How do you keep on top of your leftovers? I'm in trouble again!

[alittleteapot]

Oh dear, dp and i had another argument about the fridge last night. He's right, I'm wrong, but I don't know how to fix it. I just don't seem to be good at using things up and we end up throwing loads of stuff away, which I hate, and he hates.

I just seem to have a bit of a kind of fridge dyslexia. In general, as a new SAHM, I guess I haven't taken to the domestic goddess thing like a duck to water. But I'm willing to learn...

Do you have any particular top tips for managing your fridge and planning your meals to ensure maximum use of all ingredients and leftovers?

PS I realise this seems like a stupid question and makes me look quite stupid, it should be easy enough, but somehow i'm just not cutting the mustard when it comes to using up the custard (sorry )

i do my shopping on line most weeks as i find i only buy what i need.i also meal plan and try to stick to it.i plan lunches and main meals.
i make soup with leftover veg,omelettes,bubble and squeak.
my dh works away quite a lot so i tend to cook for me and dd and freeze half for another day when i've not got time to cook.
there's a good website lovefoodhatewaste which gives good ideas for using leftovers.
sainsburys website also has some good ideas.

this one?

will check out those websites, thanks mrstim

Yes McCDreamy, that's the one. Looks lovely but haven't had a proper browse yet.

Oh yeah, that's my other mission. i want to start photocopying my fave recipes and put them in one place so i can find them easily again. (deviation on the general need to get better at managing the kitchen theme...)

Don't throw out stale bread - whizz it into breadcrumbs and store in the freezer.

i can recommend this cook book

The kitchen revolution - rosie sykes and polly russell

you make one big meal from scratch then use the leftovers for 2/3 other something for nothing meals.
1 meal from larder/store cupboard
1 meal to freeze half for later
1 seasonal supper

It even has the shopping list for the week you can print out online

One week , lovely meals, NO WASTE

alittleteapot, for freezing bulk meals, I buy chinese takeaway boxes (silver rectangular tins with cardboard lid) - you can get them from oriental supermarkets.

I can use a marker pen to write the name of the meal on the lid and the date I cooked it. You soon figure out the proportion of meals that can fit into each box eg I know I can fit a stew for 4 persons into one box if I bulk it up with rice and cook a veg separately. They are regular shaped and stack beautifully in the freezer compartment, maximising storage space.

dh has the kind of job where some nights he gets home late, or has had lunch out so not hungry, and i don't always get sufficient warning of them. i tend to shop once a week. there are certain staples that i have to get - milk, juice, fruit, veg. then i put in enough meat/fish for about 4 meals. i have some frozen meals (where i cooked a double batch & froz, or fishfinger type things) and baked beans, pasta & tuna in the cupbaord. so, i can 'whip up' a meal in just 15 mins, like beans on toas, tuna & pasta, if he suddenly comes home early/hungry when he didn't think he would, but with enough food for 4 main meals, and enough for 2 or 3 'quick' meals we're ok.

sometimes, i just get all the leftovers out, and we just pick & choose, though we do get a few odd combinations!!

also, lots of things go into tomato sauce, so i always have tinned toms ready to do 'veggie mess' - leftovers in tomato sauce on pasta/rice.

chicken, if defrosted, can be cooked & refrozen. if you have a jar of sauce, you can just pour sauce over chicken breasts, leave in oven til cooked through, stick in plastic bag/tub & shove into freezer for another day.

I have a few meal ideas which make use of small amounts of leftovers, normally one of these type of meals at least once per week. Eg:

Omelettes - ham, spring onions, mushrooms, cheese, tomatoes

Pizza - spinach, chicken, sweetcorn, onions, pasta sauce (anything really!)

Fried rice - any cooked meat shredded, small amounts of almost any veg, eggs

Fish cakes for DC - tuna/salmon, mashed potato, peas

Baked potates - with baked beans, cottage cheese, chilli etc

It took me ages to get good at using up leftovers but i pride myself on it now. Here are some of the things i do.

I have a load of clip top boxes of various sizes and bits left overs go into those on the top shelf where they can be seen, or if its a full portion of something it goes in the freezer. If it's something dd likes she gets it for her lunch.

On the nights when i eat with dd and DH eats later, he will get the single portion of whatever is in the freezer.

If you have uncooked potatoes going over, make a big pot of mash and freeze in portions.

When i make apple/fruit crumble i make double or triple the topping. It keeps for ages in the fridge and if fruit coming to it's use by stage, i can make either mini crumble in ramekins or a big one depending on how much fruit to use.

I've never managed total meal planning, but a bit here and there works for me.

When i decide on dinner, i first look to what is to be used up, and then work around that. Ditto for lunch.

I always make double and freeze things like spag bol and curry. And i made a point of working out how much rice or spagetti we actually need so that there is no leftovers.

I always buy a large cauliflower (same price as the small ones) and make double chicken korma with cauli, and freeze half.

I only ever serve cabbage with corned beef, and we only need half a cabbage, so i make sure i have carrots and buttermilk and make cole slaw for DH's sandwiches. Because i have buttermilk in the house i also make 2 brown soda breads and freeze one.

I shop at the butchers once a week, and freeze it all, i normally have several choices of meat to pick from (i.e what ever will go with the leftovers.

You will get better with practice.

zanz1bar - i've just ordered it! thanks everyone, great tips here.

great.

I love it because i hit a really bored with cooking phase and it told me what to cook tonight.

DH doesn't eat much fish so i chop and change a bit now and it still tastes good.

Interesting thread. (Just saw it now, so am resurrecting it). I have the same problem as the OP, my DP often tells me that we throw far too many things out.. . So am keen to find ideas on how to use leftovers- and thanks for all the good tips here.

Just one comment: I've bought the Kitchen revolution book a few days ago. It's really lovely to read / browse through & has some great recipes. HOWEVER lots of the recipes included in the book are a bit far-fetched / complex / too 'interesting' (whatever you want to call it, I hope you get my drift). I'd love to use the book's system (and what they suggest makes total sense to me) & meal plan along those lines... so it's a pity that they haven't included basic recipes to go into their meal plans. Wonder if anyone has tried using the Kitchen revolution system without necessarily following the particular recipes in the book?

bump... would be nice to resurrect this thread, as it's a very interesting one.

I made a meal plan for the first time (in my life!) this week. It was actually fun to do(although took a bit of time)... I think it's a great way to keep to a budget & also to try out new recipes & not do the same old same old...

my dh is how i keep on top of my leftovers he's a walking dustbin im always telling him off because instead of eating as an evening meal as i had planned (we quitw often have mondays as leftover night this sometimes runs into tuesday as well now with the credit crunch) he eats it aswell as his evening meal.
Am thinking of doing a meal plan from now on to save waste and money this may sound a little thick but how exactly does ot work? i lso intend to wait to shop untill all my cubourds and freezer are empty.
Also i trie to eat leftovers for my lunch as generally there not great portion it makes just enough for a lunchtime meal

Mothersmilk I m finding meal planning really useful- not least in that it has cut my shopping bills by a third!!

I would pick a day to go shopping (mine is usually thursday) and stick to it where possible.

Then plan your meals for the week, AND ONLY BUY WHAT YOU NEED.

If you do a roast chicken on the weekend, plan the leftovers into a meal for the next day (risotto, soup, pie, etc)

Plan your meals so the ones using the most fresh produce are at the beginning of the week (we usually have something like stuffed peppers which useds loads of veg on the night we go shopping), and so your meals at the end of the week are less reliant on fresh veg or can b adapted if the veg is looking tired by then.

try and be orhganised so that if plans change at the last minute you dont waste anyhting- for example if you end up eating out/at a friends then freeze whatever meat you were going to be using that night, or use it for luncht he next day.

Sorry thats all a bit garbled but hope it helped anyway.

Very helpful advice notamumy! I've just started meal planning too & it's not only alread helping with expenses... it's also quite exciting, has made me think of different ideas of things to cook.

I mentioned, a bit earlier in this thread, the book 'kitchen revolution' which proposes a plan of meal organizing. I was wondering (and doesn't hurt to re-ask the question) whether the system they propose could actually work with lots of much more simple recipes, because the ones they suggest are pretty complex (not all, but some).

me too maria- at the moment im setting myself a challenge of cooking one completely new recipe every week, and so far it is working really well and many have since become staples.

Im not familiar with the kitchen revolution,I just picked up meal-planning from on here and adapted it to fit our lifestyle really.

Notamumy: The kitchen revolution is a kind of posh meal planning book! Basically it proposes the following:

--one big, elaborate meal from scratch each week
--2 meals called 'something for nothing' made up from leftovers from the meal from scratch (plus other ingredients)
--one meal made with kitchen staples (not fresh ingredients)
--one seasonal meal, made with at least one fresh, seasonl ingredient
--one meal that freezes well. So you could, say, double quantities of a stew, a soup or something like that. Then you have a ready-made meal in the freezer for days when you can't / don't want to cook.
--one 'free' day where you either go to a restaurant, eat bread & cheese, or eat one of the frozen meals.

I think it's a good system, and the book actually includes meal plans & shopping lists & fantastic recipes for a whole year, following this system.It's just that the recipes are a bit elaborate... so what I would like to do is to just adjust that system (which makes sense to me) to something that fits better with our family & lifestyle...

Meal plan five days a week and work out how you can make something out of leftovers on the sixth and seventh day. that's what we've been doing this year and it's worked well so far.

Almsot anything can be chucked into an omelette or stirfry, I've discovered

or a soup.
or a frittata.
or on a pizza actually.