Leftovers

[Mottmott]

I use many of the strategies mentioned above. I think for those who live alone it is especially important to consider our "leftovers" as our mise en place for future dishes. And as so many stores package foods in family sized amounts, It helps us avoid either eating the same thing three days straight orr falling to the temptation of overeating.

For us especially, it's useful to incorporate "leftovers" as elements of our solo lifestyle pantry. Too many people who live alone find cooking "just" for themselves a chore, but having elements on hand for a more interesting meal makes it more attractive. Much of good cooking takes advantage of foodstuff many people throw out. Not just remnants of a cooked meal, but seafood shells, fish, chicken, beef bones, vegetable trimmings are the basis of fine stocks and sauces. Families and anyone on a tight budget may do this as a matter of economy and necessity. For those of us who live solo, it is an opportunity to use our more commodious fridges as part of our pantry to expand our kitchen beyond steaks, chops, a fish fillet, an omelet, a sandwich/wrap, or quick pasta and do take out less often.

Soups and stews are examples of things to be made in larger batches, even incorporating leftover Parmesan rinds, etc., though personally I prefer making them mostly from fresh ingredients. When immediately frozen in single serving baggies, these become quick meals over the next month, no more to be called “leftovers” than a frozen dinner or something from the Whole Foods dinner in a plastic box.

But beyond this, the freezer and fridge becomes my mise en place with such things as freshly made, individually bagged 1-2-or-4 cupfuls in nice flat baggies (quickly defrosted), of stocks and some sauces, or elements of them. Open a can of tomato paste? The part I don’t use can be put in a small baggie, squeezed flat, and frozen to later break off a small piece to enrich this sauce or that. Roux can be made ahead in large batches and stored. The stews (and leftover roasts) can be, in addition to suggestions above by others, minced and used as the base for fillings (or sometimes sauces) for empanadas, ravioli, crepes, stuffed vegetables, cannellonis, etc. And I make a several serving batch of such things as these ravioli, empanadas, etc., and freeze them for the future (of course I sometimes make fillings designated just for these end uses, too). The important thing is to freeze these as soon as possible after having made the initial element that will be the filling, not after it’s sat in the fridge several days and as an afterthought.

Vegetables? Too many come packaged in family sized packages for those of us who live alone. For us, a bunch of turnips, radishes Swiss chard, beets, and other produce can be cycled into two meals with the greens used in one meal (sauteed, tossed into a soup, tart, etc.) while the chard stalks can become a small gratin, and the turnips, beets, radishes, etc. used in endless recipes and keep longer than greens. Many leftover cooked vegetables, if not overcooked, can be used in gratins, salads, stratta, or lasagna. Many can also be pickled and kept for a few weeks in the fridge (roots work especially well for longer shelf life).

You live alone but like to make fresh pasta? Freeze up the extra dough as single servings of fettucini or of ravioli filled with a little ricotta/herb/egg binder (or even minced leftovers as filling). Then, instead of stopping at Whole Foods to pick up a plastic package of ravioli, it’s waiting for you at home.

You like to bake? Leftovers can be dangerous, a temptation to eating more than you should because who wants to see that (fill in the blank) go stale after you’ve made it? And even things that will keep longer and still taste good (some cookies, tea or fruit cakes, etc) can be dangerous for your health. One of my strategies is to bake something when visiting others, have a piece while there, and leave the rest. But to have something sweet on hand without serious to my health, I take a leaf from the book of some professional bakers: bake, freeze, and assemble later. When you make a recipe, make 2 or more smaller cakes, breads, etc. at one time from your recipe for a 9-10" cake, keep one for immediate use, and freeze the rest for later use. I find this works especially well with pound cakes, some tea breads, and cheese cakes that don’t require icing. In fact, you can slice these while still frozen and return the rest to the freezer. Alas, custard based foods seem beyond this technique.

For pastries, however, I prefer those baked as close to consumption as possible, so I will make them, freeze them (other than what I plan to eat immediately), and bake them off just before eating them. For example, I make a full scone recipe, bake off today’s coffee break, freeze the leftovers on a sheet pan, then put them in a baggie whence they can be extracted one by one and baked in 20-25 minutes. When you make a pie, do a large batch of pate brisee. To facilitate freezing, form it close to flat as you can or even roll it out in small flat rounds, and freeze it. Living alone, for individual tarts, I make small flat rounds ready to form into tartlets, separate them with parchment, and freeze them like a pack of tortillas, and pull out one (or more for unexpected guests) to fill and bake. If you have a larger freezer than I, you can even preform them. I know some people will make fruit pies up to the point of baking and freeze them, but I don't have enough space.

If you bake bread, you can make larger batches and freeze, some work better before baking, others after. This, of course applies to pizza and foccaccio doughs which will help you use up your other leftovers. For boughten breads, like Behemoth, I buy good breads, but living alone can seldom finish a loaf before it goes bad unless I use some of his strategies. And I'd hate to throw out something I'd baked myself even more! In addition to his suggestions, a baguette can be cut and toasted for future appetizers, or turned, like other kinds of bread, into either sweet or savory bread puddings or stratta (in which you can use other leftovers, too).

And, of course, almost anything can wind up in a salad or a quiche. From soup to nuts - well, er, I suppose you might use a few spoonsful of some soup in your salad dressing....

And lastly, let me say, that it's been a big help to buy some smaller casseroles to avoid an endless loop of leftovers becoming leftovers that become yet more leftovers.

[fifi]

Mottmott... Thank you for the wonderful post. You have articulated really well the challenges of cooking for one. You have given me some really good ideas. I do find myself aquiring that smaller Le Creuset, smaller gratin pan, etc.

[Cusina]

Leftovers are always welcome at our house, they are really another potential ingredient to work with. I even have a specific section for them in my fridge so they don't get lost and use only clear containers so that I can easily see what I have. Leftover roast meat, like a chicken, can go so many different ways. Pot pie to quesadillas. Sauces and condiments can have a new life over different meats or in salads, even over roast veggies. A few shrimp can find their way into a goulash or an omlette. Some things don't keep well, like fresh avocado or banana, but otherwise I love to use them. Simple meals work best, which is a good thing. We eat a lot of those as that suits my children's tastes.

[fifi]

Now I am wondering what "Mr. Bill" is getting from all of this. Are you getting what you were seeking? This is an interesting topic. I am just hoping that it is covered to the extent possible. Are we missing anything?

[skrattypants]

leftovers in our household are referred to as:

cobb salad (summer)

fried rice (autumn)

soup (winter)

omelettes (spring)

it's all in the terminology

[Mebutter]

Yes, this is all wonderful stuff. thank you all for replying. I was sort of bummed the system was down over the weekend (although the new incarnation seems very exciting) so i could read/comment/question some of the postings. one thing I'll need is real names/towns for people I'm quoting but I'll pm for that.

I am amused to be called "the" Bill Daley given Chicago is the city where "that" Bill Daley is so prominent, along with the rest of his family. The good thing about being a Daley in Chicago is no one asks how you spell the name.

[snowangel]

I am of two minds on leftovers, and those two minds depend on what the leftovers are.

Certain leftovers (casseroles, soup) become the same meal, again. In the case of soup, if it s freezable, that's one thing. If not, it's another thing.

Other leftovers -- smoked butt, onion confit, tomato sauce -- are an entirely different breed. You can make them over in a multitude of different ways. These, in their own way, are pantry staples, at least in my house.

In the case of a braise, one may or may not be able to make something "new" with the food. I did, not too long ago, make a wonderful chicken pot pie out of leftover coq au vin. Not what my grandmother would make, but it was reincarnated into something completely different.

Although we often have one serving of the first type of leftover, what to do with it? Paul does not take lunch to work, so that's out. Most of these leftovers require heating, which leaves them out of the "school brown bag" crowd. I'm home alone during the day, and often look at the first type of leftover, and go "I just ate that. There's this or that or a beautiful bag of spinach in the fridge, and I'd rather eat something I haven't already eaten in the last 48 hours.

Your thoughts on leftovers?

[patti]

Lately, leftover meats like chicken, pork tenderloin, and even roast beef have been made into a Thai curry. The roast beef was the least successful, in my opinion.

Meatloaf leftovers make scrumptious sandwiches.

[fifi]

I have to agree with snowangel on the two categories. Soups and stews you are just going to eat it again. Luckily, they freeze well. When there was more than just me and I had freezer space, I would purposely make enough to have some to put in the freezer. That is especially true of something that takes some doing like a gumbo. (That tactic actually led to me buying a 9 quart Le Creuset so I could make a double batch of my gumbo. But that is another story.) But, I have to say that there are only a few things that we like that much that the freezer would be naked without it.

The second category is more common for me. There are some things that I make enough of on purpose so that I can be sure that I have enough to go on to something else.

If I am smoking a brisket or pork butt, I will put however many chicken thighs in there that I have room for. Little foil packets of boned out smoked chicken are pantry gold. They are ready to be made into salads, quesidillas, tacos, or just a simple sandwich. Heck, we may not eat them at all on smoking day. (Yeah! Right!)

And that brisket or pork butt has to be big enough for a pot of BBQ posole with the leftover meat. My son liked that posole so much that more than once I actually had to smoke some pork so I could make it. That was a case of the "leftover" meal driving the original. That smoked meat can do the same thing that the smoked chicken does, too.

If I bake a chicken, I have to do one big enough to have enough leftover for chicken and dumplings. If I am having more than one person over and can't find a big enough chicken, I bake two. The carcass is used to make the stock for the c&d.

Other than things like that, my other cooking efforts of late have been learning how to scale down. I love to cook but I really can't tolerate eating too much of the same thing within a reasonable passage of time. Besides, if I have too much in the freezer, I feel like I really shouldn't cook which is no fun at all.

[snowangel]

Other than things like that, my other cooking efforts of late have been learning how to scale down. I love to cook but I really can't tolerate eating too much of the same thing within a reasonable passage of time. Besides, if I have too much in the freezer, I feel like I really shouldn't cook which is no fun at all.

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Bingo!

[NulloModo]

Generally most leftovers around my place are eaten again in the same style they were originally prepared. Things like pork butt become pork butt sandwhiches, pork butt salads, pork butt omelletes, etc, but it is still just pork butt used as the protein in standard dishes.

Whenever I make a big pot of soup or casserole I generally just toss it into a bowl and use it as an easy 'scoop some into a tupperware dish' solution for preparing my lunch for work the next day. It may sound dull to eat the same thing for lunch all week, but I vary my breakfasts and my dinners, and I really don't get bored with it.

[sparrowgrass]

I'm with Nullo--if it tasted good last night, it will taste good for lunch. Or breakfast.

I am very bad about using up frozen leftovers--they tend to drift to the bottom of the freezer and hang out til they start to taste bad.

[fifi]

. . . . .

I am very bad about using up frozen leftovers--they tend to drift to the bottom of the freezer and hang out til they start to taste bad.

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Me, too. I guess I don't put packages of smoked meat, for instance, in the "leftover" category. I think of that as an ingredient. I might have that single serving of beef stew, mushroom soup or red beans in there to actually eat. But for the most part my freezer is for ingredients. If that chicken pot pie makes it to the freezer, it is lost to mankind forever.

When I moved out of my house and sold the freezer, what I threw out was very instructive.

[fifi]

I was just browsing the forum and ran into this topic. The point is, paying attention to how you bring your leftovers back to life may have something to do with how good they are.

Am I the only one that thinks the microwave makes meat taste funny? I use foil packets and throw them into the DeLonghi.

[andiesenji]

During the years I lived alone, I always had lots of leftovers and there were many times that they went into the freezer and never saw the light of day until it was time to clean it out.

Now that I have a live-in housekeeper, the leftover problem has largely resolved itself. Anka is tall, very thin and apparently has the metabolism of a soccer player. She eats enormous amounts and never gains an ounce. Plus, she takes large lunches to school (she is attending design school) and generously shares with her buddies.

Since I love to cook and always cook in generous amounts, we both are happy.

Even though it is a long drive up here from the Valley, her friends like to hang out here on the weekends and are often very helpful when there are things to be done that would be difficult for Anka alone. (I don't do heavy lifting since fracturing my spine last April.)

They seem perfectly contented with a meal in return for their efforts.

One of the most gratifying things for a person who loves to cook is an appreciative group of diners.

They also enjoy leftovers when I am busy with another project and I have no more problems with things languishing in the freezer until they need to be trashed.

Sometimes some odd combinations have resulted but as long as they enjoy it, who am I to tell them that pork stewed in green sauce does not necessarily pair well with chicken a la orange with a side of sweet potatoes and apples.

Youth, I envy the digestion, but not much else.............

[suzilightning]

Other than things like that, my other cooking efforts of late have been learning how to scale down. I love to cook but I really can't tolerate eating too much of the same thing within a reasonable passage of time. Besides, if I have too much in the freezer, I feel like I really shouldn't cook which is no fun at all.

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Bingo!

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ditto.

though i have to plan for leftover meals on mondays, wednesdays and thursdays. these are the nights johnnybird and i work late® and have our dinners at work.

meatloaf for sandwiches. roast chicken becomes chicken pot pie. soups are portioned and frozen. gumbo and rice as well.

the other variable in the equation is if john has to go out of town for business(as he will on monday - hopefully having dinner with betts and her hubby in ft. lauderdale). currently in the fridge are leftover mac & cheese, sauteed chard and garlic, some pasta, beef pot pie, gumbo and bolognese sauce. tomorrow the pot pie for john's lunch. the mac and cheese will be lunches for both of us on saturday. the gumbo for lunches sunday. pasta and sauce with the chard for dinner saturday.

new cooking will be crab imperial and asparagus tomorrow night and shrimp scampi with pasta primavera sunday.

then i'm single until friday and then again for the weekend... any offers?

[suzilightning]

apparently has the metabolism of a soccer player. She eats enormous amounts and never gains an ounce.

this is the director where i work... we say she has the metabolism of a gerbil

i also agree - i love to cook for an appreciative audience though one of my co-workers hates it. she complains that she hates to spend hours (perhaps inefficient use of time here) cooking but then having the meal demolished in 15 minutes(hellooooooo pacing?). just because you live with 3 males doesn't mean you throw the food on the table to let them inhale it!!

[Bella S.F.]

I have never known how to cook "small"." The first time my husband came over for dinner, he looked at the pot that was on the stove (BIG pot full of pasta sauce, containing everything someone who had been brought up back east would throw into a pot of spaghetti sauce) ... anyway he looked at it, and walked over to the window and looked out. I asked himwhat he was doing. He said, "Looking for the fleet." That's what we call it. I cook for the fleet. Not always of course, doesn't work with a steak, but to me, if you are going to go put the time and care into a soup, chili, stew, cassoulet, pulled pork, carnitas, etc. (I could go on and on for my possible feeding of everyone within a ___ mile radius) ... anyway ya might as well, fill up your pan, and we have some large pans. I really like to take something warm and comforting to school to heat up, rather than have a sandwich. I also like knowing that at the end of a long day, we are going to have a yummy meal, that we could not have had if we did not have a wonderfully stocked freezer.

Which brings me to another great reason to cook BIG. We picked up one of those vacuum sealers at Costco, and have found it to work wonderfully. We have used it for everything from home smoked salmon, homemade salmon cakes or crabcakes to everything mentioned above. Then when you get a hankerin' for something like a pulled pork sandwich with some homemade slaw and sauce, you don't have to wait.

[purplewiz]

There are certain dishes that I just seem to be unable to cook in small amounts, like chicken soup. I've finally bowed to the inevitable and make double what we're actually going to eat, with plans to freeze the rest. This has worked out remarkably well, since there are some nights that I Just Don't Feel Like Cooking, and being able to simply reheat a block of frozen something and tear open a bag of salad and call it dinner is fast food at its best.

Single servings are even less of a problem - they become lunch, or a late night snack for my husband. He's an inveterate snacker, and I'd rather he snacked on the good stuff.

When I was growing up, all the single serving leftovers stayed in the fridge until Saturday, when we all scrounged for lunch. I remember those lunches very fondly - who got the beef stew? Who got the mac and cheese? First to the fridge got first choice.

I also finally gave up trying to make two meals in a row out of the rotisserie chicken, or turkey night after night until it's gone - I freeze the meat and it keeps quite well. This gets transformed into soup or stew or salad sometime down the line when we're over being sick and tired of it :-).

Marcia.

[PurpleDingo99]

I would always rather cook too much than not enough. Lately, Ill either shoot for two days from one meal, or 1.5 days per meal (and have leftovers on the third day.) Leftovers dont float away too fast when you schedule them.

[jgm]

*bump*ing this thread up, in hopes it'll get going again. It deserves to, especially this time of year!

My most recent use of leftovers came from a Rachael Ray show. It was her post-Thanksgiving leftovers show, and I loved both the turkey-soup-over-dressing idea (which I have yet to try) and her vegetable chunk salad idea. She took leftover crudites, chopped them into roughly 3/4" x 3/4" chunks, and added a dressing of red wine vinegar, EVOO, Italian seasoning, sugar, and salt & pepper. My husband and I both loved it, and I see it as a way to not allow various fresh vegetable leftovers to not go to waste, and also an easy salad to take to work for lunch.

What are you doing with leftovers these days?

[I_call_the_duck]

What I do with leftovers also depends on how much is left. If there is enough for for another dinner, then I'll just use that and whip up something fresh, such as salad, on the side. Smaller leftover portions may be lunch for the next day. Sometimes I give some away to my husband's single friend. If there's just a tiny amount left, I'll recycle it into another meal. Usual reincarnations are leftovers omelet, burrito/wraps, or fried rice. When I'm too lazy to do even that, I'll just reheat everything and we'll just eat them as we would tapas.

Things like soup and pasta sauce automatically generate leftovers, so I freeze some and eat the rest during the week. I also don't like eating the same thing day after day. When my husband makes chicken soup that opens a whole new window. From that batch of soup we also get two chicken pot pies and about four servings of chicken salad.

[Genny]

Ha! Ray Ray put turkey soup over stuffing? We did that this year (without her help ) and the soup was made using left over carrots, peppers, green onions & celery from the crudite plate. I added a pat of butter to my soup to richen it up...wowza! I ate that for 3 days!

Overall I'm not much of a left over person. Reading this thread reminded me of my first Thanksgiving with my honey. We were not married yet, I was still in college but stayed with him over the long weekend writing papers and hanging out. I didn't cook much back then. He made the whole meal: Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and canned cranberry sauce. I have no recollection of a green veggie . Anyway, we ate that on Thursday... and then again on Friday... and then he tried to serve it to me again for lunch on Saturday too! I rolled my eyes and asked about redoing the leftovers into something else like turkey soup, turkey enchiladas (my aunt's famous for these!), ANYTHING but the same damn dinner plate for the third day in a row. From then on (and still to this day, 15 years later) he makes comments such as: "Genny doesn't eat leftovers" or feigns surprise if I've eaten them.

So, yes, I eat leftovers, I just generally prefer a revision of the original meal. My mom used to make "Refrigerator Soup" or "Goulash" which was pretty much anything left in the fridge: meats, veggies, potatoes, rice, etc. She would add a big can of V8 Juice and cook the hell out of it. Not my favorite meal but we'd eat it...I've mentioned she wasn't the greatest cook when I was a kid. My dad will put anything in a tortilla. He doesn't cook (ok, grills some) but any leftover is fair game for a burrito, just add cheese!

Another trick is leftover meat into your favorite ramen noodle soup, add egg, some siracha, peas or other veggie and it makes a pretty good quick meal.

Other tricks you all have up your sleeve to dress up left overs?

[JEL]

i knew a woman who froze meals in those tupperware things..........

the ones that hold a few portions of stuff.....ya know, meal size......

she NEVER labled them with anything but the day/month......

it was always a suprise what was for lunch, or a quick fix dinner.......

and she managed her freezer by the inventory date........

these are farmers i'm talkin bout here..........old school, but not too old to use a microwave.........

[helenjp]

Packed lunches deal with a lot of leftovers! Yesterday's spinach is chopped finely with a scallion and some parsley and becomes spinach omelette...the flesh is picked off the fish bones used for the soup, fried and seasoned into a savory crumble for rice. Etc.

I try for a minor change rather than the "same again" idea for soup - the kids had fluffy dumplings in their chicken/veg soup last night...now that the dumplings are gone, I'll have some of the soup over a "crouton" of home-made bread grilled with cheese on it for lunch. Then I'll add pasta and just one tomato, chopped and sauteed, before the boys meet it again tonight. As you see, soup plus starch is a big winter snack item in our house.