Side Dish or Pasta Sauce – You Choose!

I was making Shakshuka for dinner the other night and miscalculated how many vegetables I needed.

A Favorite Lunch from the Past

Chicken Melt

When my children were young, they usually ate whatever I put in front of them.  Sometimes they would resist.  For instance, they refused to eat buckwheat, which they said tasted like wet carpet.  I thought they were making it up until I ate some myself.  They were right.

How to Use Up Leftover Potatoes

Baked Stuffed Potatoes

It’s so easy to cook more potatoes than you need—whether you meant to do it in order to have leftovers or you made a mistake.  How you cooked them in the first place will determine what you can do with them next.  Here’s a guide to using up leftover potatoes in recipes on this blog;

Question for Mom

Clover-Leaf Rolls Potato Rolls

 Any suggestions on how to use up leftover mashed potatoes? – Claire Z.

I like to add a few tablespoons of mashed potatoes to soup and stir until combined.  The potatoes will thicken the soup and possibly turn it into a one-dish meal—a plus on a busy night.  I might make mashed potato pancakes. Sometimes I add mashed potatoes to Shakshuka.   Clover-Leaf Potato Rolls are a nice addition at dinner. 

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Spaghetti Lefterini—My New Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

You probably make your own version of this pasta dish, which is not so subtly named after its main ingredient: leftovers.  My husband came up with ‘Lefterini’ after I told him I was thinking of combining some leftover Spaghetti and Clam Sauce with slices of a spicy chicken sausage I had in the freezer.

Why not?  The Spanish rice dish Paella combines clams, mussels and shrimp with sausages and chicken.

Leftovers and Tortillas: A Marriage Made in Heaven

No matter how carefully I plan a meal, I almost always wind up with leftovers.  I used to hate the little parcels of wrapped-up food in the fridge, thinking, ‘If I’d liked it so much when I made it, why didn’t I eat it all?’

I can’t bear to throw food away unless it’s moldy.  That does happen when food parcels get pushed to the back of the shelf, but NOT ANY LONGER if I can help it.

Mom Money-Saving Tip 98

Here’s how to recycle leftover mashed potatoes:

* Add them to soup as a thickener

* Use them as an ingredient in Clover Leaf Potato Rolls  - click for recipe!

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Mom Cooking Tip 146

Here’s a convenient way to use up a few cups of leftover cooked pasta: put it in a greased baking dish, add some cut-up cooked vegetables, 1 cup homemade or jarred sauce and 2 well-beaten eggs and mix well.  Sprinkle with 1/2 cup grated Cheddar or Mozzarella cheese.  Cover and bake for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

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Mom Money-Saving Tip 92

Here’s a way to re-purpose leftover cooked corn on the cob.  Put several ears on a non-stick frying pan, turn the heat to medium-high and let the kernels heat up and start to brown.  Turn the ears every minute or so that different kernels brown.  Serve while the corn is still hot.

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What Every Freezer Needs

Most cooks probably have a favorite food they stash in the freezer.  For some it would be cookies, which you can actually eat frozen but do thaw very quickly if you can wait that long.  My freezer is seldom without croissants, which defrost and crisp up in the oven in about 7 minutes.

But the frozen food I value most these days is home-cooked shredded chicken.  It doesn’t take up much space and is enormously useful.  Toss a frozen handful into soup or thaw a handful and add it to a salad.  Viola!  A meal.

Better yet, heat up a cupful or two of frozen shredded chicken in some water and barbecue sauce and then stuff it into a few heated buns.  It makes a quick snack, lunch or dinner with virtually no fuss.

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It’s Time to Take Turkey Leftovers Out of the Freezer

After gorging on turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas, I got truly sick of it.  That’s why I carefully packaged up the leftovers and popped them in the freezer for a day when I’d appreciate them. 

Well, that day arrived.  After rummaging through an overcrowded freezer, I was actually excited to see a package labeled Christmas Turkey Leftovers.  A few nights ago I made Turkey Stuffed Tortillas--cut up pieces of turkey as a filling for a heated tortilla, topped with grated cheese, guacamole and salsa.

Then I used up some more

Ramen Noodles Not Just for College Students

If you toss out the flavor packet (too much salt), packaged ramen noodles can be the basis of a reasonable emergency meal.  I proved it last night when I was scrambling to get dinner on the table and discovered two lonely packages of ramen noodles at the back of a pantry shelf.  They were just what I needed for the leftover pork stir-fry I wanted to make.

The Joy and Agony of Leftovers

Sometimes I’m thrilled when I open the fridge and see nicely wrapped packages of leftovers.  “Ah,” I think to myself.  “Dinner is going to be easy tonight.  Thank goodness I have a microwave.”

Other times I cringe.  “Oh, no!  Not more turkey.”

Letting Kids Control Your Menu

Stuff Your Own Tortillas (photo by Andy Mills)

When I was growing up in Western Pennsylvania, I had almost no say in what the family ate for dinner.  My mother cooked it and served it, and my father, brother and I choked it down.  On Monday nights, if Dad was out at his Kiwanis dinner meeting, my brother Steve and I begged for Chef Boyardee Spaghetti.  It came in a can, and the noodles were as soft as pudding. 

I’m sure my mother obliged us because all she had to do was get out the can opener, dump the spaghetti into a pot and turn on the gas.  We lapped it up and begged for more.  It was the best-tasting dinner we were likely to have in any given week.

Flash forward to Sunday dinner...