Repurposing Food/Leftovers

As I have told you, I hate wasting food. It makes me nuts to throw things out. Because of that, you will notice that I don’t make full menus for the two weeks. That’s because there are some nights that we just have leftovers. Sometimes it’s planned, and sometimes we just have too much of something and I have to adjust my menu and move some things to another time. I do sometimes freeze those items, but sometimes there are things that just don’t freeze as well as others.

If you don’t want to have leftovers for dinner, another option is to take them for lunch. There is no need to spend extra money each week if you have food sitting at home that you can have for lunch. Sometimes I even purposely make extra so that I have the leftovers for the week.

Another thing you can do with leftovers is repurpose them into another meal. For example, when I cooked a ham, I had lots of leftovers. I did freeze some of it into individual portions to use later, but some of it I used for other meals throughout the week. I just searched online for recipes with ham and found some great dishes that I could fix. You can pretty much do that with any item. 

I have turned mashed potatoes into mashed potato soup (which is delicious) or fried potato patties. I have also done that with leftover dressing (or stuffing, if you are not from the south!!). I found a recipe that actually used leftover turkey and dressing to make some fried patties, sort of like salmon croquettes. 

You can take some leftover vegetables and a little meat and make little quiches using some biscuit mix and a few other ingredients. Leftover chicken, steak, pork, shrimp, etc. are great on top of a salad or cooked into a quick stir-fry. 

There are just so many possibilities and they are super-easy to find now. Don’t let good food go to waste and don’t make your life difficult. Repurpose those items and make your weekly planning even easier. Managing the mundane is easier than you think!