Making good of leftovers

btw Madchen, cold toad in the hole! Delish!

Leftovers are my specialty, I think. If there's a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, I will make it into something else.

Example: (one of many)

I bought a bunch of Pakistani food in anticipation of not-cooking for the few days before Thanksgiving. I ate as much of it as I could, but there was a ton more left (dal palak in partic).

So the day after Thanksgiving, when I was all done eating American-European foods, I took some dal palak and mixed it with

* an egg
* leftover mashed potatoes

and fashioned it into pancakes, fried lightly in a nonstick pan
dipped into leftover raita (that came with the Pakistani food I ordered) and it was really good!!

I love leftovers. Today I am going to take some leftover takeout green papaya salad, add a bit of shredded chicken, and wrap up in rice paper with some greens. It will be delicious.

this is making me sound way more smug than I really am -- more than anything I am pleased with efficiency (not throwing anything away) and enjoy repurposing things (in general, but esp w/r/t food)

i am impressed by your repurposing

I never think of other things to do with leftovers when I start to get sick of them other than put them in a sandwich/put them in a tortilla/let them grow crazy amounts of mold when I forget about them :(

ooh, or mix with trader joe's mac and cheese

I do that a lot

good meal hack

Know what is another good vehicle for leftovers? Chilaquiles. Eggs, stale tortillas, whatever else you happen to have sitting around that's not enough to pack for lunch, scramble & eat.

Also if you've got a few leftover veggies but not enough to just eat alone, wrap it up w/ cheese of your choice in puff pastry. Poof, you have a galette.

Both brilliant ideas - chilaquiles are great for any meal too.

I'm all about soups/stews - I've got about 4 lbs of slow roasted pork shoulder in the fridge right now to use up through the week. Tonight, 2 cans Muir Glen fire-roasted diced tomatoes (b/c they are THE BEST), about a pound of the pork coarsely chopped, 2 cups of crimini mushrooms in big chunks, 1 big chipotle in adobo, cumin, mexican oregano, epazote, and about a cup of leftover chicken stock made an amazing stew in about 20 minutes.

that sounds great.

i'm admiring your airy last sentence, la lechera.

my kinda magic imo

jaq your stew sounds great -- it reminds me of my favorite "uh oh these sweet/potatoes are about to go bad" curry. (tomatoes, garbanzos, sweet or regular potatoes, onions, buncha spices, something green, voila)

you can also throw part of an old curry in there and just make it new-old curry
no one will ever know!

I am a wizard with a can of those tomatoes and a pile of spices :) I'm going to try a curry tomorrow - never really made one!

WTF

http://leftoverswap.com/