gathering up the fragments

Sometimes you hit "post" and nothing happens!  This was one of those times, when I thought I'd posted Saturday, but chrome crashed and lost a third of my post.  ah, well...

I thought we should have some well-rounded, home-making bloggy fare for a bit before I launch into the next exciting trip journals!  This is a post I've been thinking about for a while, and I'm actually borrowing the phrase "gathering up the fragments" from the old More with Less Cookbook.  My mother regularly relied on this Mennonite book, and she kindly found me a copy when I was in college. It's full of budget-friendly, use-what-you-have recipes, and many of them are vegetarian.  That's about as connected this post will be to that book, though, because this is my own giant list of what I do with leftovers!  (I'd love to see yours!)  And just for fun, I'm including some really old, unedited food-related photos of Gemma Grace.  (Ruthie wears those clothes now!)

Of course, I will happily reheat leftover meals for my lunch, or even make extra on purpose to freeze for other days.  This list is less about fully-prepared meals and more about, say, leftover rice.  So let's start there.

Leftover Rice

• Rice pudding
• Fried rice
• Casseroles that require cooked rice, like Chicken/Broccoli/Rice or pizza rice casserole
• Also, Gemma will gladly eat cold rice for lunch . . . 

Stale or Leftover Bread

• French Toast
• Bread pudding (I make a marvelous Blueberry-Lemon bread pudding.  It's a Southern Living recipe!)
• Cube it, toss in some oil and seasoning and roast on a cookie sheet to make croutons or stuffing mix.
• Crumble or zap in a food processor to make bread crumbs for chicken parmigiana, etc.

Leftover Potatoes

• Slice them and fry them up for breakfast :)
• Or if they're already mashed, form them into little pancakes and fry them up for breakfast
• Mash them up with some milk and use them as the topping for shepherd's pie (I often freeze them and do this later).
• Add to chowders, or make extra potatoes on purpose to make potato soup!
• Sweet Potatoes:  make muffins

Leftover Meats

There are, of course, many recipes that call for cubed, cooked meat.  If I have only a little bit, I usually slice it up for pancit or stir fry . . . in fact, we're having steak stir fry tonight!  :)  There are always sandwiches, too.  Whenever I have a bone with some meat on it, though, I make soup.

Ham

• Slice and fry for breakfast along with eggs
• Quiche
• Hawaiian Pizza
• Ham and dumplings
• Chicken Cordon Bleu
• With a ham bone, I usually make Lentil Soup

Chicken/Turkey

• There are lots of recipes for cooked chicken, so I'll just include a link to chicken pot pie
• With a chicken carcass, there's always chicken noodle soup, but my husband prefers thick soups like white chicken chili.  

Red Meats

• Hot roast beef sandwiches, especially if you have leftover gravy
• I've dabbled in curry, but need to practice some more
• My favorite soup for beef and venison is barley soup! 

Miscellaneous

• Waffles - I make up all my batter and save the rest for a quick breakfast for my children later in the week.  They're very tasty warmed in the toaster-oven.  (I hear they can be frozen, too, but we never get to that point!)
• Pancakes - these I don't care for as much on the second day, so I tend to just refrigerate remaining batter and use it as soon as possible.
• Oatmeal - Make oatmeal bread!
• Boiled eggs:  Egg salad, or add to many cold salads
• Scrambled eggs:  Add to fried rice
• Coffee:  Make a chocolate cake.  (But usually I just reheat and drink!!)

How's all that for gathering up the fragments?  I still have no good uses for leftover pasta . . . are there any out there?  Pasta salad, maybe?  I suppose if all else fails, there's composting, or maybe you're one of those happy people who have chickens.  :)