Lucious Leftovers…bacon not required, but always welcome 🐄 🐷 🐔 🍤 🥚

MidCakePa said:
A college roommate of mine was the son of a USDA food inspector. So roomie would often return from home visits with some “gov’ment cheese,” as we called it. It was a 10-pound brick of stuff that’s best described as Velveeta-like. We were poor and hungry college students, so we devoured it!
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Exactly. Looked like velveeta but would break your foot if you dropped it.
 
"And mullet, aka Biloxi Bacon. Used to be considered a trash fish at one time."

Okay...I'm gonna have to think on that one...I typically don't eat bait, except for shrimp.
 
I do buy rotissiere chickens and the use the meat for meals. Ok this isn't healthy 😆 but one or my favorite meals ever is
Tortilla chips
Shredded chicken
salsa
Pinto or black beans
Shredded cheese

I also buy 16 ounces of spring mix and meal prep salads. For under $17 (2 chickens and 16 oz spring mix) I can make 8 salads with white meat plus have 4 legs and thighs leftover. I have diabetes so it is a good low carb meal for me that doesn't involve any cooking or standing to prepare.

I like to make a copycat McDonald's snack wrap that is no cook too.
Low carb tortilla or whole grain pita
Chicken
Lettuce
Shreddee cheese
I skip the ranch
Aldi had low carb tortillas for under $3. I just wish they were whole grain. You don't need much of any ingredient for it, a little goes a long way in a wrap.

I think it was Ann Esselstyn who said she would make her husband a whole grain wrap to bring to work with whatever they had for dinner the night before stuffed inside.
 
MidCakePa said:
I love Thanksgiving dinner because a couple of awesome things come a day later.

Gumbo: I make a very rich stock from the turkey carcass (simmered for 8+ hours), then toss in white meat and dark meat picked from the bones. Some andouille and oysters round it out. We eat it for days.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches: My kids adore this one. Sliced sourdough with Brie and homemade cranberry sauce in between, griddled with butter to golden perfection. Yow!
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I don't even like grilled cheese and now I'm craving one! When you retire you must get a side gig as a food writer!
 
justdoit19 said:
My freezer is full of little Tupperware’s of leftover morsels of (mostly) protiens. Even a few bags of kale. The other day, in desperate need of storage, I pulled a few out. Pondered a bit and then it hit me: fried rice.

It turned out SO GOOD 🤤!! And was an easy way to clear out space and make a meal from delicious bits I couldn’t bring myself to toss at the time (this is a new problem for us, as newish empty nesters). Adding it to the biweekly rotation! All I needed to add was some frozen mixed veggie choices and a fresh egg. Even the rice was leftover. Something oddly satisfying about that whole experience And I didn’t have to buy more Tupperware 💯

What are your go to methods of using up leftovers?
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I've seen pantry challenges before Thanksgiving where you keep new food spending as low as possible for the beginning of November and plan meals around what you have. I think it is a great idea before the usual holiday food craziness, either use it or toss it. My only thing is with the timing that the holidays are a great time to stock up on canned food due to sales.
 
flieger83 said:
"And mullet, aka Biloxi Bacon. Used to be considered a trash fish at one time."

Okay...I'm gonna have to think on that one...I typically don't eat bait, except for shrimp.
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Depends on how hungry one gets, doesn't it? Today Soul Food is still glamorized, but prior to the late 1960s when that term was coined, it was simply "trash" food that only poor people (regardless of ethnicity) ate. Poke salad, persimmons, pawpaws, fatback, pork chitterlings, okra, rutabagas, catfish, mullet, croakers, opossum, alligator, nutria, etc. My dad had a "you kill it, you eat it" rule, so I've had all those as well as racoon and black rat snake.
 
OldAFRet said:
Depends on how hungry one gets, doesn't it? Today Soul Food is still glamorized, but prior to the late 1960s when that term was coined, it was simply "trash" food that only poor people (regardless of ethnicity) ate. Poke salad, persimmons, pawpaws, fatback, pork chitterlings, okra, rutabagas, catfish, mullet, croakers, opossum, alligator, nutria, etc. My dad had a "you kill it, you eat it" rule, so I've had all those as well as racoon and black rat snake.
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Or Southern cuisine.
 
MidCakePa said:
A college roommate of mine was the son of a USDA food inspector. So roomie would often return from home visits with some “gov’ment cheese,” as we called it. It was a 10-pound brick of stuff that’s best described as Velveeta-like. We were poor and hungry college students, so we devoured it!
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My grandpa, a doctor, accepted that cheese as payment from some that couldn’t afford his medical services. Waaaaay back in the day, before insurance and copays and computers. I remember there was always a loooong brick of that, filling the entire doorway holder ledge of the fridges from the past.
 
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Capt MJ said:
I have to say I loved the unintentional typo in the thread title - Lucious Leftovers sounds like a Harry Potter character!
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“Turn on predictive texting on your keyboard” they said.

“It’ll help worth fat finger smaller phone texting” they said.

Yeah. Right. 😳🙄😂🥴

For sure a type….a predicted (see what I did there?).

BTW sooooo intrigued with the leftover potato skin trick!! Brilliant.
 
justdoit19 said:
My grandpa accepted that cheese as payment from some that couldn’t afford his medical services. Waaaaay back in the day, before insurance and copays and computers. I remember there was always a loooong brick of that, filling the entire doorway holder ledge of the fridges from the past.
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We never got in the line for commodities. Cheese, powdered milk, and flour. I never knew if it was because of Dad's income or if he was too proud. It was mainly the African Americans who we saw in line at the building across the street from city hall. Kids in school would make fun of the ones who they knew got the government cheese. I kept quiet. I knew we were poor. The building is now a bar.
 
justdoit19 said:
“Turn on predictive texting on your keyboard” they said.

“It’ll help worth fat finger smaller phone texting” they said.

Yeah. Right. 😳🙄😂🥴

For sure a type….a predicted (see what I did there?).

BTW sooooo intrigued with the leftover potato skin trick!! Brilliant.
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It is my fervent hope any germs are killed by freezing then baking. 🤣
 
Devil Doc said:
We never got in the line for commodities. Cheese, powdered milk, and flour. I never knew if it was because of Dad's income or if he was too proud. It was mainly the African Americans who we saw in line at the building across the street from city hall. Kids in school would make fun of the ones who they knew got the government cheese. I kept quiet. I knew we were poor. The building is now a bar.
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Let's see... You're early to mid 60s, your mom didn't work outside the house, and your dad was in the trades. Yep, like us, you qualified, and like us, didn't take it. It was pride.
 
OldAFRet said:
Let's see... You're early to mid 60s, your mom didn't work outside the house, and your dad was in the trades. Yep, like us, you qualified, and like us, didn't take it. It was pride.
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I was born to a 15 year old. My dad spent 9 years in the air force and got out because of my mom. He bounced from labor job to labor job until landing at Goodyear. By then the debt and lack of financial savvy had taken its toll. I could write a book.
 
Capt MJ said:
Mad Scientist Potato Skins.

I only do this with baked potato skins my husband and I have not fully consumed, no one else. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t.

I use kitchen shears to immediately cut up the skins into rough two-inch pieces, throw them in a freezer bag. Once I have a gallon bag of them, I get them out and defrost on paper towels for a short period. Then I grease a Pyrex baking pan, size determined by how much you are making, whether it’s the 8” square or bigger rectangular ones. I open the refrigerator and gather up whatever bits and pieces of cheese there are, any bell peppers, onion (supplemented by a fresh one if needed, other veg, leftover protein that I think will work (part of a big steak I couldn’t finish, etc.). If I don’t think I have enough cheese bits and pieces, I break out the small bar of Kraft extra-sharp cheddar, which I call my “utility cheddar,” a workhorse for everyday shredding, grilled cheese, etc., when I don’t want to use the Cabot extra-aged vintage cheddar we usually have.

Look into your pantry cabinet as well. The orphan can of mushrooms stems and pieces bought when fresh mushrooms were not looking good, drain it and use. The little can of ortega chilis you just happened to have, drain and use.

I make layers of the skins and top with chopped or shredded ingredients, dotting with butter, dusting with garlic powder and grinds of black pepper as I go. Bake at 350 or use convection setting at 325 until cheese is melted and going delightfully golden brown and potato skins on top are clearly crispy. Serve in big slabs, grab that half-empty pint of sour cream from the fridge and use that as a dollop of dip on your plate. DH often uses hot sauce or steak sauce. Big green salad on the side goes well.

One of the best combos was pulled pork leftovers that had some bbq sauce mixed in, with jack cheese with jalapeño and half a carton of fresh mushrooms. We don’t serve this to anyone, since these were our own partially eaten or uneaten potato skins.
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We never have leftover potato skins but that does sound wonderful.

When I was a kid and we had baked potatoes, my Dad would point and say "Look at that!". When we looked, and then looked back at the plate our potato skin was gone. He also told us potato skins would give us long noses like his. It eventually became a fun tradition, especially when we quit falling for it. 😄
 
Many leftover proteins (chicken, steak, pork, etc) can be diced and tossed into a bottled marinara sauce with a few fresh herbs to make a better sauce. It's not art, but it's very low effort on a wet fall or winter evening.
 
It’s mussels season at Costco. We love to grab a 5-pound bag and steam them in wine mixed with herbs. We eat some straight from the shell, dipping crusty bread in the savory broth. What’s left, we remove from the shell and stir them into cooked pasta the next day. Can be simple (butter, olive oil, garlic) or more complex (red sauce spiked with wine). Either way, we enjoy all five pounds.
 
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