<p>Will your family members eat leftovers? What do they like? What must be discarded? Do you have any good recipes? I don’t like to cook, but really need to get it together to do more of it. I personally will eat most leftovers, but my family generally doesn’t want to eat leftovers. It would save time if they would, so I thought that I would see if anyone has any good ideas.</p>
<p>I usually cook 2 roasting chickens at one time. We eat the normal chicken dinner on the first night. I’ll use the leftover chicken for a variety of things. One of their favorite chicken leftover meals is when I take the leftover chicken and make wraps using large tortillas. I put leftover chicken, shredded cheese, and a little barbeque sauce on the tortilla and then roll in up and tuck the ends in. Then I butter the top and bottom and grill them like a grilled cheese sandwich. Serve with a salad. Yum.</p>
<p>One way to make leftover meatloaf interesting is to slice the leftover meatloaf. Spray a little PAM spray on a cookie sheet. Put the slices of meatloaf on the cookie sheet. Top each slice with tomato sauce and mozzarella and pop in the oven to heat it up. </p>
<p>Pot roast and brisket taste even better as leftovers.</p>
<p>When I make spaghetti and meatballs, I make enough to get at least 2 dinners out of it. I need to make a lot of meatballs because someone is always going for that snack between 9-10pm and they might pull out a nice sized portion of meatballs.</p>
<p>I will also make a lot of pasta. My kids will reheat it in the microwave.</p>
<p>Most of the time I don’t have leftovers, but when I do, they will eat it if they loved it the first night. Here’s an example. I recently made some enchiladas, which is a new dish for me to make and serve. My son loved it, so even though I thought the leftovers were very soggy, he made sure that mom and dad were not going to finish the leftovers! He ate every last drop of those leftovers.</p>
<p>Oops. I thought you were talking about the moldy stuff in the back of my refrigerator. Never mind.</p>
<p>Ultimate leftovers - our Costco now sells “rotisserie chicken breast meat” at $3.99/lb (of course, one has to buy a 3-lb package :)). Yipee, I do not have to deal with the bones! So far, we had salad with chicken for dinner last night, tonight we’ll have pasta with chicken, tomorrow we’ll have chicken paninis or chicken quesadillas… On Monday, the dog will have whatever is left!</p>
<p>I second BunsenBurner. I love Costco’s Rotisserie chickens as well. We eat roast chicken one night. Then, the left over chicken is pulled and saved for a make-over. 
Usually, I use the Taco spices and pan fry with onions, garlic, tomato, peppers, and black beans. Convert them into either Chimichangas or Enchiladas.</p>
<p>It’s 2 nights and then throw them out.</p>
<p>Left over plain white or brown rice turned into Mint Pulao (Indian style).</p>
<p>Slice onions, carrots, and green beans julienne.
Finely chop a handful of mint and coriander leaves (cilantro), ginger, cumin and green chillis (or chilli powder, I prefer green chillis).</p>
<p>Fry onions in olive oil, add ginger, green chillis, cumin seeds. Add carrots and green beans, let the veges cook just a bit and the add cooked left over rice, fry well. Take the pan off the heat, let it cool down a bit. When cooled add chopped cilantro, mint (this way, they don’t wilt). Stir well so that rice grains get coated with mint and cilantro.</p>
<p>Top with lemon juice and serve.</p>
<p>Those rotisserie chickens are great. I brought one home the other day, boned it immediately, and served boneless chicken pieces that night. Meanwhile I stewed the bones and clinging meat bits, strained the broth and the next day cooked fine egg noodles in the broth and served that with more of the chicken. That was treated like a real treat!</p>
<p>My family loves left overs. Meatloaf, pizza, take out from restaurants, beef stew, chili - anything that can be heated up in a microwave. Vegies are not usually chosen so I rarely save those (the dog likes them). Potatoes are also favorites as are leftover hamburgers. Many of our leftovers go with my husband for his lunch at work. We usually have one night a week as leftover night.</p>
<p>The only leftover dish my youngest child will eat is ribs. She gets bored with everything. 
Husband and I don’t mind leftovers. The dish that we can’t finish within a day or two will be put away in the freezer and bring them back out a few weeks later.</p>
<p>We love leftovers. My kids prefer almost any kind of leftover to regular breakfast food, and will fight over them. Sometimes we have a 2nd night’s dinner if there is enough, or I pack them for lunch at work the next day. I purposely cook more than we will eat in one meal of almost anything (pasta, hamburgers, chicken, soup, stew, casserole, etc.) so we will have leftovers (and I will have less cooking to do - - I like to cook, but don’t have a lot of time). </p>
<p>One comment on getting your family to eat them that seems obvious, but… if my family didn’t really like the original dish, they also don’t like the leftovers. And if they really like the original dish, they are eager to have the leftovers.</p>
<p>One thing we do that some people seem to find unusual is eat leftover hamburgers. We grill more than we need, then stick the extra few in the fridge. Microwave 'em up the next day (or even put them on a bun and eat them cold if a microwave isn’t available). </p>
<p>Something easy I do with leftover chicken or turkey is take wheat (or flour) tortilla and put in chicken/turkey, shredded mozzarella, and some black beans (drained from the can). Fold in half and heat in a frying pan. Add veggies (tomatoes and avocados for us) once they are heated.</p>
<p>Our leftovers often become my or my husband’s lunch at work the next couple of day! I hardly ever buy a lunch cause there is usually something leftover to take - tastes better and I can control the content/calories rather than be tempted by take out stuff.</p>
<p>I do most of my cooking on Sunday—usually three different dishes that will freeze or keep in the fridge thru the week. I don’t have time thru the week to cook, so basically we are eating left overs all the time!!</p>
<p>I also don’t like cooking so most of my meals are for 2 nights, quiche, lasagna, spaghetti. I have been doing that pretty much since the beginning of time so everyone is used to eating the same thing for 2 nights. If anyone complains, I tell them they are welcome to cook anytime. :)</p>
<p>Any dish that requires braising meat and slow cooking tastes better the next day. These stew like dishes freeze well too.</p>
<p>Re: post #15</p>
<p>According to Michelle Henandez, the braised, slow-cooked, and otherwise culinarily hooked occupy over 40% of the space in the most selective freezers.</p>
<p>Now that S is in college there are a lot more leftovers in the house. We have not figured out how to scale down food. I will not eat them at all (something to do with my childhood) but DH and DD eat all of them. Since my D is doing EMT training 3 nights a week, she misses dinner, but will eat whatever is left in the fridge at 11pm.</p>
<p>Nope. No left overs at our house. The kids don’t care for them and H is away so much I can’t count on him to finish them off. (Well, maybe the occassional meatloaf, but that’s it.) </p>
<p>When I make dinner I have to portion it exactly. If you came to my house and looked in the fridge, you’d see mostly empty shelves. This doesn’t bother me in the least. But, it has raised at least one of my wicked step-mother-in-law’s eyebrows.</p>
<p>When we do the big turkey dinners I have to make enough for 2 full dinner plus enough leftover to do turkey a la king. One night is the original dinner, on other night we call it turkey “reprise” instead of leftover 
We’re kind of musical. But there better be enough of EVERYTHING for the second dinner, stuffing, potatoes, veggies, etc.</p>
<p>My mom is also an “exact portion” person. It drives my family crazy when we visit, as there is never enough for seconds on anything (forget the idea of leftovers). </p>
<p>Sometimes we alternate night with something I cooked double (eg, lasagna on Sunday and then Tuesday night), so it is not two nights in a row. Pretty much anything that will keep for one night will keep for two.</p>