look at all this food / it's only gonna go to waste
This weekend I had a rare weekend to myself with no major plans. Aside from various standard house chores, some minor repair projects, some closet cleanout, and some time out of the house, I also engaged in a weekend-long session of my own version of solo Iron Chef: Leftovers. This is where I clean out the fridge and pantry of ingredients that have been in there too long, and (after making sure they aren't spoiled) re-making them into delicious things that people (or at least I) will want to eat, ideally using only other things that I already have in the house.
I used most of a container of blueberry cream cheese and made cream cheese muffins (minus the sugar on top, plus some chocolate chips). These went well buttered with the homemade applesauce that had been sitting around for a while and the lid was firmly glued in place, until I unstuck it and cleaned it up. Hopefully I can resist eating these too quickly, because they are really tasty.
I used leftover pineapple tidbits and juice, half a bag of old lemons, and a small bit of leftover mint simple syrup to make pineapple lemonade. It goes really nicely over ice or with some vodka.
I had a small amount of liver pâté (sealed), so I hard-boiled up some eggs and made a small batch of pâté deviled eggs. They were gone within a day, so everybody will just have to take my word on how delish they were.
I used the last few slices of leftover ham that had been frozen for a while, thawed, fried and chopped it up, mixed with another hard-boiled egg, the last of an almost empty contain of dijon mustard and a few more things, and made ham salad for a couple sandwiches, which will also be my lunch tomorrow.
I used up a travel container of oatmeal, the rest of the crisp rice cereal, the last quarter of a container of long-since-crystallized honey, the last few scoops of a container of peanut butter, the last of a bottle of chocolate syrup, and several more things to make homemade granola bars, which will hopefully feed the kids for snacks this week, and might be some breakfast for me.
And then lastly, I made up another experimental batch of ramen, using up the beef broth that I'd simmered from our Meat & Potatoes leftovers, and a whole bunch of other tasty stuff. Not as many people showed up for dinner as I was expecting, so I have a lot of leftovers there. This might be dinner tomorrow as well, or else a whole lot of lunches for me. This time I got a really lovely broth (and excellent eggs, as usual). The pork, although tasty, was not nearly as soft texturally as I want. Last time it had a good texture with a boring taste, so hopefully next time I can get the right combination of both attempts. I also used udon noodles (closest I could get from the local small geagle), which I think were an improvement over cheap packaged ramen noodles.
The only things I had to acquire were more ingredients for the ramen (eggs, onions, mushrooms, noodles). Now, I just have to make sure the new foods get eaten...
I used most of a container of blueberry cream cheese and made cream cheese muffins (minus the sugar on top, plus some chocolate chips). These went well buttered with the homemade applesauce that had been sitting around for a while and the lid was firmly glued in place, until I unstuck it and cleaned it up. Hopefully I can resist eating these too quickly, because they are really tasty.
I used leftover pineapple tidbits and juice, half a bag of old lemons, and a small bit of leftover mint simple syrup to make pineapple lemonade. It goes really nicely over ice or with some vodka.
I had a small amount of liver pâté (sealed), so I hard-boiled up some eggs and made a small batch of pâté deviled eggs. They were gone within a day, so everybody will just have to take my word on how delish they were.
I used the last few slices of leftover ham that had been frozen for a while, thawed, fried and chopped it up, mixed with another hard-boiled egg, the last of an almost empty contain of dijon mustard and a few more things, and made ham salad for a couple sandwiches, which will also be my lunch tomorrow.
I used up a travel container of oatmeal, the rest of the crisp rice cereal, the last quarter of a container of long-since-crystallized honey, the last few scoops of a container of peanut butter, the last of a bottle of chocolate syrup, and several more things to make homemade granola bars, which will hopefully feed the kids for snacks this week, and might be some breakfast for me.
And then lastly, I made up another experimental batch of ramen, using up the beef broth that I'd simmered from our Meat & Potatoes leftovers, and a whole bunch of other tasty stuff. Not as many people showed up for dinner as I was expecting, so I have a lot of leftovers there. This might be dinner tomorrow as well, or else a whole lot of lunches for me. This time I got a really lovely broth (and excellent eggs, as usual). The pork, although tasty, was not nearly as soft texturally as I want. Last time it had a good texture with a boring taste, so hopefully next time I can get the right combination of both attempts. I also used udon noodles (closest I could get from the local small geagle), which I think were an improvement over cheap packaged ramen noodles.
The only things I had to acquire were more ingredients for the ramen (eggs, onions, mushrooms, noodles). Now, I just have to make sure the new foods get eaten...