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?

She said everyone should do everything they can to conserve resources - obviously some people will be able to do more than others, due to life circumstances, financial circumstances, illness etc.

I really do not see why you've gotten so defensive, Altinkum

I eat left over food all the time.I am indian and often cook lots of meat dishes for a few days and keep in the fridge.

For people who throw away the rest of a chicken after eating a bit of it: if you really really really can't get over your left overs phobia why don't you buy chicken portions instead?

My current favourite is roast dinner pie. It contains all leftovers from a roast. Just chop up meat, potatoes, veg stuffing and mix with gravy. A perfect pie. I'm hungry now.....

Anything that's been put on a plate and not eaten gets binned - I don't think that's unusual, but I had a rather odd flatmate who got very offended by my not keeping the uneaten pasta+pesto in a communal bowl to be reheated for dinner tomorrow.

Most things, I'll do a big batch and save some for later. A big fritatta cut up into wedges was a great summer lunch for work. Stews, chilli, curries are all things that benefit from long cooking and usually taste better the day after you've made them - you get a better depth of flavour if things have been allowed to stand for a day or two. Fried rice is best made with leftover rice that's had time to cool and dry out a touch. If I do a roast on Sunday, then I just have to knock up some mash on Monday, stir-fry veg on Tuesday...
Put it this way - I do leftovers because I'm lazy and cheap, and CBA to cook fully every night. I'm also a confident cook, which helps. Can't speak for anyone on here, but my friends who don't use leftovers are also a bit paranoid about best-before dates and don't feel comfortable experimenting, even if it's just to the extent of dumping some chopped up leftover bits of meat into a tin of chopped tomatoes and calling it a pasta sauce.

I used to work for a wealthy lady who was obsessed by leftovers. She did a lot of entertaining and the meal would be swiftly removed BEFORE people had finished eating and squirrelled away in the pantry in the blink of an eye.

Her family were so used to this that they filled up before visiting, completely aware that they would never get to finish their plateful.

Guests were so confused and shocked they never said a word

I make too much veg on Sundays so we can have bubble and squeak on a Monday.
Mind you that's not so much left over is it as deliberate.
Cold takeaways the next day a lovely as long as it isn't kebab, left over kebabs look like old men's toenails.

God my ILs do this after practically every meal.

They make a massive big deal about buying local, low food miles, organic stuff, cook it beautifully in authentic dishes using loads of fancy ingredients, then simply bin what's leftover. This is usually a full adult size portion of everything- so they could easily box or plate it up and warm it through in the microwave the next day (except they don't have a microwave and turn their noses up at the very idea of one, god knows why).

They will also often throw away something they haven't used because it's perhaps a bit old or bendy (which wouldn't matter when it was cooked) in order to make more room in the fridge.

I shudder to think what their food bills are like, I really do. It's incredibly profligate.

DH and I usually end up taking away piles of spare food when we leave because we can't bear to see it in the bin. They clearly think this is a bit grim and pull cat's-bum-faces.

Left over chicken goes into a soup with celery, potatoes etc.
Left over other meat is a stir fry.

We don't "do" leftovers - we plan..

for instance I always do extra mash to make potato cakes for either next day or the freezer.. Chicken we have roasted, then in gravy, then the bones for soup - is it "left over" if you PLAN to make 2 meals??

We never have "leftovers" as such because I cook what we will eat... if it is not enough, hubby will have a slice of bread with it....

I think it's a shame that many people don't have the confidence to use leftovers - whether that's an inability to cook or a lack of awareness of what is safe and what isn't .

When I get a leg or shoulder of lamb I really look forward to the week of leftovers: Day 1 hot roast lamb, Day 2 cold roast lamb, Day 3 Suleman's Pilaf (chunks of lamb fried with diced tomato, onions, raisins and pine nuts and stirred through rice), Day 4 Shepherds Pie, Day 5 "lamb bolognaise" (It's amazing how much mince ragu base you can make from 200g of cold lamb - also great for including hidden veg), Day 6 soup made from lamb stock.

Mmmmm - I think I'll get some lamb this weekend .

altinkum You are coming across as weirdly argumentative about a subject which I would have thought was quite common sense. ( ie. try not to waste too much stuff).

I know people who throw away leftovers. We certainly don't in this house - morally it's an incredible waste and we can't afford to anyway! Really don't understand it.

everyone should do everything they can
hence acknowledging people can do different things. Some can do a lot, some can do very little / nothing. ( although I still fail to see any medical reason why no member of a family could ever have leftovers. Unless you are tube fed, I guess)

I've never once HAD leftovers in years of cooking for two athletic adults and two children. Maybe my cooking pots are too small or something, but it all gets eaten.

altinkum you are refusing to recognise the fact that there IS differentiation for ability built into the statement you keep quoting!

Everyone should do everything they CAN, i.e. as much or as little as they are able. No need to keep going on about how some people can't do this or that, since the quotation allows for that in the first place.

Leftovers get et. If I don't eat 'em, the dogs will. And what the dogs don't eat, the chickens will. Chickens will eat ANYTHING. And you get the food back as eggs. Really, really fresh eggs.

Always eat leftovers. There are some meals that taste nicer day two.

The exception is rice - I had blithely been reheating rice for years but DH always says to bin it because of the food poisoning risk (and he once did get food poisoning from reheated rice). Oddly, DD's food tech teacher says it's fine to reheat rice even though the advice is not to!

We don't eat meat, though. I think as a rule reheating meat is fine - certainly as a child we always used to have turkey leftovers on Boxing Day.

We waste very little. I was raised in a household that didn't have a lot of money and simply couldn't afford to waste any food. Now, although I'm a lot more comfortably off than my Mum was, I still refuse to waste anything.

PrettyBird, how many of you are there, a leg of lamb might just stretch to the next day here but most often it's all gone.
There are four of us at the moment what with comings and goings!

Make a risotto with left over veg can't throw food away if its not going to get eaten freeze it

We've managed to live entirely out of the freezer with a few fresh veggies last month

I don't eat leftovers. I have OCD and leftovers would be the trigger of a major anxiety attack for me - worrying about whether I had let it cool properly, left it out too long, left it in fridge too long, not reheated enough etc.

When I lived alone, I just bought what I would eat so had very little left over anyway. Now, DP loves leftovers - bizarrely my anxiety does not stretch to him eating leftovers, just me!

I like the phrase another poster used "Planned Overs"

Of course not "everyone" can/should/will use leftovers. But it does seem wrong to willingly waste food, so maybe "everyone" could give it some thought?