By Christine Frank
More than likely, this wasn’t a typical holiday season for you and your family. Maybe part of your family decided to stay home due to health concerns, or maybe they didn’t like who you voted for. Either way, you’ll probably have some major leftovers. Don’t despair! Put your leftovers to good use! Save yourself some time with meals ready to go in the oven that don’t taste like you’ve already eaten them for three days.
If you are a meat and potato family like us, you can combine those leftovers into a tasty meat pie. Just make a quick butter and flour crust, or purchase a pre-made pie crust, cut up your leftover meat and lay in the bottom. Spoon in those leftover vegetables, leftover gravy, and spread any leftover mashed potatoes on the top. If you freeze the crust overnight and then add your leftovers in, you can package against freezer burn, and slide the pie into your freezer to use at a later date!
Have a lot of leftover ham? Cut the ham into bite size pieces. Combine it with yellow potatoes sliced thin, some butter, cheddar cheese, and breadcrumbs, and voila! A tasty casserole ready to go in the oven.
Want to use that ham bone? Let’s make ham and bean soup! Simmer the bone in water for a couple of hours, pull any meat off and toss the bone. Add some pre-soaked navy beans, cook until beans are done. Of course, you could slice up onion and carrots to add some vegetables to the broth, if you’d like. Make some nifflies (also known as spaetzle, a German egg and flour noodle) and you have a warm, filling soup.
If you cooked a large beef cut for your holiday meal and have leftovers, one of the things we like to use those leftovers for, besides meat pie, is a beef and noodle dish. Cut/shred your beef, add a can of cream of mushroom soup with cooked egg noodles, and serve!
If you have biscuits left over along with chicken or turkey and gravy, you can make biscuits and gravy. Simply shred your meat leftovers, combine with your gravy, and top your biscuits with the mixture.
No matter what your holidays looked this year, don’t let your leftovers go to waste! Hopefully these recipes will jumpstart your creativity in the kitchen. I guarantee you won’t hear, “leftovers, again?!”
All recipes serve 4-6.
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