Leftovers....

My friend asked me for some advice on recycling leftovers. She and I both have men that wont eat them, so it takes some creativity. Here is the note that I sent her of some really simple things:

Leftovers Recycled

Oven Fried Chicken
One of the things that I do to make this dish easier is to mix up the coating mixture into a baggie to make clean up a breeze. You can even mix up several baggies full of the flour mixture at once to be a big time saver.

Chicken salad
Chicken Parmesan: chicken covered in spaghetti or pizza sauce with mozzarella or parmesan cheese on top
Chicken Quesadilla
Chicken Sandwich
Casserole that calls for a plain chicken (I haven't actually tried this yet because Jason wont eat casseroles)

Ground Beef
When I'm organized, I buy a 5lb. roll of beef. While 2 lbs of it are cooking in a skillet, I mix 1 lb of it in a bowl to make meatballs. Then I freeze them after I shape them. Then I use the same exact bowl and mix up meatloaf and freeze it in a bag. (After the meatballs are frozen, throw them in a bag). You can stick the baggie in the fridge the day before or that morning to defrost. You can also stick the meatballs frozen in the oven, but watch them closely so they wont burn. They will take about 35 minutes to cook. The 2 lbs of meat that I brown, I add 2 packets of taco seasoning to it and let it simmer, then let it cool and freeze. Ground beef can be refrozen and it refreezes well.

Meatballs and Meatloaf
Both recipes are similar. Both can be served with a brown gravy, ketchup, BBQ sauce or plain. I will usually have one the first week and the other the second week. Leftovers are good in a sandwich, beef stroganoff (if it doesn't have sauce on it), spaghetti (if it only had ketchup on it) or refrozen.

Taco Meat
I usually cook 2 lbs of taco meat at once and freeze it into two containers. Tacos are the one way that Jeffery will willingly eat meat. Taco meat can also be mixed with rice or refried beans if you don't want to consume so much meat at once or are looking for variety. Leftover taco meat is excellent in chili or can be used in a quesadilla. I buy those "taco bell" kits at Wal-Mart. They are $2.25 and come with 6 soft tacos, 6 cruchy tacos, salsa packet, seasoning and Kool-Aid. Buying the taco bell kit is cheaper than purchasing everything separately.