Elizabeth David the celebrated food writer wrote that a good cook does not have leftovers. I disagree completely! Leftovers are not a sign of failure. Let me explain why I think her assertion is incorrect...
If you are catering for a family, or a number of guests, portion control can be difficult. Maybe one extra person will turn up, or maybe someone else will be particularly hungry. It is important to have enough for everyone at the table - and therefore sometimes there will be leftovers.
If your oven is on, it is a good idea to cook as much as you can, to get maximum benefit from the energy you are paying for - so that may mean cooking food for a later meal.
So yes, we have leftovers in the fridge. We each ate a spud, with butter, on Thursday night, and we will be eating up salads and cold meats for a day or two. [I may add rice or bread as our carbs.] And these meals are produced with minimal energy.
As much as I can, I double up on cooking to get Planned Leftovers.
If I'm boiling spuds, I'll keep a few back from the mash or whatever, and they get sautéed with Saturday's breakfast, or diced into a soul or salad. An extra cooked sausage or two makes a great sausage sandwich, or gets sliced and folded into pasta. Less waste, money saved, we all benefit.
What is your favourite orts meal, made from leftovers?
Oh how I envy you being able to eat carbs. Being type 2 diabetic they are forbidden to me along with cheese (fat) and anything sweet or with salt. I’m so fed up with soup and longing for salads but it’s just so cold still. Sandra.
ReplyDeleteBeing on such a restricted diet must be difficult.
DeleteSandra-I think you should speak to your diabetic nurse about the carb restrictions. We have managed my husband’s Type 2 diabetes well for 25 years and he eats slow release carbs as part of a healthy diet.
DeleteI totally agree about cooking orts. Our favourite meals are often made of veggies and leftover spuds, rice, pasta with some fresh protein added. When our daughter was a small child it was known as wait and see pie. Catriona
DeleteMy grandmother made Wait and See pie too, also Snake and Pygmy pudding
DeleteWe had granny's bones, which was scraggy lamb stew
DeleteWhen we were children, Mum would usually full up the oven while she was cooking, meat dishes along with cakes and pies. Daughter and I use the saying, love your leftovers. She often cooks more so that her and her daughter can take meals to work the next day to pop in the microwave. We are in her route to work so sometimes she drops off left overs to us. We love bubble and squeak or any meat or veg can go in pies or pasties or like you, chopped up in a pasta dish. We used to have Springer spaniels who would eat anything :-) the little dog we have now is more fussy but any meat left over gets devoured, a rare event now.
ReplyDeleteMicrowave ovens are very popular at work these days
DeleteIt depends what we are having, but certainly, if making soup, I make enough for a few meals (last night 's VERY green and slightly bitter Nettle soup being an example....wondering why it was so bitter? I added chard and a very large quantity of nettles that I picked on Sunday...)
ReplyDeleteSimilarly with pasta, I like to make more and certainly roast tatties! Or oven roasted veg... Kxx
Oven roasted veg are gorgeous
DeleteI love leftovers. Very useful and in the case of lots of things they taste better the next day. Now energy is so much dearer it makes sense to batch cook. Your meal for visitors yesterday sounded just right and a win win with leftovers to save you having to cook. Regards Sue H
ReplyDeleteWin-win indeed
DeleteI like to do a pot roast with onion, celery and root vegetables and water, so the small meat joint doesn’t shrivel. I can bake a Bara brith, then a crumble and some rock buns or flapjacks, and add some potatoes to bake. A full oven.
ReplyDeleteI serve some of the meat with steamed vegetables and gravy for Sunday dinner, and there are leftovers, easy meals for the rest of the week. The last scraps of meat and dripping add flavour to a mushroom and vegetable risotto.
A full oven is always good
DeleteI'm all for leftovers! I often cook enough to last for several meals. Leftovers are good...as long as one has a way to keep them from spoiling. Growing up, not everyone had a refrigerator and it was too hot to have a cool larder. Even now, there are many countries where the electricity is turned off for several hours during the day (or night) and one really can't keep leftovers cool enough to keep them from spoiling.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, leftovers, especially if they are planned leftovers, are also a luxury, as it means one has enough to cook to last for more than one meal. Such a blessing!
We do take our gadgets (fridges, microwaves etc) for granted sometimes
DeleteWe often have leftovers, as it seems I am incapable of cooking the correct amount for two people! I'll either put the leftover portion in the freezer & incorporate it into another meal further down the line, or one of us will have it for lunch the next day. Often I'll find two portions of a similar dish in the freezer (say 1 portion of meat chilli, and one of veggie chilli) & mix them together. But leftovers are a fact of life. Nothing bad about them. Love FD xx
ReplyDeleteGood idea to mix similar single portions
DeleteI love leftovers and I sometimes think the best and most imaginative meals are made from leftovers found in the fridge. And you can never have too many baked potatoes, they freeze really well too.
ReplyDeleteYou can never have too many leftover spuds
DeleteFried potatoes every every every time....
ReplyDelete🍟🍟🍟
DeleteI'm a big fan of leftovers too. Many things taste better after sitting in the fridge for a day or two. My favorite leftovers are roast chicken or turkey. Dozens of ways to reuse them, but my favorite is in tetrazzini. Coming in at a close second is meatloaf. Next day sandwiches taste like a treat not a leftover drudgery.
ReplyDeleteI must improve my meatloaf making skills
DeleteI like to use leftover mashed potatoes with some flour and an egg mixed in and then I fry it up as patties to go with something like pork chops for the two of us.
ReplyDeleteBob often does something similar when he cooks a Full English on a Saturday morning
DeleteI would rewrite that comment along the lines of 'any good cook will always reuse leftovers'.
ReplyDeleteMy mother used to buy a decent sized beef joint for our roast meal on a Sunday, with the intention that it would feed us for the next few days as leftovers - cottage pie, fritters, etc.
That was a very traditional approach when I was a child
DeleteSome of my favourite meals are leftovers!
ReplyDeleteAnd scientists have now discovered why "2nd day casseroles" taste better too. (it's to do with the starch apparently)
DeleteSunday dinner pie, soup, gratin, or sandwiches. We love leftovers in this house and quite agree that it seems mean to only provide exact portions especially for guests when leftovers can be so delightful!
ReplyDelete(Although sometimes a bit of a challenge.)
My favourite left over is a pie made from left over meat and vegetable stew.
ReplyDeleteI make oil pastry, drain any liquid from the stew to use as gravy on the side, then fill the pie with left over meat and veg. If there’s not quite enough filling, I throw in a few frozen peas or sweetcorn. The best thing is that the two meals taste completely different, so you don’t think you are eating the same dish on the second day.
Pies are wonderful
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