To not understand people that dont eat leftovers?

[Eliza9917]

I've seen a lot of people say this, and wondered why? What could eating leftovers possibly do to you? Is it a fear of poverty in some way?

My sister knew a girl that would roast a chicken for Sunday dinner and only eat the breasts and throw the rest away. To me, that's madness, I'd get at least 2-3 dinners and a soup out of a large chicken.

I have teenagers and a dog. So leftovers rarely happen sadly.

However many foods (eg chilli, stew, curry) benefit from a day or 2 in the fridge for the flavours to develop.

PS: left over takeaways should always be eaten cold.

We don't eat leftovers off plates. (I do occasionally eat half my meal then go back to it later on)

We do make a roast most Sundays where there is usually excess veg and mash, we make bubble and squeak and use the bubble and squeak as a topping for cottage or shepherds pie.

I too am shocked by some people's attitudes on here. It is a rare day if we don't have some meat leftover after a Sunday roast, and we plan it that way. The following week we will either have cold meat and jacket potatoes, curry or chicken pies, depending on what roast we have had. We rarely have left over roast veg, so no bubble and squeak.

Also batch cook things like chilli, stews and as others have said, these are normally much tastier a couple of days after being made, especially if they have spices in them.

Other meals eg fish we will cook the correct amount for that particular meal, so there is no waste.

I always feel guilty if we have to throw something out of the fridge that has gone out of date.

I wouldn't survive without leftovers - obviously I don't mean the extras left on the plate when I'm full.

The whole cooking for each day depends really on the type of food/eating your family does. I've never understood (because I wasn't brought up seeing my parents do it) the 2 potatoes for Johnnie, one for Sophie and 10 peas per person and a chicken breast each style of cooking. Its pots of food eg. stews, roasted joints of meat, chilli, bolognese - extra portions go in the fridge for future meals. As a kid one of my favourite things was my dad frying potatoes from an earlier meal.

Now as an adult its a god send when you know all the effort I put into cooking the last few nights means I already have meals for the next few days with very little effort required especially as the week drags on and I feel less inclined to stand by the cooker.

I have a family member that throws away so much food after a party it is criminal. I hate to see her chucking platters and platters of perfectly good food away 😟

We have friends who regularly cook for large-ish numbers of people, but won't eat leftovers themselves, so they're always pressing takeaway boxes on guests at the end of the evening! I do find it strange. I hate throwing food away and sometimes lie awake at night planning how to use up various bits and pieces!

Genuine question for everybody (including me):

If you had two chip shops in your area and you knew that one reheated the unsold lunchtime chips for sale in the evening whereas the other advertised that they only ever sell fresh chips (i.e. chuck the earlier ones in the bin) - everything else is identical so which shop would you choose?

I'd automatically incline towards the fresh one, although I feel guilty about this.

I suppose the alternative would be for them to cook all food to order, but who wants to stand around waiting for ten minutes in a crowded chip shop?

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll I'd use the one with the fresh chips and wouldn't feel guilty at all!

If I’m paying a premium then of course I want them fresh. Because there’s every chance I’ll be reheating them as part of another meal the next day.

I'm not sure how you'd reheat chip shop chips, surely they'd just be rock hard? In the chippies I've worked at, there's normally very little waste as it's cooked to order. Only takes a few minutes to cook chips and we'd be asking people their orders as they come through the door, so by the time they come to pay the food is cooked. Sometimes they'd be a portion left at the end of a night, which we could take home.

Not at all. Often do it with Chinese ones too.

A minute or 2 wrapped up in paper in the microwave does it. Or in the oven for a few mins at about 160 if you want them crispy.

The only appalling attitude is when you bin perfectly good food just to reinforce the notion you're too rich and lazy to involve common sense.

Otherwise, just cater carefully if you won't eat leftovers.

In our case, some things like roasts apart from chicken are enjoyed so I cook a larger one, the sides aren't necessarily so I make what we'll eat. Also, both my fridge and freezer are pretty small so there's only so much I can fit in.

Left over chips unheard of in my house.

I would eat the chips that I liked the best. The best chips are those that have been cooked two or even three times, so anyone cooking chips may have partly cooked chips in various states that can have a quick final fry ready to be served.

They also benefit from being sat for a few minutes in the chip warmer, so those which have been just freshly cooked may not actually be the nicest ones, especially if they have only been cooked once.

I usually use leftover chips (which is a thing, Yorkshire chip shop portions are enormous) to make a chip omelette, aka shortcut Spanish omelette. I am the queen of creative use of leftovers, so they are often not recognisable as such and are often planned in - ie if we have takeaway, there will always be leftovers because the portions are so large, they always do two meals.

I'm also shocked by the wasteful attitudes on here, but maybe it's not surprising given the amount of ready made food you can buy that would traditionally be a leftover dish that would only be cooked when there is leftover roast meat - eg cottage pie, shepherd's pie and probably dishes like enchiladas, lasagne and many others which would be made to use up whatever leftover bits of meat and veg there is.

I don't bother with any of that faff. I just leave things out and covered to keep the cats/flies etc away for a couple/few hours and put it in the fridge. Maybe even sometimes there is still a little heat left, but it doesn't seem to effect the fridge temperature.

Sometimes I forget and things are at room temperature overnight, but I've been doing the same things routinely for getting on for 30 years and no-one has ever had food poisoning from my food.

Only time I would be more careful would be with fish etc in the height of summer and in that case I'd probably just try to get in in the fridge within an hour.

I don't know anyone who doesn't like leftovers, particularly immediately after Christmas. I could easily banquet on pigs in blankets, stuffing and bread sauce with cold meat and mash. Apple sauce with cold pork, pease pudding with gammon (those are all things we cooked from the Sunday before Christmas until a couple of days ago, including a turkey crown in the middle).

What isn't nice is when people are still serving up turkey, sometimes recooked in a different way, a week later! Three days max or food poisoning.

(I do usually make soup, didn't with the recent lot, no room in fridge or freezer.)

Finished all ours but it was nice while it lasted. However I've had enough Christmas/new year food to last a lifetime, something different now please.

Marilyn.
Genius. We have an extra fridge. I put things cooled off but not cold food in there and put any very heat sensitive food such as meat in the other fridge or on a shelf farthest away from the cooked meal. Tbh the I have monitored the temperature gauges on the fridge and it doesn’t change temperature when I do this.

Equally appalled by wastefulness and wonder if it's partly that people just don't know enough about food.

However the typo "Bublé and squawk" upthread has made me happy.

I love leftovers - somethings taste better the next day I think (like pasta..) but it’s an uphill battle to get DH to eat them. I don’t know what his aversion is to them to be honest.

I'm really funny about food hygiene and won't take any risks due to my ill health but....I have no problem with leftovers? You cover it up and leave it to cool and then when cold put in the fridge? Reheat only once? Surely that's fine? With a chicken though I do one meal and then pick it clean and DDog has it for the next couple of days. I'm never sure how people manage to do seventeen meals and a stew out of one.

Only thing I never reheat is rice. I am the voice or doom hovering over anyone who has reheated rice.

People probably don't know about food, and I hate to say it, but many are just too comfortable - food is relatively cheap compared to incomes and you can get just about anything ready made so you don't need to make it yourself. People don't see the issue with literally throwing money away.

Food waste statistics in the UK are appalling, it's something like £10-15 per week per household. For us it's probably under £1 and I feel bad enough about that, but some must be chucking much more than this for the average to come out so high.

“I always cook extra vegetables and potatoes, just so we can have bubble and squeak. Food of the gods!”

Nothing like Mum’s Boxing Day B&S...

No-one is doing more than 2/3 meals out of a chicken, it's a tired exaggeration, usually by the type of people who 'won't eat leftovers'.

Roast
Pie/curry/pasta dish type thing
Soup or bits for the cat/dog

That's it. Not eating for a week, no 5/10/17 meals, just using the whole bird, sensible portion sizes and adding sides of vegetables etc to make a normal balanced meal.

I don't bother with any of that faff. I just leave things out and covered to keep the cats/flies etc away for a couple/few hours and put it in the fridge

Yes me too. It's not difficult, I'm not sure why people are using it as an excuse.