What leftovers do you have in your refrigerator? I hope you have leftovers in your refrigerator. Make it a habit to include these on your meal planner. I keep all my leftovers together in one area of my refrigerator so I don't forget what I have available. Depending upon the dish and your refrigerator temperature, leftovers are good for about 5 or 6 days in your refrigerator. This leftover lunch included macaroni and cheese, quinoa with celery and almonds, organic spinach cheese ravioli (something we sampled at Costco and liked), and spaghetti squash with tomato sauce and pine nuts. For leftovers like the plain spaghetti squash (extra from a dish I'd made), it is simple to add a few new things to make it more interesting. I mixed in some Bionaturae strained tomatoes (I had some left over in a jar after making tortilla soup and pizza), pine nuts, Italian seasoning and sea salt.
Three things to think about when cooking your meals from excellent quality ingredients made by God.
1. Obviously excellent quality ingredients are probably going to cost more (unless you find a fantastic sale on something in season), so you don't want to be wasting food or ingredients. Only put on your plate what you will eat, and save the rest for another meal. This is especially important to teach children. Have you mastered the weekly challenge, "become a member of the clean plate club"?
2. As you are learning to listen to your body, be aware of when you are full. If you are trying to loose weight, try putting 2/3 to 3/4 of the amount you would normally eat on your plate. Once you have eaten that amount, stop and see if you feel full. If not, don't stop, get seconds. Fill up your plate with the other 1/4 to 1/3 amount you did not take at first. The purpose of this is not to starve yourself (that only slows down your metabolism), but to help you not overeat or waste food. This is a much better strategy than to take a huge plate and either stuff it all in or throw away the extras when you decide you took too much.
3. Plan meals around your leftovers. We save whatever is left, even if it is a small amount. Those small amounts are great when mixed with other small amounts to make up a meal, as my lunch shown above. I reheat my leftovers on the stove top (soups and stews) or in the oven. A toaster oven works great too for reheating if you have one. For my leftover lunch shown above, since I had only a tiny bit of quinoa and 4 ravioli left, I placed them side-by-side in a small glass baking pan to reheat them. If you are placing a cold glass dish into the oven (that you have stored the item in), do not preheat the oven. I place the cold dishes in the room temperature oven, then turn it on to 350 °F and set the timer for 20 - 45 minutes, depending upon the size of the dish I am reheating. I have several glass dishes with plastic lids of various sizes for leftover storage. Take off the plastic lid and cover the glass dish with aluminum foil to reheat.
A leftover lunch takes almost no time to prepare and since we have done this since the boys were little, everyone in the family enjoys a lunch like this. We typically have some raw carrots or a salad on the side to complete the meal.
"When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” John 6:12
No comments:
Post a Comment