Leftovers

 

I love using up bits that I find in the fridge ... (that is providing it doesn't have green mold on it!)  Let's face it the "sell-by" may work for the supermarkets, but there are many products you can use long after the sell-by dates have expired.  You do of course have to be sensible about certain produce, but I think most stuff lasts a lot longer than we are led to believe.  Dont chuck stuff out willy-nilly, think about what you could do with it first .....
a few basic ideas ................

Soups - soup can be made with almost anything!  If you have one carrot, an onion, a potato, (garlic), stick of celery - you have the basic ingredients for a veg soup.  Also cooked leftover vegetables can be made into a thick blended soup by just adding some stock and seasoning.

leftover fish/potato - adding a few other ingredients and you could have some good fishcakes.  I made some recently with a small pack of brown shrimps, a roasted potato and two smallish pieces of cooked salmon.  I whizzed them up in the food processor, added 1 egg and seasoning, made them into patties, coated them in fine cornmeal and shallow fried them.  They were very tasty.  (You could also add a can of salmon/tuna.)

leftover rice - you can really add this to most patties (and rice isn't really hard to use up as a leftover), but if you have just enough for a couple of portions you can place it in a shallow buttered bowl, pour a little liquid butter over the top (or olive oil) and bake it till it's hot.  Turn it out from the bowl, and you have a nice little round mould of rice as an accompaniment.
You can of course fry over the cooked leftover rice, adding fried mushrooms, little chopped garlic, pinch of thyme, pinch of oregano, seasoning, spring onions, (cooked peppers, peas), etc.  This is lovely served with chicken.

leftover chicken - is so versatile - there are just tons of things you can make with it. chicken pie or pudding, with added onion and mushrooms and a creamy sauce made with stock - (not milk) (or tinned mushroom soup) : chicken patties : curry : chicken salad bowl - with any leftover fresh veg. cut small or grated

Chicken  Also when portioning up a whole raw chicken, dont throw the carcass/bones away - you can make a decent chicken stock with it by adding some fresh root veg, seasoning and water - you may need a stock cube.

If you have any great ideas for leftovers - please let me know.

Prawn & Potato Quiche recipe