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?

This thread is making me hungry and I don't seem to have any left overs to eat. Dh was away last week so I ate up all the saved small portions

My DH is ridiculous about use-by dates, won't touch anything within a few days of the date, and would rather go and get a frozen pizza from the shop than eat leftovers of my (yummy) shepherds pie, fish pie, curries etc. Even roast chicken, he'll grudgingly eat leftover breast meat, but if I turn it into a curry he'll know there is brown meat in there so will refuse. I'm over it now and give his share to 9mo DD (not all of it obviously!)

I'm going to stick up for sell-by and use-by dates.

I know people say it's wasteful and nanny State-ish but I think it's a good idea for food retailers to be held to a certain standard because otherwise they can just palm all the responsibility off on consumers and that's too tempting.

And I'm someone who uses her nose and eyes and is more than happy to eat left over pizza - never from the fridge though. Left overnight in a cool place. Otherwise it's too cold.

I am guilty of binning it but that's because I am in a two income household with one child and a fairly low mortgage. if we were struggling then I think we would re-use leftovers.

Limited yes use-by dates to stop shops selling off-date food are a good idea. But once home only use them as advice: so you know that chicken will not be off on its use by date but there is an error margin and it will probably be ok for a free days afterwards, I just smell it/check its colour then decide.

minesapintoftea Chicken's always a bit whiffy. Especially if you stick your nose up the bottom of a whole one

I like to touch meat to check if it's slimy, but I have been known to give it a rinse under the tap if I don't have anything else to feed everyone.

I haven't made anyone ill yet - well, nothing they can pin on me.

I once opened some diced pork shoulder bought the day before from my butcher. It had fur

He was shocked too. As he bloody well should have been.

But that and one other scuzzy thing - stinky, sticky quail - has been my only experience of bad food in the 20+ years I've been buying for myself and my family.

Maybe I should stop buying posh stuff or get another butcher. I suppose butchers are more tempted to keep the expensive stuff around.

Anyway, I think laws and dates are an incentive to retailers to stock-control or chuck stuff out if they want to continue trading.

Agree with other posters who say the leftover chucker outers are spoilt and lucky.

I also think far too many people are too fussy and squeamish about things like chicken legs and stripping the meat off a chicken. Its as if they don't want to consider that it was once alive, and want to distance themselves from this. If we are to kill and eat an animal, it deserves for as much of it as possible, not just the 'prime' cuts.

Fact is that chicken legsare much tastier than breasts, and I've read that in India, legs actually cost more than breasts because they are more in demand.

I've heard a little bit of hairspray on use by dates printed on items like meat sometimes rubs it off.

I re-package items for the freezer, it takes less room and no one can moan about dates.

Left overs end up in the fridge... Forgotten and binned normally

To the chucker outers: if you had a meal of beef casserole and jacket spuds and there was still a fair amount of casserole left in the pan, and maybe someone didn't want their spud, would you throw it all away or keep it for lunch / kids dinner another night?

That's my lunch the next day ... Leftovers that is.

I buy the smallest chicken I can find, I use leftover meat in salad for myself. Neither dh nor dd will touch it.

He will however make a giant shepherds pie and eat it two days on the trot as it's not leftovers as he made it big enough to last two days .......

I rarely have leftovers, just me and DS at home so don't tend to cook in huge amounts.

sometimes cook extra sausages or pasta to have cold the next day.

that said, i hate throwing food away and if i am cooking for a group i would keep leftover meat and find a use for it somehow.

OP I would possibly keep the small bit of casserole for ds lunch the next day IF it was from the pan not someone's plate, and if I had a container for it (rare) but would definitely chuck the spud. Leftover potatoes are not nice imo (roast, new or jackets).
Also, a spaghetti bol one day can't possibly transform overnight into a chilli just with the addition of a tin of kidney beans - they have completely different ingredients/flavourings etc

Ooh - I so disagree with about potatoes: boiled (or even roast) potatoes can be chopped smaller and then sauteed with some chopped onion.

Boiled new potatoes can be cut in half, warmed in the microwave and then tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar and maybe some chopped chives or spring onions.

Or warmed and crushed with a fork and olive oil and chopped rocket or water cress stirred through.

Not that I can eat potatoes any more as I'm low-carbing

What's wrong with scraping leftovers from plates? It's not that my family and friends lick them.

We dont waste much in this house, dp is very funny about some things though and im often rescuing food he wants to bin. If we dont have the freezer space or if theres bits and bobs left, ham, bread etc and its not likely to be eaten I send it to my grandparent's.

My dsis is the worst for waste, my mum rescued £10 worth of strawberries, blueberry., blackberries that hadnt been opened and would have gone off while they were on holiday. My kids were very happy

Depends on the food I think. If it were something particularly special and untouched I wouldn't be happy about throwing it away.

But I'd be crosser about the fact that it'd made it onto the plate and not been eaten.

I always chuck bones etc. of chicken into the stock pot with the carcass. It's all going to be boiled up properly so I don't see the problem.

Limited food rescued from plates has probably be touched with a fork that has been put in someone elses mouth and then breeds germs? I don't know, I'm no brainiac so don't know for sure, and i'm not saying it would kill you, but that's a huge no no from me, just from a grossness POV!
Pretty, you may be right but I just don't enjoy old potatos! But then I don't really enjoy the majority of any leftover meal, possibly as a hang up from when I was a kid and we would just eat the same meal for 3 nights just cos Mum had made too much. I don't ever eat the same dinner 2 nights in a row!

Food off the plate I chuck
BUT
I belive in small portions and then second or third helpings for the hungry
AND
all food waste / peelings etc are put into our muck heap and converted into compost.

No food waste at all goes into our wheelie bins

Germs? I snog the only other person in my house unless he moves quickly enough so I think I'll survive snaffling the odd spud off his plate.

Don't you swap spit with your DH?

Thank you Hansiemom for explaining the phrase. You are right. We should be ashamed when we throw away good food.

Of course I do, but I don't lick his toothbrush 12 hours after he's used it! And I certainly don't swap spit with any of my DC. It's not that I think there's 'germ danger', just that it's unhygienic. And for 'the odd spud' it certainly isn't enough of an incentive for me there, sorry!

But when you add up the cost of the 'odd spud', that's when you realise you're chucking away hundreds of pounds a year.

We had a roast duck last Saturday I think, served with lentils. A breast for each adult. I then stripped it down. The next day, DH mixed it with kidney beans and spring onions, and we had it wrapped in Chinese type pancakes, with hoisin sauce, salad etc. Still loads left, so LO has had at least four meals from the left over lentils and duck/bean mixture. Bones have gone into the freezer for now, and will be used to make stock once we've got some veg that needs using up.

We make our own stock too, much nicer. Bone into a pot, stick celery/onions/leeks/bay leaves etc, bring to boil, then leave to simmer for a couple of hours. Strain through a muslin. Reduce down a bit more if you like, until it's nice and strong looking. Leave to cool pour into ice cube trays, freeze and voila, gorgeous stock cubes whenever you need them!

Well, even I don't use leftovers from people's plates!