Leftovers (food)?

[Dreamer]

We love leftovers, especially me. I also like to cook things that can go in the freezer. I made ham and bean soup and cornbread. We ate it for 2 days and I gave my son a big bowl and some cornbread and I have 3 quarts in the freezer.

I probably cook 3-4 times per week, we get Chinese takeout once every week or so and my DH makes pizza on some Fridays or Saturdays.

We are having salmon, roasted sweet potato cubes and asparagus tonight and there will not be any leftovers.

Boy, spaghetti and meatballs sure sound good. That might be what we have tomorrow night.

Love chili too!

 

[braumeister]

I'm the cook, since DW doesn't enjoy it. She is an incredibly good baker, but no interest in meal prep. OTOH, I really enjoy cooking and try hard to make good meals. But with just the two of us there are always leftovers.

Things that go in the freezer tend to be forgotten, so we generally just continue eating until they're gone. I try to have two or three different kinds of food available in the frig so there is at least some choice.

 

[NW-Bound]

Speaking of leftovers, I just learned a terrible story related to that, and a new word to me: meningococcal bacteria.

Scare the heck out of me, and we often don't refrigerate food as promptly as we should.

See: https://news.yahoo.com/teen-ate-leftover-rice-noodles-155422253.html

Hours after eating leftovers from a restaurant, a 19-year-old was admitted to the hospital with multiple organ failure and later had both his legs and all his fingers amputated.

 

[Pointby2]

We aren't food wasters so we love leftovers. Just made a batch of Cincinnati chili that went over pasta. It was so good and even the leftovers were fought over.

 

[harllee]

My 90 year old mother is the Queen Of Left Overs. When she orders in a restaurant she asks for a to go box when she orders her food--she always knows she will have left overs. My parents owned a small retail business when I was growing up and we all worked there. Mother would cook up a batch of stuff on Sunday and we would eat off of it all week. Many a time there would be some unknown brown meat on the table and I would ask my mother what it was and she would just say it is something I found in the freezer, not sure what it is. I either had to eat it or go without.

 

[MC Rider]

@aja8888


Would love to see your recipe. Had a bowl of some I made a few days ago for lunch today. Using a recipe from an old Better Homes and Garden cookbook. Good stuff.

 

[Milkman]

We love leftovers. Even though there is just the two of us, I make extra large portions, particularly of stews or soups. Using a pressure cooker/air fryer combined cooking device, I usually prepare something in quantity every week that is good for 3-4 meals. I also make large quantities of spaghetti/meat sauce. We end up freezing most of it and eventually use it to make any number of items like spaghetti, baked ziti, etc. Neither of us seems to eat as much as we used to so most meals tend to go a long way. The same goes for roasts or meals from the smoker. Things like home made pastrami of smoked salmon get packaged in the Food Saver as well.

 

[aja8888]

@aja8888


Would love to see your recipe. Had a bowl of some I made a few days ago for lunch today. Using a recipe from an old Better Homes and Garden cookbook. Good stuff.

I'll post it here. It makes 8 quarts. Due to the beans, it's not considered REAL Texas chili, but I have never had any complaints.


INGREDIENTS

5 slices hardwood smoked bacon chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 cup (~2 stalks) celery, finely chopped
1 cup (~1 small) yellow onion finely chopped
1-2 small jalapeño peppers, optional* seeds removed and finely diced
30 ounces chili (pinto) beans in medium sauce
15 ounces chili (pinto or kidney) beans in mild sauce
56 ounces petite diced tomatoes, undrained
6 ounces tomato paste
2 pounds (32 ounces) ground beef chuck
1 pound (16 ounces) Italian sausage

SEASONINGS

4 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon seasoned salt & 3/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon minced garlic
3 regular-sized beef bouillon cubes

INSTRUCTIONS

In a skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon until crisp. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate and dab off the excess grease. Set aside.

Reserve the bacon grease in the skillet. Remove the stem and seeds from the peppers. Finely chop.

Finely chop the celery. Remove the peel of the onion and finely chop. Chop the jalapeño pepper and remove the seeds if desired -- leave them in for extra heat.*

Add the peppers, celery, onion, and jalapeño pepper to the skillet with the reserved bacon grease. Saute the veggies over medium heat until tender. Transfer to the slow cooker.

Add in the three cans of chili beans (undrained and do not rinse), petite diced tomatoes, and tomato paste.

In the same skillet used to cook the bacon and veggies, cook the ground chuck and Italian sausage over medium-high heat until no longer pink. Drain off all the fat and add to the slow cooker.

Add all the seasonings to the crockpot. Crumble the bacon (or chop) into very small pieces and stir that in the crockpot. Or reserve the bacon in the fridge and add at the end. Stir everything together.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Taste and adjust seasonings (salt, pepper, chili powder, etc.) Enjoy with fresh cilantro, sour cream and Cheddar cheese.

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

Leftovers are my meals. I only have time tocook maybe1 new thing a day to add to the fridge. I will eat almost anything on top of mixed greens with cheese.

 

[Act2]

Love the leftovers and use them - assuming they get into the refrigerator quickly enough not to worry about food safety issues.

 

[RobbieB]

Avoid for the most part.

Exceptions;
Meat loaf (sammies)
Italian (lasagna & spaghetti), Pizza from a good place
Hearty soups (chili & such)

Otherwise, gimme some fresh food.

I've never sat down to eat at a restaurant and ordered "Just nuke up some stuff from yesterday"

 

[MC Rider]

I'll post it here. It makes 8 quarts. Due to the beans, it's not considered REAL Texas chili, but I have never had any complaints............... and Cheddar cheese.

Thanks. Has a lot more ingredients than what I have been doing.
Will have to give it a try.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

We call them "planned overs." It's nice to have leftovers for lunch the next day or just a break from cooking. On a related note, tomorrow is garbage day so tonight was musgo night. Either eat it or it must go.

 

[Jerry1]

A lot of what is mentioned here are not things I would consider leftovers. I guess I never thought of things like soup and chili as left over. DW makes many batches of soup that we eat for a day or two and freeze the rest in batches for later consumption.

Leftovers, to me, are things that are made for a single meal. Things like a burger, sandwich, breakfast food, a steak, fried chicken. While DW and I will eat leftovers, a lot of those types of leftovers take a serious hit in quality upon being reheated. I generally stay away from them if I can. Usually, I'll finish my plate and DW will bring half of hers home. She says they're good and eats them. I'm good with making a salad.

Things like soups, chilis, stews . . . are very good to even a bit better the next day. I'll have some of those leftovers any day.

 

[gamboolman]

ms gamboolgal and I do bring home Left Overs from the restaurant.

Just about a week ago, ms gamboolgal was saying that she was getting tired of having to reach down into the old Chest Freezer.

For me - it was like duh ! We have the room and we have the money to get a spare Freezer - I just never had thought of it before.

Easy fix - Went that very day and got ms gamboolgal and I a new upright Freezer this last week to go along with the Kenmore Chest Freezer that we have had for almost 35 year.

We cook up big batches of Chili, Spaghetti Sauces, Soups, Stews, Sea Food Gumbo's, Beans, and Rice, Hamburger Patties, Yard Bird, Taco Meat, etc., ahead of time.

We got the Chest Freezer when we were living in Magnolia, Arkansas in the latter 1980's. I was working at a Independent Oil Companies Gas Processing and Sulfur Plant and ms gamboolgal was teaching in a rural elementary school. Our son was just a toddler then and #1 daughter had not come along. I would kill lots of deer and we would bone out the meat ourselves and make sausage and hamburger by mixing beef fat with the deer. We ate alot of deer meat as it saved money for us during the young and lean years. Thus we needed the freezer space to pile up the deer meat. Also neighbors would give us there deer sometimes.

The Gas Processing Plant was out in the Forest and I would hunt right outside the fence line of the facility. I used to hang the deer up in the Plant Work Shop to process them. Back in them days it was not a big deal for me to have my deer rifle in my truck at the Plant - ha !

The Beam Meat Market Magnetic sign was from ms gamboolgals fathers Meat Market he opened up and ran in Whitehouse Texas for many years. Mr. Beam closed the Meat Market in 1978 just afew months before I met ms gamboolgal for the first time on Sat, 13-Jan-79
Seems just the Blink of an Eye ago...

ETA - thanks for the Chili recipes - I will be cooking up a big batch since it is getting cold here in Texas again and the new Upright Freezer will get it's first batch of Chili in it soon !

 

[Jerry1]

yep - we like our upright freezer very much.

 

[ocean view]

We are generally a frugal bunch so not a surprise that most of the response say they love leftovers. Except of course for RobbieB, but we already knew that he’s a BTD type of guy.

When I met my DH he lived with a guy who REFUSED to eat leftovers. He was the baby in his family and his mama cooked fresh for him every meal of his life until he moved across the country. Even when he was broke, he would not eat anything leftover. My DH on the other hand was raised in a house where every scrap was saved, even if there was only a tablespoon left.

I’m all in favor of eating leftovers, but there has to be enough left to be more than one bite.

 

[Ronstar]

Love leftovers. Ate the rest of a meat loaf tonight with a couple of Italian sausages. I'll eat the leftover sausages tomorrow.

 

[Pellice]

I've never sat down to eat at a restaurant and ordered "Just nuke up some stuff from yesterday"

Haha, I have fond memories of the student center bar at my grad school. On Friday afternoons my fellow students would gather at the stools for beer and some ill-defined cheap chili that appeared to be made from dining hall leftovers. Then we talked Great Theories. It was delicious!

 

[savory]

I might have missed a reply, but why not leftovers for breakfast? My SIL introduced me to the approach. He was not raised in the west so perhaps in other places dinner or lunch leftovers become breakfast. It would seem a good opportunity to reduce food waste. And after seeing it in action , it seems that excluding breakfast as a time to eat lunch or dinner leftovers is in our heads and could be in our stomachs.

 

[iloveyoga]

We almost always eat all of our leftovers. DH is always very cooperative. I also make and send extra portions to. my DM and DS. Today I am going to try Slow-Cooker Bolognese which should make some good leftovers and also some sauce to put in the freezer.

 

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

We don't normally have leftovers. Sometimes Lasagna, Pizza. or Chicken fried rice. Usually we eat the meats and vegetables at the restaurants and leave most of the starches as not really in our meal plans.

Breakfast and lunch at home are just make what we are to eat. Proportions at night are often weighed re meats and starch with veggies being the wild card and no addons to inflate the calories.

 

[athena53]

We will not pack food into ourselves just to avoid leftovers. If there are leftovers, which to me means a couple spoonfuls of mashed potatoes or perhaps an ounce of meat, or a couple spoonfuls of vegetables, it gets tossed. I'm not going to eat it; she's not going to eat it.

My maternal grandparents never forgot raising 5 kids through the Great Depression and they didn't waste anything. They WOULD "eat up" whatever was left because "you can't let it go to waste". They were both overweight, of course.

I rarely waste food but it's because I keep track of what I have so it doesn't go bad and I have a large freezer. I cook just for myself 99% of the time and there are always leftovers but that's planned. As others have said, it gives me a break from cooking.
'

 

[disneysteve]

If there are leftovers, which to me means a couple spoonfuls of mashed potatoes or perhaps an ounce of meat, or a couple spoonfuls of vegetables, it gets tossed.

I agree with this. When I say leftovers, this isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about enough remaining for another meal or at least part of meal, not just a couple of bites.


If it's just basically scraps remaining, it gets tossed. But if it's enough for a serving, it gets saved.

 

[sengsational]

DW usually cooks more than we expect to eat in one sitting. We save leftovers in dated containers. Some eventually get tossed, but we do reasonably well at not wasting the better stuff. Some stuff doesn't do it for me as a leftover, and I toss it immediately. I very rarely will box anything at a restaurant.