Muffins Make Another Appearance

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

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

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.

Exciting News!

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

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

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"

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!!

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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

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.....

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!!