Monday, December 08, 2008

The Leftover King

Nothing goes wasted in my house. The day before Thanksgiving, we got a delivery order of Peking duck and Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce from Szechuan House. We demolished most of the duck apart from a whole lot of soggy skin. A few days later, Mr Minx crisped up the skin in a hot sauté pan to make duck cracklins, cooked up some onion and mushrooms in the resulting rendered duck fat, added the leftover broccoli, and cooked some fettuccine. The resulting pasta dish didn't taste at all Chinese. But it was delicious.

Szechuan House gave us the carcass, and that's waiting in the freezer for a stock-making opportunity, along with the bones from this year's turkey.

I have a co-worker who "don't do leftovers." I really don't understand that mentality at all. Sometimes I prefer to create something with pre-cooked food, rather than to work from scratch. I made a big pot of chili on Saturday and there's about 1 1/2 quarts of it left. I have a feeling it won't be consumed in its original form when we get around to eating it....

How do you feel about leftovers?

6 comments:

David Dust said...

My Mom doesn't do leftovers anymore, because my Stepfather refuses to eat them.

I WOULD eat leftovers - but there usually isn't anything left after I get done with it.

XOXOXOXOX

Debbie said...

Hate leftovers! My dear MIL will wait for veggies to be almost-gone, then cook them and say "Look what I made for you!" to which I say to myself... "Leftovers, blech."

The exception to this is food which improves with time, like chili, or good spaghetti sauce. Those are worthy of dredging out of the fridge and eaten on or with anything. Sometimes cold, even. :)

Anonymous said...

OMG. If we didn't eat leftovers we'd eat about twice a week. I cook once and we can eat that for days...happily. Permutations happen which makes it even better.

Chris said...

I don't mind leftovers, but I'm not nearly as creative as some people (you!) about what to do with them . . . usually I end up just eating the leftovers in their "natural form" for lunch the next day.

That said, I have about a three-day tolerance for Thanksgiving leftovers . . . we usually go to my MIL's house, and she sends home a bit of this and a bit of that, usually all thrown together in one container, so that by the third day it all tastes the same.

Anonymous said...

Like Chris, I like leftovers but tire of them if it's more than 2 meals of it in a row. And I've discovered I never eat any left overs I've frozen, thinking they'll be good later. I love your leftover recipes as well, and hope that you continue to post them. I need to be more creative than just warming them up. Thanks!

Dara Bunjon said...

Great subject! I love the leftovers, especially for lunch (if there are any leftovers).

Question, when you intentionally make extra for other meals are they offically 'leftovers' or 'plentimores'