One of my worst bad habits in the kitchen is leftovers. Every night I make enough of something new to feed a football team. After dinner the leftovers usually go in the fridge, still in their original pot.
In a week, when I need the pot back, the leftovers often get tossed because no one wants to eat them.
Last night I decided to look at the leftovers. I put them all out on the counter: a bit of homemade pasta sauce, some fried rice, chipolte ranch dip, a quarter of a green pepper and a tube of pizza dough I bought by mistake.
I mixed everything up in the fried rice pot and added some shredded mozzarella cheese, layered it in a small casserole and covered it with the pizza dough. A sprinkle of garlic, cheddar cheese and oregano on the crust completed the experiment.
Twenty minutes in the oven at 350 and I pulled out my “best dinner ever” according to one son. The other judged it, “Mmmmmm… really good!” in between bites.
I saved time and money and got kudos? That’s inspiration enough to me to stop ignoring my leftovers. The best part was there were no leftovers of my leftovers to deal with.