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metaphortunate: Foods that make good leftovers. If you want to play too, give me a topic here.
Soups make awesome leftovers, because there's no texture to destroy by freezing. The exception being noodle soups, which get all soggy and gross if you freeze them or even refrigerate them overnight. I like to make huge batches of soups, then freeze them in sandwich bags. If you lay the bags flat while they freeze, they make nice stackable sheets of soup that are easy to wedge into small open spots in the freezer.
I really like leftover curry. Anything, really, with complicated spices tends to get better for leaving overnight in the fridge for the flavors to blend. Biryani makes awesome leftovers for just that reason. Also in this category: chili, gumbo, jambalaya, pulled pork or really most barbecues. Be careful about freezing anything with meat in it: the freeze-thaw cycle will make any solid pieces of meat all mushy and gross, but anything that's been cooked until it's falling apart or that's made of ground meat will freeze just fine.
I really love cooked greens and think they hold up well to a couple days in the fridge, but they don't freeze well in my experience. Saag prepared the Indian way, collards or kale cooked southern style, spinach or other tender greens simply sauteed, are all great when reheated.
Lentils, baked beans, ful, and rice & beans all save well in either the fridge or the freezer.
Quiche, souffles, and frittatas are also yummy the next day, as are, suprisingly enough, pancakes. Toasted leftover pancakes make great substrates for breakfast sandwiches!
Stuffed pastries freeze well too: samosas, empanadas, pasteles (I still haven't mastered this recipe myself, but my grandmother used to make epic batches of them and freeze them for up to six months; incidentally if anyone local knows how to make them or wants to try a learn-from-the-internet experiment please let me know!) Honestly, if I'm going to the effort of making samosas or empanadas, psychologically I've already written the day off as doing nothing but cooking, so I might as well make a gazillion to freeze. I'll also note that I use masa for empanadas; that's how my grandmother taught me to make them but this confuses people familiar with Central American cooking, because I guess the standard thing is to use wheat flour? I have no idea how a wheat flour empanada would hold up to freezing. Presumably it would work?
I don't like how rice dries out in the refrigerator overnight, but it's super easy to transform leftover rice into something delicious: okayu, kheer, fried rice, rice burgers, or cheater's risotto, depending on what kind of rice you have left.
I checked Google for what the collective wisdom of the internet suggests, and found a number of places recommending cooking a big chunk of meat--say a pot roast, ham, or whole chicken--and eating the remains for several days. I'm not a huge fan of this. I can taste when meat is old, and it tastes kind of yucky to me. That said, leftovers from a large slab of meat can be transformed easily: into stew, chili, curry, nihari, pulled pork, soup, chicken salad, casserole, you get the idea. Anything that uses enough seasoning that you can't taste the fact that the meat is old.
Please do comment with your favorite things to freeze for later, or ways to transform leftovers into something new and tasty!
comments were made at DreamWidth. You can comment there using OpenID.
metaphortunate: Foods that make good leftovers. If you want to play too, give me a topic here.
Soups make awesome leftovers, because there's no texture to destroy by freezing. The exception being noodle soups, which get all soggy and gross if you freeze them or even refrigerate them overnight. I like to make huge batches of soups, then freeze them in sandwich bags. If you lay the bags flat while they freeze, they make nice stackable sheets of soup that are easy to wedge into small open spots in the freezer.
I really like leftover curry. Anything, really, with complicated spices tends to get better for leaving overnight in the fridge for the flavors to blend. Biryani makes awesome leftovers for just that reason. Also in this category: chili, gumbo, jambalaya, pulled pork or really most barbecues. Be careful about freezing anything with meat in it: the freeze-thaw cycle will make any solid pieces of meat all mushy and gross, but anything that's been cooked until it's falling apart or that's made of ground meat will freeze just fine.
I really love cooked greens and think they hold up well to a couple days in the fridge, but they don't freeze well in my experience. Saag prepared the Indian way, collards or kale cooked southern style, spinach or other tender greens simply sauteed, are all great when reheated.
Lentils, baked beans, ful, and rice & beans all save well in either the fridge or the freezer.
Quiche, souffles, and frittatas are also yummy the next day, as are, suprisingly enough, pancakes. Toasted leftover pancakes make great substrates for breakfast sandwiches!
Stuffed pastries freeze well too: samosas, empanadas, pasteles (I still haven't mastered this recipe myself, but my grandmother used to make epic batches of them and freeze them for up to six months; incidentally if anyone local knows how to make them or wants to try a learn-from-the-internet experiment please let me know!) Honestly, if I'm going to the effort of making samosas or empanadas, psychologically I've already written the day off as doing nothing but cooking, so I might as well make a gazillion to freeze. I'll also note that I use masa for empanadas; that's how my grandmother taught me to make them but this confuses people familiar with Central American cooking, because I guess the standard thing is to use wheat flour? I have no idea how a wheat flour empanada would hold up to freezing. Presumably it would work?
I don't like how rice dries out in the refrigerator overnight, but it's super easy to transform leftover rice into something delicious: okayu, kheer, fried rice, rice burgers, or cheater's risotto, depending on what kind of rice you have left.
I checked Google for what the collective wisdom of the internet suggests, and found a number of places recommending cooking a big chunk of meat--say a pot roast, ham, or whole chicken--and eating the remains for several days. I'm not a huge fan of this. I can taste when meat is old, and it tastes kind of yucky to me. That said, leftovers from a large slab of meat can be transformed easily: into stew, chili, curry, nihari, pulled pork, soup, chicken salad, casserole, you get the idea. Anything that uses enough seasoning that you can't taste the fact that the meat is old.
Please do comment with your favorite things to freeze for later, or ways to transform leftovers into something new and tasty!
comments were made at DreamWidth. You can comment there using OpenID.