Leftovers

detroitdad

detroitdad

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What do you do with them? Do you try to create something new and refreshing with them? Throw them in the microwave and eat them as is? (I hate that method, I mostly hate re heating food).

Yesterday I cleaned out the fridge and made a pretty good dish. I'll post pictures of it when I grab my phone.

I was looking for something to cook. I noticed that we had leftover spicy Italian sausage, grilled chicken breasts, half a red pepper and half a jar of Alfredo sauce.

I cooked up some pasta, cut everything up, and mixed it together. Literally 10 minutes of prep work for a great dinner.

What leftovers have you recently transformed into?

B
 
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You've just completed The Wildcard Challenge: Blindfolded Ingredient Selection! without realizing it! Even though you weren't blindfolded, it's my contest, so I say it qualifies. :laugh: Seriously, though, I like what you did with yours. I ate lunch a little while ago, but I could see having a few bites of this now if I had the chance.

If I've made a small batch of something - one that will last no more than 3 days - I just eat it. After that, I start to get bored. Aside from feeding it to my dogs, I typically:
  • Add something fresh to the dish if I can - like green onion or cilantro as a garnish
  • Marry the flavor profiles of what I'm combining - like you did here: Italian made the most sense
  • Change the flavor profile of what I'm combining - In this case, I might take these Italian components and throw them in a wok with sesame oil to make a stir-fry, then finish the transformation to Asian with rice wine vinegar or gochujang. This is the most fun, but it also can lead to disaster!
Some other ideas that seem to apply to everything are:
  • burritos or tacos - everything is better when folded up into a tortilla.
  • omelette - chop up what you have and throw it in. In your case, the pasta - if you included it - could become like the bean sprouts are in an Egg Foo Young. Weird? Maybe, but you're not trying to impress anyone, so it might work.
  • breakfast burritos - combine the above 2 concepts
  • sandwich - a lot of things that work by themselves also seem to go together well between two slices of bread. Add cheese, tomato slices, and whatever else as necessary to complete the transformation.
Finally, if I don't have the motivation, I sometimes freeze what I can't finish, assuming it's the sort of thing that freezes well. Soup is often a good example of this, but pasta? No.
 
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I'm trying to train both Craig and myself to make just enough food for dinner and maybe breakfast or lunch next day. He doesn't much like leftovers, even repurposed, for dinner and I'm not eating as much as I used to since being so sick, think my stomach shrunk, and I'm tired of throwing food away.
 
medtran49 said:
I'm trying to train both Craig and myself to make just enough food for dinner and maybe breakfast or lunch next day. He doesn't much like leftovers, even repurposed, for dinner and I'm not eating as much as I used to since being so sick, think my stomach shrunk, and I'm tired of throwing food away.
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I know what you mean, but it's tough because some things require so much work...can you imagine making a small batch of his Vaca Frita?
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
I know what you mean, but it's tough because some things require so much work...can you imagine making a small batch of his Vaca Frita?
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Something like that, we'll divide into meal portions and freeze. When I make bolognese, we usually get at least 6 meals out of it. I don't really count that scenario as leftovers.
 
To answer the OP question, we rarely have left overs as such. Unless I'm cooking chili, curry, stew or mushy peas (which are cooked in bulk and frozen) I try to only cook one meal at a time. Sometimes it's a meal for us both but more than likely it will be for me alone (we have different tastes in food (and music)).
 
detroitdad said:
Dude, you should never ever feed dogs people food.
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Ours have managed quite well on it for 40 years [and my parents dogs before that]. Non of them have ever needed any serious vet care [and all managed a 12-14 years lifespan - good going for GSD's our usual breed]. For convenience Carla our current Lurcher has her dinners topped up with dog food [because we have very few 'leftovers'] but that is all. The dogs digestive system is far tougher than ours and my skepticism about the 'men in white coats' [who tend to be in this case employed by the pet food industry] is only slightly higher than my distrust of the human dietary 'experts'.
 
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I eat A LOT of leftovers. Mostly for breakfast after a long night shift.

One thing that I've been doing lately is buying instant Pad Thai or Tom Yum bowls, or Korean seaweed soup bowls, and doctoring it up by adding choped grilled chicken leftover from a weekend bbq, some bits of veggies from the fridge, and a hot sauce like sambal, gochuchang, or Sriracha.

Or leftover grilled chicken is good re-purposed in Tikka Masala, or a curry, or Hispanic style rice and beans.

Since my wife often makes too many breaded chicken cutlets, another thing I like is to turn them into next day chicken parm..

Leftover meatloaf becomes a meatloaf and spicy tomato sauce parm hero. Or just a cold meatloaf, mustard, and onion sandwich.
 
I think some of the best meals I've made are from leftovers. I get a sense of abandon in the process - a 'hey, it will get thrown out otherwise so lets experiment' attitude.
 
I've definitely learned more about what flavours go together by playing with leftovers than actually cooking from a recipe.
 
I've always fed my dogs leftovers..not a lot..but IMHO, better than any commercial dog food ( can you say recalls for dog deaths?)
There are NO regulations on animal feed..sad, but true.
Actually cooked my dog's food, from scratch, for last 20+ years..with human grade/grocery store ingredients.
..Plus the odd speck of vitamins..
I've been to a rendering plant..there's a reason they don't allow cameras..one could film a horror movie very quickly....
The carcasses are initially separated- on different sides of the "warehouse"..but..when going down the chute..diseased/road kill/packer parts all go down the same huge grinder at the same time...esp when boss isn't around..
It IS processed (amazing/disgusting process) and used for animal feed ..and the oil is separated and tankered off/used for cosmetics (Really!)
..My apologies for being graphic..I won't get into the really gross stuff I've seen there..
/end animal feed rant
 
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