Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with leftovers

Help me learn to embrace leftovers.

sugarfish — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 09:44:27 -0800

Help me learn to embrace leftovers. Since I've lived with just my husband for several years, I've gotten pretty good at cooking for us with just two servings. However, due to lack of free time and desire to start eating more home-cooked food (rather than going out to eat when we're tired, etc.) I want to start cooking with leftovers in mind. I want these meals to be able to be used for lunches and to pack in a food jar for dinner, as I have night classes twice a week.

The problem has several facets.

First, I'm suspicious of leftovers that have been in the fridge for more than a day or two, with a concern to food safety. I have no idea what can stay in there for a week or what should be eaten immediately. Chicken soup? Homemade mac and cheese? Kraft dinner? Rice and beans? I know there are plenty of rules and regulations, but I'm looking for practical advice, the way regular people keep food. Currently, I'll put any leftovers in there and then forget about or ignore them until trash day. It's like a black hole of wasted money.

I'm looking for stuff that I can cook in a big batch on the weekend and keep in the fridge. I am not looking for food to freeze -- I've done that before but my chest freezer is currently absolutely brim-full with local meat.

Specific recipes are awesome, but more general concepts are appreciated, too -- I am a super picky eater, which actually makes me good at substitutions, etc. I do prefer recipes that are higher in protein, but it's not a dealbreaker if they're not. Also, things like roasting a chicken, then making sandwiches, then making soup are not so much what I'm looking for -- I need something that's ready for me to grab and go.

Thank you for your help!

Excessive bivalves!

Wroksie — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:33:33 -0800

What can I do with all these steamed mussels? My husband is out of town, so I decided to treat myself to my favorite food that he hates... mussels! I sauteed onion, celery, and garlic before adding the mussels and a glass of sauvignon blanc - finished it all up with flat-leaf parsley and thyme, a load of black pepper, added some more butter to the liquor, and settled down in front of a DVD with some french bread and the rest of the wine.
My eyes were much bigger than my stomach - I've got about 40 mussels left (they're the small Scottish kind) and a little over a cup of the liquor. Soooo... the question is, what can I make with the mussels tomorrow? Any ideas are welcome! Yes, I know they won't be as perfect as they would have been fresh, but I'm thinking something with a lot of flavor and spice will make up for that. Also...how should I store them in the refrigerator in the meantime? Should I leave them in the shells or not? Mix them with the liquor? Refrigerate the mussels and the liquor separately?

What do you do with leftover rump roast?

originalboo — Sat, 10 May 2008 06:59:27 -0800

I have nearly 3 pounds of rump roast left over from a few days ago. Half of it is sliced, the other half not. I think maybe soup is in order. It would certainly be freezer friendly and wouldn't go to waste. Any suggestions on what to do with all this beef? Recipes?

How to resurrect dry beef leftovers?

silkygreenbelly — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:14:37 -0800

What's the best way to fix up overcooked/dry beef leftovers? My mom came down to baby me when I got my wisdom teeth out. She made a roast for me and my boyfriend. I got the mushy potatoes and he got the beef.

The beef is quite dry and there is a reasonable amount (for two people) leftover. Several (five) "deck of cards" sized pieces to be precise.

I am looking for some ideas to give it some moisture and palatableness. I am not super handy in the kitchen but I do like cooking (so please, nothing too complicated).

googling so far has gotten me how to make dried beef and how to stop overcooking beef, neither of which I am interested in.

p.s. Ideas that would incorporate the extra prune juice I also have could potentially earn bonus points.

Bogged down in cranberry sauce

olinerd — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:50:37 -0800

Mom left me bogged down with more than a quart of cranberry leftovers after Thanksgiving. I would relish recipes for exciting things to do with it. Help me get rid of so much cranberry relish!

Point the first: lots of recipes around AskMefi for cranberry sauce itself, but not for making the finished product into a new ingredient.

Point the second: I could just freeze it and thaw out what I want to over the next year, but that's just so boring. Also, because of how sweet/sour it is, I can only stand to eat a few tablespoons at a time, so it's going to go REALLY slowly if I'm just eating it straight.

The ingredients are whole fresh cranberries, orange zest, a bit of orange juice, and lots of sugar. It ends up a bit syrupy with the whole cranberries suspended in it (kind of like a strawberry topping for cheesecake or something. No, I don't like cheesecake, so I can't use it for that). It's really sour and really sweet, tastes most heavily of cranberries but the orange taste is definitely in the background.

What I'm looking for: cranberry relish pie? Cake? Tarts? Ice cream? Smoothies? Any ideas? I'm relatively handy in the kitchen and I'm open to just about anything, as long as it will taste good with the relish's strong flavor.

Don't want the nice chicken to go to waste

stewiethegreat — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 12:03:00 -0800

Should I eat this cooked chicken in my fridge? 6-7 days old, and in a zip-loc. Last Sunday or Monday (I really don't remember), my lovely girlfriend brought back three extremely tasty chicken breasts she got as take-out from a French restaurant. We ate one, and put the other two in a one gallon zip-loc freezer bag in the fridge.

Then we went to Chicago for Thanksgiving.

I'm back in SF now, and she's in Portugal for the week, and I don't feel like cooking from scratch or going out to get something today, if I can avoid it. Yes, it's bachelor time for me.

The chicken is covered in olives, some small, soft, dark things resembling peppercorns (yes, they were there when we ate it the first time), and I remember tasting some cranberry as well. The sauce seems to have congealed a little bit on to the meat, but doesn't smell gross. I just opened it now for the first time since we put it in there.

Please advise? If it's good, I'll stick it in the oven to reheat.

Why is my coconut milk blue?

changeling — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:19:22 -0800

Why did my coconut milk turn blue? I used half a can of organic, light coconut milk in a recipe and then forgot about the rest of it. Two weeks later, I unearthed it from the back of the fridge, and it was blue. Vibrant, eye-stinging, cobalt blue. Very pretty, actually. But why?

What can I do with a hundred leftover potato rolls?

Caviar — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 17:55:12 -0800

What do I do with a hundred extra potato rolls? Threw a bbq party, and due to excess moisture leaking from the sky, not as many people showed up as originally planned.

Creative suggestions on what to do with all of the extra hamburger/hot dog rolls (besides freeze them and eat them later)?

"If it's been in the trash, it's trash." -- Jerry Seinfeld

grumblebee — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 07:38:59 -0800

Is there some sort of mental disorder, syndrome or condition that causes people to prefer eating off OTHER people's plates? My wife -- who knows I'm posting this (and is just as curious as I am) -- is obscessed with leavings. If she and I go out to eat and order EXACTLY THE SAME THING, she'll eye my plate enviously. Whenever I eat anything, I gradually become aware of her staring at my plate. If I just hand her my plate, she doesn't want it. She's waiting for me to be done so that she can grab anything I left behind. She gets upset if I completely clean my plate. She can't explain it, but she insists that other people's crumbs taste better than anything on her plate -- even crumbs on her own plate.

I'm a germaphobe, so this goes against every fiber of my being. To me, if food has been near another person, it's tainted.

Generally, we joke about this whole thing, but we've both noticed that it's slowly getting worse. At work, she'll sneak into conference rooms after lunch and pick at whatever is on the plates. (I've actually thought about having a big banquet for her next birthday and not inviting her until after the dinner is over.) In true George-Costanza style, she has started eyeing candy dropped on the sidewalk or half-eaten items in the trash. She doesn't give in to these desires, but just the fact that she'd CONSIDER eating something from the garbage makes me feel sick.

Do any of you (or does anyone you know) "suffer" from this? ("Suffer" is in quotes, because my wife isn't feeling any pain. She's enjoying herself. If anyone is suffering, it's me!) What causes it?

Make-Ahead Recipes

jfuller — Mon, 05 Jan 2004 09:02:22 -0800

What's your favorite recipe that can be prepared ahead of time in bulk and frozen? I'm a single parent with a 13 year old girl to cook for. I work a normal job, then spend evenings doing the Mr. Mom number, housecleaning, clothes-washing, car-repairing, homework-helping etc. etc. My time for even minimal cooking is practically nil and I order pizza or bring home Chinese much too often. Does anyone know something good that I could make several copies of on Saturday and then freeze for later? Some years back Consumer Reports did a review of frozen chicken/veggie pies, and included a recipe for their own homemade and freezable pie that beat all the commercial ones on taste, nutrition and price. That's the kind of thing I'm fishing for here. FYI, I'm a middling cook (my biscuits succeed, my puff pastry fails.) Thanks very much!