Great Leftover recipes

After reading my post on the chicken and rice soup, my mom strongly suggested the use of frittatas for using up left overs, particularly colored peppers, pasta, any kind of meat, and CHEESE. You can bury pretty much anything in one of these suckers.

My favorite recipe comes from the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook and has a Mediterranean flavor. I used sour cream and milk instead of heavy cream and it came out perfect. This is a GREAT way to use up old bread or the crumbs in the bag of croutons.

I had bacon, goat cheese, and peppers to use up as well as the previously mentioned Basil. I just love the flavor in this. Feel free to sprinkle dry italian spices on top with the croutons. Italian bread crumbs would also do the trick. I omitted the olives because my other half won't eat them. As a result, he loved this, and even ASKED for it the second day when I offered him two choices.

The other magic recipe for recycling ingredients is Shepherd's Pie. We had corn and green beans in the fridge in separate containers and left over mashed potatoes. Not much, so I actually made another quick batch of instant to supplement. Grabbed the ground beef from the freezer (but turkey would be awesome too, and I think the original recipe calls for lamb, hence the name) and sprinkled it with steak seasoning and Al sauce as it browned. Combine in the baking dish, top with a little butter and heat through until potatoes are slightly brown on top. To make it look fancy, I dusted the top with parsley flakes. Easy, tasty, warm, and cozy. I did put this together in a small baking dish so it would be a decent thickness and not go too far. You don't want to end up re-purposing your leftovers again!

As you can see, I served it with apple slices and caramel sauce (which has been in the fridge for a long time and needed some attention). It was a filling, delicious meal!