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?

I've based 5 meals for 2 on one chicken. Granted 2 were soup.

I bin food. Don't feel guilty about it. I'm not much on cooking, don't have fridge at present or a microwave. And the cooker that the landlord put in is from a bargain range and either doesn't cook things at all or burns the living shit out of them.

There ARE reasons why some people don't do leftovers you know.

When I had a cooker like that, Heart, I used a camp stove and cracked the window.

I usually get two other 'meals' or suppers out of Chinese takeaways after the initial gorge - chicken chow mein Singapore style, salt n spicy ribs and veggie spring rolls.

Heat it to piping and eat. Never had a problem.

I try hard not to waste food, but I must admit to throwing away a couple of soft, bendy carrots every so often. If they're so old I can't peel them properly I really don't fancy eating them tbh!

Carrots are the main waste product in our house!

Leftover rice is made into fried rice by DH, even extra mash potato has been put in the freezer for a later date. And I have two portions of blackberries in the freezer which will be made into apple and blackberry crumbles.

Piping is fine, expat, I do it myself.

Good point about not having the facilities to use leftovers. I was outraged when the first JO budget cooking show featured various means to store and freeze herbs.

All leftovers are frozen if they are not being used for the next meal. During Jan-May I have a lady come in everyday to make our food for the next day as we are too busy with work to cook. Everything is cooked up and frozen down into small portions so we have lunch and dinner prepared for the following day (I work so late I bring my dinner in with me). Nothing is thrown out during those months.

Can I just snort at the poster up thread who said that not using leftovers was 'PC nonsense'...?

'PC' in this instance clearly meaning 'silly notion that no sensible person agrees with'...

we don't have a lot of food wasted because we only make what we are going to eat but if we do have any left over it gets binned. cant eat cold food, turns me just thinking about eating cold food and not into reheated food. I dont know how people can eat sausages cold or cold roast tatties - the thought of that cold fat in your mouth [insert sick smiley].. I wont even eat cold meat, never have - never will.

I know quite a few people who don't use left overs. Some don't care, some think they can't freeze something or use it in a different way, some use wasting food as a way showing off.

I do use left overs.

MrsSchadenfreude - any chance of your chicken dhansak recipe please?? I lurve it and have never made it nice enough..please pretty please..

Jesus, I am bloody gobsmacked at the 'wasters' on this thread. No wonder the world is running out of resources and struggles to process waste if you throw all this food away. FFS, take a step back and think it through.
Start by cooking less food?

Wow, it never occurred to me that people would throw away full-sized portions! I generally plan meals with leftovers in mind, and me and DH eat them for lunch. Wastage is a bone of contention between us, as he sometimes 'avoids' a meal he has decided he's not hungry for, and if I don't notice and eat it in time it goes bad.

I use everything up always. Don't understand posters who have said that using leftovers is a faff...leftovers make your life easy, as part of meal planning surely?

Roast chicken, eat for meal 1, strip carcass for meal 2 (stir fry, curry) and sandwiches for several lunches, boil up bones for meal 3 (soup). Family of 5 here including 2 hungry teens and I can stretch a medium chicken to this number of meals and I am a fairly useless cook.

Cold sausages and cold roast tatties are among my favourite foods.

Totally agree with a chicken doing several meals, and I make things like bolognaise and chilli in bulk and freeze it in portions.

The only thing I won't eat leftovers of is chicken because I can somehow taste if it's been reheated. My DP eats any leftovers but generally there aren't any as we hardly ever roast a whole chicken.

Visual, here is what Grandma's saying means. Her saying was 'A woman can throw out more with a spoon than a man can bring in with a shovel'.

The husband would be a manual laborer perhaps laying tar, shoveling coal, or any trade where he works hard all day using a shovel.

But if the wife is careless with food, wasting it and throwing much away, she is wasting the hard earned money he worked for.

My Grandma had a big family, and the last child was born around the start of the Depression. Life was desperately hard for them and most people. My Mom was the middle child of seven kids. They never had much. She would say about chicken pieces, "I like the part of the chicken that went over the fence last". Likely because that was all that was left by the time the platter got to her.

We should all be ashamed when we throw out food. I can do better.

I don't like cold leftovers either....but that's why I heat them back up! Cold pizza is the most awful thing imaginable, and I could never bring myself to eat it even as an undergrad living of things far grimmer than leftover pizza. Leftover pizza discovered in the fridge when you had forgotten you put it there the night before, on the other hand, becomes an awesome lunch given about 8 minutes in a hot oven.

Same with cold chicken or turkey - I don't like it as cold leftovers in a sandwich, that's why I shred it and put it in a pie. It gets used, I have a tasty dinner, no waste.

I am also shocked that people can throw away half a chicken. I read a lot of threads on MN about how much people spend in the supermarket or to feed a family etc and feel guilty at just how much I do spend; but the idea of just chucking away perfectly good food is appalling, when you think of how many cannot afford to eat.

I think part of the problem is that a number of people have just not learned basic cooking skills and/or are ignorant about food hygiene etc. That is why they consider it too much effort to use food beyond the first meal or are afraid to do so. Perhaps some will be converted by this thread.

Another request for the Chicken Dhansak recipe, pleeeeaaase!

I use left overs if there's a worhwhile portion. If it's a small amount that wouldn't stretch to lunch the next day then it's not worthwhile.

My biggest problem is leaving it to cool in the pan, then forgetting about it (while cleaning down toddler, and continuing to feed baby, then getting toddler to bed), and only remembering in the morning when it's been room temperature too long.

DH frequently used to help himself to seconds and deprive me of what was intended to be my lunch the next day.

I do best when I'm on the ball to save it at serving, and save the left overs first. You also get a better ration of the nice bits like meat.

I don't save rice because of the food poisoning risk of reheating it. (aren't pre-cooked rice dishes specially treated against that?)

I wouldnt save something that had been on someones plate but otherwise yes I would eat leftover food. I am pretty good at meal planning though so it doesnt come up much plus I happily eat the same thing two days running.

I never ever throw any food away. There are only two of us and a non-eating baby in this house, one vegetarian and one meat eater so there are always lots of leftovers. I roast a chicken and use it for pie, curry, chow mein. Leftover veg will get put into a pie or soup or pasta salad. Couple of spoonfuls of pasta or potatoes leftover will get used for pasta/potato salad for lunch next day. I'll save spoonfuls of baked beans aswell, makes a really nice cheesy bean pasty! There's always something you can do with leftovers even if it's just chucking them into a pie.

I am single and live by myself so always have leftovers. I usually divide into portions, eat and then freeze the other portions when cold. I currently have the remnants of several 3kg roasts in the freezer which will be turned into curry, stir fry or sandwich fillings

I live on leftovers I think!

Fri night takeaway becomes lunch on Mon and Tue.
Saturdays Lasagne or Shep pie type meal is lunch on Wed.
On Sunday I cook too much veg on purpose and either turn it into 'Sunday Lunch Soup or bubble and squeak that we eat on Mon nights. Any leftovers become a lunch for me.

DH cooks Tue/Wed/Thu nights - Tue is usually the leftover meat from Sun turned into a curry and again if there is any left over it becomes a lunch for me.

I find it cheaper and easier, and I like reheated stuff - chilli or a stew for example is so much better the second time around.

I can't afford to throw away leftovers!

DP and I generally cook enough to feed the both of us, but if anything is leftover (unlikely because DP is a human dustbin) it gets frozen or put in the freezer to reheat and eat the next day.

And agreed that some foods taste WAY better cold or as leftovers. I adore cold takeaway pizza and cold Chinese the following morning. Cold chow mein and spring rolls = the breakfast of champions.