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The festive season is a good time to catch up with family and friends and too often, we are left with a huge amount of leftover food.
Did you know that the average Australian household wastes approximately 345kg of food each year? This equates to about $1036 per household – amounting to over $8 billion dollars a year nationally. (1)
Rather than just discarding your leftovers, cooked food can be good for up to four days if it has been refrigerated properly.
I tend to use glass containers to store food in the fridge or freezer so that you can see what’s inside easily. It’s also a good way to make sure that you’re not ingesting chemicals from plastic containers and they are also sustainable and economical.
Try not to think of the food as leftovers, but instead, challenge yourself to see how creative you can get – you might even surprise yourself by throwing together your most random ingredients to make a delicious original….
Here are some great ideas for leftover cooked meat and vegetables –
1. Make a frittata, omelette or quiche – by whisking together some eggs and milk and baking it together, you can transform any surplus meat or roasted vegetables into an amazing new dish. Combine all leftover ingredients together or use the cooked meats with fresh vegetables such as baby spinach, asparagus, mushrooms or tomatoes and add cheese – it’s that simple. Click here for our super easy Crustless Leftovers Quiche recipe
2. Make a salad – slice any leftover steak, chicken or other meat and make a fresh salad with baby cos, tomatoes, cucumber and red onion. You can also experiment with quinoa or cous cous to mix it up
3. Make a pasta bake – using some passata, you can generally make a great pasta out of any combination of cooked meat and/or vegetables. Mix it together with some cooked large spiral pasta and layer some cheese over it and bake in the oven until golden
4. Make soup – using a blender, mix together roasted vegetables with 3-4 cups of chicken or vegetable broth. Heat and serve with crusty bread
5. Salvage stale bread – usually, fresh bakery bread is good for a day tops. You can try halving any leftover loaf, rub it with olive oil and the inside of a ripe tomato, wrap it in foil and then bake it until it’s warm. Another great use for stale bread is to make breadcrumbs in the food processor for later use – or make croutons to jazz up your soups or salads
6. Fusion cuisine – here’s when it gets fun – mix and match cuisines – this may not be for everyone, but why not try?
- Asian burritos – heat up left over Asian dishes (eg. rice and stirfry – draining any liquid sauce) and serve wrapped in tortillas
- No rice? No problems – use pasta instead for your favourite Indian or Thai curry sauce
- Roast dinner fried rice? Chop some meat and veg from a roast dinner into very small pieces – using the rice, add some soy sauce and make a hole in the middle of the wok or pan, break an egg into the hole and scramble all of it together.
These are just some basic ideas on how to make the most of your excess Christmas cheer – I’m certain that most combinations of foods have been tried already… it’s just up to you as to how imaginative and adventurous you can be. 🙂
References:
- www.foodwise.com.au
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