Topic: So, what do you do with your left overs?

[macmac]

Ok...so what do you do with a over cooked sourdough bread???...almost burned... >:(
While I have been reading all messages....I was only going to spend 5 minutes ::)...and waiting for bread to bake..my bloody 5 minutes turned to a hour :o.
Now I have truly properly crusty bread and I can forget using breadknife..more like sircular saw job >:( >:( >:(

;D ;D ;D :(

[Jeannine]

Use it as a doorstop..my first attempt at Russian rye bread served that purpose for ages XX Jeannine

[PurpleHeather]

There was a fashion once where bread was over cooked and clear varnished, then used as an ornament.  Bakers sometimes use them to decorate their windows overnight when all the fresh food was sold.

I have no idea if it can be redeemed by soaking it in water and then squeezing out to make a bread pudding or if it will soften enough to slice up and make into a bread and butter pudding.

Using as a blunt instrument  ???

I can imagine the headlines. 'Woman wards off intruder with Loaf'

Door stop is probably the best idea.

[artichoke]

I am about to make meat balls with the frozen leftovers of a hog roast. If I had some burnt bread, I would soak it in water to soften it, squeeze out the liquid while removing the most burnt bits, and squish the rest into the meat and onion mixture plus an egg.

As it is, I have a bag in the freezer into which I put crusts and dried bits of bread, and do the same with them - and a bag of homemade breadcrumbs ready for coating meat or fish, or topping bakes.

I respect Jeannine's position, but I was a war baby and I cannot throw food away. I also enjoy, as others say, making something tasty out of unpromising ingredients.

[Jeannine]

I was a war baby too LOL XX Jeannine

[goodlife]

"If I had some burnt bread, I would soak it in water to soften it"
Of all the water in the world...it would not do..we are talking proper rocks now.. :o.. I'll make rockery....!!! ;D
I can't even throw it away...might kill some body..would not do that even to my pigeons :-\
Anyway, new batch is nicely bubling...yep, russian style ryebread...it is heavy and tuff bread anyway without burning/ drying it...
I like it dried, but it needs slicing first, dunked into home made potato soup..yum,yum

[Mortality]

I don't waste food were possible, I was another told to eat her food cos somewhere kids are starving and was made to eat all my dinner no matter how long it took or how cold the food got. Then there was the 'If you don't eat it all today you will get it for breakfast' threat.

I save bread crusts to make breadcrumbs.
When I make, spag bogs, chillies and curries, there is nearly always some left over, I freeze it and use it at a later date. I made a huge vegetable curry not long ago, added more veg and chicken to it,  it made 4 meals for me.
As a student I made all sorts of weird and wonderful food  :P my favourite and I still occasionally make it is corned beef spaghetti bolognase, very tasty.

[Jayb]

I like left over food  ;D (not the stuff scrapped from my plate) If I have a roast and there is enough left, I love having it next day either cold with salad or jacket potato etc or reheated in the microwave with left over veggies and gravy  :o

I often cook more than I need so I can put a portion or two in the freezer, its nice not to have to cook sometimes. I don't buy ready made meals as I don't much like them. When I make a curry or caserole I always seem to cook enough for the county so its lucky I enjoy having it on another day! I eat lots of soup and often make up a big batch to freeze in individual portions. I've usually got about 5 or 6 sorts to choose from in the freezer, I often have soup for lunch tho so its good to have a bit of choice.

I don't freeze many veg (peas mainly, a few sweetcorn, some peppers and chillies) as I much prefer eating them fresh from the plot. and if I have to wait 10 months to eat them again, I think they just taste all the nicer.

I also usually scrape any suitable food scrapes either into the dogs bowl or the chickens!

[landimad]

Bubble and squeak with warmed up left over beef in gravy.
Goes down a treat with the family.

[PurpleHeather]

I always think those tiny joints they sell are too small to make a proper roast and wonder if, for people who do not dislike re-warmed meat and gravy it is not just as good to buy a couple of slices of roast beef from the deli, per person. Heat it up with a good gravy and serve it with freshly roasted spuds and yorshire pud Or even Aunt Bessies....

I know a lot of pubs and even some restaurants roast their meat ahead of time allow it to go cold to make slicing easier and and more economical. Then re-heat it. Just a matter of getting the timing right.

We seem to be in a world full of instant foods. Just how many would notice the difference?

I know there will be several who will reply to this and say they would and no doubt they will shout loudest but most people, I suggest, would not have a clue in a taste test.

[Jeannine]

 :-X

[PurpleHeather]

:-X

AHHHHH but you amit to liking tinned corned beef re-cooked..........

[Jeannine]

but the tin is opened for that purpose and I only use 1/3rd of a tin, I don't eat any leftovers from the mash and I don't eat the corn beef either..I actually don't like it but it is good in this reipe in very small amounts.Oh and  for my tastes there is a huge massive difference beteween deli roast beef which is old and full of preservatives  and fresh roast beef. I don't buy the deli stuff for anything. I will eat my own home cooked roast beef cold   in a sandwich  on the day after itis cooked only but not re heatsed  and not after the second day, I don't eat any deli meats.Don't eat shop bought pizza either.Don't eat cooked prawns but will buy live ones, same with lobster , oysters , mussells and and clams.


BUT i don't waste anything.
xx  Jeannine

[Hyacinth]

Having been served Aunt Bessies 'yorkshire puddings' a couple of times, I'd defy anyone to take a blindfold taste test and correctly identify what they're chewing;  for me, there's no taste there at all.

I sometimes buy a little beef joint. Make wonderful pot roasts. Also agree that there's an unmistakeable difference in taste+texture between deli cooked beef and the Real Thing.

[Spudbash]

I think cooking fresh ingredients from scratch works better for smaller households.

For myself, I'm a huge fan of leftovers. When my two strapping lads are home from uni, I have a household of five to feed and it makes sense to create large batches of food, some of which will then be used - with due respect for food hygiene and our tastebuds - in another recipe the following day.

Yesterday's roast duck is today's stir-fry, and the carcase is used to make stock or soup.

Crusts of bread are turned into puddings or are used to coat fishcakes or perhaps incorporated into stuffings.

If I've had the oven on, I may make a double batch of pudding or cake, some to be served immediately and some to be devoured by the giant mice who descend on the kitchen at 11 pm. It makes sense to cater simply for the range of appetites in your household.

A shoulder of pork is an invitation to get creative and freeze some slow-cooked meat, to add to a Chinese meal another day: dishes such as this can turn a hastily-prepared dinner into something closer to a banquet - or certainly, more of a treat than the vegetable stir-fry I might otherwise have done. I have saved a fortune on meat by cooking large, economical cuts with a judicious eye for future meals, not to mention cutting down on shopping trips and food packaging waste.

As a food writer, I really value leftovers because the ingredients I made them from were fresh and of good quality. It's a pity, as someone else has said, that it's hard to reproduce the tastiest leftover meals, and I can add that it's even harder to write recipes for them. Having said that, Rose Prince has a very laudable book on just this subject: The New English Kitchen.

[Duke Ellington]

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/save_time_and_money

Duke :)~ not that any of you need it but something to look at during your coffee break

[lewic]

I was another told to eat her food cos somewhere kids are starving and was made to eat all my dinner no matter how long it took or how cold the food got. Then there was the 'If you don't eat it all today you will get it for breakfast' threat.

Me too! Remember mealtimes being a battleground as my parents and dinner ladies at school tried to force me to eat horrid 1970s food. Its had the opposite effect on me though - if I dont like something and it can't be turned into something tasty then it goes in the bin/compost.

[PurpleHeather]

Kids during the 1970s were spoilt. You should have had the school dinners we had in the 1950s.

Mouldy Mouldy custard
Snot and bogey pie
Dead dog's giblets
Squashed cat's eye

Red blood sandwiches
Spread on thick
All washed down
With a cup of cold sick.

That was what we used to chant about them.

[Mrs Gumboot]

That sounds like the halloween menu my mum put on in her school kitchen  :P

Jeannine - if it wasn't so very rude I think we'd all be inviting ourselves round for dinner! Reading through your posts is making me hungry despite dinner & pudding. Sounds like you have a very productive and creative kitchen  ;D

Personally I can't think of anything better than a lovely chicken roast dinner on a sunday with leftover mash & veg covered with cheese (I now deliberately cook more although I know that's not the idea!) and reheated for monday lunch at work, with cold sliced chicken and chips for tea. Mmmmm.

Can't manage to only cook for two. Always end up with approx half a portion left over of whatever it is. Happily this just gives me some more interesting lunch to take to work the next day. Have no problem with reheating stuff, although we almost never eat ready meals. Far too much salt, fat and unnatural preservatives in them.

As for best before dates - these have lead to the highest number of kitchen skirmishes in our house. My rule is if it's not green/furry/smells a bit wierd then it's almost certainly fine  ;D

[PurpleHeather]

Mrs Gumboot if you are going to Jeannine for Sunday Lunch, you better set off on Friday night and take Monday off work to get back. Although I am sure it will be well worth the journey.

I think Tim was right when he said that the flavours deepen when reheated or left to go cold and then reused. It is all a matter of personal taste. Like hanging meat for ages and letting game and cheeses get maggoty before using them, not for me.  Nor the coffee which has to pass through goats and I do not fancy authentic birds nest soup either.

However,  Some of the people who do go to extremes for some of these so called delicacies are often the ones who will look down at budget strained mother making a single portion of left over roast beef into a meat and potato pie to feed six.

The hot spicy curry, or so I once  read, was invented to camouflage the taste of the rotting meat. 

Indian food is certainly popular in Britain and versions of curries have been found in Medieval recipes, so it has been round at least as long as the spud (chips) which we claim as part of a national dish. 

In fact our English Breakfast is often composed of
Californian orange juice
Danish Bacon
Irish sausages
Italian tomato sauce in the beans
Canadian bread wheat
Indian Tea or Coffee from Brazil.

I always feel slightly embarrassed when one of those several pages long menus from the local take away arrives through the letter box and see that tiny selection of English dishes.  I never get a take away, I just look through for ideas of what I can 'make for a change'.