leftovers and what to do with them

i to save veggies toput them in soup. sometimes i will boil some chicken & make a chicken pot pie w/them. if i have a bunch of cake or pie left from a big dinner or just get tired of it i will freeze it in them in individual servings & have them for later.if i make dressiong & have more than i need i freeze some of it for later. freezes real well. when i make casswerole i make it into 2 or 3 & freeze them u can split up alot of things & not have to eat them forever. chili & spagheeti sauce are good to freeze to.

Thank you for this idea. I usually just put my leftovers in the firdge then after a week or two I just throw it since nobody got it or it is no good anymore. I should start freezing them instead of just putting them in the fridge. Happy MyLotting! ;-)

Well, I don't really have leftovers as I only cook for myself and I eat everything that I cook. The only thing that might count as leftover is the chicken carcass after all of the really good slicing meat has been cut off. I'll generally cut off all of the remaining scraps and use them up with a tin of chicken soup with some pasta as a quick lunch meal. I could also cook the entire carcass to make a broth, but I can't be bothered to go to such lengths.

My grandma used to do the same thing. What a great idea. I'm going to start doing that. I try to use all our leftovers.Food is so expensive these days that we cant afford to waste it.I often make a whole chicken for dinner then make the leftovers into soup the next day. Then maybe eat the soup over rice or potatoes later in the week.Or freeze it for another day.

We always try and eat our left overs for lunch and dinner the next day. sometimes depending on what it we will make another different kind of dish from the left overs...usually we just them though.. sometimes give a little to the dog. we don't like to waste food either so.. oh and sometimes we give it to my brother.

I too do the frozen dinners...I plan for left overs to create another meal from it...like have a roast chicken thenthe next night pulled chicken in jerk sause beans and rice. or a pork roast and then diced up left overs in BBq sause with French fries and corn on the cob. the second night meal can be somewhat prepared on the first night during clean up. you can save hamburgers or meat loaf for speggetti sause. I like to chop up some veggies and freeze so I dont waste any to spoilage...I baught the Debbie Meyer green bags for fruits and veggies....not sure if they work as well as they claim...I will know more in time. thanks for sharing!

When I have leftovers, depending what it is, I too will make a soup out of them or something like an omlett, or my cats will get some leftovers, or even the neighbors dog! This is awful, but once I made the best stew I ever made and as my back was turned, the neighbors (un-neutured) mail cat came in my cat door, jumped up on my stove and pissed, (sprayed) over my pot of stew and some of it got into the stew! I was so mad, I wanted that stew so much, now it was ruined! I tried picking out some of the meat for my cats but even after washing it off it still had a slight cat spray smell to it, so rather then letting all that stew go to waist, I marched over to my neighbor's house with the pot and said my stew doesn't taste as good as it usually does and would she mind if I gave it to her dog, who was tied up outside. She said thanks and took the pot and said she would do it. I went home and made me a sandwich and settled down to watch TV. A couple of hours later, there was a knock at the door and there stood my neighbor's 12 yr. old son with my clean empty pot. When I reached out to get the pot, the kid said thanks for the stew, we loved it and mom said it was the best she'd ever tasted!!!

I don't like to waste food either. With a family of 6 and a limited budget I rarely have left-overs. But when I do I always try to use the leftovers somehow, or my hubby or I take them for lunches.

We used to end up throwing them out , but here lately with the price of food and other stuff we have been eating them and I try to fix them up and make them different. Like last week we had leftover taco meat and I used it in my chili. It was great!! Probably the best chili I ever made.

i usually freeze left overs and then find i have enough to use for something else. we frequently use chicken leftovers with pasta, veggies i use for soup, but i like the idea of using it for a 'tv dinner'.

Our staple food is rice and it is very normal in my family to have some leftover. What I usually do with it is, firstly I chopmsome vegetables like cauliflower pea, mushroom etc and microwave for 4-6 mins at the maximum power, secondly put the pan in the oven to fry some chopped onion, add pepper powder,salt for taste and put the microwaved vegetable and finally the leftover rice. The end result is an excellent fried rice.

Yeah usually it is just me and my husband. When the kids are with us we eat everything, but your right cooking for just me and him can be difficult at times. But I have got it down to cooking for four and he is a pig and eats for two. So we usually only have one helping left and I will take it to work for lunch the next day. So it is working out great and learning to save alot of money.

I also hate to waste food and when I got leftovers I just have it re-cook the other day and eat them up; well,to avoid have leftovers you can cook amount of people, if only yourself just cook enough not too much...

Depending on the fod type, be it meat or vegetables, I feed any roast meat bones and scraggy pieces of fat to my surprisingly slim and agile dog, and the vegetables, depending on whether they have already been frozen or not, either go into the compost bin, my dog (who likes some vegetables), or are frozen if not done so previously.

Veggies, and meats end up with a soup or stew or in a cassarole. Sweets don't last around my place they get eaten up by the grandkids pretty fast.

hi conbill..so creative !!! i admire people who are like that...but its a pity that my mom don't know much on cooking ..so that i can learn more..however as i got married i learn how to prepare simple recipes on my own but not really expert on left overs..like you..

eat them later are carry them for lunch are freeze them for later date.are give them to some family members.

I do the same as you. I had 4 children and have always cooked large meals. Now it is just me and my daughter. I do freeze leftovers and save the veges for stews and soups. When I make spagetti, I only cook enough pasta for what I think the two of us will eat. The extra sauce gets put in the freezer. Freezer bags are great for this. Last nite I cooked a whole chicken and of course there was plenty left over. I de-boned the chicken and put it in the frig and tomorrow nite I will make a casserole with it. Of course there will be leftover casserole. If not for my daughter, I swear that I'd live off from grilled cheese, pb&j and frozen pizzas..hot pockets etc. It is hard to cook for just 2.

Yes, food is very expensive and it's a shame to see and know that restraunts and places wastes so much food! So, like anything else, we can do our part in saving foods. *When I have canned veggies for something, I normally try to use the water from it to put in with the homemade soups as added broth and vitamins. *I always have cold cooked rice on hand for things like the left over meats and stuff. It makes for great fried rice...just heat up some onion or garlic in oil, add cold rice and stir. Throw in the left overs and at the last minute, pour in a scrambled egg...it's tasty and very good for you. *I read about the pot pies...that's a good example *Shepard's pie...I never make it the same way twice *Bread...if I can, I make bread pudding...very nice. *Pleiades

I'm kind of like your aunt in that I use my leftovers to make new meals. Take that leftover roast, put it in some gravy with mushrooms and onions and bell peppers, add rice and you have you a nice satisfying meal. Another thing we do at my house is have leftover night. There are some days when I just don't feel like cooking, so I'll have everyone eat leftovers. Sometimes you can mix two or three leftovers and have a nice, exotic meal that you otherwise wouldn't have thought of.