Not Just Leftovers - Brand New Meals

CSN Stores and a Cool Springform Pan

2010-12-04T21:14:00.005-06:00

I know I'm a little late in posting my review, and I do apologize! I've been battling some sort of virus for a little while now and haven't been a very effective communicator!

I definitely have to say that I am very impressed with CSN Stores! I decided to try out a square springform pan from their vast collection of kitchen items. (And they have a lot more than kitchen items, but since this blog is about cooking, that's where I decided I needed to shop!) I have a few round springform pans that I use often for cheesecakes and other desserts, but I loved the idea of being able to cut some of my baked goods into squares.

I looked around the site and found that there are a LOT of choices when it comes to square or rectangular springform pans. I was very impressed. I finally decided on one that looked good and placed my order. I received an immediate confirmation of my order, and a day or two later, a shipment notification. Just a few days after that, a box appeared on my porch - it didn't take long at all and I was informed every step of the way.

My pan was well-packaged and arrived in perfect condition. I took it out of the box and found that the springform was well-lubricated and the pan came apart - and went back together - with great ease. My first test was a pan of pumpkin cheesecake bars for Thanksgiving. They baked perfectly and came out of the pan as smoothly as you can imagine. I am very pleased with my new springform pan and look forward to many more uses in the future. It cleaned up nicely and now has a home in my baking pan cabinet.

I would definitely recommend CSN Stores. They have a fantastic variety of products in all price ranges, and just about anything you could want. They also ship very quickly and package well for shipment. My order arrived in about half the time I expected from an online company, and I had no issues whatsoever. If you need to do some Christmas shopping, I wouldn't worry about delivery being on time. As you browse their site, you will be able to see just how quickly they will ship the items that interest you.

I have nothing but good things to say about the people I've dealt with at CSN Stores and their excellent communication and speedy delivery. I am looking forward to working with them in the future and hope that you will give them a try, as well! Please let me know if you shop there....I know you will be as pleased as I am!

Disclaimer: CSN Stores provided me with an online gift certificate to purchase my item to review on this blog. The item was mine alone to select and all opinions are strictly my own.

An Upcoming Review with CSN Stores!

2010-11-15T16:19:00.006-06:00

Are you ready for the holidays? Feeling overwhelmed yet by all the "must do's" on your "to do" list? Need to get some shopping done for everything from a fruitcake for your great-aunt to a set of contemporary coffee tables for the living room before all your holiday guests descend???

Well, have I got a website for you! Have you heard of CSN Stores? They are an amazing company with over 200 stores that allow you to find absolutely everything you need, and many more things you want! I have recently been introduced to CSN Stores and I have spent hours just looking at all the kitchen items! And that's just the tip of the iceberg! They have housewares and decorations, furniture, kids' gear, and so much more! The prices are very comparable to what I can find in department and discount stores around Kansas City, and they deliver to your door!

I am excited to report that CSN Stores has offered me the opportunity to review a product on my blog. I am going to spend a bit more time in the kitchen area and choose something that you just might want to use yourself in your quest to get creative with those leftovers! I'm thrilled to be able to share the company, and the review, with my readers.

Keep checking back....I will be posting my review soon!! Meanwhile, be sure you visit CSN Stores online and start making your own "wishlist" - and find some great gift ideas, too!

Got Crescents?

2010-11-04T22:02:00.003-05:00

I don't have a photo for this post, as it didn't occur to me to take one until the kids had devoured dinner! There was recently a very good sale on Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, and I bought several. I noticed the other day that I had some expiring in just a few days, so I came up with a recipe to use a can. It works with several types of leftovers, so I thought I'd post about it.

I took the Crescents out of the can and pressed them into a 13x9 glass pan I had sprayed lightly with cooking spray. I sealed all the seams by pushing the dough together and then placed it into the oven on 350° for about 5 minutes, just to start it baking.

While it baked, I beat 5 eggs in a bowl, and then stirred in about a half-cup of milk, a bit of salt, and a pinch of nutmeg.

When the crust came out, I tossed some cooked and crumbled bacon onto it. You could use any sort of leftovers for this - vegetables, meats, anything you'd consider putting into a quiche. After I had a good layer of bacon, I tossed in some shredded cheddar cheese and then poured the egg mixture over the top.

I baked this, uncovered, for about 20-25 minutes at 350°. It didn't take very long, as the egg layer was not very deep. I ended up with an egg bake/quiche of sorts with a wonderfully flaky Crescent crust. Some of the egg slipped beneath the crust, forming layered pieces that were pretty and tasty.

It was an easy dinner that the kids loved. We had pancakes on the side, per my daughter's request, and they ate it up! I love dinners like that!

Chicken & Broccoli Cobbler

2010-10-16T18:29:00.006-05:00

This one is a classic re-make of leftovers. I actually made it this time with turkey instead of chicken, because that's what I had. Due to a recent great sale, my freezer is overflowing. To make room, I decided I needed to cook off a turkey that had been in there for awhile. So on Sunday, we had a big turkey dinner. On Tuesday, we used the stock I made from the carcass and had turkey and dumplings.

For Wednesday, I noticed a jar of alfredo sauce in the fridge, about 3/4 full. I also had half a loaf of sourdough in a bag on the counter. It was the perfect setup to make Turkey & Broccoli Cobbler, since I had frozen broccoli (and that would free up even more freezer space!).

Here's how you make it:

Chop up your chicken (or turkey, in this case). You will want 2-3 cups. Mix the chicken with 1-2 cups of alfredo sauce. Now stir in a package of chopped broccoli or broccoli florets that have thawed. Place this mixture in a greased casserole dish:

Now, cube your sourdough (or whatever type of) bread until you have around 3 cups of cubes. Place them in a bowl and drizzle them with 1/4 c. of melted butter. Sprinkle in about 1/3 c. parmesan cheese and toss until the crumbs are coated. Pour them over the top of the casserole:

Now, pop it into the oven, uncovered, and bake at 400° for about 30 minutes, until the bread is toasted and the casserole filling is bubbly around the edges. Here is the finished product:

My kids just love this, and it really does use up the leftovers. You could easily substitute another vegetable for the broccoli, or make all sorts of changes to use what you have on hand. The crunchy-soft bread on top is fabulous, and it's a very unique dinner option. Have fun with it!!!

A New Recipe is Coming

2010-10-15T21:52:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to leave a short note and let any readers that may still be peeking in now and then know....I have a new recipe coming soon!! I hope to get it posted tomorrow, and will do my best to get it up. It's a GREAT leftovers recipe for a chicken cobbler. I even took photos! Once I get them uploaded, I will post the recipe.

Thanks for sticking around, and I will try to be more active in posting about my leftovers. Stay tuned!!!!!

Soup Season is Nearing

2010-09-16T18:27:00.003-05:00

Today we got a little hint of fall in the air. It's been cool all day and overcast for most of it. Just one of those days when comfort food sounds particularly tasty. So I decided it was a good night for some soup!

On Monday night, we had company and I fixed a spiral ham. We had it for dinner that night and Tuesday night, and two lunches, before we ran out of slices. So, of course, then I chopped up the remaining ham and I made a stock out of the ham bone. Last night for dinner, we had steak, baked potatoes, and corn. I always make extra bakers, so we had 4 left, along with about half the corn.

So for tonight's soup.....First, I cut the potatoes in half and scooped out most of the flesh into a bowl. I then popped the skins in the oven to crisp up and turn into baked potato skins, a family favorite. For the soup, I melted a tablespoon of butter and whisked in about a quarter-cup of flour. I then whisked in about a half cup of milk and once that was nice and thick, added the potato flesh and mashed it up really well until I had a very thick base. I added in all the ham broth/stock and stirred it well to combine.

Once it started getting warm, I added some salt, along with the corn and all of the ham I had picked from the bone, as well as some of the chunks I had cut off first. I then added about a quarter cup of half and half to richen it up a bit.

This soup was soooooo good!! It was flavorful, just thick enough, and very hearty. We had it with the potato skins and homemade biscuits with the apple butter I made yesterday (from the apples I gleaned from my brother's tree!). It was a very yummy, very down-home country kind of dinner. Yum!! And just think...most people would have simply tossed out the ham bone. The horror!!!

You gotta love a dinner that is so completely cheap, yet so delightfully delicious! And you know I love leftovers!! :-)

Another Weird Concoction

2010-09-05T21:12:00.002-05:00

Hello, everyone! I am still around...I've just been VERY lax in my blogging for awhile now! I am still using my leftovers in fun and interesting ways (there is one recipe that I MUST post one of these days), but I have just been neglecting this poor blog.

Tonight, I made one of my stranger dinners, but the kids absolutely loved it, which is a good thing! For dinner last night, I baked some bone-in chicken breasts in chicken broth, which I then made into a cream gravy with half & half and thyme. Good stuff! Alongside this, we had mashed potatoes with the gravy, and biscuits and green beans. It was a wonderful dinner, but I ended up with a few cups of mashed potatoes and almost 2 full chicken breasts left.

So today, I got a little bizarre. I thought about making creamy chicken enchiladas, but there really wasn't enough chicken for that. I contemplated making rice to stretch it, but then I still had those potatoes. Then the idea of mashed potato burritos came to me, and I devised our dinner. I took softened tortillas and placed some of the mashed potatoes on them, sprinkled with some cheddar cheese, then added the chopped cooked chicken. I rolled up, enchilada-style, and placed them in a 13x9 pan. Then I poured some of the cream gravy over the top and sprinkled on some more cheddar.

I covered with foil and baked in the oven for about 40 minutes on 350°. They got just a little browned on the edges and the cheese was all melty and they were very good! It was like a mashed potato burrito but with meat. My kids were actually surprised at how much they liked the strange new dish.

To accompany this, I steamed corn on the cob that I caught on sale this week, and buttered and oven-toasted some leftover hamburger buns. Happy kids, full tummies! And leftovers...vanished! :-)

Giveaways Going On!

2010-08-09T21:07:00.002-05:00

Hello, loyal readers who wonder where I've been!! :-) I'm hoping to get back to regularly posting soon, as the kids are going back to school and I might find myself with a little bit of available time on my hands...we'll see anyway.

I wanted to let you all know that I just posted not one, but TWO giveaways on my other blog, At Home with my Monkeys. Please pop over and enter to win! Here are the links for the posts:

$25 Sam's Club Gift Card

Yoplait Whips! adorable prize package

Good luck...hope you win!!!!

"Whacked Out Kit Kat Bars"

2010-06-19T11:11:00.004-05:00

Hello again! Yes, I am still alive, and still cooking! :-) I made one of my 10-year-old daughter's favorite desserts last night, and weird as it is, I thought I'd post it. It doesn't involve leftovers so much as it does using up something you might otherwise throw out.

Do you ever have saltine crackers in the cabinet that are used in the winter for chili and/or soup, but then spring rolls around and those poor crackers go a bit stale? They aren't good for eating, but I have a recipe where they are actually pretty tasty! My kids have named the recipe "Whacked Out Kit Kat Bars."

Ingredients:

1 1/2 sleeves of saltine crackers
1 1/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. (1 stick) butter or margarine
1/2 c. milk
3/4 c. peanut butter, divided
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

In a greased 13 x 9 pan, place a single layer of whole crackers and set aside.

Remove about 1/4 of a sleeve of crackers and crush finely. Place the crushed crackers in a saucepan with the brown sugar, butter, and milk. Bring this to a boil over medium-high heat and boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in 1/2 cup of peanut butter until well blended. Pour this mixture over the crackers. Top with another single layer of crackers, which should finish them off.

In a bowl, combine the chocolate chips and remaining 1/4 c. peanut butter. Heat on 50% power for about 1 minute, then stir. If needed, return to microwave for 15 second increments until stirring results in fully-melted chocolate. Spread over the top of the crackers gently.

Cool for 30 minutes+ before cutting into bars. Hopefully your kids can wait that long!!!

I hope your kids like these as much as mine do! :-)

Creamy Beef Enchiladas

2010-04-14T15:57:00.004-05:00

Since Annie accused me of hiding, I thought maybe that was a little hint that I might want to actually post something. :-) So, here I am! I know - it's about time! I just haven't done anything lately that struck me as "blogworthy." The other night, though, I made these enchiladas and my 9-year-old informed me, "Mom, you have GOT to post these on Not Just Leftovers!" How can I say no to that??

In an effort to rid the fridge of a bit of remaining rice and about the same amount of macaroni and cheese, I made a roast recently, serving it with the aforementioned items as sides. The roast was very good, but we had some remaining after dinner (the mac and cheese was gone, and the tiny bit of rice went into the container for freezer soup). So the next day I checked the fridge and found some flour tortillas. I decided I would make enchiladas with them. Yes, I know that typically you use corn tortillas for enchiladas, but my kids prefer flour. And the girls won't eat anything called a "burrito," so they had to be enchiladas! ;-)

First, I made a beef-flavored white sauce for the "creamy" part of the recipe. I melted a tablespoon of butter, then stirred in 2 T. of flour, then added about a cup of milk and a cup of the beef broth from cooking the roast. Yummmmmm!! I poured some of the sauce into the 13x9 pan and then made 10 enchiladas using the flour tortillas, filling them with the shredded leftover roast and some cheddar cheese. I placed them in the sauce, turning them to coat. When I was done rolling, I poured the rest of the sauce on top and sprinkled on the rest of the cheddar.

I covered these and baked them for about 30 minutes at 350°. They were very good!! The beef-flavored white sauce absolutely made the recipe! This was one of my better uses of leftover roast!

Chicken-Bacon Pasta

2010-04-10T08:00:00.008-05:00

I'm not sure where Janelle's been hiding out these days, but I thought I'd sneak in here and post a recipe I made up using some pasta, leftover chicken, and bacon. Janelle will like this one since it can be made with meat from a rotisserie chicken. I used something similar...leftovers from some Crock Pot Sticky Chicken. We ate the meat from that chicken for two meals with enough leftover for this dish, too.

After cooking the chicken in the slow cooker, I picked the meat from the bones, then put the bones right back in the cooker with about a quart of water and let it cook on low for several hours. I used the broth as the base for the sauce in this recipe.

Also, we just happened to have leftover bacon. Yes, I know "leftover bacon" is an oxymoron, but somehow it happened. If you don't have any, you can fry or bake some just for this recipe. Or you could leave it out. I guess. If you're into self-deprivation.

This dish tastes like down-home chicken and noodles that have been turbo-boosted with bacon! I dare you to not like it!

Annie's Chicken-Bacon Pasta

Shredded cooked chicken (as much or as little as you like)
Crumbled cooked bacon (again, as much or as little as you like)
2 Tablespoons bacon drippings or fat of your choice (trust me, use the bacon drippings)
2 Tablespoons flour, more or less
2 cups chicken stock or broth from bouillon
Salt and pepper to taste
8 ounces dry pasta, any shape or size, cooked per package directions (I had some in the freezer that was already cooked; I just added it to the hot sauce mixture and heated it through)

Heat bacon drippings in a large deep skillet or pan. Add flour; stir until smooth and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently.

Carefully stir in chicken stock, whisking constantly, until sauce is smooth and thickened as desired.

Stir in shredded chicken and crumbled bacon. Let sauce simmer over very low heat for about 5 minutes, then taste the sauce. Add salt, pepper or even a little bit of instant chicken bouillon if needed. (Don't add salt without first tasting the sauce after it simmers; it may end up too salty if you do.)

Stir in cooked pasta and serve.

Makes 4-6 servings.

A "Free" Dinner in my Future

2010-02-20T14:29:00.002-06:00

It's been a long time since I made Freezer Soup. I guess the reason it's been so long is that I generally use up all of my leftovers. But there is always, always room for improvement, right?

A couple of days ago, I cooked a pot roast in the crock pot with potatoes, baby carrots, and celery. I used the leftover roast last night for pizza, because my kids think that "steak" pizza is the bomb! But this morning, I looked a bit wistfully at the container in my refrigerator with the remaining potatoes, veggies, and beef broth. I didn't really have a meal plan for those items, and suddenly I realized that this was the PERFECT beginning to another Freezer Soup.

I diced up the potato chunks and the lengths of celery and cut the baby carrots in half and put them in another, larger container with the broth. Now it's sitting on a shelf in my freezer, waiting for other random leftovers to be added. Once the container gets close to full, I'll thaw it and add it to a saucepan with some broth and have an easy, free meal.

The neat thing about Freezer Soup is you can add even the smallest amounts of items. Say you cook a can of green beans and only have 3 or 4 left, which you would normally toss. Instead, put them in the freezer container and they will add an element to your Freezer Soup. There are no rules or guidelines....just put all those tiny amounts of leftovers in a container and you get what you get. When I made it in the past, it was very tasty. I was surprised at how much everyone enjoyed it.

So what are you waiting for?? Go put a container in your freezer and start adding little bits of everything. Soon you will have a neat mystery dinner that you will probably really enjoy!

Lovin' Leftovers,

Leftovers to the Power of.....

2010-02-09T21:10:00.003-06:00

Well, I've done it again. And I didn't get any pictures, dang it! A few nights ago I pulled a meatloaf out of the freezer for dinner. We didn't finish it, so the next evening I cut it into cubes and we had spaghetti and "meatballs." Since I use the same meat mixture for my meatloaves and meatballs, the kids have no problem getting past the cubes. :-)

That night, we ate all the spaghetti, but sauce and meat still remained. The following day (yesterday), I had a pizza mystery shop which provided us with one large pizza. That doesn't go far with a family of 5, but it will feed three kids just fine when only one is a teenager. So, I decided to let the kids have the pizza and do something with my leftovers. And another leftover leftovers meal was born.

I cooked about half a box of penne pasta and drained it. I dumped in the sauce and "meatballs" and stirred it up. Then I mixed in a big scoop of cottage cheese and some Italian Blend shredded cheese. I poured this into a glass casserole dish and sprinkled on some more of the shredded cheese, then popped it into a 350° oven for about 30 minutes until the cheese was nice and bubbly.

It was SUCH a good dinner! It was sort of like lasagna, but the penne pasta gave it a completely different feel. It was fantastic! I had just enough left for lunch today. :-) I just love it when I can make yet another new meal from the first new leftovers dinner! The meatloaf in question that made three dinners (2 for 5 and 1 for 3 since the aforementioned teenager had some, too) cost me $4.95 to make. Can't beat that!!!

Lovin' Leftovers,

Muffins Make Another Appearance

2010-02-06T19:40:00.003-06:00

I should start this post by sharing my recipe for Cappuccino Muffins. They are a fairly low-fat muffin that taste realllllly good and my kids love them. I make them for breakfast now and then, and recently, they were an accompaniment to an egg bake for dinner. Here's the recipe:

Cappuccino Muffins

1 c. all purpose flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 c. sugar
2 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
1 c. milk
2 T. instant coffee granules
1/2 c. vanilla fat-free yogurt
1 egg
2/3 c. cinnamon chips

In a mixing bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate small bowl, stir coffee granules into milk until dissolved. Add beaten egg and yogurt to milk mixture and then stir into the dry ingredients. Fold in chips.

Fill muffin cups 2/3 full and bake at 375° for 15-20 minutes.

This will make about 18 muffins, and they are really good!

The day after the egg bake and muffin dinner, it was time for dessert. My children expect a sweet treat around 7 each evening, or they get pretty grumpy. I was very tired that evening and did not feel like making anything exciting. I contemplated the Little Debbie snacks in the freezer downstairs, but then spotted the Cappuccino Muffins that needed to be eaten. In order to make them presentable as dessert, I dressed them up a bit. Here we have a winner (according to my kids), Cappuccino CUPCAKES:

Isn't it amazing what a little leftover canned icing and some red sprinkles can do???

Going Beyond the Quiche

2010-02-06T19:28:00.003-06:00

I've posted about making quiche to use up leftovers a couple of times. Earlier this week, I had an overabundance of eggs that were about to expire - gasp! I knew that eggs needed to be the star of dinner one evening, but quiche only uses a few. So, instead of a quiche, I opted for an egg bake! Of course, I told the kids it was a "crustless quiche," so they ate it straight-away! :-)

I took a glass pan (I think it's 11 x 7) and began to raid my refrigerator. I found a quarter bag of shredded cheese from soft tacos night (you might have read about THAT adventure on my Monkeys blog...ugh!). In it went. Then there were a few slices of crisp bacon from a family breakfast. A few quick squeezes of the bag and the bits went into the pan, too. I also had some leftover cooked cubed ham that went well with the plan. Once I had the bottom of my pan filled with yummy filler ingredients that had been hanging out in my fridge, I started on the eggs.

I placed 10 eggs in a large bowl and beat them a bit to break up the yolks (no, I wasn't worrying about the cholesterol that night!) and then stirred in about a cup of milk. A bit of salt, pepper and nutmeg were stirred into the mixture and I poured it over all the filling. I popped it into a 350° oven for about 45 minutes until a knife in the center came out clean. I didn't even get a picture taken before it was about half-gone, but here's how it looked:

Alongside the entree, we had home-canned peaches and the kids' favorite Cappuccino Muffins. It was a very good dinner and cleaned out the fridge. There was only a small piece of the bake left, and my son was happy to take care of that for me the next morning for breakfast.

After dinner, we still had a few muffins left. I had fun with three of them, and I'll tell you all about it in another post momentarily! :-)

Stuffed Peppers

2010-02-02T21:34:00.006-06:00

Hi. Annie Jones here, making a guest appearance from my blog Real Life Living. For those who aren't familiar with my blog, it's all about living simply, stretching a dollar and trying to get out of debt. It's also all about gutting and remodeling our only bathroom without ever losing the ability to flush. But mostly, it's about food.

Yesterday, I put together a dish that I knew would be perfect for Not Just Leftovers - Brand New Meals. Using the art of gentle persuasion and a little ESP, I convinced Janelle to let me guest post here.

Let me start at the beginning. On Sunday, I made this recipe for Sicilian Meat Roll. It was yummy and we ate all but three slices of it. My husband Shane is a big eater. I knew there was no way three slices of meat roll would make another meal for us, so I chopped those slices into small bits and tossed them into a bowl.

I found some cooked rice in the freezer, a smidgen of corn in the fridge, and a little bit of shredded cheese. I tossed those into the bowl with the meat roll and stirred in some pasta sauce. I stuffed this filling into a couple of bell peppers that weren't being saved for anything else and made a brand new meal! I had to open a new jar of pasta sauce (because I couldn't find anything "tomato-y" in the fridge except ketchup), but everything else was more or less left over from previous meals.

In addition to being thrifty, this dish is also versatile. I went with Italian flavors (except for the cheese, which was a colby-jack blend), but it could easily be adapted to Mexican flavors by using salsa instead of pasta sauce.

These stuffed peppers turned out great. We especially liked the sweeter, riper orange ones. I couldn't get our granddaughter Kat to try one, but that wasn't a problem. It just meant there was more for us!

Annie's "Leftover" Stuffed Bell Peppers

1-1/4 cups chopped leftover meatloaf
1-1/2 cups cooked rice
1/4 cup cooked corn
1/2 cup shredded cheese, any kind
1/2 cup pasta sauce
salt and pepper to taste
2 large bell peppers, halved top to bottom, seeds removed and par-cooked
additional pasta sauce for topping
additional shredded cheese for topping

Combine meatloaf, rice, corn cheese, pasta sauce, salt and pepper in large bowl. Set aside.

Place cleaned pepper halves in shallow microwave-safe dish, cut side up. Add 1/2 cup water to dish. Place dish in microwave and cover with inverted large microwave-safe bowl to form lid. Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Remove from microwave and carefully drain any liquid from peppers.

Heat oven to 350°F. Spray casserole dish with pan spray. Fill pepper halves with filling and arrange in dish (I cut them from top to bottom so they will sit better in the pan). If there is extra filling, place it in the bottom of the casserole dish first, then rest the pepper halves on top of the filling. Cover dish with foil and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Remove casserole from oven. Remove foil, then spoon on additional pasta sauce and cheese. Return to oven for about 5 minutes or until cheese melts and begins to brown.

Makes 2-4 servings.

Simple Spanish Rice

2010-02-02T21:29:00.002-06:00

Last night I discovered a bag of salad in my refrigerator that "expired" a few days ago. It only cost me .49 at Aldi, but STILL! I looked at it carefully and it still looked perfectly edible, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to eat an entire bag of salad myself! So tonight for dinner, I decided to have soft tacos. The kids absolutely LOVE when we do that, it's super-duper easy for me, and it would use up most of the salad mix (which was basic iceberg).

As I was browning the hamburger in the microwave, pulling already shredded cheese and the bagged lettuce from the refrigerator, and opening a bag of tortilla chips to go alongside (yes, I worked soooo hard on this dinner...lol), I noticed a small bowl of rice on the bottom shelf, left from dinner two nights ago. It looked so sad that I had to try and use it. And thus a successful experiment was born!

I put the rice in a microwaveable bowl and mixed in a few tablespoons of salsa, until it looked well-combined. I put it in the microwave for about 2 minutes and gave it a good stir. Only DH and I will eat anything with salsa on it, so there was the perfect amount of rice for us. It was really good! I was actually surprised that it turned out so tasty, considering it was just a whim for leftover rice.

So next time you need to do something quick and easy with leftover rice, try mixing in some salsa and heating. It was a great complement to our simple supper tonight, and used up something that otherwise might have gotten tossed.

Exciting News!

2010-02-02T15:17:00.003-06:00

I know everyone probably thinks that since I haven't posted lately, I've given up on leftovers, but I haven't! In fact, the other night, I made what is quite possibly the weirdest pizza ever created. I had some leftover sweet and sour chicken that I had made the night before, and just for fun, I put it on my pizza crust and topped it with a combo of mozzarella and cheddar cheeses. Everyone LOVED it! Honestly....would you have EVER thought about sweet and sour PIZZA??? So strange, but so good! I love leftovers!

I'm sorry for my lack of posts lately, but I do have some exciting news! I am going to have a guest poster! My friend, Annie Jones, who has a great blog called Real Life Living, is going to share one of her own leftover ideas. She is truly amazing and has some fantastic ideas. I can't wait to read what she has to say, and I know it will be valuable information to all of you, as well!

In the meantime, please check out her blog, Real Life Living. I can guarantee you that you will find some useful information on living happily and frugally. Grab a cup of tea and settle in....you'll feel like you're reading a letter from a cherished friend. Enjoy, and check back soon to see Annie's guest post!!

Taking it A Step Further

2010-01-15T11:22:00.003-06:00

At what point do you consider yourself over-the-edge when it comes to using leftovers?? :) I have to laugh at myself this morning with what I just did. A couple of nights ago, we had a whole chicken that I prepared in the slow cooker. I deboned all the meat and then yesterday I made chicken enchiladas. I tried a new recipe and the entire family inhaled them! What I did differently is I added cottage cheese to the mix.

To make them, I mixed cottage cheese with some Mexican blend cheese. I also added some leftover rice to the shredded chicken to stretch it, but you wouldn't have to do this. In each corn tortilla, I placed a scoop of the cheese mixture and a scoop of the chicken mixture and rolled them up. They were creamy and the kids LOVED them!

I messed up a little, though, by over-estimating how much filling I would need. I was left with some of each of the mixtures. Since we didn't want to have enchiladas again tonight (Friday is pizza night!), I wasn't sure what to do with everything until inspiration struck this morning!

I took the leftovers from my leftovers and made another meal which is currently in the freezer. Crazy? I took a foil casserole pan that I had scavenged from a class party and placed a layer of corn tortillas in the bottom. I poured on a bit of sauce to cover them, then layered in half of the chicken and rice and some shredded cheese. Another layer of tortillas, topped with sauce and the rest of my cottage cheese mixture. Then more tortillas, sauce, and the rest of the chicken and rice. I topped it with more tortillas, the rest of the sauce, and some shredded cheese and popped it in the freezer.

Once I bake it, I will try to come back and post how it turned out, but I think it will work okay! I just think it's funny that I made a meal out of leftovers from a meal made of leftovers. I've really gone over the edge now!! :-)

Chicken Parmesan, Part 2

2010-01-07T18:57:00.004-06:00

I made Chicken Parmesan earlier this week (much to my husband's delight), but made more than we were able to eat at one meal. I had one large and two small chicken breasts left, along with some of the spaghetti sauce. I was considering making the Chicken Parmesan Stuffed Bread that I showed you awhile back, but I wanted something different.

So I started out with this:

Not too exciting, huh? I cooked off a box of penne pasta and cut the chicken into cubes. I added a can of tomato sauce (8 oz.) to the existing sauce to make sure I had enough and mixed it all together in a 13x9 pan. I topped it with some shredded mozzarella cheese and baked it, covered, at 350°, for about 25 minutes. I pulled it out and sprinkled it with parmesan cheese and ended up with THIS:

Add some green beans, salad, and garlic bread (made from leftover homemade bread - YUM!) and it was a delicious dinner. Everyone loved it, and I'm not sure the kids even realized it was made from leftovers from the other night. Good stuff! I don't really have a name for it, but the hubs called it "Chicken Parmesan, Episode Two: The Penne Strikes Back." *sigh*

Dinner from the "Remains"

2010-01-03T17:05:00.002-06:00

Last night was Girl Scout Cookie distribution. As the cookie mom for my youngest's troop, I had to pick up over 1100 boxes of cookies, bring them to my house, and then distribute the right cookies to each of the girls in the troop. As you might imagine, this is a bit time-consuming. I was so grateful to our troop leader for coming to help me, and my daughter put in a lot of time sorting and counting as well (not bad for a 7-year-old!!).

Because I knew it was going to be a very busy evening, when I ran to HyVee yesterday morning to pick up some items that were on a great sale (for instance, 8 oz. bags of shredded cheese for $1!), I grabbed a rotisserie chicken, on special for $3.99. I figured that would be a simple dinner that my husband could help prepare. I have bags of Lipton Noodle dishes in the cabinet, and cans of veggies, and I baked off a loaf of bread yesterday early afternoon. Dinner done.

If you've purchased a grocery store rotisserie chicken (and I hope you have!), you know how small they generally are. When you're used to the nice-sized ones at Sam's Club or Costco, the grocery store variety are almost laughable. My family decimated that poor little chicken at dinner last night. I did get a little bit in between cookie pickups, but they were all quite hungry!

What remained was just a pitiful little pile of bones with tiny bits of meat attached here and there. Most folks just toss that out with the trash, right? Not here! This afternoon I pulled off quite a bit of the meat, and then I placed the bones in a pan of water and let it come to a boil and then simmer for a couple of hours. I strained the broth into a bowl and removed the rest of the meat from the bones in the pot. For dinner tonight, we're having chicken noodle soup and some homemade bread that's currently baking in the oven.

This is a great meal, especially considering that my son was at the Take Care Clinic this morning with strep throat. He thinks it sounds perfect! And this is an entire meal made from what a lot of people would consider garbage. It's also a very tasty meal! If you've never made broth from a rotisserie chicken, I encourage you to try it - the flavor is amazing, and my entire family can tell the difference when I use a rotisserie bird. It's a definite favorite!

I am adding noodles to the soup, but only about half of a .50 bag. And I'm going to toss in some veggies that are hanging out in the fridge, leftover from previous dinners earlier in the week. It's practically free, and definitely yummy!

Give homemade chicken soup a try. You will probably never feel the same way about the canned stuff again.

Happy New Year! Let's make it the year of lovin' leftovers!!

Fiber One Yogurt GIVEAWAY!!

2009-12-21T12:17:00.003-06:00

I'm running a giveaway on my other blog, At Home with My Monkeys. If you're one of my readers on this blog, please check out the giveaway and enter. You just might win!!

The giveaway is running until December 31st. Good luck!!!!

Cornbread

2009-11-22T21:53:00.003-06:00

Thank you, Janelle (that seems so strange.....lol) and Michelle for your comments about leftover cornbread. :-) Now I just hope I can come up with something to say about it!!

I've done a couple of things with cornbread when it's been left, other than simply heating it in the microwave and slathering it with butter and honey. I made a squash casserole once with zucchini and yellow squash, and I sprinkled a bunch of crumbled cornbread over the top. It was very good! I've also turned some into fine crumbs and added it to the homemade bread crumbs that I keep in the freezer for a slight texture enhancement.

One other thing I've done is served it in a bowl of chili with some shredded cheese on top. It goes on the bottom, in place of the corn chips. It isn't quite as good as a "Frito chili pie," but it works in a pinch.

I used to know someone who used cornbread in a unique way, but I haven't tried this one. She would take a good-sized slice and cut it in half (across the middle like a layer cake) so she had two thinner pieces. She would pan fry these briefly in a bit of oil and then top then with pizza sauce and cheese, popping them into the oven just long enough to melt the cheese. They were like little mini cornbread pizzas. I might have to try that one someday.

An idea that popped into my head is croutons. I wonder if you could cube leftover cornbread and bake or fry it till it was nice and crisp? Another thought is a quiche. I really think maybe you could crumble it up, mix in an egg and spread it into a pie crust to be baked before adding the quiche filling. I have no idea if this would work at all, but in theory it sounds interesting! :)

I'm certain leftover cornbread crumbs/crumbles would make a great topping for any casserole (not just squash), and I am thinking that my grandfather used to eat broken cornbread in a bowl with milk, like cereal. That's another use that I wouldn't really want to try, but you never know...

And one last thought that might seem a bit offbeat, but I couldn't resist. If you're sure you'll have leftover cornbread, head it off at the start. Instead of making a pan of it, put your batter into muffin tins and make cornbread muffins. Then when you have some muffins left after dinner, stash them in the refrigerator. The next day, pull them out and spread some cake icing on top. Tell the kids they're a great new cupcake!! Hey, that's almost a healthy dessert! :-)

Good luck with your remaining cornbread. Around here, that's a rarity. And if you have some ideas on how to use it up, please be sure and leave a comment. I'd love to hear some other ideas, and I doubt they would be any stranger than a cornbread cupcake!!!

Need Input....Need Input.....

2009-11-18T20:51:00.003-06:00

If you're near my age, chances are that you remember the movie "Short Circuit" from the 80s, starring Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg. Number Five, the cute little robot that you can't help but adore, is on a quest for "input" due to a malfunction in his circuitry.

I know that has nothing to do with leftovers, but in looking at my blogging (or, more accurately, total lack thereof), I need input!!! I haven't done anything that I consider particularly creative lately. I definitely still cook with my leftovers, but most of what I've done has been directly related to other posts I've done in the past. I don't want to bore anyone with repetition, so I haven't posted anything. I'm not happy about this, and I want to change it, but right now I'm just plain out of exciting ideas.

Not too long ago, I had people leave comments with their current leftovers and called it a "Leftover Chopped" of sorts. That was fun and challenging, and got me blogging, but then I ran out of comments and ran out of commentary. So here I am again. Do you have items you need to use that might inspire a post? How about something you eat frequently but never know what to do with the little bit that remains after dinner? Let me know! I hate to leave my followers and subscribers hanging with no new postings, so how about a little help?

I will definitely be posting after next week, with all the Thanksgiving leftovers, so at least I'll have topics then, but surely there are some items in your refrigerators and cabinets that you want gone before the holiday. Maybe I can help! Let's try it. I'll be watching and waiting for comments. :-)

On another, unrelated topic, I will be having a giveaway soon on my other blog, At Home with My Monkeys. I think it will be a fun prize pack, and I will post here when I get the giveaway underway. Please be sure and enter, as I will have TWO winners!

Now...comment away!! Thanks!!

The Versatile Rotisserie Chicken

2009-10-17T12:06:00.002-05:00

I know I've posted about using a rotisserie chicken in the past, but there are always so many things to DO with it that I had to post again! I purchased a lovely rotisseried bird at Sam's on Wednesday because I just can't resist the $4.99 price. Now, granted, my son made a point of reminding me that I have a Baby George Rotisserie sitting idly at the bottom of my pantry, but I just told him to hush! ;-)

My DH was off work on Wednesday and Thursday, and on both days, we had chicken with various leftover side dishes. Believe me, he can eat a lot of meat, even at lunch! I then deboned the rest of the meat to see what was left, which was enough for another dinner for all of us. I placed the bones in my crock pot and covered them with water, leaving them to cook on high for a couple of hours before switching to low so they could simmer. The resulting broth was a gorgeous color and has the most wonderful aroma - it's just better when it's been rotisserie-cooked, don't you think?

After the broth was strained and the carcass had some time to cool, I got enough more meat off the bones to make a chicken alfredo pizza. Tonight, I'm taking the broth and remaining chicken and making chicken and dumplings. So out of that $5 chicken, I ended up with two lunches for two, and two dinners for five. Who knew a rotisserie chicken could feed 14?? That works out loosely to $.36 per person, per meal. Not bad, eh?

There are a million things you can do with a rotisserie chicken. Entire cookbooks have been written on this topic. What things do you do with one? Please feel free to share your ideas in the comments - I'd love to hear them!

What To Do With Too Many Eggs?

2009-10-12T12:11:00.004-05:00

Hello, my wonderful readers! I'm sorry to have left you hanging for so long. It definitely isn't that I haven't been using my leftovers; it's more that I haven't done anything I felt was worth posting. That or I'm just too lazy to use my camera! ;-)

This post, at first look, doesn't appear to be about leftovers, but I still felt it suited my purpose here. It's about not wasting food, and creatively using what you have on hand. This is the overall idea of Not Just Leftovers. Read on.....

So this morning I realized that I had 2 dozen eggs in the refrigerator that expire tomorrow! Yikes!! I planned quiche for dinner, but that wasn't going to use nearly enough eggs. I needed something that used a LOT! I thought about it a bit, and the idea of an angel food came came to mind; however, I dismissed it because I can't imagine making one from scratch.

The more I thought about it, though, the better that sounded. And, really, why not at least TRY it? If the eggs are going to go to waste anyway, if the cake doesn't turn out, what am I really out? I decided I could always cut it up and turn it in to a trifle if it was too terrible.

So I went onto allrecipes.com and found this recipe. Looks simple enough, right? And I already have the pan since I bought it for a quarter at a yard sale, just in case. I decided to go for it!

Let me tell you, it's a little nerve-wracking waiting 45 minutes to find out if your cake is looking okay or if it's a flat mess. I didn't want to peek and risk making it fall. Of course, after about 35 minutes, I couldn't resist and I did look. It looked great!!! I was so excited!! Admittedly, it did fall a little bit after I peeked, but that might be normal....I have no idea. It went from about an inch over the top of the pan down to pan level by the time it was done, but that was just the right size!

Want to see it??? Here you go:

Does that look GOOD, or what???? I can't wait to try it! I have already eaten several crumbs, as well as a piece from the bottom that you can't see...hehe! It really tastes wonderful. I can't believe I did it! What an awesome way to keep eggs from spoiling and going to waste....

Another Episode of Leftover Chopped!

2009-09-20T21:40:00.003-05:00

Hello again! I am very sorry for my delay in helping with leftovers in your fridges! I had a substitute teaching gig in Kindergarten on Thursday, and apparently one of the sickly ones decided to share with me. I've been fighting a flu bug for the past couple of days and I just haven't been feeling too creative. I'm still not so hot, but it's more like a bad cold, so I'd like to try and tackle a challenge, albeit too late for the poor contributor, I'm sure! I really am sorry!

Here was my first "Chopped" request, from Jodie:

Oooo...great idea. Let's see what in my fridge... meatballs, carrots, and eggs. Of course I have all manner of rice, pasta, yada yada.

Now the only problem with this sort of thing is that I don't know if the items (i.e. carrots) are cooked or raw, or if they've been seasoned somehow. I'm going to assume for our purpose that the meatballs are cooked and unsauced, and the carrots and eggs are in their natural, raw state. If the meatballs were already covered in spaghetti sauce, then I would definitely chop them up and make either a pizza or a lasagna dish. That would be easy! :-)

If there are only 3-4 meatballs, so therefore not enough to feed the family again with meatballs as the centerpiece, I would suggest making a stuffed bread. Chopped up, the meatballs would be like seasoned hamburger, so you could add a bit of ketchup and mustard and some shredded cheddar for a nice cheeseburger stuffed bread. You could add some spaghetti sauce and shredded mozzarella for a "meatball sub" stuffed bread. The possibilities are endless with stuffed bread!

If there are enough for a full meal, you could have meatballs and sauce served over rice. Just basic brown gravy works well for this, or you can get more creative with cream gravies flavored anyway you choose. A favorite in my extended family involves a combination of grape jelly and chili sauce, so you can truly put together any flavored sauce that tickles your fancy. You might be able to create a sauce with shredded carrots in it!

For the carrots, here is our favorite way to prepare them: Cook either baby carrots or carrot slices until tender. Drain the water and stir in 1 T. sugar and 1 t. salt. This produces a slightly sweet, slightly salty coating that is very tasty.

Another possibility is to chop up the meatballs and make a quiche. My mother used to make hamburger and eggs for us all the time when we were kids (just scrambled eggs with cooked ground beef), so I don't see why you couldn't make a meatball quiche! Here is a simple recipe I've tried for quiche that works well. You could probably shred up the carrot and put it in with the chopped meatballs, but I think they would be better served as a side dish as indicated above.

I hope that gets you started Jodie! I tried to keep most of the sauces and additions open so you can use what you have on hand. If you'd like me to get more specific with recipes, just let me know! And again, I'm very sorry that this was so late. Happy cooking!!

Chicken and Rice

2009-09-17T22:00:00.002-05:00

I confess....I'm cheating a bit here. I have three notes with leftover items that need to be used, and I'm starting with the most recent one. I know I should start at the beginning, but when I read this one, I immediately had a recipe thought. I'm taking the easy way out, I know!! :-)

Here is the comment:

Barb, sfo said...
What would you do with chunks of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, rice, and NO soy sauce?

There is a recipe that I make quite often with these two key ingredients. It's actually from Campbells, and it's called One Dish Chicken and Rice Bake. Here is a link to the recipe as Campbell's printed it: http://www.campbellkitchen.com/RecipeDetail.aspx?ab=B&recipeID=24702
It can easily be done with chunks of chicken breasts, and doesn't require any soy sauce.

Another wonderful recipe that my entire family loves is Jack's Ranch Chicken. I have served it often over rice - the ranch sauce tastes great with steamed rice! The chunks of chicken are perfect!!!

Or how about a chicken and broccoli casserole? Cook the rice and place it in a casserole dish. Cook the chicken and place on top with some thawed frozen broccoli. Cover it with shredded cheese (Velveeta would be good!) and bake it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 350°.

And one more. Chicken tacos. Cook and shred your chicken. Cook the rice, substituting tomato sauce for one cup of water, and adding a little extra water. Combine the chicken and rice, stirring in some taco seasoning. Use as taco filling or as the meat mixture in a taco salad.

How's that for a start? There are lots of things you can do with chicken and rice, but those are my favorites. Let me know if any of those work for you, Barb, or if you need more ideas! :-)

Thanks!!!!

Let's Play a Game!

2009-09-16T15:19:00.002-05:00

I admit it....I LOVE the show "Chopped" on the Food Network! It's always entertaining to see what the chefs do with the bizarre sets of ingredients they find in the famous baskets. I'm frequently amazed at how they put together foods that I would have never even dreamed of including in a single meal. I also find out about a lot of foods that are new to me - I've never even heard of many of the things they are given to cook!

So I was thinking today...wouldn't it be fun to make up my own version of what they do on "Chopped?" It wouldn't involve any competition or short cooking times, but how about I have you, my wonderful readers, send me a list of 2-4 ingredients that you have on hand and see if I can put them together in a meal?

The premise of this blog is to take leftovers and turn them into new meals, but I can't possibly dream up every food combination you might encounter in your kitchen. So let's have some fun! Leave me a comment with a few items you need to use, and let's see if I can come up with a mealtime idea. I'm up for the challenge - tell me what's in your fridge and I'll try to make it a meal! :-)

Breakfast "Trifle"

2009-09-04T09:17:00.003-05:00

This one is a bit different, even by MY standards!! :-) I've been doing something fun the past few days, letting each child choose what he or she wanted for breakfast. I made blueberry muffins one day, bacon and eggs the next, and then we got to my older girl. She couldn't decide what she wanted. We discussed a variety of options she liked, but she wanted something different. Here's what we created:

I call it the Breakfast Trifle, even though I didn't make it in my trifle bowl; I made smaller versions in glass mugs for them. It could also be a parfait, but breakfast parfaits generally call to mind yogurt; this is more similar to what I would put in a trifle.

I had made whole wheat banana muffins for dinner last night and had some left over. We cut up the muffins into cubes and I made some chocolate Malt-o-Meal hot cereal (yum!) I layered the muffin cubes with the cereal and sliced bananas. It had a coherent theme of chocolate and banana, so the flavors blended well. The kids enjoyed them, and I enjoyed eating the leftover Malt-o-Meal. I used to LOVE that stuff when I was a kid.

I know this is a little bit high on the "weird" scale, but it ended up being a filling and fairly nutritious breakfast with the wheat flour, bananas, and hot cereal included. And it's another way to use up some of those leftovers!!

For great recipes from people just like you, be sure and visit Grocery Cart Challenge today for the Recipe Swap!

A Smooth Way to Use it Up

2009-08-30T12:40:00.002-05:00

Earlier this month, I purchased a bushel of peaches from a local farm. There is just NOTHING like fresh peaches, and once you've tasted them, you'll never look at the ones in the grocery store again. We ate quite a few while they were fresh, and then I canned up 12 1/2 quarts to enjoy throughout the year. Even canned, they taste better than the grocery store stuff! :-)

I opened my first quart jar earlier this week with a dinner. We ate most of them at that first sitting, but there were a few left that I finished off later in the week. Today I noticed the jar in the fridge with just the peach juice and about 3 small slices of peach floating in it. I started to remove the slices to eat with lunch and dump out the syrup (which was of the extra-light variety) as is the common procedure.

But then I paused, contemplating that yummy peach-flavored, lightly-sweetened liquid. I didn't want to drink it, but how could I use it in a less wasteful way? Inspiration struck and I pulled out the blender. I poured in the syrup, as well as the peach slices that had been in it moments before. I went to the counter and picked up an over-ripe banana, peeling it and adding it to the concoction. Then I opened my freezer and took out a small bag of strawberries I had frozen. I contemplated blueberries or blackberries, as I have those in the freezer as well, but the strawberries won.

I turned on the blender until I had a thick puree, then added some milk and pureed again. I ended up with a very cold, extremely tasty smoothie. I served it to the kids with their lunch today and they were mesmerized, asking for more before they had finished what they had! I didn't add a bit of sugar beyond what was in the extra-light syrup, so it was a fairly healthy beverage.

I'm going to make this a new habit - why waste the delightful syrup with bits of fruit in it at the bottom of the jar? If you enjoy commercially-canned fruits instead of canning them yourself, you could still do something similar - it would just probably have a bit more sugar and additives....but it would still taste great and if you add other fruits, would be just as good-for-you!

I wish I had a picture of the beautiful creation, but it was gone before I even thought about blogging about it. :-) You'll just have to trust me - it was G-O-O-D!!!!

Rotisserie Chicken

2009-08-28T20:03:00.002-05:00

First, I am so sorry that I've been mia from the blogging world. I don't really have any excuses, other than life got in the way. Between losing a dear friend to cancer and school starting and a general "blah" kind of feeling lately, I haven't done much with my blogs. I'm trying to get back into it, since I really do enjoy it! So tonight, I'm going to talk about rotisserie chicken. Don't you love those?? The wonderful warm and moist chicken that you bring home for an easy dinner that the family loves..... Yum!! But after a tasty meal, don't you end up with something that looks a bit like this?:

Not quite so pleasant, eh? I think most people just look at that and think, "Leftover rotisserie chicken. Yuck. What am I supposed to do with THAT?" Somehow it just isn't quite as appealing sitting there cold and refrigerated, with the once-delightful juices now congealed and just plain icky! But you should never, never waste the chicken that is left. You can do wonderful things with it!! In this particular situation, I got two more meals out of these leftovers.

My initial advice is to avoid the congealing. It's just pretty much disgusting. Allow the remaining chicken to cool until it can be handled and then pick the meat off the bones before refrigerating. If this isn't possible, you can always rinse off all the "goo," but I know it's a deterrent to making this meat last. I removed as much meat as I could from the bones, and then I set the bones aside in the fridge for making soup later.

Out of some of the shredded meat, I made THIS:

Delicious fried rice made with some of my other leftovers, including some cole slaw mix that was left from bierocks I made earlier in the week. I also tossed in some zucchini from the last picking of my garden. It was soooooo good!

The next night, it was a little cooler and rainy, and just felt like a soup night. So I simmered the bones in a pot of water to make a nice stock and made chicken noodle soup. As I still had quite a bit of chicken left (and still had zucchini, too), I made chicken-zucchini stuffed bread to go with it. Doesn't this look good?:

It was quite tasty! I used some veggie noodles I had gotten very cheaply at the store with a sale/coupon combination to make a very inexpensive soup! I also chopped up some carrots that were left in the fridge. Both of these meals were great use-it-up strategies that didn't FEEL like leftovers. That's kind of the point, isn't it?

Next time you get a rotisserie chicken, be sure you get at least two meals out of it. Even if your family eats most of the meat the first night, you can definitely cook some stock/broth out of it. You'll likely be amazed at how much MORE meat you can get once you've simmered it awhile, too. Rotisserie chickens can be used for multiple meals so you definitely get your money's worth! This just gives you a couple of examples. Let your creativity go, and see what you can do with the sad leftovers of a deli chicken!

Leftover "Pizzas"

2009-08-09T12:12:00.003-05:00

Last night we had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner because I needed something simple. After dinner, I had about 3/4 c. of sauce and 2 large meatballs left, which we promptly refrigerated.

Today for lunch, I looked in the fridge for some ideas. I saw the container of sauce on the shelf but had to figure out how to make lunch for three kids out of it. In the drawer of the fridge, I spied some flour tortillas that really needed to be eaten. There were four of them...perfect! I made tortilla pizzas:

In order to give the pizza slices enough support to eat them, I always use two tortillas for pizzas.....I place one on the baking sheet, spread a bit of pizza sauce (or in this case, spaghetti sauce)on top of it, and then "glue" the second tortilla on top. Then I top that second tortilla with my pizza toppings. If you really like a nice crispy crust, before topping the second tortilla, brush it with a bit of olive oil and pop just the "crust" into the oven for about 5 minutes, then proceed with the pizza-making.

For today's pizza, I chopped up the two meatballs and sprinkled them around each pizza, then covered it with shredded cheese. Into the oven they went for about 10 minutes at 400°. My kids absolutely LOVED them, especially how the tortilla edges crisp up. I had to admit, I ended up sharing the lunch with them because they were very good. :-)

Lunch made from two meatballs...see what you can do with leftovers???

A Blogging Break

2009-08-01T18:06:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to post a quick note to let my readers know that I will not have internet access most of next week, so I am going to be on a bit of a blogging break. Please don't think I've disappeared - I will be back soon! Thanks for reading! :-)

The Humble Potato

2009-07-25T17:39:00.003-05:00

I've had a little bit of fun with potatoes this week. I had baked potatoes on my menu plan a few days ago and I ended up baking a few more than we were able to eat that evening. So what do you do with leftover baked potatoes?

I know there are tons of ideas for the versatile vegetable, but I'll tell you what I ended up doing that we all enjoyed. I took the 4 remaining potatoes and cut them in half. I scooped out some of the white centers, leaving 1/4" to 1/2" of flesh on the skins. I brushed these with olive oil and baked them for several minutes, turning halfway through, until they were pretty crispy on the outside. Then I put them peel-side down on the cookie sheet and filled the space with shredded cheese and bacon bits. I baked a little longer, just till the cheese melted. We spread on sour cream and had great potato skins another evening.

Do you think I tossed out that scooped potato?? Heck, no!! I put it in a container in the refrigerator. Today for lunch, I pulled it out and dumped it into a saucepan and added some milk. I stirred until it was about to boil, then simmered it for a bit. During the simmer time, I stirred in bacon bits, cheese, and some dill weed, along with a tiny bit of salt. My son and I had absolutely delicious baked potato soup for lunch. We thoroughly enjoyed those "leftover" baked potatoes.

Another idea for cooked potatoes is to cut them into chunks and toss with a little Lawry's seasoning salt. Place them on a cookie sheet and bake at 375° until they crisp up a bit. Then top with your favorite shredded cheese and return to the oven until it melts - yummy!

If they aren't baked until they're super soft, you can cut them into cubes and make a flavorful potato salad. However, you have to have them baked just till they are barely done or they will fall apart when you stir. Be gentle, and only try this if your potatoes aren't too soft.

If, on the other hand, they are baked until they are super-soft, you might make smashed potatoes - just mash them up, skins intact, and add some milk and seasonings. Cut some cream cheese into cubes and mix it in, then pop into the oven till it's heated through. Stir and serve.

I know there are plenty of other things to do with potatoes. These are some of my family's favorites. Do you have some great ideas to share? Please leave a comment!!

Have I Gone Over the Edge?

2009-07-24T21:23:00.002-05:00

I know that some of you are going to think that I've finally gone over the edge with using leftovers. Yes, you do actually see ZUCCHINI on that pizza. But before you close the window on what you consider a very weird post, let me tell you that it was actually GOOD! Hard to believe, I know, but I decided to try it, and I'm almost embarrassed to say that I liked it!

Yesterday my menu plan got messed up. I was supposed to cook a rotisserie style chicken, but I forgot to thaw it! Oops. It's definitely not a good idea to cook a completely frozen whole chicken, not even knowing what's inside that cavity. Yuck! So I kicked into change mode and made a new dinner plan, basing it on the abundance of fresh produce we currently have in the house. We had grilled pork chops, grilled zucchini, grilled mango, baked potato skins (I had leftover baked potatoes I needed to use), "fried" apples, and sliced peaches, pears, and nectarines. After dinner, we still had one pork chop and several slices of zucchini remaining.

Friday night is pizza night here. It's a tradition that we rarely miss, because it's an simple, delicious dinner that the kids love. I always try to use anything that's left in the fridge on our pizza, even when it might seem a little strange. Tonight I had some alfredo sauce, and pork goes well with the alfredo (I mean, it IS the "other white meat," right??). My kids absolutely love fresh spinach on their alfredo pizza, so I covered my wheat sourdough crust with the remaining alfredo sauce, covered it with several spinach leaves, sprinkled on the finely diced pork chop, and then eyed that zucchini. Why not try it?? So I cut it into chunks and put it on the pizza. I did leave several slices zucchini-free in case it wasn't so great. I topped the pizza with a combination of mozzarella and cheddar-jack cheese and into the oven it went.

I was actually surprised that it tasted as good as it did. I really wasn't sure about zucchini on a pizza, but it blended well with the alfredo sauce and spinach. Now I'm thinking that I might try serving the zucchini with alfredo sauce as a veggie side dish. I think it might be tasty! Have you ever tried that? Let me know in comments if you have.

So what do you think of my zucchini pizza idea? Have I gone completely insane with my unique utilization of leftovers? It really isn't bad. Give it a try! I bet you've been trying to figure out what to do with all that zucchini from the garden......

Unique Food Combinations

2009-07-22T22:51:00.002-05:00

Sometimes you have to think outside the box when it comes to using your leftovers. You've probably been using the same list of basic flavor combinations for most of your eating life, without giving it much thought. In order to use what you have, you need to let your creativity flow. If you aren't sure about how a couple of things will flow together, try one of them in small quantities with the other item. Maybe it will work.

One combination that I didn't consider for a long time was both tomato-based pasta sauce and alfredo sauce. However, Pastitsio is one of the family's favorite meals and they taste excellent together, especially when you toss in some cheddar cheese for accent! :)

Today, I had a wonderful lunch based upon this concept. I had a small leftover Honey Lime Chicken breast left from dinner Monday night. This morning, we visited the downtown City Market and came home with some peaches, pears, baby spinach, and other items, some of which needed to be used as soon as possible. We also picked up a package of freshly-baked pita bread that was fantastic!! So I got a bit creative for lunch. On the pita bread, I drizzled a bit of honey mustard, then arranged a light bed of baby spinach. Onto that went the heated chicken breast, cut into strips, and half of a peach, sliced. A roma tomato was diced and added and I had a very colorful lunch ready! (I didn't think to take a photo - I'm sorry!)

Now, the question is....how did the honey-lime chicken, spinach, and peaches taste together?? They were amazingly excellent! The flavors blended together and created a very tasty sandwich that I plan to make again. I hadn't tried chicken and peaches before, though some of you might have, and I really enjoyed it. I think it would have been good with a bit of fresh cilantro, too. I'll have to remember that. My initial plan was to have a very basic chicken pita - I'm sure glad I experimented!

This particular example is pretty basic, but it gives you the idea. Just try something outside of your cooking comfort zone. You never know....you might find a new family favorite!

Got any unique combinations you've tried? Let me know. Let's get creative!

Blog Swap - To Save a Penny

2009-07-21T21:15:00.005-05:00

This post is not related to leftovers, but I think it will be a lot of fun! I'd like to tell you about a site that I enjoy visiting, To Save a Penny. Amber is the site's hostess, and she posts lots of deals and valuable savings information. She lets you into her life by sharing her personal tales of goals and budgeting. She tells you what works for her and encourages your input and tips.

Amber recently detailed a birthday party she threw for her three-year-old daughter. From the planning to the decorating to the party bags, she shared what she did and how much she spent. It looked like a great party! It was the cutest little cupcake theme - you've got to check out her posts and her ideas! You really can have a great party with all the trimmings and not break the bank.

If you enjoy contests, she's almost always got something she's giving away that you'll reallllly want, like a Starbucks card or a fun prize like colorful markers. And she keeps up to date with posting all the lastest deals and printable coupons, too.

If you're new to CVS or Walgreens, she has easy-to-follow tutorials to help you get started getting more than you ever thought possible for what you spend!

Check out To Save a Penny and leave Amber a comment while you're there. If you don't find information you can use, you'll definitely find a kindred spirit in living the best life you can on less!

Blog Hopping

2009-07-21T19:33:00.001-05:00

I'm also posting this over on my Monkeys blog, but since I have different readers on each blog, and I posted recipes from each one, I thought I'd also post the Blog Hop over here, too. I'm also excited that I figured out how to do it! :-)

Jump in and enter YOUR favorite recipe!!!

Leftover Pizza

2009-07-17T20:49:00.004-05:00

I had a request to discuss what to do with leftover pizza. This one actually has taken some serious consideration on my part. I never have this problem! With three kids (one of whom is a 13-year-old boy) and a hungry husband, if we order pizza, it gets eaten as pizza, often in a single sitting. So I really had to think about what I might do if we ordered pizza and got tired of eating pizza before it was gone. What an interesting concept!

I'm going to offer some ideas, but I will also issue the disclaimer that these are not tried-and-true. I have to go by what I BELIEVE I would do, since I haven't had the opportunity to test most of the theories. :-)

If you have a nicely rounded crust on your pizza, you could cut off these crusts and eat them as breadsticks with a sauce to enhance the experience.

If you're just tired of the variety of pizza, maybe you could add another layer of topping and some more cheese and pop it into the oven at 350° until the cheese is melted - this would be like a new pizza.

Perhaps you're just sick to death of pizza, but hate to waste it. You could remove the topping from the crust and put it on a lunchmeat sandwich - it would make it kind of like a sub with the melted cheese and vegetable toppings. I have actually done this one before and it was quite tasty.

You do have the option of wrapping the pizza well and popping it into the freezer to eat at a later date - this could possibly save you the cost of another pizza delivery. I have also done this in the past with much success. My tip is that if you INTEND to do this, ask the company to underbake/parbake one of the pizzas for you - this will make it fresher when you rebake it after defrosting.

And one more, but this one is very strange. It came from someone I know, but sounds just strange enough to be possible. For breakfast, scramble some eggs. Heat a slice of pizza in the microwave to soften the crust and heat the cheese. Place the eggs on the slice and roll it up. Eat as a "breakfast pizza burrito" of sorts. Hey, you never know......

Oh, wait! I just realized that I really do know the perfect way to use up leftover pizza!!! Call a friend or two with teenagers. That pizza will be eaten in no time! ;-)

Enjoy your pizza!!!!

Swiss Steak

2009-07-09T12:43:00.002-05:00

We had Swiss Steak the other night. Now, I have rather simplified the process of Swiss Steak, so mine may be nothing like yours, but I put a cheap cut of steak in the crock pot and dump a can of diced tomatoes over it. Cook all day....dinner! After we had eaten, there was just a little bit of steak left with some tomato - here's how it looked:

Not terribly appetizing, huh? But I can't let it go to waste! So I re-worked it today and created.....The Ultimate Happy Plate:

Okay, my older daughter did the plate-arranging. :-) In reality, it's an open-faced sloppy joe melt. And it was GOOD! That little bit of meat made a total of four melts, so it stretched pretty far. And doesn't it look a lot better than it did in that first picture?

Yep, I thought so....

Welcome New Readers - Let's Talk Quiche

2009-07-03T22:20:00.006-05:00

First of all, I would also like to send out a hello to my new readers from a variety of newspaper websites across the country. I'm glad you enjoyed my grocery savings tips enough to visit my blogs. I truly hope you find some useful information and keep coming back. If you keep up with this blog, you'll never throw out a leftover again!!! :-)

One of my early posts talked about using your leftovers in a wonderful potato-crust quiche. The other night, I had quiche on the menu to use up some eggs that were close to date, and I planned to make this crust again. However, I ended up having some sort of bug much of this week, and was just too wiped out to grate those potatoes. Wanting to take the cheater's way out, I opted to try a new quiche recipe. I tried one that was supposed to make its own crust.

Here's the recipe I used:

3 eggs
1 1/2 c. milk or cream
1/2 c. baking mix/Bisquick
Salt and pepper to taste
Dash of nutmeg
Filling (I used leftover chopped steak and veggies and some shredded cheddar)

Beat eggs, milk, baking mix, and seasonings till smooth. Stir in filling ingredients. Pour into greased pie pan. If desired, top with some shredded cheese for fun color. Bake at 400° for 30-40 minutes. Test with a knife inserted in the center to see when done.

I wondered how this would turn out, but it was great! Admittedly, I prefer a nice potato or rice crust, but in a pinch, it definitely worked well. There was a crust of sorts and it didn't fall apart at all like I had feared. The kids loved it and I will definitely make this again. It would make a really quick and easy breakfast, and the lack of an actual "crust" makes it quite a frugal option. It cost me less than a dollar for this entree and I cleared out the leftovers! I even served it with some sliced strawberries that were sitting in the refrigerator needing to be eaten. It was a great use-it-up night!

The Failure.....That Wasn't

2009-06-27T12:06:00.003-05:00

We're all guilty of the occasional kitchen blunder....the recipe that the kids hated, the cake that fell, the tried-and-true side dish that didn't turn out right this time. I know I've had my share! And most folks probably toss out the failure without a second thought. It's okay if you've done that - I won't tell! But if you think about it, some of the things we use every day were created because of a "failure" to make something else! So instead of a spoiled batch of whatever, you now have an opportunity to create something new and different for your family!

Last fall I bought some cherries to make my husband's favorite cherry jam. I used the same pectin that I always use, and followed the procedure the way I've always done it. I timed everything and properly canned the jars. But instead of a lovely gelled product, I ended up with a slightly thickened liquid. Talk about disappointment!! But I went ahead and put it in the cabinet anyway. This morning, I made a batch of pancakes, and the kids loved the "cherry syrup" that I heated for them to pour over the top. We've had cherry yogurt where I've added the failed jam to thick store-bought yogurt. We've even had a poke cake with the cherry jam poured over it instead of unset jello. The point is that I'm using all the cherry jam that technically failed, and it's really good!!!

Another creative moment was when I baked a cake that stuck terribly in the middle. I don't know why, but apparently I didn't grease the center well. When I tried to remove the cake from the pan, It fell into a few pieces. I was quite upset, but decided to make something good out of the situation. I ended up tearing the cake into pieces and layering them in a glass bowl with sliced strawberries and Cool Whip. I even made a simple strawberry glaze and layered that in there, too. Instead of cake, we had a strawberry shortcake trifle, and nobody even knew it was a mistake!! :-)

I tried a new recipe for granola in the crock pot. Yuck. It never set up like granola, and I basically ended up with slightly flavored oats. I came really close to tossing out this mess, but instead I put it into storage containers to see if I could find a use for it. It worked pretty well for an apple pie topping, and I've also used it on muffins prior to baking. I still have some left and am contemplating trying to substitute it in cookies for the standard oats.

The point is, even when you have a kitchen goof, all is not lost. You can probably find a great use for what you have created, and it's possible that nobody will ever know that the end result was not the planned outcome. Have fun with it!!!

I'm in a Magazine!

2009-06-20T13:54:00.000-05:00

If you read the wonderful magazine, "All You," you will find ME in the current issue!!! I submitted a grocery tip that they chose to publish. My tip and photo are at the top of page 22! It's very weird, but kind of exciting, to see myself in one of my favorite magazines. They edited my tip, but it's still basically what I said.

Let me know if you see it!!! :-)

Spaghetti Noodles

2009-06-14T18:34:00.003-05:00

On Friday night, my birthday girl asked for spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. We had lots of leftovers! On Saturday, I made a meatball pizza to use up the meatballs and sauce - it was great! But I still had a bowl full of spaghetti noodles in the fridge, and nobody really wanted to have regular ol' spaghetti again. Since leftover noodles are fairly common, I thought I would share a couple of recipes to use them up!

Shrimp Pasta (this is what we had tonight)

2 T. butter/margarine
1/2 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined
Minced garlic to taste
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. parmesan cheese
1/2 c. sour cream or yogurt
About a half-pound of cooked spaghetti or other pasta
Optional: To add some color, you can add spinach leaves, mushrooms, or something similar that you like (and have leftover....)

Melt butter in saucepan. Saute garlic and shrimp until the shrimp "pink up." (Also, saute the spinach leaves or mushrooms in this step.)

Stir in the milk, parmesan, and sour cream/yogurt until blended. Add pasta and toss gently to coat. Cook until heated through and sauce has attached to pasta and thickened.

The kids LOVE this dish!

Another use that my DH and I really enjoy, but that isn't quite as popular with the kids is this one:

Spaghetti Salad

About 3/4 lb. cooked spaghetti/pasta
1 lb. frozen broccoli florets
3 T. red wine vinegar
3 T. olive oil
1 t. minced garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
1 can (28 oz.) diced tomatoes, drained
2 cans solid white tuna in water, drained and flaked

Cook broccoli according to package directions and set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper until well blended. Stir in tomatoes and tuna. Add noodles and broccoli and toss to coat.

Serve at room temperature or chilled, whichever you prefer. You can also make this with leftover chicken if you have it. It's an interesting twist on pasta salad. Another option is to omit the garlic and salt and pepper and stir in some bread dip seasoning if you have it. And that oil/vinegar/seasoning mixture?? It makes an AWESOME dip for bread, too!

Enjoy!!!!

Chicken Parmesan

2009-06-03T12:18:00.004-05:00

A couple of nights ago, we had Chicken Parmesan for dinner. One of the breasts was HUGE and we ended up with a large chunk of leftover chicken, some sauce, and some spaghetti noodles. The kids informed me that Chicken Parmesan was only good on the first day and would not eat it for lunch the next day. So, I was left with this:

I needed a lunch for the kids and I, so I came up with the idea of creating a Chicken Parmesan Stuffed Bread. Sounds a bit out-of-the-ordinary, but it was really good! They loved it. I just smile - it isn't good unless it's wrapped in bread?? Kids!!

I loaded my bread machine about 8:30 this morning with a nice french bread recipe. I pulled out the dough when it was done and rolled it out on my baking stone:

I took that leftover chicken and cubed it up, spreading it along the center of my dough like so:

Then I added some parmesan cheese and shredded mozzarella:

I braided the dough over the filling:

And let it rise nicely. I popped it into a 400° oven for about 30 minutes and it came out nicely browned. Take a peek:

We had these wonderful slices for our lunch, and all three kids loved them:

There was enough sauce and spaghetti left for a side dish, too!

So it might be a little bit different use for leftover Chicken Parmesan, but creativity is such an important factor in frugality. Isn't something unique and delicious much better than wasting leftover chicken?? And I got a whole other meal for everyone out of what one person might have eaten as it was! You have to love that!

Briefly Revisiting Meatloaf

2009-05-30T17:10:00.002-05:00

Way back when my blog was new, I talked about what to do with leftover meatloaf. That post is here if you're new to Not Just Leftovers. Tonight, I did something new even for me with a chunk of meatloaf that remained from a meal earlier this week. One of the most essential things you can do in order to stretch your groceries is to experiment and be flexible.

I looked in my refrigerator today and found that I had about 1/5 of a large meatloaf left, along with a little rice (about 1/2 c.), a cup or so of corn, and a couple of cups of mashed potatoes. So, I decided to clean it all out and create dinner. First, I cut the loaf into small cubes and set it aside. Then I made 2 cups of brown gravy (boil water, add base/bouillon, dissolve, mix in cornstarch and water and let thicken - easy). After the gravy was nice and thick, I dumped in the meat, rice, and corn. I poured this into a shallow casserole and topped with the mashed potatoes and some shredded cheese. Yep, a perfect shepherd's pie!

I was going to take a photo of the creation, but I had a bit of a mess in making it. I had put the potatoes into my Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator, but it didn't function too well and instead of a pretty topping, I ended up with a mess that included potatoes on my countertop, stovetop, and floor. *sigh* So it isn't too pretty, and not worth documenting with a photo!! However, it tastes great and kids ate it up, which makes it worth doing.

Hen House Bargain Meal of the Week, 5/13/09

2009-05-13T09:50:00.002-05:00

Sorry again for not keeping this series up to date. It's really difficult to find "bargains" at Hen House most of the time! :-) This week, though, inspiration struck as I was browsing the ad. This recipe may be a little different than your standard fare, but it's fun to mix it up now and then in the kitchen!

Here's your shopping list for this week:

1 lb. boneless skinless fresh chicken thighs, on sale for $2.29/lb
1 large green pepper, on sale for .69
1 small onion, on sale 3 lbs. Vidalia for $2
1 can coconut milk

From the pantry:

Curry sauce
Shredded sweetened coconut
Cornstarch
Rice, quick-cook or long-grain

Curried Coconut Chicken

1 lb. chicken thighs, cubed ($2.29)
1 large green pepper, sliced (.69)
1 small onion, chopped (.40)
1 c. coconut milk (shouldn't be more than $2)
1/2 c. (or more if you like spice) curry sauce (.50)
1 1/2 c. water, divided
1 T. cornstarch (.10)

Spray skillet with cooking spray and cook chicken cubes until done. Stir in peppers and onion and stir fry until onion becomes translucent, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in coconut milk, curry sauce, and 1 c. water. Heat to a gentle boil.

Meanwhile, in a measuring cup, combine remaining 1/2 c. water and cornstarch till blended. Pour into skillet and stir gently to combine. Simmer 5-8 minutes, or until thickened.

Cook your rice according to package directions. If there is still coconut milk in your can, you can substitute this in the rice for an equal amount of water to give it a little more flavor.

Top your chicken with the shredded coconut and serve over rice.

Cost of meal:

Entree $5.98
Rice: .60
Coconut .30
Total: $6.88

A Leftover Rice "Keeper"

2009-05-11T21:48:00.003-05:00

Don't you love it when you try something new and the family raves about it??? Today I made swiss steak for dinner and had a bowl of leftover rice in the refrigerator. I measured it and had 4 cups. That was, of course, plenty to serve just plain, but the kids wouldn't be thrilled with that, so I decided to experiment a little.

I dumped the rice in a bowl and mixed in what was left in a container of parmesan cheese and the cheese that remained in two bags in the fridge. I added 4 eggs to make it stick together. I think 5 would have been better, but 4 was what I had! I stirred it up and dropped it in scoops on the griddle, flattening it out. I cooked both sides and stacked them on a plate. I wasn't sure how these would be received, but when I tried them, they were good. I think they had about 5 different cheeses in them! :)

The kids absolutely LOVED them, and so did my DH. They were very different, and had a great cheesy taste that really went well with the rice. Everyone asked me to make these again.

Sometimes you just have to be creative to make the most of what you have left in the fridge. It doesn't always result in a new family favorite, but at least you know that you are stretching your food dollars further and further! What creative dishes have you created/tried lately? I'd love to hear about it!

An Idea for Cereal

2009-04-25T21:06:00.004-05:00

This morning I made my kiddos their favorite Bananariffic Muffins for breakfast. I've had 5 bananas sitting on my counter for days, getting browner and browner, that needed to be utilized, and they LOVE those muffins.

After I had put the batter in the pans, it was time to make the topping, but I just didn't want to make it today. I looked over at my counter and remembered that I still had a little bit of Cinnamon Pecan Special K cereal left. That stuff is good! So, on a whim, I crushed up what was left and put it on top of my muffins, just to see how it worked. It was terrific!!!! The cereal stayed crunchy, and gave that little hint of extra sweetness. I will most definitely try this with other cereals.

So next time you just have some crumbs at the bottom of your cereal box, don't toss it! Try topping your next batch of homemade muffins and see how you like it!

More Fun with Leftover Roast

2009-04-24T17:20:00.005-05:00

I mentioned in a prior post that I still had some leftover roast. Tonight I used it in a very unique way. I created a Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza!! Here's how it looked, but I wish I could let you taste it!! Yummmm!!!!

I made a sourdough pizza crust (in the bread machine) and par-baked it to get a wonderful rise. Then instead of pizza sauce, I spread ketchup on the crust. Now, please know that I did NOT put it on as thickly as I would have the pizza sauce. I just put a light coating over the entire crust. Then I topped it with the rest of my roast, bacon bits, and mushrooms and a drizzle of mustard on the part for DH and me. I then covered it in shredded CHEDDAR cheese and baked it. Now, if the kids would have tolerated it, I would have also added diced tomato, and I considered pickles. Both would have been very good. None of us like onions, so that wasn't an option! lol

This was such a wonderful dinner! It was unique enough to be very interesting, and the mustard drizzle was absolutely fabulous. Everyone asked me to make it again soon. I love experimenting with pizza, and especially when creative leftovers are involved. This little experiment is most definitely a keeper!!!

For more great recipes, be sure and visit the Grocery Cart Challenge!!

Hen House Bargain Meal of the Week, 4/22/09

2009-04-22T18:32:00.004-05:00

Wow...I didn't realize it had been so long since I had participated in this challenge. I'm so sorry to anyone who checks for the lastest meal deal! Life has just been getting in the way lately and I've neglected this poor blog. I am trying to get back on track, and here is the latest Hen House Bargain Meal!

This week there are some meat sales, but most of the prices are still too high to be considered a "bargain." I did, however, find that fresh chicken drumsticks are on sale and that reminded me of a wonderful recipe that I found online. I used it for chicken leg quarters, and the kids loved it! The actual recipe calls for drumsticks, so it's perfect for today's Bargain Meal! It also fits into the category of lighter summer fare, which is the direction we're headed these days! :)

Your purchase list from Hen House for today's meal is:

1 1/2 lbs chicken drumsticks - on sale for $1.39/lb - $2.10
1 seedless watermelon (yum!) - $3.99
2 lbs. fresh green beans - on sale for .99/lb - $1.98

From the pantry: Flour, salt, paprika, pepper, margarine/butter.

Your menu:

Delicious Drumsticks (click on the link to go right to the recipe)
Cooked fresh green beans (add bacon bits or bits of ham for great flavor)
Sliced watermelon

Total cost of meal: $8.07, and I bet you have lots of watermelon and green beans left for the next day!!

Does that sound like a great summer meal, or what?? I love watermelon in the warmer weather, and it complements this chicken beautifully.

Let me know if you try this, and how you like it! And for more wonderful budget dinner ideas, click on the button on the right to go to 5 Dollar Dinners!

Pot Roast, Revisited

2009-04-22T17:25:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I made a pot roast for dinner. I was subbing at middle school (for the first AND last time) and thought it would be wonderful to come home to a nicely cooked dinner. So into the crock pot went a bag of baby carrots, several Yukon Gold potatoes, about a 3 pound beef roast, a can of cream of mushroom soup, and a little bit of water. We had a very nice dinner, but of course, there were leftovers!

So tonight we had a family favorite meal that I frequently make the day after a pot roast. It's adapted from a Taste of Home recipe and freezes beautifully if you want to make it for a future meal. Doesn't this look good?????

Here's how you make Beef Mushroom Spaghetti:

Cook and drain 8-10 oz. of dry spaghetti. Into the pot with the noodles, stir in about a cup of the leftover soup/juices from the roast. I always skim off the fat before using it, as the fat will have solidified in the refrigerator. Stir in an 8 oz. can of tomato sauce. If your family likes mushrooms, also add a drained can of mushrooms. Then chop up your leftover roast and put a half cup to a cup of the meat into the mixture.

Stir it well and then pour into a greased 8" square pan. At this point, you can cover and freeze. When you want to prepare it, thaw it completely, then proceed. Cover pan with foil and bake at 350° for about 30 minutes, until heated through. Top with parmesan cheese.

I still have some roast left. I don't know if I'll whip up another of these for the freezer, or if I'll make something else tomorrow. Stay tuned...... :-)

Hen House Bargain Meal of the Week 4/1/09

2009-04-02T07:07:00.002-05:00

This week, we're going for quick and easy. Skillet Bow Tie Lasagna is a recipe that I've relied upon for several years when I need a fast meal that my kids will absolutely love.

Here's your shopping list for the week:

Fresh ground round, on sale for $2.69/lb.
Barilla pasta in Bow Ties, on sale for .98
Crusty Baguette (in the bakery), on sale for .99
Dole Classic Iceberg lettuce, on sale for .99
Cottage cheese if you don't have some in the fridge (not on sale)

Skillet Bow Tie Lasagna

1/2 lb. ground beef - $1.35
1/2 t. minced garlic - neg.
1 can diced tomatoes, UNdrained - .99
1 1/2 c. water - 0
1 can tomato paste - .79
2 t. dried italian seasoning - neg.
2 1/2 c. uncooked bow tie pasta - .49
3/4 c. cottage cheese - .50
1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese - .25

Cook beef with garlic, drain. Add undrained tomatoes, water, tomato paste, and seasonings; mix well.

Stir in pasta and bring mixture to a boil.

Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes until pasta is tender.

Combine cottage cheese and parmesan cheese in bowl. Drop by tablespoons on top of the pasta mixture. Cover and cook 5 minutes.

Serve with a side salad (.99) and baguette bread (.99).

Total cost of meal: $6.35.

For more great meal ideas on a budget, visit 5 Dollar Dinners!

Spaghetti Sauce

2009-03-28T15:17:00.002-05:00

I had a request several days ago to talk about what to do with leftover spaghetti sauce. Jackie, I'm so sorry that I've been such a bum and haven't gotten a post done! I'm going to post about it now; I know it's way too late for your leftovers, but hopefully it will help out next time! :-)

I would say that the best thing to do with leftover spaghetti sauce is to use it for a modified freezer cooking session. You can use it to make up a few meals to store in the freezer to make your life easier later.

My favorite use for leftover spaghetti sauce is pizza. It's a perfect pizza sauce and a quick dinner, especially if you use one of those par-baked pre-made crusts. I like to make mine in the bread machine, and it's still a simple-to-assemble meal. Or, an even easier option is either mini english-muffin pizzas or french bread pizza. Both are quite tasty!

Another family favorite that I freeze all the time is lasagna. It takes 3-4 cups of spaghetti sauce for a 13" x 9" pan of lasagna. You can use the no-cook noodles or cook your noodles; either way, assemble the lasagna, wrap it well, and you can freeze it, uncooked. Simply take it out the night before you plan to eat it, let it thaw in the refrigerator, and bake at 375° for 60 minutes, uncovering the last 10 minutes.

Stuffed shells or manicotti are other fun pasta options that freeze well. Cook the large shells or manicotti noodles and stuff with your preferred filling (we go simple with cottage cheese, chopped spinach, and mozzarella). Place in a pan and pour spaghetti sauce all around and over them and pop into the freezer. These thaw and bake like the lasagna, but bake in about half the time.

I really like to freeze a modified version of a Taste of Home recipe called Beef Mushroom Spaghetti. It is easily prepared with leftover sauce.

Cook 7 ounces of spaghetti noodles according to package directions.
Meanwhile, brown 1/2 lb. of ground beef and drain. Stir in 2 c. leftover sauce and 1 can of cream of mushroom soup. Stir in the cooked noodles and a can of mushroom pieces, drained.
Place in a greased 8" square baking pan. Cover and freeze.
When ready to prepare, thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Keeping covered, bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes until heated thru. Top with grated parmesan. Yum!

Or, how about Chicken Parmesan?? Dip chicken breasts in beaten egg and then coat with bread crumbs. Bake in the oven until done, about 30 minutes at 350°. Serve over pasta and cover with leftover sauce and mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.

I haven't tried this one, but I would think it would be good in an italian-style soup like pasta e fajoli. I'm sure there are recipes online for this.

And the last idea I can think of, but another one that I personally wouldn't use, is stuffed peppers. We don't like green peppers here, but I would think spaghetti sauce would be great mixed with the meat and other filling.

So there you have it....my thoughts on leftover spaghetti sauce. Somehow, I now have a craving for pasta!!!! :-) If you have some other ideas, please share! I know I'm forgetting several!

Please Vote for Me!!!

2009-03-25T22:37:00.004-05:00

A tip that I submitted to the site Get Dollar Savvy, by Reader's Digest, has been selected as a possible winner of $250. I did win this contest a few weeks ago with a grocery-saving tip (and they have yet to contact me!), but as most of you know, I just had major surgery and I could really use a little help with all of these medical bills!

If you would be so kind as to help me out with your vote, please go to:

http://www.getdollarsavvy.com/contest

Scroll down to the contest. My tip is the first one on the list, shown as submitted by KaryaDawn (my nickname there). I would so very much appreciate your vote!

While you're there, submit your own tip for next week's contest. It's a tough one this time! In order to submit an entry, you do have to register, but you don't have to do anything just to vote, so no need to worry about spam or anything.

Thanks for your help!!!!

Hen House Bargain Meal of the Week

2009-03-25T20:53:00.004-05:00

So did anyone even notice that I neglected to post a Bargain Meal of the Week last week??? Time got away from me, and the sale was lousy anyway, so I didn't get anything posted. Now don't you feel guilty for not noticing and asking me about it??? ;-)

This week, we're looking toward the warmer months, when the Crock Pot becomes a favorite appliance because it doesn't heat up the kitchen like the oven! Hen House has Fresh Split Chicken Breasts on sale, so let's make a little Chicken Cacciatore in our Crock Pots. Sound good?

Here's your Hen House shopping list:

Fresh Split Chicken Breasts, 2 lbs, $1.49/lb
Hunts Tomatoes, Crushed, 2 cans, .77 ea.
Lipton Side Dishes, Butter & Herb, .97
Fresh Asparagus, 1 lb, $1.49/lb

Items from your kitchen:

Milk and water to make the noodle mix
Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper

Easy Chicken Cacciatore

2 lbs. bone-in chicken breasts, $2.98
2 cans crushed tomatoes, $1.54
1 T. italian seasoning, negligible
Salt and pepper to taste, negligible

Combine seasonings and tomatoes in Crock Pot. Place chicken on top and cover with tomato mixture. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

About 20 minutes before mealtime, prepare the Lipton side dish - $.97
Just before mealtime, steam the asparagus in the microwave - $1.49

Total cost of meal: $6.98

For more great budget meals, be sure and visit 5 Dollar Dinners!!!

I WON!!!

2009-03-12T10:47:00.002-05:00

I just looked at the Reader's Digest Dollar Savvy website and learned that MY tip for saving money on groceries was voted the winning tip last week!! According to their rules, I won $250!!!! I am soooooo excited!!!!

Of course, I still have to get the confirmation email, but I submitted my tip as KaryaDawn, who has been named the winner!! You should go to Dollar Savvy and submit a tip for this week - how do you save money on bank and credit card fees? The editors pick their top 5 tips and submit them for public voting the following week. This week, LittlePeopleWealth is up for vote for her tip on saving gas money! (I messed up and didn't get my tip in on time this week, but that's okay!) Pop over there, vote for LittlePeopleWealth, and send in your own tip.

I can't wait to get my confirmation email, and then my prize!!!!! Woohoo!!! It's a good day!!

By the way, the reason I posted on my Leftovers blog is that the tip was about saving money on groceries, so it's related! :-)

Hen House Bargain Meal of the Week

2009-03-12T08:50:00.003-05:00

Top o' the bargain week to ya! It's time again for the Hen House Bargain Meal of the week. I'm going to touch on two recipes for ya this week - the traditional St. Paddy's day fare and a recipe for you scoundrels who haven't the decency to be Irish!

Okay, confession time. I have some Irish in me, but I absolutely hate corned beef!! I'm going to post a recipe for it, but I can promise you that you won't find that dish on my dinner table next week! :) Sorry to all who revel in the tradition - it just isn't something I enjoy.

Dinner Idea #1 - Corned Beef and Cabbage

What you need to buy:
2 lbs. Boyle's Corned Beef - On sale for $2.79/lb
3 lbs. cabbage - On sale for .25/lb

Since I don't make this dish, I am borrowing an adapted recipe from Gooseberry Patch that sounds like one I would like if I ate corned beef:

Glazed Corned Beef

2 lb. corned beef brisket ($5.58)
1 T. mustard (negligible)
1 t. prepared horseradish (negligible)
1 T. red wine vinegar (negligible)
2 T. honey (.20)

In a slow cooker, cover brisket with water. Cover and cook on low setting for 6 to 8 hours, until tender. Place corned beef in an ungreased 13"x9" baking pan. In a small bowl, combine remaining ingredients; brush over beef. Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, or until golden; baste occasionally. Makes 3-4 servings.

Toward the end of the cooking time, put some water on the stove and bring to a boil. Once boiling, drop in your cabbage, cut into wedges. To cut down on the cooked cabbage smell, drop in a couple of lemon wedges or half an apple. Cook until tender, about 7 minutes. (Cabbage - .75)

I think I would serve this with some boiled red potatoes. ($1.00)

Total cost of meal: $7.53

Now, for the meal I would love to prepare based on the current Hen House ad! This is a very easy meal with minimal cleanup and everyone loves it.

Dinner Idea #2: Chicken in a Packet

What you need to buy:
KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce - On sale for .96
2 lbs. fresh chicken breasts - On sale for $1.99/lb (Fri/Sat sale)
5 lb. russet potatoes - On sale for $1.50

Chicken in a Packet

2 lbs. chicken breast ($3.98)
1/2 c. KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce (.24)
4 potatoes, sliced thinly (.75)
1 green or red pepper, sliced (.50)

Tear off 4 large pieces of aluminum foil. Divide chicken into 4 servings. Take first piece of foil and drizzle 1 T. BBQ sauce on the middle section of the bottom half. Place one sliced potato on top of sauce. Place chicken breast on top of potato and drizzle with 1 T. BBQ sauce (you can use more if you wish). Top with 1/4 of the sliced pepper. Fold top half of foil over and seal edges. Set on a cookie sheet.

Repeat this process with the other 3 pieces of foil and ingredients. Line up on cookie sheets. Bake at 375° for about 45 minutes until chicken is done.

Alternately, in nice weather you can place these on the grill and cook until done. Be sure and use heavy-duty foil if you use this cooking method.

To serve, cut open the packets. When done, toss them. :) Easy, huh??

Total cost of meal: $5.47

For more GREAT dinner ideas on a budget, be sure and head over to 5 Dollar Dinners!

Leftover Pork and Country Soup

2009-03-05T21:27:00.004-06:00

I had a request (thanks, Laurie) to discuss what to do with leftover pork chops (and fish, but that one is going to take me awhile since we don't eat fish! lol). As part of the leftover pork discussion, I am going to post one of my family's favorite soup recipes for the great recipe swap over at Grocery Cart Challenge! Read on.....

Pork chops can be diced up and used in recipes, sometimes even substituted for ham. One thing that I do frequently is a pork stuffed bread. Mushrooms and mozzarella cheese are wonderful additions to the pork and make a yummy dinner bread.

This one may sound a little over-the-top, but my kids enjoyed it. I have made a pork pizza. It's best with alfredo sauce, and is really good and a little different.

Cubed pork is also a great addition to a homemade quiche. Swiss or mozzarella cheese would be tasty with it.

If you would like something with a little more kick, you can simmer the cubed pork in your favorite bbq sauce and make a delicious sandwich similar to a sloppy joe.

I found a recipe in my latest Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine that inspired the use of leftover pork. It's called Chinese Roast Pork Paninis. You could modify this recipe and use your cubed pork by simply simmering the pork in a sauce made of 1 T. hoisin sauce, 1 T. honey, 1/2 T. sesame oil, 1/2 T. soy sauce, and sauteed chopped onion if you like that. Cook up on fresh bread on your panini press.

And finally, here is the soup recipe I promised. Originally, I made this soup with cubed ham, but recently used it for leftover chopped pork, and it was great.

Country Soup

1 c. water
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed to about 1/2"
1 package Country Gravy Mix (I use Pioneer)
2 c. milk
1 cup/can whole kernel corn
Leftover pork, or 1-2 cups cubed cooked ham

In large saucepan, bring water and potato cubes to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5-8 minutes, until potatoes are tender.
Meanwhile, whisk gravy mix into milk until smooth.
Add gravy mixture, pork, and corn to saucepan with potatoes (do not drain).
Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 min., stirring occasionally.

All of my kids love this soup, surprisingly enough. Hopefully yours will, too! As always, if you have any great uses for leftover pork chops, please share them! I know I'm forgetting a lot of ideas, but at least this is a great start.

And for a variety of fantastic recipes from around the blogosphere, be sure and visit Gayle's recipe swap!

Hen House Bargain Meal of the Week

2009-03-05T06:48:00.004-06:00

When I looked at the Hen House ad this week, I had a moment of panic. It can be very difficult to find a bargain meal at Hen House, which is a bit of a higher-end grocery store. Their meat prices are almost always more than I am willing to pay, so I have to look at everything very carefully. One tip if you're a Hen House shopper: go in the store as close to 8 a.m. as possible. Head directly for the meat department. Somewhere in that area, generally on a big silver tray on top of the reach-in bins, you will find clearance meats. The stores here mark those packages down to at least half-price, often lower. You can get some really good deals, but you have to be an early bird!!

After a more careful perusal of the ad this week, my bargain meal jumped right out at me. It's a family favorite that I am sure you will love, too. I can't make this one often enough to please my kids...it's their favorite way to eat chicken! Let's get cooking!!

Your shopping list for Hen House:

1 lb. fresh boneless skinless chicken breast tenderloins - $2.99 sale
1 pkg. Bar-S Sliced Bacon - $2.50 sale
1 bag Birds Eye Steamfresh or frozen vegs. - $1.50 sale

You will also need:

Ranch dressing
Monterrey-Jack (or your favorite) shredded cheese
Baking potatoes

Jack's Ranch Chicken

1 lb. chicken tenderloins - $2.99
6 slices bacon - $1.25
1/2 c. ranch salad dressing - $.50
1/2 c. shredded cheese - $.50

Spray a skillet with non-stick spray. Cook your chicken tenderloins until done. Place the tenders in a 13 x 9 baking pan that has also been sprayed with the non-stick spray. Set aside.

Cook the bacon in the same skillet (or in the microwave on paper towels, the way I do it) until cooked and crisp. Cut or crumble the bacon.

Pour dressing over chicken strips in pan. Top with crumbled bacon and shredded cheese.

Place in oven and broil on low until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Serve with:

4 large baked potatoes (and top with the remaining dressing in the pan - $2.00
Prepared Birds Eye veggies - $1.50

Total cost of meal: $8.74

(Note: I know this is above the $5 that I said was my goal, but I've decided to increase that goal to $10. That allows me to make tastier and more interesting meals and is still WAY less expensive than going out.)

For more great menu ideas, be sure to check out 5Dollar Dinners!!!

How About Some Requests??

2009-03-02T08:55:00.002-06:00

I started this blog to help people stretch grocery dollars by utilizing leftover foods. I've posted on some of the most common foods I have in my home that need to be made over into new meals. But now I'd like to hear from YOU! What do you find sitting in your fridge that you'd like to do something with it? I want this blog to be helpful and informative, so please tell me what topics you would like me to address. Nothing's off limits, and I'd love some requests. If I don't have any ideas, maybe another reader can help out.

Let's make this fun, and full of even more valuable information. Tell me what you need to turn from Leftover into Brand New Meal!!!

Hen House Bargain Meal of the Week

2009-02-25T13:29:00.004-06:00

Welcome to installment #2 of the Meal of the Week for Hen House. If you don't have a local Hen House, you can probably find a great bargain meal at your local grocer by visiting 5 Dollar Dinners. If you click on the button in my sidebar, it will take you right to the feature - check it out!

This week's Hen House ad has a few deals, but they have definitely had better sales. It's been very difficult to come up with a recipe below $5, which is my goal. I do have one, which you will find below, and then a second meal that will put you just over the $5 mark. So keep reading....

Budget Beef Stroganoff

1/2 lb. ground beef ($1.00 - on sale for $1.99/lb)
2 T. flour (negligible)
Salt, pepper, garlic powder (negligible)
1 can cream of mushroom soup (about $1.00)
1/2 soup can water
1 can mushroom stems and pieces (about .75)
1/2 c. sour cream (about .50)
Cooked egg noodles (Best Choice on sale for .77)

Brown and drain ground beef. Stir in flour and seasonings to taste. Blend in cream of mushroom soup and water and stir until smooth. Stir in mushrooms and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes. Stir in sour cream just before serving over hot cooked noodles.

Serve with your choice of Popeye's, Allen's, or VegAll Steam Supreme frozen vegetables on sale for .66.

Total dinner cost: $4.68

Or, another option is:

Oven-Fried Chicken

2 lbs. fresh split chicken breasts ($3.00, on sale for $1.49/lb)
1 container plain Best Choice yogurt (.39)
1 c. bread crumbs (free if you made them, or about .30)
Seasonings for the bread crumbs, if desired (negligible)

Coat chicken breasts in yogurt, then dip in bread crumbs until covered.
Place on greased baking sheet and bake at 350° for 1 hour or until done.

Serve with Glazed Carrots:

1 lb. baby carrots (Green Giant on sale for .99)
1 T. sugar (negligible)
1 t. salt (negligible)

Cook carrots in water until tender, 25-30 minutes. Drain off all but about 1 T. of the water, then stir in the salt and sugar.

To complete the meal, prepare 2 c. rice (approx. .50)

Total meal cost: $5.18

Both of these are family-favorites here. I hope your family enjoys them as much as mine does! Be sure and check out the other bargain meals at 5 Dollar Dinners!!

Burritos that were a "Keeper"

2009-02-21T22:09:00.004-06:00

Tonight I decided to actually try and cook. Good thing I did, really, since DH didn't even get home from work till 7:00!!! I had some things to use up, so I decided to use one of my suggestions in my prior post on rice, and I made burritos of a sort.

We had a roast the other night, and I had instructed DH to put the gravy/drippings into a container in the fridge. It was made with cream of mushroom soup, so it was a nice creamy concoction. I removed all the fat from the mixture and discarded it (gotta love how that all rises to the top when chilled!). I set a half-cup aside and heated the rest up, adding cornstarch and water to make a nice thick base. Into this, I stirred around 2 cups of brown rice, and all the leftover shredded roast. A taste sample proved it was pretty good!!

I got out my tortillas and placed a large scoop of this filling onto each, topping with shredded cheddar/jack cheese. Now, I know this sounds really non-spicy, but my kids are NOT spice eaters, and my stomach is still recovering from surgery, so I'm not ready for much spice or any beans just yet. So, yes, these are a bit boring, but you can add anything you want to spice up yours! I rolled my tortillas into pretty burritos and put them in a 13x9 pan. Once they were all done (I ended up with 12), I covered the pan with foil and put them in a 275° oven to get them nice and warm for dinner.

Remember that half-cup of the gravy that I set aside? Well, I decided to make a nice sauce to pour over the top for DH and I. Into the gravy, I mixed a huge scoop of sour cream and some salsa. I mixed it well and got it nice and hot, and it was a very nice touch - DH loved it, even reheated!

The kids ate this very well, and loved that they could pick up the burritos and eat them without a fork. They were definitely not authentic, but it was a great use of all the leftovers from making a roast the other day. Nobody even realized that dinner was comprised of leftovers! :-) (By the way, the tortillas were left from making quesadillas the other day....lol)

Let's Talk About Rice

2009-02-20T08:48:00.003-06:00

I'm going to try and get back into the swing of posting great uses for leftovers. I'm slowly feeling more like myself, and while I still can't really cook, I do have some recollection of how I used to do it! ;-)

Gayle over at the Grocery Cart Challenge hosts a recipe swap every Friday, and I love to participate, as well as gather great new tried-and-true recipes. Gayle asked me to review how I use up my leftover rice awhile back, so I thought I would post a few rice recipes for the swap, as well as to help everyone use up those yummy little grains.

One of my very favorite uses for leftover rice is to turn it into mock fried rice. While "fried rice" screams fat and calories, you can actually create an excellent version of it with little fat. This is a great side dish, or I've also added leftover pork, beef, or chicken to make a complete meal.

"Fried" Rice

1-2 cups leftover white or brown rice
1-2 eggs or egg whites (use more egg if you have more rice)
1/2-1 c. leftover cooked veggies (corn, cabbage, carrot, celery, etc.)
1 T. soy sauce (or more to taste)
1/4 t. ginger
1/2 t. dry mustard (you can omit this, but it really is good!)

Scramble the eggs in a skillet sprayed with no-stick spray, then set aside when done.

NOTE: If you don't have leftover cooked veggies, but do have fresh carrots and celery, re-spray your skillet and saute the chopped/diced vegetables for 2-3 minutes till crisp tender, then continue the recipe.

Add cooked veggies and rice to the skillet and toss to combine. Stir in the soy sauce and seasonings (and any chopped meat, if using) until well-coated. Stir in the eggs and heat through.

Another great and common use for leftover rice is rice pudding. You can find lots of recipes online, or here is a quick and simple recipe:

Rice Pudding

1 pkg. cook n serve vanilla pudding mix
3 c. milk
1/4 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg
3 c. leftover cooked rice

Cook pudding and milk according to package directions. Remove from heat and blend in the seasonings. Stir in the rice. You can serve this warm, or chilled.

Another option, that can be used for breakfast or dinner, that is very cheap, is a quiche! You can combine leftover rice with an egg and a bit of shredded cheese and pat it into a pie plate. Bake until lightly browned for a crispy crust, or simply add your quiche ingredients and bake it all at once for a softer crust. I have a post about making quiche here (though I used potatoes for the one I demonstrate).

A lot of people like stuffed peppers (though I really don't!) or stuffed tomatoes. Your family will never know the rice was "leftover."

Burritos or enchiladas can use up the rice in a yummy way. I have mixed the rice with chopped tomatoes, seasonings, and chicken or beef and rolled it up in corn tortillas for enchiladas or flour tortillas (with some refried beans) for burritos. My family just loves these options!

Another family favorite recipe where I always use leftover rice is Pizza Rice Casserole, which I posted previously.

Of course, there is always the standby of making soup. You can make up some nice chicken stock and create a quick and tasty chicken-rice soup. Or you can put the rice in a container in your freezer where you put all your small bits of leftover meats, grains, veggies, and broths/gravies. Once a month, you can have a batch of Freezer Soup. It may sound questionable, but it really comes out tasting great! I have been truly surprised at how much my family has liked the freezer soups I've "created." And that is about the most frugal meal you can find!!

I know I'm forgetting a bunch of uses for rice, but this will at least get you started. Please add your ideas in the comments section! Rice is a wonderful grain that can really stretch a grocery budget!!

And for more wonderful recipes, don't miss the latest Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap!!!!

A New Feature - Hen House Bargain Meal of the Week

2009-02-18T12:55:00.003-06:00

I am participating in a great new venture over at Erin's 5DollarDinners.com. Every week, bloggers from all over the country join in and scour local grocery ads for great deals. Each person then puts together at least one "bargain meal" for that week, one that anyone can put together without having to use coupons or analyze the specific deals. It's a GREAT concept, and while it has little to do with utilizing leftovers, it definitely contributes to lowering the cost of groceries, which is what this blog is all about!

Hen House can be tricky. They don't often have great sales on meat, so some weeks it's going to be quite difficult to make the meal below $5. However, this week, they do have boneless/skinless chicken thighs on sale, and I have a family favorite recipe using chicken thighs. It's based on a recipe I found in Taste of Home, and it is a delicious one-skillet meal. I'm assuming that you have basic staples in the pantry that will be needed for the recipe, and some of the ingredients are not in the ad, so I am providing my best estimate of the cost based on my regular shopping trips.

Skillet Chicken Supper

1/2 c. flour - .10
1/2 t. garlic powder - negligible
1/2 t. pepper - negligible
3/4 lb. boneless/skinless chicken thighs - $1.72 (on sale this week)
2 T. vegetable oil - .15
1 3/4 c. water, divided - 0
1/2 c. soy sauce - .75
1/2 t. dried oregano - negligible
3 medium red potatoes, cut into 1" chunks - .50
3 large carrots, cut into 1" pieces - .30
3 celery ribs, cut into 1" pieces - .30
10 oz. bag frozen peas - .85 (based on Best Choice 16 oz. bags on sale: $1.36)

In a plastic zip-top bag, combine flour, garlic powder and pepper. Add chicken in small batches and shake to coat; set remaining flour mixture aside - do not discard!

In a large skillet, cook chicken in oil till lightly browned on all sides; drain oil.

Combine 1 1/4 c. water, soy sauce, and oregano and pour over chicken, Add vegetables and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer 20-30 minutes or until chicken reaches internal temperature of 165° or more. Remove the chicken and vegetables and keep warm.

Combine reserved flour mixture and remaining 1/2 c. water until smooth; pour into the pan with the cooking juices. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or till thickened. Serve with the chicken and vegetables.

Serve with a can of Pillsbury Biscuits, which are on sale this week in a 4-pack for .99, or splurge and get the Grands or Crescent rolls! :-)

Total entree cost: $4.67
Cost of biscuit can: .25
Total cost of meal: $4.92

Enjoy, and come back next week for a new bargain meal. And make sure you visit the Bargain Meal of the Week for lots of wonderful budget recipes!!!!

The Surgery I've Mentioned....

2009-02-01T22:01:00.000-06:00

If you are a regular reader and have wondered about the surgery I've mentioned previously, I finally blogged about it on my other blog. If you're interested, please check it out here.

Simple Chicken A La King

2009-01-30T08:12:00.000-06:00

Every Friday, Gayle over at The Grocery Cart Challenge hosts a recipe swap for her readers. It's a great way to find new recipes, and hopefully it's bringing a few of you over here where you can learn more about using up those leftovers in new meals that your family will love! If you're here from the swap, welcome to my blog! It's fairly new, but there is a lot of information here. Please feel free to look around for awhile - I think I have lots of great recipes and ideas!! :-)

This will probably be my last swap for a few weeks, as I'm having major surgery next week and will be in recovery mode for quite awhile. I will get back to it as soon as I am able, but since I won't be cooking for 2-3 weeks, it won't be as easy to post recipes with leftovers!!! ;-)

Today I'm sharing a recipe my kids really like. I used to make a fancier version of Chicken A La King that they didn't like to eat and would only pick at it. Then I came up with this version and they gobble it up!! Another plus for the recipe is it's very simple and cheap! Here's how I make it:

Simple Chicken A La King

1-2 cups leftover cooked chicken (shredded or cubed)
1 bag frozen corn
1 1/2 c. chicken broth
1 T. cornstarch
2/3 c. evaporated milk
Salt and pepper

In saucepan, combine broth, chicken, and corn. Bring almost to a boil over medium high heat.

Meanwhile, stir cornstarch into evaporated milk until completely dissolved.

Pour milk mixture into hot chicken mixture and stir quickly. Continue stirring over medium heat until thickened (won't take long).

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve this over hot rice, over waffles (really good!) or even as a baked potato topping to further stretch it. You can also serve over toast. It's very versatile!

For more great recipes, be sure and visit The Grocery Cart Challenge. Happy cooking!!!!!

My First Blog Award(s)!!!

2009-01-29T10:00:00.001-06:00

I feel just terrible! I was given this wonderful award earlier this month by three - yes, THREE, fantastic bloggers, and I haven't even acknowledged it until now! I'm so sorry, ladies....I've been all caught up in preparing for surgery next week and just didn't take the time to properly thank you!

So....a HUGE, hearty thanks to Kristen at Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker , Jennifer at Cooking Like a Frugalite, and Amy at Cutting Coupons in KC. I so completely appreciate you!!!

The Lemonade Award is given by a previous winner to 10 people who have shown a great attitude or gratitude this week. It’s a great way to show these people that you appreciate them. So.....I am bestowing the award on the following blogs, in blog alphabetical order:

Beth at $20 Challenge for Charity

Cynthiaa at Confessions of a Yummy Mummy

Ali at Divine Domesticity

JodieMo at Eatin' on the Cheap

Jessica at Finding the Joy in the Journey

Stephanie at Fun Foods on a Budget!

Minda at Minda Homemaker

Michelle at Momstoppable

Annie Jones at Real Life Living

and last but definitely not least.....

Jackie at Save a Dime in '09

In addition, I want to give a special honorable mention to the following blog, but I don't want her to feel obligated to pass along the award, as she is dealing with some personal issues right now and I don't want to add any stress:

CookinsforMe at Plain Ol' Food

Congratulations to all the above blogs - I enjoy keeping up with every one of them and they are run by truly remarkable individuals who are worthy of more than a simple award! Be sure to visit their blogs - I'm sure you will be hooked!!!

Please accept my apology for my delay in passing along the award. I really do appreciate it greatly - I just let life get in the way!

And if you're an award recipient, please read the following, which I did pilfer from Cooking Like a Frugalite! :-)

You won, now what?

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.

2. Nominate at least 10 blogs, which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude! Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.

3. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

4. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

Celebrating National Chocolate Cake Day!!!

2009-01-27T19:14:00.000-06:00

I'm going to re-visit my use-up-those-leftover-bananas posting and wish everyone a Happy National Chocolate Cake Day at the same time!

Today I was doing some freezer reorganization and making room for pre-cooked meals for my family to eat next week while I'm in the hospital. In doing so, I uncovered a bag of over-ripe bananas (5 of them). I couldn't throw them out!!! I thawed them a bit, removed the peel, and let them finish thawing in a bowl. Then I had to figure out what to do with them. My husband had been reminding me all day that today is National Chocolate Cake day, so I figured I would try and make a nice compromise using the bananas.

I got a chocolate cake mix and dumped it into the bowl of my KitchenAid mixer. I dumped in the bowl full of bananas (wow...this just sounds scrumptious so far, doesn't it?? lol) and then added the 3 eggs called for by the cake mix instructions. I started mixing it and it seemed a bit dry, so I added 2/3 of a cup of water and beat it on medium-high for about 2 minutes. It looked pretty good.

Into my stoneware Bundt pan went the mixture and I popped it into the oven for about 50 minutes at 375°. It smelled heavenly!!!! The cake came right out of the pan and after it cooled for a bit, I put it on a platter. I happened to have some leftover chocolate Pillsbury icing in my refrigerator from a dessert a week or so ago. I put the container in the microwave for about 45 seconds until it was the consistency of a glaze and drizzled it all over the top of the cake, running a bit down the sides and into the center.

This cake was great!! It had just the right blend of chocolate and banana and was soooo moist!!!! Everyone loved it. And even with the glazing, it was still a fairly low-fat cake. It could probably be made better with egg whites or egg substitute, but it definitely could have been worse! :-) So....here is another use for leftover bananas - let me know if you try it!!!

Yes, We Have (Some) Bananas....

2009-01-25T10:24:00.000-06:00

Bananas. They are quite a healthy snack, and even in today's difficult times, generally reasonably priced at your local grocery store. We often purchase them greenish, but they ripen quickly to a lovely yellow color, which is when they are at the peak of flavor for munching.

However, the quick ripening also leads to an equally quick over-ripening. I don't know about your house, but around here the "yuck" factor is directly proportionate to the amount of brown on the banana skins. So....once the brown starts showing, the poor bananas are left to sit on the counter, browning more every day. The good news is that the more brown the banana, the more perfect it is for baking.

So what do you do with leftover bananas?? I bet the first things that come to mind are banana bread, banana muffins, and maybe even banana cookies. Those are all very good uses, and most folks have their preferred recipes for these items. I've been known to make banana biscotti (Yum!), banana snack cake, and even banana pancakes!

In fact, this morning, I felt sorry for the pitiful brown bananas sitting on my kitchen counter, and decided to make a batch of those pancakes. I've made them before, and the recipe has evolved into my kids' very favorite pancakes - they ask for them frequently. Here's how I make my pancakes:

1 c. leftover oatmeal (or pour about a half-cup of very hot tap water over about 3/4 of a cup of quick oats and let sit for 3-4 minutes)
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 large eggs
2 c. milk
2 - 2 1/2 c. flour (I use whole wheat)
1/3 c. brown sugar
3 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt

Mix first 4 ingredients well in bowl. Stir in the dry ingredients until well-incorporated. Cook pancakes on hot griddle, flipping when bubbles cover the top surface of the cake.

Sometimes as a special treat, after pouring out the batter onto the griddle, I will sprinkle the wet batter with flavored baking chips and cook as usual. I've used chocolate, white chocolate, and even butterscotch chips - the kids love this!!

Enjoy this unique way to use up your leftover bananas!

The Versatility of Pizza

2009-01-24T22:34:00.000-06:00

Pizza is a favorite to many, and on almost every kid's top foods list. Just mention the idea of ordering pizza for dinner and the kids get quite excited. Even schools now have pizza nights, where the school receives a certain percentage of orders from a pizza parlor placed by parents on a specific evening. Pizza is just plain good!

I've reached the point in my pizza making that my kids actually prefer my homemade pizza to anything we order from a pizza place. I have finally perfected a couple of different crusts that I make in the bread machine that everyone absolutely loves. One is a whole wheat Weight Watchers recipe, and the other is made with my sourdough starter. A couple of weeks ago, I ran out of white flour and made about a third of the required flour whole wheat, and the kids deemed it "gourmet" crust. Who knew??

One of the best things about pizza is that you can put just about ANYTHING on it and it gets eaten up. What is it about a bready crust and melted mozzarella that makes everything taste great?? Years ago, we lived in the very college town of Springfield, MO. There was a pizza joint there which had all sorts of bizarre toppings, from artichokes to tuna to everything in between, and people just flocked to their locations! Lately, I've been experimenting a bit with my pizzas just to try a few things that were in my fridge waiting to be utilized. I haven't been disappointed yet!

Tonight I had chicken alfredo pizza on the menu. Earlier this week, we had grilled steak (YUM!) and beef tips in gravy the next night. I still had a small piece of steak left, AND I hadn't made sourdough yet this week, so I needed to use my starter. So....we had steak pizza on a sourdough crust. That doesn't sound so strange, does it?? Well, I also tossed on a couple of handfuls of fresh spinach leaves. The kids thought it was fantastic! I truly believe I could put just about anything on a pizza and it would be gobbled up in one sitting.

If you're used to ordering pizza and not sure you can tackle the task of making the crust (though I really recommend trying, as it isn't that difficult), you can start with one of those pre-baked crusts at the store (i.e. Boboli) and start experimenting from there. My pizza tonight was made of a piece of steak that was literally about 5 inches long and 2 inches wide at its widest point, and it was plenty of meat for it. It doesn't take much! You can also change your cheese if you don't have mozzarella. I've made one entirely with cheddar cheese before. As long as it's pizza, it's going to be good!

So, if you're needing to use up a bit of meat and some veggie toppings and nothing really sounds good, give a pizza a try! I bet you don't get any complaints, no matter what toppings you choose. And if you have any funky combinations you've tried and your family raved about them, please post a comment. Creativity is fascinating and very appreciated!!!

Stuffed French Toast

2009-01-14T22:51:00.001-06:00

I mentioned this in my prior posting about the quiche. Believe it or not, stuffed french toast is amazingly easy, and soooooo good!! Here's what you'll need:

Day-old bread (not sliced as thickly as you might do for standard french toast)
Flavored cream cheese ** (very cheap at Aldi if you have one)
2 c. milk
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla
1/4 c. sugar

**If you don't have flavored cream cheese, or you're just plain cheap like me, you can take regular cream cheese and soften it. Whip it together with either some chopped up fruit and a bit of powdered sugar, or mix in some fruit jam of your choice. Once combined, this will serve as flavored cream cheese - and this is how I usually do it.

In a shallow bowl, beat eggs. Blend in milk, vanilla, and sugar to make your french toast batter.
Cover half the slices of bread well with flavored cream cheese. Top with remaining slices to form a "sandwich."
Dip the ENTIRE sandwich in the batter, coating both sides well.
Place on hot griddle and cook until both sides are deep golden brown.

It's just like regular french toast, but you're making it in more of a sandwich form with the flavored cream cheese. It's sooooo good!! Serve it with fresh fruit and a fruit compote or syrup. Enjoy!!!

I also slather the flavored cream cheese on toast in the morning for an even quicker breakfast. I know it isn't super healthy, but it's very yummy!! I'm going to try making bagels one of these days - I really am!

Real Men Really DO Eat Quiche!

2009-01-12T18:36:00.000-06:00

This week, let's turn those leftovers into a wonderful quiche!!! I posted this a few days ago, but it definitely works for me!! And for more amazing tips from all over the globe, visit Rocks in my Dryer all day today!!

Tonight for dinner I was really wanting quiche, which I haven't made in a very long time. As I was putting it together, it occurred to me what a wonderful way this would be to use up small bits of meat and veggies in the fridge. And who would ever guess that this fantastic meal was borne of leftovers???

I was questioning my crust earlier in the day and my friend Tammy (I am SO going to get her to guest post one of these days!) suggested a potato crust, since I have so many potatoes currently in the fridge (gotta love sales). So, I combined her instructions with the directions in a couple of recipes I found online and came up with an absolutely delicious hash-brown style crust.

First, I peeled 5 small potatoes, because that is what was in my bag. 2-3 larger ones would be just fine. I then put them in my salad shooter and shredded them into a colander. After I had them all shredded, I rinsed the shreds and then placed them on paper towels to dry. I pressed on top with other paper towels to get them as dry as I could. And then they looked like this:

Now, I got out my handy-dandy pie place and I pressed the shreds into the bottom and up the sides, like this:

I popped that into the oven at 425° for about 30 minutes, and when it came out, this is how tasty it looked:

Now, a word to the wise: There was some serious shrinkage that occurred here. Be aware of this when forming your crust. In my case, it was fine, but if you want a bigger quiche than I made, you will certainly want to allow for the shrinkage factor (real men deal with that, too - HA!).

Next came the filling. In my case, I put about a quarter-cup of cheddar cheese, maybe 1/3 cup of diced ham, and a few tablespoons of bacon bits onto the crust. In a bowl, I beat 4 eggs and poured in about 3/4 of a cup of milk and just a bit of salt and pepper. I whisked this well, then poured it over the meat, cheese, and crust. I put it back into the oven for another 30 minutes, and HERE is my result:

It was really good, and even my picky 6-year-old ate every bit of hers. Both the "men" ate quite a bit of it, too! I changed up my menu plan a bit and served it up alongside strawberry-cream-cheese-stuffed french toast, which is just so darn good! Wanna see THAT?

Yeah, it's that good and then some! Yum!!! It was a very tasty, VERY well-received dinner. Every bit was gobbled up, which is a rarity around here. And if you have kids (or a kid-like man in the house) who balk at the idea of a "quiche," maybe you could call it a scrambled egg hash brown pie?? Well, maybe not......

Potato Bread

2009-01-11T15:08:00.000-06:00

This makes fantastic rolls, or a delicious stuffed bread! I tend to make this bread whenever we have just a bit of mashed potatoes leftover (see prior post about using mashed potatoes!).

This is a bread machine recipe, adapted from The Bread Machine Cookbook (can you tell I love that book???).

Potato Bread

1/2 c. leftover mashed potatoes
3/4 c. water (scant)
1 egg
2 T. sugar
1 t. salt
3 c. flour
2 t. yeast

Place all ingredients in the bread machine in the order suggested by the manufacturer. Set on dough for hand-shaped rolls or stuffed bread, or just set it to bake - it's wonderful either way!

Stuffed Bread

2009-01-11T14:33:00.000-06:00

This is an amazing way to use up little bits of leftover meat and fillings for sandwiches. I've even made stuffed bread out of remaining fast food hamburgers! You know how the kids will sometimes eat the fries and pick at the bun, leaving the burger intact? Well, refrigerate that burger and chop it up to make a cheeseburger stuffed bread! :)

Sometimes you might have just a cup or so of shredded beef, pork, chicken, etc, and not know what to do with it. Well, you can add a few other ingredients (mushroom, peppers, onion, chopped tomato, cheese....about anything you like in a sandwich that can be heated) and make a yummy hot meal. Combine it with some chips for a casual light dinner, or soup for something more hearty, or even regular sides like rice and a vegetable - the possibilities are endless, as are the combinations for your bread.

We start with your favorite bread recipe, or you can even use frozen bread dough to make it more simple. Make (or thaw) the dough, and then roll it out on a baking sheet or rectangular baking stone to the size of the sheet/stone. Here is the recipe I use most often for bread, adapted from The Bread Machine Cookbook II:

White Bread

1 1/4 c. water
2 T. olive oil
3 T. honey
3 1/2 c. flour
1 t. salt
2 t. yeast

Put in machine in order suggested by manufacturer and set on "dough" cycle.

Once you have your bread all rolled out, you're ready to "stuff" it. Right down the middle (about the middle third of the bread), stack whatever you want in your bread - spread out the leftover cooked meat, then top with the veggies or other items, and finally, whatever kind of cheese strikes your fancy.

Now, on either side of the filling, from the outside of the loaf in, cut the dough into slits about 1" wide. I usually go at an angle from the top corners and go about 1.5" from the filling. Once you've done this, simply braid the bread strips over the filling. Allow the bread to rise in a warm place for 30-60 minutes, then bake for about 30 minutes at 350°.

The result is a hot, fresh-baked "sandwich" of sorts. Cut it into slices and serve. My family LOVES these! This really makes soup more of a meal, too, if your family doesn't feel that soup is enough to fill them up.

In addition, you can make this a breakfast meal by filling your bread with scrambled eggs, cooked and crumbled bacon, chopped cooked sausage, etc. It's a wonderful and inexpensive breakfast meal that is very filling.

Pizza Rice Casserole

2009-01-11T14:27:00.001-06:00

Welcome, Grocery Cart Challenge recipe-swappers!! I was torn between using this recipe or my Stuffed French Toast, but since I did a French Toast recipe last week, I thought I'd link up this one instead. Thanks for visiting, and for more wonderful recipes, be sure and visit the recipe swap at Grocery Cart Challenge! :-)

This is a wonderful recipe to use up leftovers of spaghetti sauce, rice, and/or beef. It's quite versatile and can be a very inexpensive dinner! This is based on a recipe that was printed in Country Woman magazine several years ago.

Pizza Rice Casserole

1/2 lb. ground beef (or a cup or two of leftover shredded beef)
2 c. tomato sauce (or leftover spaghetti sauce)
1 t. sugar
1 t. salt (if using tomato sauce)
1 t. Italian seasoning
2 c. cooked rice
1/2 c. cottage cheese
1/2 c. shredded mozzarella

If using ground beef, cook and drain the meat. If using already cooked, leftover beef, just put it in a skillet. Add the tomato/spaghetti sauce and seasonings. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes, covered.

Combine rice and cottage cheese. Layer half of this mixture in a greased casserole dish. Top with half of the meat mixture. Repeat layers. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.

Bake, uncovered, at 325° for 30 minutes or till heated thru and cheese is bubbly.

Another Note on Leftover Bread

2009-01-09T12:19:00.000-06:00

One thing that I neglected to mention in my previous blog is leftover hot dog and hamburger buns. Invariably, we end up having a few of these left whenever I buy them. Fortunately, this doesn't happen often, because I tend to make them instead, and I never have those left-over!

So, if you've eaten the burgers and the "dogs" and still have a few buns sitting sadly on the counter, what do you do? You could make bread crumbs out of them, but I'd save that for the stale stuff and the heels and crusts. My family just LOVES when I turn those buns into garlic bread!

It's very simple. Just separate your buns into 2 pieces - you'll have round bread out of hamburger buns, and a wide bread "stick" of sorts from hot dog buns. Lay them out on a cookie sheet and butter them. I generally use the butter spray for this. Then, you can sprinkle on some garlic powder or minced garlic if you like the stronger flavor. Alternately, you can melt the butter, stir in the garlic, and brush it onto the buns. Another thing that I like to do is sprinkle them with a little shredded mozzarella, too.

Pop these babies into the oven and broil for 5-7 minutes, until beautifully browned (and with bubbly cheese if you used it). Your family might not even realize that these are "recycled" buns!

Or, one more thing, but this works best with hamburger buns or sub rolls. You can make mini-pizzas for the kids! Ever had French Bread Pizza (if not, you realllly need to try it!!!!)?? Split your buns and again lay them on a cookie sheet. Spread with tomato/pizza sauce, your toppings of choice (i.e. leftovers in the fridge!), and some mozzarella cheese. Bake these (as opposed to broiling) for about 10 minutes at 375°. Yum!!!

So many ways to use up bread.......please share yours!!

Let's Use Up Some Bread!!

2009-01-08T20:43:00.001-06:00

I'm posting this as both a recipe for Super-Simple Overnight French Toast to share on Gayle's Recipe Swap over at Grocery Cart Challenge, and also as an aid in using up the last bit of bread in your home! There are lots of great recipes over at Gayle's, so after you've left me a comment, be sure and pop over there for a visit! ;-)

I don't know about you, but I always have bread in the house. We have store-bought bread for sandwiches, the sourdough DH sometimes brings home from the restaurant for us, my homemade breads (usually some sourdough and/or some wonderful cinnamon-raisin), and quickbreads from various dinners. And I used to end up tossing some of that bread when it got hard and old, or when it accidentally became a science experiment (yuck!!). And I ALWAYS used to toss out the heel ends, because who eats those?

Well, no more, my friends! I now use every bit of that bread, and I've not had any green fuzzies in my kitchen for some time now. Wait...I have to take that back. My darling hubby did once stick the cheddar cheese block in the CABINET rather than the refrigerator for some inexplicable reason. That was an unbelievable mess when I finally found it a few weeks later!!!

To start, I'm going to share what my kids and I had for breakfast this morning. I can't share a photo, as every bit of it was gone in a flash! Last night before I went to bed, I quickly assembled breakfast for this morning, using up the last of a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread I had made in the bread machine for a breakfast earlier this week. A little less than half the loaf was left. I cut it into thick slices, then into triangles, to make Super-Simple Overnight French Toast. Here's how:

Overnight French Toast

Leftover bread - can be sliced thinly or thickly, torn into pieces, or cut into large cubes (enough to fill a 13" x 9" pan, one flavor/type or several)
2 eggs
About 1 3/4 c. milk
2 t. vanilla
1/4 c. sugar if not using sweet bread
Cinnamon

Place your bread in a greased 13" x 9" pan. Break eggs into a 2 cup measure and whisk quickly with a fork. Add vanilla and sugar if using, then fill with milk to the 2 cup line. Whisk it all together with the fork. Pour this mixture over the entire surface of the bread. Some will remain in the bottom of the pan - this is fine. Sprinkle cinnamon over the top. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, remove pan from refrigerator and preheat oven. Bake, uncovered, at 375°, for 20-25 minutes, until lightly browned. Serve hot, with butter and syrup.

The cinnamon raisin bread I used for this morning made absolutely wonderful French Toast. It was devoured! I have used both homemade bread and the store-purchased variety, both with great results. As the bread is just what's left and might otherwise be discarded, this is a VERY frugal breakfast!!

Now, let's talk about those bread "heels" and the last couple slices of the loaf that have been sitting on your counter for awhile. You might feel a little hesitant at using these for French Toast, so what do you do with them? We're going to borrow a fabulous idea from my friend Tammy that has saved my dinner more than once! Whenever you have those ends that you know won't be eaten, stash them in a bag in your freezer. And those last few pieces that are too old/dry to make a sandwich (or that you don't want to put in your French Toast)? Put them in the bag, too! You're going to make your own bread crumbs!!!!

Once you have enough bread pieces (store-bought, homemade, whatever) in the bag to fill a cookie sheet or two, pick an evening and lay those bread pieces out on the cookie sheet. Place them in an oven that is preheated to 200° and "bake" for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Now, just turn off the oven and go to bed! The next morning, remove them from the oven and use a blender or salad shooter or whatever you have handy (a cheese grater would work, but would be tedious!!) to chop the bread into tiny breadcrumbs. Put these in a bag and store in the freezer. Use just as you would packaged bread crumbs. When I used these to make oven-fried chicken, my family agreed it was the best ever. And the first time I had done this, I planned a meal involving bread crumbs, thinking I had a cannister in the cabinet. I panicked when I couldn't find that cannister, but then remembered my freezer bag and dinner was fine!

Another thing I've done with this bread is cut it into cubes and apply the same principal, only I baked them 2 hours and then removed them from the oven. This made the bread cubes for my Thanksgiving stuffing, and I've also used them as great low-fat croutons. If desired, you can even toss them with a little oil and seasonings to make seasoned croutons. Good stuff from otherwise discarded bread!!

One thing you will notice with me is that my recipes are generally a little vague on amounts and ingredients. I am not a precise cook, and I love flexibility. I don't tend to measure much, and it always turns out fine. Cooking should be at least a little bit fun, and I like to give myself some "wiggle room" to experiment and adjust things to taste. I hope that works well for you! :-)

Chicken Leg Quarters

2009-01-07T19:02:00.000-06:00

I mentioned in Menu Plan Monday that I was going to have a lot of chicken meals this week due to a good deal I received on chicken leg quarters. I've heard from a few people who said that they don't purchase the leg quarters because they didn't think there was enough meat there to make it worth buying. I'm hoping this post will change your mind if you think that way!!

Today I cooked off the entire bag to make several meals. I removed 4 quarters from the bag and set them aside for dinner tonight. I took the remaining 6 and placed them in my crock pot with about a cup of water and cooked them on low all day. At dinner time, I turned off the pot and removed the chicken to a platter to cool.

For dinner, I baked the four quarters. Two were covered in barbeque sauce for DH and I and two were "oven fried" with bread crumbs for the kids. They were wonderful!!! I just coated the oven fried ones with a little egg and the bread crumbs and placed them on a cookie sheet, and poured some sauce over the other two. I baked all of them at 375° for about 25 minutes, until the temperature was 170°.

The picture isn't great, but here is my barbequed chicken:
And here is the oven fried variety - it's my son's piece, so please ignore the Spiderman plate! :)

After our yummy dinner, I returned to the now-cooled leg quarters in my kitchen. I easily removed the skin and then set about deboning and shredding the meat. It went very quickly, as the meat had cooked all day and was falling off the bone. I was able to shred it with my fingertips. After about 10 minutes of work, I had a wonderful pile of shredded chicken for my other recipes this week:

That is a full-sized dinner plate heaped with chicken ready for recipes!

The next step was to strain the tasty broth for tomorrow night's chicken noodle soup. A bowl, a strainer, and a piece of cheesecloth were all that I needed to produce this LOVELY chicken stock:
I will refrigerate it tonight and remove all the fat before turning it into soup for tomorrow. Real chicken stock is light years away from the bouillon variety - if you haven't tried it, you absolutely MUST!

Doesn't that look worth the $4.90 that I paid for all this chicken?? And it's going to make us five dinners! That's less than a dollar a meal for the meat to feed 5 people, with leftovers! And the same principles apply to the utilization of leftover chicken. If you make too much, you can simply shred what is left and make an entirely different dinner. I posted a couple of recipes in earlier blog postings if you need a little inspiration.

Thanks for reading, and please leave me a comment to let me know you were here! Have a wonderful week!!

The "free" soup lunch

2009-01-07T13:51:00.000-06:00

This morning when I got up, the soup was nowhere near ready. I was surprised by this, but it was okay, since we weren't having lunch for several hours. So I let it keep on cookin'. Around 10:30, I got out my hand blender and pureed everything. I know it's best to puree some of it and leave the rest, but it's easier (and just as good) to puree it all.

After pureeing, it was a bit more thin than I liked, so I added some mashed potato flakes and blended it a bit more. Then I left it on low until we ate around 11:45. It was wonderful soup!!!! We each had two bowls and were full, but it was sooooo yummy! I have a lot left in the fridge for lunch tomorrow, and then I might freeze the rest for another day. I can't believe something that good only cost me pennies!

Wanna see how pretty it was??? Here ya go:

Moral: Don't throw away those ham bones - you will be shocked at how far you can stretch 'em!!! :-)

The Almost-Free Lunch

2009-01-06T21:53:00.000-06:00

Free or nearly free food works very well for me! How about you? :) For more great Works for me Wednesday tips, head over to Rocks in my Dryer!!

I just got finished making lunch for tomorrow. And I am amazed at how little it cost me for what we'll be having. Just a little background.....I purchased a Honey Baked Ham recently with a half-price coupon (my other blog has details). We had that ham for New Year's and for several days afterwards. When we got toward the end, I took off what I could to freeze, then decided to boil the bone with some veggies to make a nice stock. I was absolutely AMAZED at how much meat I got off the bone after it was boiled - I thought I had cleaned it well!!!

Anyway....tonight I defatted all the nice ham stock and put up 3 freezer containers full (had to do some re-arranging but I fit them in!). Then I took the rest of the stock and started preparing tomorrow's lunch. Into my crock pot went:

8 c. ham stock (no real cost as most people just toss that bone)
1 lb. yellow split peas (.65 bulk)
3 diced carrots (.37)
1 stalk of celery (stalk was .48, so about .06)
A handfull of the ham I pulled off the bone I would have thrown away (considering that free, too)
Salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary (negligible)

So, I have this full pot of split pea soup that cost me about $1.08. This will easily be lunch for 2-3 days! I'm going to have my kids try it to see if they will eat it, and if so, this will become a regular menu item. I'm interested to see how it turns out with the ham stock and in the crock pot - never done it before. But I figure if it comes out terribly, I'm only out a buck! ;-) I suspect it will be just fine.

If you're wondering why this would be posted on my Leftovers blog, it's because the ham bone would be considered waste by many people. It would normally be tossed - in fact, I have tossed them in the past. But I thought I'd try boiling it and getting some nice soup starter for the winter. I ended up with enough meat and broth for a few more family meals, which I think is really cool! So, it's sort of like leftovers, and it's definitely a way to save money!!!

I will post a review of the soup experiment sometime after lunch tomorrow. DH is actually excited about it - he hasn't has split pea soup in years! :)

Chicken Tetrazzini

2009-01-04T19:21:00.000-06:00

This is another go-to recipe for leftover chicken that everyone enjoys!

Chicken Tetrazzini - adapted from Taste of Home

1/4 c. butter or margarine
1 can mushroom pieces and stems, drained
1/4 c. flour
2 c. chicken broth/stock
1/4 c. milk
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
1/4 t. pepper
3 T. apple juice (can be omitted if you don't have it)
2-3 c. chopped cooked chicken
8 oz. spaghetti, cooked and drained
1/2 c. parmesan cheese

Briefly saute mushrooms in margarine; stir in flour until blended. Pour in chicken broth and whisk until smooth. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in milk, seasonings, and apple juice. Fold in the chicken and spaghetti noodles. Pour into a 13 x 9 baking dish and sprinkle with the parmesan cheese.

Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 30 minutes.

Chicken Packets

2009-01-04T19:11:00.000-06:00

I got a great deal recently on chicken leg quarters, and when I cook them, I generally cook off the full 10 lbs in my crock pots, then shred the meat for a variety of meals, and make a batch of chicken noodle soup with the resulting chicken stock. Since this is almost like having leftover chicken, I'm going to post some of the recipes that I turn to when I need to use up bits of chicken that remain from meals. This week, I'm not using "leftover" chicken, but it's certainly a similar enough concept to post some of the recipes!

Chicken Packets are one of my kids' all-time favorite meals. I only make them when I get a good deal on crescent rolls, which isn't terribly often, but they really are quite yummy, and very versatile.

Chicken Packets

1-2 cups of chopped, cooked chicken
1 c. chicken-flavored white sauce (melt 1 T. butter in pan, stir in 1 T. flour. Gradually blend in 1 c. chicken stock. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens)
1/2 cup (or any amount) of leftover cooked veggies, like sauteed celery, corn, peas
3 oz. cream cheese (optional)
2 tubes of crescent rolls

Make your chicken-flavored white sauce. Once it has thickened, stir in the cream cheese (if using) until melted. Then stir in your chicken and any additional ingredients you need or want to use.

Unroll your crescents into 8 rectangles. Roll out gently, pressing the perforations together, to form a solid rectangle. Place 2-3 T. of chicken mixture on one half of the rectangle, then fold over the other half to cover. Press to seal around the edges and place on a lightly greased baking sheet.

Bake for 18-20 minutes at 350°. If you have some left, they will reheat well for lunch the next day, or my son says they are just as good cold if I put one in his lunchbox.

When you're all done, you end up with 8 of these beauties:

Meatloaf/Meatballs Recipe

2009-01-04T12:58:00.000-06:00

Here is the recipe that I use for making my aforementioned meat mixture which becomes either 3 meatloaves or a meatloaf or two and several meals' worth of meatballs. This is completely kid-approved here!!

Meat Mix

3 lbs. ground beef
1 1/3 c. quick oats
1 1/2 t. salt
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. onion powder
3 eggs
1 can tomato sauce
1/3 - 1/2 c. ketchup

Mix everything together (a messy task) and either shape into balls (I use a cookie scoop), press out flat onto a cookie sheet (you can then cook and cut into square meat"balls" - the quickest way to do it) or place in loaf pans. Bake at 375° for an hour for the meatloaves, 30-40 minutes for the cookie sheet full, or 20-25 minutes for regular meatballs. Be sure to test for doneness - there should be no pink remaining.

Now get cooking! :-)

Meatloaf

2009-01-03T22:27:00.000-06:00

Meatloaf is a staple around here. I find that a little funny, because growing up, I absolutely detested my mother's meatloaf! It was dry and full of nasty onion and just about the grossest think she made me eat, next to liver (which fortunately was a rarity!). Initially, my kids turned up their noses at meatloaf, until one day when I declared that I had made a "giant meatball" for dinner. Ever since, it's been one of their favorites. And it really was a true statement, considering that I make the same meat mixture for both meatloaves and meatballs!

Whenever I get a great deal on ground beef, I will often make my meat mixture and freeze batches of meatballs and cooked meatloaves. It makes for an easy supper on a busy night, as it reheats beautifully. I usually make my loaves large, to ensure at least a little bit of leftover loaf. As my son gets older, though (he's approaching 13), he is eating more and more and the child can put away meatloaf! So I don't have the leftovers I used to, but I usually still have at least some.

If you have a large portion of the loaf, a great thing to do is to cut it into cubes and use the cubes as meatballs in a spaghetti dinner. When I do this, nobody even notices the "meatballs" aren't round!

I know that a lot of folks will serve thin slices open-faced on bread and covered with brown gravy. That isn't a favorite here, but lots of people love it.

Another interesting thing I've done with meatloaf when I only had a little bit was that I chopped it up into little pieces and used it in place of browned ground beef in a lasagna. I wondered if it would work, and it was perfect! Nobody noticed a thing, and I saved myself the cost of a package of ground beef in that dinner. Even if you only have a little left, it's a great substitute for plain ground beef in your recipes.

And something else I've been known to do when I had a lot of it left was cubing it and mixing the cubes into a nice gravy and serving over noodles or cooked rice. You can mix in a bit of sour cream to make it more of a stroganoff dish if you're using noodles.

Hmmmm....now I wonder if I could use leftover meatloaf as the ground beef in my Pastitsio recipe. That just might be a little over the top.....

Thanks for all the comments I've been receiving! I will continue to try and post ideas for utilizing every bit of food that you have. Coming soon....bread crusts and heels and those last few buns in the package. :-)

Macaroni and Cheese

2009-01-01T10:51:00.000-06:00

If you're visiting my new blog from Gayle's Recipe Swap, WELCOME! I'm hoping to post lots of creative recipes to use up leftover food over the coming months. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll visit often! For more great recipes, check out the Grocery Cart Challenge!

I have a very unique recipe for leftover macaroni and cheese. Homemade mac and cheese (made with a Velveets-type cheese sauce) is the favorite dinner of my youngest and she requests it frequently. One night we had a large bowl of leftover mac and cheese and I really didn't feel like having leftovers. I had happened to plan a family favorite, Pastitsio, for that same week, 2 days later. The original recipe for Pastitsio calls for cooking macaroni, then draining and stirring in some butter and one egg to help it stick together.

Well, inspiration struck. If I needed macaroni that stuck together, and the recipe already called for cheese, why not TRY using the leftover mac and cheese that was waiting in the refrigerator, saving me a cooking step and utilizing something that needed to be eaten anyway??? In reviewing my fridge, I also found a half-jar of alfredo sauce that was left from a chicken-alfredo pizza from an earlier date. Again, I thought....the recipe calls for making a white sauce with parmesan cheese, so why not use up the rest of the alfredo instead??

The resulting dish was the most well-received Pastitsio I had ever made. It was completely consumed, and everyone in the family asked that I make it that way from then forward. So now, whenever I plan on making macaroni and cheese, it is always followed within a couple of days by Pastitsio, and frequently a chicken-alfredo pizza. It's a wonderful way to tie in 3 meals and use up every bit of that precious and expensive food!

So, in case you're still reading my rambles and interested in the recipe I'm now using for Pastitsio, here you go:

1/2 lb. ground beef
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 t. cinnamon
2-3 cups of leftover macaroni and cheese
1/2 - 1 c. alfredo sauce (or I will include how to make your own sauce at the end of this post)
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/2 - 1 c. cheddar cheese

Brown and drain ground beef. Stir in tomato sauce and cinnamon and set aside.
In greased casserole dish, place the macaroni and cheese. Top with the beef mixture.
Pour alfredo sauce on top, then sprinkle with the nutmeg.
Top with shredded cheddar cheese and bake, covered, at 375° for 45 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

Now, if you don't have leftover alfredo sauce, here is the original recipe for the sauce that you would use in place of my leftover alfredo:

Melt 1 T. margarine. Stir in 1 T. flour. Add 1 c. milk all at once and whisk until smooth. Cook until mixture begins to thicken and then remove from heat and stir in salt and pepper to taste and 1/3 c. parmesan cheese. Use as the alfredo sauce above.

I know this sounds like a rather strange recipe, but it's VERY good! This was one of the very first recipes my mother learned to make when we got our first microwave, and I have modified the recipe over the years and make it in the oven, as I don't like the results of the fully-microwaved version. My family enjoys the variety of tastes and it would be a great addition to your recipe collection. Leave me a comment if you try this!!

Mashed Potatoes

2008-12-30T18:53:00.001-06:00

With my dinner tonight, I made mashed potatoes. Instead of butter, I used a couple of ounces of cream cheese that were left from alfredo sauce I made yesterday, so they were especially creamy. There aren't many of them left as my kids LOVED them, but here are some things that could be done with leftover mashed potatoes:

Mashed potato burritos (these are soooooooooo good!!!) - To make them, warm a flour tortilla (to make it more flexible), then place mashed potatoes slightly to the side of the center. Top with shredded cheddar (or your favorite) cheese, then fold up burrito-style. Place burritos one or two at a time in a skillet sprayed with vegetable oil spray (or do more on a large griddle) and cook over medium heat until slightly browned on both sides. This is a unique and FUN side dish, or a nice meatless entree.

Potato soup - The simplest way to do this is just add more milk to your existing potatoes, adding a little garlic and nutmeg, or your preferred seasonings. Toss in some pureed cooked carrots for color and nutrition, and/or some shredded cheese. Heat in saucepan until cheese is melted and soup is warm. This is great with a sandwich on a chilly day.

Potato bread - This is a favorite use of leftover mashed potatoes! If you have a bread machine, it's super-easy, and the bread is spectacular. In fact, I'm very likely to make some potato rolls for our dinner tomorrow. I'm sure there are lots of recipes online for potato bread, or if you would like my easy bread machine recipe, just let me know! It only takes about a half-cup for wonderful bread.

Shepherd's pie - If you have meat and gravy (another great leftover item), you can toss in some vegetables (even the frozen mixed ones) and place this mixture in a casserole dish. Top with the leftover mashed potatoes (using a pastry bag or decorator makes it more attractive) and bake uncovered until the mixture is hot and the potatoes nicely browned.

Potato pancakes - The amount of potatoes will affect the amount of other ingredients, but make a nice batter with an egg (or two if you have a lot) and some flour (start with 1/3 to 1/2 cup), some shredded cheese and crumbled bacon if you like, and fry on a hot griddle. These would be amazing topped with some leftover gravy or a drizzle of butter or some sour cream.

Hopefully this will give you some great ideas for utilizing your remaining mashed potatoes. You can plan an entire meal around this otherwise "leftover junk." If you have other ideas for using the potatoes, please leave me a comment - I'm always looking for new creative ideas!!!

Welcome to my new blog!

2008-12-30T16:16:00.000-06:00

Hello to anyone who happens to be stopping by to visit! The idea for this blog was born today when I was contemplating the various ways that I use up my leftovers. I'm always offering suggestions to my friends on how they can turn boring leftovers into new and interesting meals, so I thought I would start a blog to detail my kitchen adventures. I don't consider what's left from dinner "leftovers" - I look at it as the template for a new meal.

I know that many people are trying to stretch their dollars in the current economy, and not wasting food will certainly help to save on the monthly grocery bill. I hope that my tips and suggestions are able to help you stretch your food just a little further, while still pleasing the picky eaters (and often leftover-hatin' hubbies) in your home.

This is just the introduction, but I hope to post frequently with ideas, so please check back soon and often! For now, enjoy the beginning of 2009!!!

Janelle