To think everyone uses leftovers

[moogy1a]

Certain smug, lispy, fat tongued chefs make a living at the moment by telling people not to throw perfectly good food away if you've cooked too much.
Surely no one does anyway?
Would anyone really cook say a roast chicken, not eat it all, so bin it rather than keep for sarnies / stir fry/ nibbling at secretly in the kitchen?
Do you bin leftover food or use it later?

Always bin leftover food. If i put it in the fridge for tomorrows lunch it will get forgotten about and binned later in the week anyway!

I know! I know NO ONE who doesn't use leftovers. Some things I could possibly make leftovers out of, but as we would be allergic to the ingredients which make it edible, I can't. That's the only time I don't.

I never throw food away.
IOf it is left, it gets eaten, before anything else gets opened or made.
Could not fathom wasting it.

Always gets eaten here, we tend to deliberately make a large amount and then use the rest for work lunches or tea the next day ( if it lasts that long). Do not get the throwing Away leftovers thing, especially if you have a freezer husband who has hollow legs

manalive what quantity are we talking about?
If you had the chicken example, and had say quarter of a chicken left, surely you wouldn't bin that?

rarely throw anything away here - today I had a fridge clear out and was annoyed to find a half tin of beans that had been forgotten and had to be chucked out. I really try not to throw any food away at all and will freeze leftovers that we are not going to eat the next day/for lunch etc.

Even if there's a chance that we couldn't use something up, which is incredibly rare, we'll always find a mouth to feed whether that's the dog, rabbits, chickens etc

If I roast a chicken part of the plan is what I'll make with the leftovers! Sometimes leftovers do get forgotten about though. Must try harder

I often put a left over portion of food in a tub in the fridge only to chuck about a week later when jot has gone disgusting as no-one wants to eat the same thing again. I keep left over roast meat for training treats for the dog. I am obviously wasteful.

I Do Not Do throwing away food. Just can't bring myself to waste things if they can possibly be used. I take a fairly liberal approach to use-by dates, too.

Others differ, though. I once went to an Xmas house party where the hosts cooked a giant turkey for the buffet. We had a few slices of breast for sandwiches, and that was it. When clearing up at the end of the night, there was a very brief debate about whether to keep the rest of it, but then someone decided "gosh no, it's been sitting out!" - despite the fact that it hadn't even been out of the oven long enough to get entirely cold - and the whole thing went in a black bin bag.

I might possibly have been a tiny bit squiffy at that point, otherwise I would have stepped in and saved it.

So yes, people's attitudes do differ a great deal!

well, do you know, I thought the same thing.

but I recently found out (when I mentioned that we often use leftovers as part of our lunch the following day) that a friend NEVER keeps leftovers. she just throws it all away

she was as horrified that I kept "old" food and reheated it, as I was that she was so freaking wasteful.

Just remembered first Christmas at inlaws.
They cooked a massive turkey and there was tons left over.
MIL was about to throw it in the bin Not worth keeping apparently.
I insisted I took it home and it fed us for about a week.
She seemed intrigued and confused at the thought of not binning about 20 lbs of meat and now thinks of it as a little "quirk" of mine when I take leftover away rather than watching them go in the bin.

I freeze as much as possible and have a freezer food meal every week/fortnight ish and get a few take away tubs out.

Meat gets used in dh packed lunches

My Grandma had a saying. She was from a different era, born around 1895. It took me awhile as a child to understand it. What she said was, "a woman can throw out more with a spoon than a man can bring in with a shovel".

I have two sons. Both have families. One son 'doesn't like leftovers'. The other son is great about not throwing away food. If they dine out, leftovers get taken home and used. I tell the first son, they are not leftovers, they are Planned Overs.

I'm another one who just bins it. DH and I both just can't eat reheated cooked food, it's bad I know. Now I try to cook in smaller portions, some things you can't though.

Depends what it is.
A few spoons of beans/peas/sweetcorn etc...bin.
Leftover chicken there is never any leftover chicken sandwiches/salad next day.

I'm mostly too lazy to bother with leftovers. And then if I do keep stuff it only sits in the fridge till it gets thrown out anyway. I hate re-heated food. It's the thought.

Why can't you eat reheated food?

" Cant eat reheated cooked food"
Seriously
What if you had no choice ?
Leftovers are fought over in our house.
Love leftover shepherds pie for my lunch at work the next day

You don't just reheat it-you make other things from it! If nothing else it goes into soup.

I tend to waste alot of food because I stick it in the fridge or freezer and forget about it, or fancy something different over the next day then get concerned whether or not the items are safe to eat

If you do want to just use it as it is, you freeze it.

I suppose it's a bit mad but I just think it might cause food poisoning. I've just got a thing about it. I can eat re-heated home made soup if it's completely made with vegetables but not anything containing meat.

Some things improve with being left and reheated.
lasagne,
chilli
curries.
Would you not even reheat casserole?

As long as it is heated all the way through you are fine.