What do you do when a meal is finished? Most of us wash the dishes and wrap up the leftovers. But what happens to the leftover portions?
Do they get consumed later? Or do they just sit in the refrigerator until they start to smell and either risk eating them, or you finally throw them out?
If you tend to do the latter, how about saving some time and money by learning how to use those leftovers in new ways to surprise your family at dinner time.
Some people like leftovers and some do not. Men really tend to hate leftovers. Many people might eat them one day later, but since we are omnivores (we eat everything!), most people will quickly get tired of eating the same thing over and over.
Yet at the same time, cooking in larger quantities can save time and money too. It is just as easy to prepare dinner for 4 as it is for one if we are talking about many dishes like stews or casseroles. In addition, a lot of the shopping clubs sell meat and many other fresh foods in very large quantities.
Leftover Magic for Singles
So what is a single gal or guy to do? Or the budget conscious mom looking for wholesome meals?
For the single person, the easiest thing is to cook a quantity for 4, and then use plastic food containers for your own TV dinners, or handy lunches to brown bag to the office to save money.
A leftover stew or meatloaf can go a long way if you divide it up into portions. Label your containers and rotate your meals. You might find you can do all your cooking for a month in only a matter of hours if you are organized and plan ahead.
Another way to use leftovers wisely it is to take a main part of the meal, and spin it into other meals you can then freeze, or take for lunch. For example, you can boil a large quantity of spaghetti, and use it with different pasta sauces, home-made, or jarred.
You can also use it as noodles for stir fry, or eat cold as part of a pasta salad. You can even bake it with milk and egg for a custardy noodle pudding.
You can do something similar with rice, making it into a stiry fry, Spanish rice with turmeric, rice and beans, stuffing with wild rice, even rice pudding.
