The leftover dilemma~Share your kitchen tips and wisdom!

I know what you mean...about leftovers, it's horrible the amount of food I end up throwing away..and I found this while sitting here crying because I live with idiots...lol Here's my help...(I hope) concerning leftovers. 1. Sauces and Dressings - These can be save in the fridge for up to a week and is best for oil based things in: salad dressing like oil/vinegar types. Most other sauces ie: tomato sauces, fruit sauces or dressings, gravies, etc. can be frozen and thawed when needed. * If you like you can try dressings for salad greens on different veggies and on sandwiches or as a marinade for for meat or fish (depending on what flavor it is) I love salad dressing on cold green beans , I dip things in honey mustard, ranch, Russian and onion poppy-seed dressings. 2. Grilled fish & Steak - These can be refrigerated for a few days or frozen. Fish can be used in a seafood stuffing before or after saving. If you want you can make a quick seafood stuffing and then freeze. It can be added to soup or chowder, used for sandwiches, or served to the person that would rather not eat what is for dinner. It makes a great snack..high protein..lol Same goes for Steak, you can use it for soups, sauces, sandwiches, stir fry...and don't forget to add those veggies you saved..lol Potato toppings are always good, add it to rice, pasta, omelette or scrambles my favorite is English muffin toppers...for a quick lunch. 3. Pie trimmings- These can be used to make little pockets...just roll out, put a dob of filling or piece of fruit sprinkle with cinnamon, sugar and fold over, pinch edges closed and cook till browning or freeze and pop in the toaster oven for about 10-15 min when you want to cook.... * or roll it out to the size or sizes you want, put a piece of wax paper between and freeze...save them up till you can make many pockets...lol good kid project. You can also make toppers for things like individual pot pies and freeze toppers till you have enough. (Then make the pot pies out of your other frozen tidbits...lol) Tips: * Use sandwich zip type bags for small amounts. * Don't forget to mark item name and date. * Freeze things flat if you can then they will stack like books. * You can use a plastic container for the freezer labeled soup or pasta sauce...whatever and collect things leftover that will go in the same pot...then when you decide to make it you have all the stuff in the same place...just not on the container what's in it (they make special markers) and you are all set. *Some people find it helpful to keep a list on the side of the fridge of what needs to be used and what's in there. I hope this gives you some ideas. I wish I could get the people I live with to cooperate...Oh well I guess we just deal with what we've got... Happy Mylotting, Mari

We used to have a lot of left overs before, but what we do, we usually would just eat them after reheating them the next day. But here you were talking about sauces and all. I think for item number 1. What will you do with left over salad dressing.(I know the answer will be "use it in another batch of salad greens" but what if you have run out of greens .) what you should do is actually have a tight lid container and you should be able to keep the salad dressing. for item number two, which was (2. Grilled fish and steak left overs) well grilled fishes can be reheated, and steaks too, though they are not as good as first serving, it still is a decent meal especially if you are tired to cook a new set of meals the next day..

sauce and meat i would freeze; not sure about the dough as i don't bake (what about tarts?) and for the salad dressing, what about making it into a veggie dip for lunch the next day?

I also do not like to throw away left overs, with todays economy, it throwing away money, as you say. And, being so many people in hunger today, it also is kind of a moral dilema as well, what I do, is to prepare the food I will consume during the day, or, for the time this particular food will last in good conditions. For instance, rice and beans, that can last longer than salads, if I have to save something in the fridge, I bought a set of plastic containers, with a vacuum valve, that has been a real solution for the problem, since I can save salads, and other cooked meals, for more time, given me more time for consuming then instead to taken them to the garbage.

Your eally made a correct comparison of throwing left-over is like throwing money. What we did for the left-over, we just re-heat them and eat it the following day. Regarding the grilled fish, here in our country, we can use this as ingredient in some dishes like dinengdeng, a native Ilocano dish. The sause can be used in other purpose such as spaghetti sauce can be used for baked macaroni. For the pie trimmings, I just made a wild suggestion, oven dry them and use them as bread crumbs. I don't know if this will work. One thing you can do to avoid left-overs, cook only in small amounts or you must imagine how much they will able to eat.

well for left over sauces I would : 1. use it for some fried stuff like my dipping sauce if its a savory sauce like a salty one i would add some mayonnaise to it would be really good. 2. or drizzle it on my rice XD. for the grilled stuff: 1. I would reheat it and eat them 2. or cooked them again and stir fry them with noodles and some vegetables. 3. or make something out of it soup maybe? Hope those will spark some ideas for you :)

I use all my leftover, but there are some leftovers you have and I don`t. I either dress my salad so that if the salad is eaten the dressing is eaten too or, I make a dressing in a small jar that can be kept at the fridge for some time. Grilled meats are easy. I either make a soup with chunks of it, fried onion in julienne, potatoes and carrots or I use it cold as an entree in different ways. Leftover pie trimmings are easy if the dough does not have sugar. Make garlic bites or parmesan cheese bites as appetizers. AS for sauces, it depends on the sauce. I make pesto and freeze it because I plant my own basil. I don`t like to keep much sauces made with white sauce, but they can be used one day over spaguetti and the next day in a rice or even a vegetable souffle. But most of my leftovers are just a little bit of this or that and I have always on hand cheese and chives (from my garden) to make a quick omelette.

How about donating some of your left overs to a homeless person? Sounds like you go all out when you make dinner. How about cutting back if you family isn't finishing off everything. cut down your portion sizes.

In the financial state where I'm at, Food isn't very necessary for me, but what I would like to point out is that Food is food. Doesn't matter if it's left over, it's still food. If someone already bit into "that piece of pie", then he or she will keep that remaining piece. I don't mean to be blatant about it, but if what I said isn't something you would follow, I guess that Salad-Grilled Fish - Steak "Casserole" can always work too. :D