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.

Look . Stuff doesn't taste nice until the sell by date, and then become violently poisonous at midnight.

Depends on the shop also. M&S stuff generally lasts longer than the sell by than other shops. We buy reduced prepack sandwiches. M&S are still good for 2 days after.

It really was tasty, limited, and a perfect break from all the very rich foods we’ve had over the season.

We have got into the habit of making a minestrone or other similar soup once a week or so, it’s so good for using up any last bits and pieces and it means we have two meals a week that are low on meat but still really satisfying and warming and really good to eat in the winter months.

This thread continues to blow my mind. I'm not the greenest person around by any stretch but I just had no idea that people throw out perfectly good food for no good reason (particularly when, as pointed out by many others, things like soups, curries and many other sauces are undeniably tastier after they've sat for a day). This is genuinely the most shocked I've been in years of reading this forum!

I am an original MN chicken cooker - in fact I have been roundly abused for it in the past.

This thread is full of my people... the people who can understand that '2-3 dinners and a soup' out of a chicken doesn't mean 2-3 dinners where the chicken meat occupies most of the plate, just 2-3 dinners that use chicken with a variety of other ingredients to a) use up the chicken entirely, leaving minimal waste and b) feed a family with tasty, varied, cooked-from-scratch food on a reasonable budget and often in tight time frames.

I am shocked at some of the attitudes displayed, but warmed to see how many of my people there really are.

I've actually got 2 packs of mince and a pack of 10 sausages in the freezer, been there since we brought them but have been there for a many months, i won't eat them but I know my husband will happily defrost them and cook them up....

You say that as if he's indulging in deviant behaviour. That's what you're meant to do with them!

I think you should name and shame this dangerous place TitsalinaBumSquash so the supermarket chain can clean up their act

Well Im very disappointed in my Christmas turkey. I was planning on making it the focus of our meat meals for the month of January but my greedy lot seem to have scarfed most of it already.

aah yes, I don't tend to cook rice and would be very wary about reheating it,

Other than that, I am delighted to have some almost-ready ingredients to lob in an omelette or a sandwich.

I hope this helps the lasagna debate. So if I reheat old lasagna it goes in the oven with a splash of water and wrapped in tin foil. Now when I'm batch cooking IL put cooled down lasagna mix i.e Bolognese in a foil takeaway container, put fresh egg lasagna sheet and cooled white sauce on top with sprinkled cheese on top, it's ready to now go into freezer. When I want to use it I defrost it and put in in oven too cook as normal and I sh#t you not it's beautiful and fresh compared to freezing lasagna that's already been cooked and frozen but each to there own

I've just carved up the remainder of that leg of lamb. It's been sitting in my freezing cold kitchen since yesterday lunchtime, and it's still beautifully pink and soft and delicious. I cannot wait to eat it

Haha Barbarian!

I tend to dismember and bag / box up, then fridge / freeze any roast bird after the first meal, just to ensure that the 'nobody will notice if I take just a teeeny extra slice' brigade don't mess up the menu plans!

All dates have some give in them, I reckon

They do. I pass an m&s on the way home from work so occasionally pop in to see if there are any good reductions. We regularly eat their food a day or two after the date and it's always fine.

curiositycreature

In the oven, same way it’s cooked. I also heat up things like leftover Chinese in a frying pan on the hob, makes things like noodles extra crispy and delicious.

I can understand why people don’t like leftovers if they only use a microwave, which in my experience makes everything soggy.

Living by myself, I don't have many leftovers myself; I buy enough for the meals planned, and there is usually nothing on the plate to be left over. If "leftovers" means a bulk order that won't be used in one go, of course I have leftovers: Waitrose, for example, have a potato dish I like that says "Serves 2" on the label. I will usually cook the thing up and have half of it with my dinner, and the other half the next day, I wouldn't consider that "leftovers" because I'd already planned to have the two halves in two dinners.

PP on here have said there are plenty of dishes that taste better the next day; but it should be remembered there are however plenty of dishes that cooked up then left to go cold, or cooked up then left to go cold then reheated, turn into tasteless grey muck. I wouldn't make an oversized dish of those sort of foods in the first place, but if someone does, they can't be blamed for chucking it away if it turns to muck.

I'm shocked, really shocked at the waste and, not wanting to be rude, ignorance.

If you freeze food on the day you brought it, of course you get it out and eat it at a later date. If you've got left over meat from a roast, it goes in the fridge and can be used for a couple of days, even if only for sandwiches. Food being throw as it approaches or reaches the sell-by date?? Madness! Are people made of money?

I've got to laugh or I'd cry.

@UnnecessaryFennel how long for tho.... surely there will come a point it's no longer good if its been in the freezer for months and months

@Eliza9917 Nope, never buy from butchers.

I had food poisoning when I was 18 and since then I have been very funny with food

I don’t get it. I always cook the whole recipe (cookbooks are so fickle - cook one recipe and it’s for 2 and turn the page and the next is for 8!) and divide it into portions for the freezer (except the portions we have that day).

Surely the “leftovers” are basically the same as doing that?

Scaling down a recipe rarely works for me - using only half an onion or 200g of tinned tomatoes is just madness!

If there’s cooked meat in the sell-by fridge, I buy a sell-by pack of bread rolls and make up loads of packed lunches and they’re perfect for taking to work. I haven’t killed DH yet .

Got a £5 packet of smoked salmon in Tesco today for £1.25. The kids were over the moon - that was lunch sorted.

Best time for Sainsbury’s is Sunday afternoon before closing or about 8pm on a Monday. The other supermarkets are random. The Co-Op does great sell-bys too!

Freezer burn is a thing, just inspect it and see. Try and use things in a reasonable time. You can also defrost and see what it's like.

There are probably charts on Google that will tell you how long things can be frozen for.

Never buy from butchers... where does supermarket meat come from? It's slaughtered and processed in the same way that butchers do. Hygiene regs apply equally in both situations.

*Meant to say I freeze the individual filled rolls!

@Eliza9917 - oh and I've seen loads of reduced food that are meant to be used by the same date so no I wont risk buying it...

Great thread. Was going to go shopping this am. But reading this decided instead to eat up some of the food in the house. Made a curry this am with left over aubergine.

oh and I've seen loads of reduced food that are meant to be used by the same date so no I wont risk buying it...

I am starting to understand why my food bills, which I think of as being extravagant, are low when I compare then with other people...

@regmover yes I understand it's from the same place but at least supermarkets have dates, butchers don't, that's why I don't buy from them...