes, or anything else was an abomination to be blithely discarded, or that needed to be transformed into something else to be edible. Save time and money…just put the leftovers in something and heat them up for lunch the next day!

By: john_anthony

john_anthony — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 02:36:49 +0000

who doesn’t eat leftovers?…

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 20:32:03 +0000

My dad believed anything could be added to scrambled eggs the next morning. A good friend of mine doubted this until he experienced the jambalaya omelet.

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:24:05 +0000

I have been utilizing leftovers more to save money on food shopping. One thing I do is cook up a lot of chicken one night. Have half of it for one meal and save the rest. Then the next day I cut the chicken breasts into strips and put them into a salad or pasta as a completely new meal.

By: ggarcia

ggarcia — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:16:55 +0000

the best thing for left overs is a slow cooker… shove stuff in, and let the magic happen…. oh, and don’t forget the hot sauce

By: spandox

spandox — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:40:59 +0000

rice, sweet or plain bread, donuts leftovers…
Baked Pudding: mix cream, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract. Proportions vary to taste. Mix with bread or rice…bake in a shallow pan. I serve the bread pudding with a caramel or maple syrup sauce.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:45:14 +0000

Ugh…I hate leftovers!
I do use leftover rice and veggies to make fried rice though. In my (asian) family, we also use leftover veggies and/or meat to add to ramen soups. Makes a delicious and easy lunch and you can practically add anything to it.

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:59:39 +0000

My husband and I both eat leftovers for lunch every day, but sometimes we wind up with small amounts of leftovers that aren’t enough for a full lunch (little containers of rice or vegetables, the last wing from a roast chicken, etc.) Or my 13-yo will pick out the meat from leftover stirfry or curry and leave all the veggies!

Sometimes if there are enough of these things piling up I’ll make “garbage soup,” which is mixed vegetables, legumes, rice, bits of pasta, chopped up bits of meat, cubed baked potatoes–bound together and seasoned by a jar of spaghetti sauce (and a pound of browned ground turkey/beef if there’s few or no proteiny leftovers) and cooked for at least a couple of hours, or all day in the crockpot on low.

Spaghetti sauce really does make a fantastic soup base that weds everything together.

By: Maria | Never the Same River Twice

Maria | Never the Same River Twice — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:07:09 +0000

My Asian college roommate taught me that fried rice is the Asian leftover dish. You can put just about *any* combo of veggies, rice, and protein together to make a decent fried rice.

By: Carrie

Carrie — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:30:48 +0000

We make a pot pie with our leftovers from pot roast. Chop up the meat, carrots, celery, potatos, and onions and stir it up with the gravy. Pour that into a pie plate and top with a ready made pie crust and bake it until the crust is done.

By: Battra92

Battra92 — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:56:22 +0000

I love rice. Seriously, give me a good Jasmine or Japanese rice and I am content. Even the next day it’s good.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 22:24:11 +0000

Don’t forget quiche for leftover ham!

By: Saver Queen

Saver Queen — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:26:37 +0000

I couldn’t agree more, and right now I am challenging myself to eat up what is in our fridge, pantry and freezer before we move. I can’t believe what I’ve been able to make with so little!

By: Georgia

Georgia — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:30:07 +0000

I also love using mashed potatoes to just make potato pancakes as a side for our next meal. I conglomerate a lot. My favorite recipe for almost any leftover meat – 1 box stuffing mix, 1 finely chopped onion, 1 thinly sliced celery stalk, 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms, 1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts, 1 cup grated carrot, and 2 cups of whatever leftover meat we had. As you are sauteing the liquid for the stuffing, add everything in the recipe but the bread mix. May have to add a bit more liquid to fully fix the stuffing dinner. You could also add 1/2 cup of peas, or corn. Some or all of these could be from leftovers in your fridge. All I did was to add a dish of fruit and we had a full meal.

I take leftover chicken (especially fried) & put it in the crock pot with a can of mushroom soup and 1/2 can or so of water. Let it simmer for hours and it becomes a different, tasty treat.

Now that I am alone, I use my X101 a lot. It has wells just the size that I can eat in one sitting and it uses all kinds of leftovers if you are adventurous. I use eggs a lot with leftovers. I’d better close. It is lunchtime and I have about 5 different leftovers in the fridge-barbecues pork, BBQ beef, stir fried chicken, and ham & beans.

Also, since I am alone, I will buy leftovers from the deli of our local grocer. They put out their leftovers in 20 oz cups for $1-1.98. They are often enough for 2 meals for me and they are new to me. See – you can eat well even when you are too lazy to cook.

By: UrbanMom

UrbanMom — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:04:05 +0000

I love leftovers, eating them plain or making things with them. Unfortunately, with teenagers, there are seldom any leftover! :)

By: Kate

Kate — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:45:16 +0000

Your transformation of beef stew made me think of my grandmother–she had an old fashioned food grinder that she would use to make “hash”. Yum!
With leftover ham, I freeze small bags and add to dried beans, eggs, quiche, etc. all year long. It doesn’t take long to thaw them–with beans I just throw the ham into the crock pot frozen.
If you have dogs–don’t forget them. I use leftover broth, grease, vegetable and meat scraps, etc. when I make rice for them–gives it flavor and stretches their dry dog food. Some people say not to feed dogs “table food” but mine seem to live healthily for a long time so it must not be hurting them.

By: BirdDog

BirdDog — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:12:06 +0000

These are the posts that I love! Although the thought of the beef stew/scrambled egg dish makes me queasy. I have found that buying quart size freezer bags and freezing leftovers is the best thing for me to do. I hate to eat the same thing two days in a row but by freezing it helps to vary them up. Plus, it is so convenient when I have to work late.

By: T. Kelley

T. Kelley — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:26:13 +0000

When I have leftover spaghetti noodles, I will heat about 1/4 inch oil in a frying pan and fry the noodles up for chow mein type noodles. You can’t put a lot in the pan at once or you end up with a gloppy mess – but cook them one layer at a time (it looks like messy string art!). When they are golden brown, remove them, let them cool and break them apart. My family likes them better than purchased chow mein noodles!

By: Naomi

Naomi — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 10:30:52 +0000

There’s a great book about this (order it from the library, obviously ;-)). A year’s worth of recipes with planned leftovers so that you use up every scrap: http://www.thekitchenrevolution.co.uk/

I am in no way involved with writing or publishing this book, I’ve just really loved reading it and putting some of its ideas into practice.