You've managed to hit upon a very niche subject that I'm weirdly passionate about, so apologies in advance for the ensuing info dump...
- pasta bake makes frequent appearances in our house too. Pizza, much easier to pull off if you've got a food processor or KitchenAid to knead the dough, is another good leftover user upper, as is soup. Enchilada casserole is another one; I've used leftover diced veggies, leftover (drained) bean soup, and leftover macaroni and cheese in it. Enchilada sauce is really easy to make and covers a lot of flavor differences, and corn tortillas disappear far less rapidly than wheat ones in my house but taste good in quesadillas or casserole.
-If you're as crazy as we are, you can save all the bones from your meals (chicken, beef, pork, whatever), and veggie peelings (carrot peels, celery ends and leaves, onion ends) in a bag in the freezer, then toss them in the crockpot with water and a tablespoon of vinegar on low for a day or two to make broth. We literally just save the bones after supper: you don't have to debone anything ahead of time. We pressure can ours, but you can also freeze it or put it in a big gallon jar in the fridge. It makes a good base for soup obviously, but I've also used it to make sauces. I've even gone half broth half milk for macaroni and cheese sauce (better tasting than just milk, in my opinion).
-you can re-wash and reuse plastic Ziploc (and the HEB equivalent) baggies. Turn them inside out and wash and dry them that way.
-i usually keep some bulk staples in the house and meal plan based off of those (plus whatever else we picked up on sale) rather than meal planning and then shopping. We buy a huge 50 lb sack of beans and another of rice from Sam's Club once a year or so (I keep it in food safe buckets we got for free by asking at the grocery store bakery), we buy flour 25 lb at a time (I bake a lot of bread, pizza, and muffins, and we make pancakes for breakfast a lot), and we buy cheese and butter in ridiculous bulk amounts from Sam's and keep most of it in our freezer. Food is generally cheaper per ounce in bulk, and you have to shop far less often. I keep smaller containers in my kitchen (mostly gallon pickle jars) and "shop" in my pantry to refill them.
-Going off the last point, a chest freezer saves you a lot of money in the long run. We bought ours used on FB marketplace.
-The Tightwad Gazette is an older book (written in the 1990s) so a lot of the info in it is outdated, but a lot of the strategies she uses for food management still work. Highly, HIGHLY recommend checking it out.
I always feel like a genius when I can use leftovers or weird scraps and come out with dinner! One good hack is to just start delaying your grocery trip by a day or two. There’s almost always enough food in the house, it may just not be the kind you prefer to eat first. We probably use soup and stir fry most frequently, but I also can sympathize with the leftover dilemma because we didn’t bring our microwave when we moved and I don’t want to buy one or sacrifice counter space. Most things reheat well enough in a skillet though 🤷♀️ or I’ll toss it in the oven on a sheet pan. I use parchment to save on dishes — it’s one of the small concessions I will pay for to make cooking at home easier so I’m not constantly washing bulky sheet pans (we use them almost every night for something).
My current problem is more that everyone eats so much that we rarely have leftovers at all. Sigh.
I was listening to a podcast with a lady named Cassy Joy Garcia, and while her recipes are too fussy/not budget friendly, I really like the concept. She basically picks 1 meat, 1 starch and 1 veggie/veggie mix to prep that can be used in three different meals. For example, you could roast a chicken, mash a bunch of potatoes and roast some broccoli. First night is just roast chicken and potatoes with broccoli, maybe the second night is a sort of chicken pot pie situation with a mashed potato topping, and the third night is chicken stir fry with the broccoli and some other veg and you make rice. I don’t know if that’s a great example, but the idea of preparing flexible ingredients in bulk and not having to start from scratch every night is so helpful when you can remember to do it. I never regret having things like plain chicken or baked potatoes on hand bc there’s a million ways to use them.
I enjoyed this piece but no matter how much I cook, my husband leaves exactly enough leftovers for his lunch the next day and no more 🤣 I could cook 6 servings or 2 and we always have the same amount of leftovers. Am I the only one with this problem???
I’m also leftover-hesitant, especially at home since we don’t have a microwave so there’s always something little weird about them. I’m currently avoiding a leftover piece of breakfast casserole that I need to figure out how to reheat to dry it out a little bit, there are bell peppers in it so it’s kinda soggy… wondering if I broke it down and pan fried it if I could make some kind of skillet hash? Idk. These are the questions 😂
Read the whole thing - resonated a lot with being a good steward, being resourceful, being grateful, being simple, and teaching good values to the kids by modeling all of it.
We recently moved from living 2 minutes from 5 grocery stores to living about 20 minutes from a grocery store (and restaurants), and it is a mentality game changer for meal prep!
But also, that 4 PM at the store with littles resonates. 👊🏼
At 5 PM, while 8 months pregnant in a hot hot house bc I refuse to turn the air conditioning back on as a sign to fall weather to STAY for more than a day, I was prepping creamy ranch chicken with our oldest in mind (ranch lover) and said oldest could not possibly function enough to help her brother get “a people” to play with in his play-doh…thus the argument of “are you helping or hindering our family peace” ensued until I was the one hindering bc GET THE TOY AND BE HELPFUL. I’M SUFFERING HERE.
The messiness of emotions that surround planning, prepping, and pleasing a table of people is wild. It requires so much creativity, grace, and patience.
“Four o’clock grocery store trips now look like the sixteen month old shrieking and climbing out of the cart while the three year old wails about the things I won’t buy her. There are lots of weighted glances from strangers, and lots of huffing and fluffing on my part.”
Feeding a family is so much harder than I anticipated, I love simple ideas like this pasta bake.
I would love advice for how not to get dinner on the table and feel totally frazzled! We get fed but I usually feel stressed which is not the atmosphere we are going for!
You've managed to hit upon a very niche subject that I'm weirdly passionate about, so apologies in advance for the ensuing info dump...
- pasta bake makes frequent appearances in our house too. Pizza, much easier to pull off if you've got a food processor or KitchenAid to knead the dough, is another good leftover user upper, as is soup. Enchilada casserole is another one; I've used leftover diced veggies, leftover (drained) bean soup, and leftover macaroni and cheese in it. Enchilada sauce is really easy to make and covers a lot of flavor differences, and corn tortillas disappear far less rapidly than wheat ones in my house but taste good in quesadillas or casserole.
-If you're as crazy as we are, you can save all the bones from your meals (chicken, beef, pork, whatever), and veggie peelings (carrot peels, celery ends and leaves, onion ends) in a bag in the freezer, then toss them in the crockpot with water and a tablespoon of vinegar on low for a day or two to make broth. We literally just save the bones after supper: you don't have to debone anything ahead of time. We pressure can ours, but you can also freeze it or put it in a big gallon jar in the fridge. It makes a good base for soup obviously, but I've also used it to make sauces. I've even gone half broth half milk for macaroni and cheese sauce (better tasting than just milk, in my opinion).
-you can re-wash and reuse plastic Ziploc (and the HEB equivalent) baggies. Turn them inside out and wash and dry them that way.
-i usually keep some bulk staples in the house and meal plan based off of those (plus whatever else we picked up on sale) rather than meal planning and then shopping. We buy a huge 50 lb sack of beans and another of rice from Sam's Club once a year or so (I keep it in food safe buckets we got for free by asking at the grocery store bakery), we buy flour 25 lb at a time (I bake a lot of bread, pizza, and muffins, and we make pancakes for breakfast a lot), and we buy cheese and butter in ridiculous bulk amounts from Sam's and keep most of it in our freezer. Food is generally cheaper per ounce in bulk, and you have to shop far less often. I keep smaller containers in my kitchen (mostly gallon pickle jars) and "shop" in my pantry to refill them.
-Going off the last point, a chest freezer saves you a lot of money in the long run. We bought ours used on FB marketplace.
-The Tightwad Gazette is an older book (written in the 1990s) so a lot of the info in it is outdated, but a lot of the strategies she uses for food management still work. Highly, HIGHLY recommend checking it out.
Oh, and you can use leftover gravy in mac and cheese sauce as well, or use it instead of cream of whatever soup in a recipe.
I always feel like a genius when I can use leftovers or weird scraps and come out with dinner! One good hack is to just start delaying your grocery trip by a day or two. There’s almost always enough food in the house, it may just not be the kind you prefer to eat first. We probably use soup and stir fry most frequently, but I also can sympathize with the leftover dilemma because we didn’t bring our microwave when we moved and I don’t want to buy one or sacrifice counter space. Most things reheat well enough in a skillet though 🤷♀️ or I’ll toss it in the oven on a sheet pan. I use parchment to save on dishes — it’s one of the small concessions I will pay for to make cooking at home easier so I’m not constantly washing bulky sheet pans (we use them almost every night for something).
My current problem is more that everyone eats so much that we rarely have leftovers at all. Sigh.
I was listening to a podcast with a lady named Cassy Joy Garcia, and while her recipes are too fussy/not budget friendly, I really like the concept. She basically picks 1 meat, 1 starch and 1 veggie/veggie mix to prep that can be used in three different meals. For example, you could roast a chicken, mash a bunch of potatoes and roast some broccoli. First night is just roast chicken and potatoes with broccoli, maybe the second night is a sort of chicken pot pie situation with a mashed potato topping, and the third night is chicken stir fry with the broccoli and some other veg and you make rice. I don’t know if that’s a great example, but the idea of preparing flexible ingredients in bulk and not having to start from scratch every night is so helpful when you can remember to do it. I never regret having things like plain chicken or baked potatoes on hand bc there’s a million ways to use them.
I enjoyed this piece but no matter how much I cook, my husband leaves exactly enough leftovers for his lunch the next day and no more 🤣 I could cook 6 servings or 2 and we always have the same amount of leftovers. Am I the only one with this problem???
(I don’t like leftovers for lunch so this is not a complaint just an amusing observation )
I’m also leftover-hesitant, especially at home since we don’t have a microwave so there’s always something little weird about them. I’m currently avoiding a leftover piece of breakfast casserole that I need to figure out how to reheat to dry it out a little bit, there are bell peppers in it so it’s kinda soggy… wondering if I broke it down and pan fried it if I could make some kind of skillet hash? Idk. These are the questions 😂
Chop it up, add more eggs, make it into a scramble.
This is hilarious 😂
Yes! I actually LOVE leftovers and don't like sandwiches for lunch, so it's a real disappointment haha.
Read the whole thing - resonated a lot with being a good steward, being resourceful, being grateful, being simple, and teaching good values to the kids by modeling all of it.
We recently moved from living 2 minutes from 5 grocery stores to living about 20 minutes from a grocery store (and restaurants), and it is a mentality game changer for meal prep!
But also, that 4 PM at the store with littles resonates. 👊🏼
At 5 PM, while 8 months pregnant in a hot hot house bc I refuse to turn the air conditioning back on as a sign to fall weather to STAY for more than a day, I was prepping creamy ranch chicken with our oldest in mind (ranch lover) and said oldest could not possibly function enough to help her brother get “a people” to play with in his play-doh…thus the argument of “are you helping or hindering our family peace” ensued until I was the one hindering bc GET THE TOY AND BE HELPFUL. I’M SUFFERING HERE.
The messiness of emotions that surround planning, prepping, and pleasing a table of people is wild. It requires so much creativity, grace, and patience.
Love your writing!
“Four o’clock grocery store trips now look like the sixteen month old shrieking and climbing out of the cart while the three year old wails about the things I won’t buy her. There are lots of weighted glances from strangers, and lots of huffing and fluffing on my part.”
I just wrote about you ☺️
https://deerambeau.substack.com/p/the-aisles-of-man
Feeding a family is so much harder than I anticipated, I love simple ideas like this pasta bake.
I would love advice for how not to get dinner on the table and feel totally frazzled! We get fed but I usually feel stressed which is not the atmosphere we are going for!