Tasty Tuesday
Leftovers have gotten a bad rap.
Leftovers have gotten a bad rap.
I love leftovers.
I plan for leftovers.
Leftovers stretch a food budget like nothing else.
Leftovers are a challenge that makes meal planning fun and creative.
For me it is like watching the TV show "Chopped" without the time constraints, competition and
really weird ingredients.
I love to look in my refrigerator, freezer and pantry to see what idea pops into my head.
I love to re-purpose many things in our home and cooking is just another example of how to
do the best with what you've got.
I plan for leftovers.
Leftovers stretch a food budget like nothing else.
Leftovers are a challenge that makes meal planning fun and creative.
For me it is like watching the TV show "Chopped" without the time constraints, competition and
really weird ingredients.
I love to look in my refrigerator, freezer and pantry to see what idea pops into my head.
I love to re-purpose many things in our home and cooking is just another example of how to
do the best with what you've got.
This challenge is what has kept me going in the kitchen meal after meal
for almost 41 years.
for almost 41 years.
Last week I ended a thread of leftovers with this meal.
Since then I have
started and finished another thread.
Since then I have
started and finished another thread.
Tomorrow, I start a new one.
SHRIMP SALAD WITH CREAMED SEAFOOD SOUP
Please excuse my photos. They are all taken with my cell phone and aren't very clear. I am working on using the digital camera that was given to me and figuring out how to post my and others' photos.
The two salads were fresh, no leftovers.
The shrimp was bought for two meals, but I ended up putting more in the soup instead. In the salad are iceberg and romaine lettuces, grape tomatoes, carrots, red onion from our garden, broccoli, cauliflower and kale. It is sprinkled with Danish Blue Cheese which is a bit spendy per pound but not by the serving since a very small amount goes a long way.
The dressing is my concoction---balsamic vinegar, organic spice from Costco, dry Parmesan, olive oil and sometimes a dab of a sweetener like Agave or local honey. We have this on our nightly dinner salads or salad dinners and I use it as a marinade or an addition to sauces and as a bread dip.
The soup is the leftover.
Last Monday it was vegetable soup. Monday is soup day and Tuesday is always a sandwich of some sort with a mug of the soup and a side of raw veggies. This soup contained carrots, onions, broccoli, celery and green beans. It was served with a dinner salad and a roll. I enjoyed the soup for lunch too.
When it was almost gone, I whirled it in my blender along with some 1/2 and 1/2, some sardines added for a salty, fish taste. You may be relieved that this didn't work well, so, I'd leave it out next time. It added no fish flavor and that is why I added the shrimp I had planned to use later in another dish. I added some kale to it that was left from what I chopped for the salads. I salvaged two small inner stalks with leaves from the celery that froze and stuck them in the soup as a garnish. I added a few salad shrimp to the soup and floated a couple on top. It was delicious.
Tonight, being Tuesday will be leftover soup from last night which was served with a dinner salad and leftover bread I had made using some beer that tasted horrid. I didn't use a recipe, just added the nasty beer after mixing up a kind of pancake batter with rice and wheat flours, Parmesan, eggs, leftover yogurt that had frozen in the back of my refrigerator, honey and baking powder.
This week's soup is a "leftover thread" from several different sources.
Things in my refrigerator had frozen when the weather turned suddenly cold so I had to use them quickly. I put the celery, carrots with a chopped onion into a small crockpot, added some seasoning and water and let it cook overnight. I whirled the cool veggie broth in the blender. It was a lovely creamy dark orange with flecks of color from the different veggies and spices I added.
To this I added a "find" from my freezer. It appears to have been a failed salsa recipe that I saved to re-purpose. I had saved some sirloin steak (expensive I know, but only per pound, not per serving) from a stir fry and some that I cut off the steak before I cooked it that was either tough, stringy or fatty. I cooked that for a few hours in a small crockpot. After it chilled overnight I scooped off the hardened fat and put that in the chicken bucket. I added the creamed veggie broth, de-fatted beef broth, leftover stir-fry beef and almost all of the failed salsa to my big crockpot, added chili powder and let this cook all day. I used the leftover rice from the stir-fry days before to the bowls with a bit of cheese since I thought it needed more protein. It was delicious last night as a meal with a dinner salad and more of the leftover bread. I saved and drained some of the failed salsa to add to tonight's sandwiches. Tonight we are having grilled cheese sandwiches, a mug of soup and a small bowl of marinated raw veggies.
Tomorrow I start a new string of leftovers. I will probably start with meatloaf which I haven't made in a long time and it will probably last me at least four dinners, some of which I will make extra large and freeze for what I call "Freebies" since all I have to do is bake them.
Cooking with and actually planning for leftovers is a great tool for saving on your food budget. I can make most initial meals stretch to at least 2 dinners and usually 3-5. The challenge is to disguise those leftovers so they don't look left over or to freeze half of a recipe for busy days later or to take to someone who needs a meal.
Doing the best with what you've got can help especially in hard times when food prices continue to rise and paychecks continue to decrease.
Learn to be creative in keeping and making a home and it will become one of your earthly delights.
The shrimp was bought for two meals, but I ended up putting more in the soup instead. In the salad are iceberg and romaine lettuces, grape tomatoes, carrots, red onion from our garden, broccoli, cauliflower and kale. It is sprinkled with Danish Blue Cheese which is a bit spendy per pound but not by the serving since a very small amount goes a long way.
The dressing is my concoction---balsamic vinegar, organic spice from Costco, dry Parmesan, olive oil and sometimes a dab of a sweetener like Agave or local honey. We have this on our nightly dinner salads or salad dinners and I use it as a marinade or an addition to sauces and as a bread dip.
The soup is the leftover.
Last Monday it was vegetable soup. Monday is soup day and Tuesday is always a sandwich of some sort with a mug of the soup and a side of raw veggies. This soup contained carrots, onions, broccoli, celery and green beans. It was served with a dinner salad and a roll. I enjoyed the soup for lunch too.
When it was almost gone, I whirled it in my blender along with some 1/2 and 1/2, some sardines added for a salty, fish taste. You may be relieved that this didn't work well, so, I'd leave it out next time. It added no fish flavor and that is why I added the shrimp I had planned to use later in another dish. I added some kale to it that was left from what I chopped for the salads. I salvaged two small inner stalks with leaves from the celery that froze and stuck them in the soup as a garnish. I added a few salad shrimp to the soup and floated a couple on top. It was delicious.
Tonight, being Tuesday will be leftover soup from last night which was served with a dinner salad and leftover bread I had made using some beer that tasted horrid. I didn't use a recipe, just added the nasty beer after mixing up a kind of pancake batter with rice and wheat flours, Parmesan, eggs, leftover yogurt that had frozen in the back of my refrigerator, honey and baking powder.
This week's soup is a "leftover thread" from several different sources.
Things in my refrigerator had frozen when the weather turned suddenly cold so I had to use them quickly. I put the celery, carrots with a chopped onion into a small crockpot, added some seasoning and water and let it cook overnight. I whirled the cool veggie broth in the blender. It was a lovely creamy dark orange with flecks of color from the different veggies and spices I added.
To this I added a "find" from my freezer. It appears to have been a failed salsa recipe that I saved to re-purpose. I had saved some sirloin steak (expensive I know, but only per pound, not per serving) from a stir fry and some that I cut off the steak before I cooked it that was either tough, stringy or fatty. I cooked that for a few hours in a small crockpot. After it chilled overnight I scooped off the hardened fat and put that in the chicken bucket. I added the creamed veggie broth, de-fatted beef broth, leftover stir-fry beef and almost all of the failed salsa to my big crockpot, added chili powder and let this cook all day. I used the leftover rice from the stir-fry days before to the bowls with a bit of cheese since I thought it needed more protein. It was delicious last night as a meal with a dinner salad and more of the leftover bread. I saved and drained some of the failed salsa to add to tonight's sandwiches. Tonight we are having grilled cheese sandwiches, a mug of soup and a small bowl of marinated raw veggies.
Tomorrow I start a new string of leftovers. I will probably start with meatloaf which I haven't made in a long time and it will probably last me at least four dinners, some of which I will make extra large and freeze for what I call "Freebies" since all I have to do is bake them.
Cooking with and actually planning for leftovers is a great tool for saving on your food budget. I can make most initial meals stretch to at least 2 dinners and usually 3-5. The challenge is to disguise those leftovers so they don't look left over or to freeze half of a recipe for busy days later or to take to someone who needs a meal.
Doing the best with what you've got can help especially in hard times when food prices continue to rise and paychecks continue to decrease.
Learn to be creative in keeping and making a home and it will become one of your earthly delights.
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