Makeover your leftovers
Discovering ways to revitalize leftovers will allow you create new delicious meals with ingredients you already have.
This guide is built around the foods of some of my year’s likeliest celebrations and seasonal activities.The recipes require only a handful of spices and seasonings, and call for few fresh foods, as to not discourage those of us with lightly stocked pantries.
You may stil find that you are missing ingredients that these recipes call for - that’s okay! Revamping foods takes creativity and resourcefulness. Use your best cooking judgement and rework the suggested recipes to fit your leftovers and the contents of your unique pantry. You’ll soon become an expert at combining foods and flavors, and with stocking your kitchen with your favorite leftover pick-me-ups.
This guide should invite you to think about using your pre-prepared foods (and a few common fresh ones) in ways that will reinvigorate them into satisfying new dishes.
Learning to embrace your leftovers will help you save money, save food from the trash can, and make a difference in saving planet Earth from the harmful effects caused by excessive food waste. It’s a win-win-win.
Most leftovers from dishes made with dairy, meats, cheeses, vegetables, and fruits should be eaten within, at most, a few days of the original meal. Food must be safely stored, handled, and, if necessary, reheated to prevent contamination and bacteria growth. Although unlikely, it is possible to follow all the rules and still have food turn unexpectedly. If it looks funny, smells funny, or, if you manage to get there, tastes funny, then don’t risk it and don’t eat it. Saving food is important, but your health comes first.
Bacteria thrive between 40° F and 140° F. To prevent bacterial growth, hot foods being served should be kept at 140° F or warmer. Hot meal leftovers must be refrigerated within 2 hours from when they’ve begun to cool. All perishable prepared foods that have been left at room temperature for more than 2 hours (1 hour if the temperature is over 90° F) should be discarded as they are no longer considered safe to eat. Cold perishable food should be kept at 40° F or below.
Leftovers should be covered/stored in closed, tightly sealed containers, or wrapped in airtight packaging. Doing this with all your leftovers will help keep bacteria, odors, and unwanted flavors out of your food and will help your leftovers retain more moisture.
Most leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days or frozen for at least 3 to 4 months. Frozen leftovers often remain safe to eat for even longer, but can lose moisture and flavor over time.
Leftovers should reach 165°F when reheated. Liquids, like sauces and soups, that need reheating should be brought to a rolling boil before being served. Covering leftovers while they are reheating helps ensure no areas are left uncooked.
Extend the life of your foods with a few common methods of food preservation. Most of these techniques work best with fresh foods, but freezing - arguably the easiest method of them all - can be utilized with many prepared foods as well. Make sure to research each process before trying them at home. Attention to detail and proper storage are essential to keeping your foods safe, long-lasting, and tasty.
Canning involves heating and then vacuum sealing foods in special glass jars. When done at home, canned foods usually have a shelf of about a year before opening. Canning requires reusable canning jars, rings, and one-time use sealing lids.
Freezing requires chilling foods to 0°F or colder. All foods, including fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, grains, nuts, dairy, eggs, and prepared foods can be preserved through freezing. Some food items, like raw veggies and fruits, will not return to their original crisp, crunchy state once frozen, but they will remain edible. There are still plenty of uses for these foods, though! Depending on the item, freezing can successfully preserve foods anywhere from 1-12 months.
Drying is the process of dehydrating foods to inhibit mold, yeast, and bacteria growth. Some techniques require special equipment and others are relatively easy. When dried and stored at home with less sophisticated equipment, dried foods will last 6 months - 1 year.
Fermenting encourages the growth of alcohol and organic acids to inhibit microbial growth. Fermented products include wine, sauerkraut, kimchi, and yogurt. Many fermented foods can be produced without any special equipment and will usually last in cold storage for 2-6 months depending on the kind of food.
Pickling requires immersing foods in a solution containing salt, acid, or alcohol. Most methods require no special equipment. Pickling is often combined with another method, such as fermenting, canning, or refrigerating. When stored properly, pickled foods will usually last 5-6 months.