Leftover Tricks

Leftovers have always been my nemesis. The kids cry about having to eat leftovers, and it's usually tough to "fix" leftovers for dinner because either a) there's not quite enough of everything to go around or b) if I can convince the kids to eat leftovers, they want the same thing and don't know how to share. Leftovers are good for lunch the next day, but beyond that, I've had a hard time with them. On top of all this, I have a hard time eating exactly the same thing beyond dinner and lunch the next day.

I think my boyfriend put it best, though: "How can anyone hate leftovers, are you kidding me? Precooked food and all I have to do is heat it up? That's the best kind of food there is!" His enthusiasm for leftovers and hatred of throwing perfectly good food away because it sits in the refrigerator and goes bad reshaped my thinking.

Here's a few ideas for leftovers to get the creative juices flowing. First, don't feel bad about letting the leftovers build up for a few days. Cook a variety of foods, and then in a couple of days, you'll have a variety of leftover choices, which will widen your options. Second, mix things up. For example, my son wanted mini pizzas last night for dinner, which I can't eat, so I just heated up some leftover Spicy Honey Brushed Chicken because it was late and I didn't care. That meant there were no "new" leftovers for lunch today. So I took some spaghetti squash left over from a week or so ago, topped it with some cut up Spicy Honey Brushed Chicken and roasted broccoli. This was a brand new take on how I'd originally prepared these recipes, and it was a quick and easy lunch I could just toss in the microwave at work.

Another really good option is to recreate components from the recipes. For example, when I made my sweet potato quiche, I cut up a piece of chicken left over from a night or two before rather than cooking a new meat to put in it. You could also add leftover vegetables to a casserole (such as the hash brown casserole), or wrap them up in a whole wheat tortilla with some meat and grill it, turning it in to a panini of sorts. Left over fruit topping for pancakes can be drizzled over yogurt with granola to make a parfait. So many options. For me, the most important thing is reinventing the recipe so I don't have to eat the same food over and over.

What are your favorite leftover tricks?