MAKE-A-MENU - Baby Step #5 (What to do with leftovers)

"What???  Leftovers???  We HATE leftovers!!!"

If your family cries out in pain when you serve up yesterday's yummies warmed over for today, you need a plan for making those "yesterday's specialties" just as special today.  So what should you do?  Package up those leftovers with plans for re-creation, add them to your menu calendar, and stick them in the freezer.

Don't serve your "left-over creations" the night after cooking the original.  Put it on your MAKE-A-MENU Calendar for another day, and everyone will think you are an AWESOME cook!

Which leads me to today's assignment: 

Today, please set up a section in your Make-a-Menu Binder with the following tab: Leftovers. There you'll add "recipes" for your leftovers.

For example, we had pot roast with gravy, peas and carrots on Sunday. We had lots of leftovers. I dumped everything in a zip lock and labeled it "beef pot pie". I then went to my computer and typed up the "recipe": The ingredients listed include a packaged pie crust, bagged pot roast leftovers, additional gravy, 1 potato, additional veggies.

While it seems silly to write down these ingredients, it will help me when shopping. Remember that we use our Make-a-Menu Binder to set up a menu and shopping list step-by-step, and one of the steps is to look at the recipe and add the ingredients that you don't have to your grocery list.

If you develop "recipes" using your leftovers, your picky family won't feel like they are eating warmed over stuff from last night and not one of them will revolt or roll on the floor or gnash their teeth and cry. And they will not call you the Soup Nazi. You might, however, be awarded The MAMA! (Most Awesome Mother Award)

And lastly, stretching your menu with leftovers will save you time and money! Cha-ching!!!

Kitchen Tip Tuesday: CROUTONS!

Don't you just love croutons?  I mean really, what's a garden salad without those little crunchy squares of flavored bread?  Luckily for me I almost always have a stash.  After all, there's always a couple of slices of left over bread or rolls to be dealt with.  With these little bits of bread, my freezer stays stocked with bread crumbs and croutons!

Here's last night's leftover sliced and buttered bread.  It sure was good!  Now, it just sits and waits to be forgotten and thrown away.  But not in this house!  I'll give it a second life as crunchy croutons.

This is so simple!  Just cut the bread into small 1/2" squares.  Spray the bread cubes liberally with non-stick spray and sprinkle with your favorite seasonings.  I used garlic salt and italian seasoning.  Mix the bread cubes with your hands to distribute the spices.  Spray some more and sprinkle some more, if you need to. 

Spread the bread cubes evenly on a cookie sheet, broiler pan, or any other flat pan that can go into the oven.  Set the oven temp at 250 degrees F.  Bake for about half an hour to 45 minutes.  Basically bake until the bread cubes looks like croutons!

Cool your croutons before storing them in a tightly sealed container.  I store mine in the freezer, just to be safe.  Can't wait to add them to my salads this week!

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Menu Maker Mom ~

Makin' Yummies... Stuffin' Tummies