I don’t know if it’s an Italian thing or just the way my family did it, but I grew up on leftovers. I wasn’t one of those kids who ate weetbix or fruit for breakfast, I had the leftovers from dinner the night before. That might be why I’m a huge on savoury food –give me leftover beef stew over a cupcake any day.
Christmas day is by far the greatest day of the year when it comes to food. There are leftovers for days. My mum always tries to talk me out of making a Christmas feast; she worries about the amount of time I spend cooking, as well as all of the food that gets left over. What she doesn’t understand, is that I purposely make masses amount of food so that after Christmas lunch, Mike and I can kick the family out and hang out on the couch for the next three days eating leftovers. Not having to cook is the best! And I personally think leftovers always taste better the next day.
For the first few days, there is always enough food to put a few whole meals together, but then you get to the point where there are just little bits of random things left over, such as; a handful of roast potatoes or coleslaw for one. When I was younger, I would get in big trouble for wasting food, so now I am very good at using leftovers. Don’t get me wrong, it can be a struggle; what are you going to do with a handful of roast vegetables?
I have put together a few ideas of meals you can make with your typical Christmas leftovers. These ideas assume you have staples in your kitchen, such as eggs and bread.
Leftover Roast sandwiches
My personal favourite! The best thing about sandwiches is that you can put pretty much anything you like on them. My favourite type of sandwich is one made from the leftovers of a Sunday roast. I like to fill my sandwich with smashed roast pumpkin, potatoes and onion, and then add roast meat with any leftover gravy and turkey stuffing, if there is any; it is just like heaven! You can also add any leftover coleslaw or even leftover potato chips. Yes! Potato chips on sandwiches are a thing, and it is also very wonderful.
Eggs: your way
Eggs are a staple in my house, I would say that I use eggs in my cooking almost every day. Poached eggs are my favourite for breakfast but often when I have leftovers I will mix it up and make scrambled eggs; you can add anything to scrambled eggs. I’m not really big on meat for breakfast, bacon is probably as far as I would go. So normally, if I’m making an omelette of leftovers, I will chop the leftover roast vegetables into small pieces and fry them for a minute or so before adding my whisked eggs and fetta cheese. Did you know, the secret to making the best scrambled eggs is to add a dash of cream to the whisked eggs before frying.
If you don’t want eggs for breakfast, you could easily use the ingredients to make a frittata, and eat with any leftover salad. You can you use this recipe from Taste.com as a base and add whatever left over veges you may have in your fridge.
Bread and butter pudding
There always seems to be a tone of leftover bread at the end of functions. You can either slice it into pieces or making something delicious and clever, like bread and butter pudding.
You can find many more great ideas for using leftovers on the inter-webs!
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