Revive the Leftovers
I like being creative when making meals from previous meals. Lia loves making pasta with cheese sauce but they aren’t a “leftover” meal family so I get to keep the extra. That means I get to revive the leftovers! But what happens when the noodles and cheese don’t have enough liquid to keep them from clumping together in the fridge?
This was leftovers and I had to “freshen” them up a bit to stir in the other ingredients I planned to add. I added a teaspoon of butter with a little less than 1/4 cup of milk and microwaved it to melt the butter. Then I poured that over the noodles and stirred them up. Perfect consistency!
The next step was to add a can of tuna and a few chopped up broccoli florets to the noodles.
This is a trick I learned from my grandmother when I was a young girl. She would take a rolling pin and roll it over the end of a bag of potato chips and sprinkle them on top of a casserole. I added the chips then topped with cheese and popped it in the over at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. I also baked a Red Lobster Cheese biscuit. With just one I didn’t want to bother melting the butter with spices so after it was baked I broke it open slightly and added a bit of butter to the inside plus some of the top. I microwaved that for about 20 seconds just for the butter to melt than sprinkled with seasonings.
Fifteen minutes later I had a delicious dish of tuna melt with melted cheese and crunchy toasted chips on top.
While dinner was cooking I made a bag of broccoli crunch salad to go with my tuna melt and biscuit loaded with butter.
I like making meals from leftovers and by adding other ingredients they give it a totally different flavor.
What a neat idea for reviving your leftovers! Your pasta and biscuit look so yummy. I’ve never thought of adding milk and butter like that, but now, I will be keeping that in mind.
Thanks Jeanine, the milk and butter combination does the trick when pasta needs I bit more sauce.
That does not look like a left-over meal! It looks very yummy.
Thanks Barbara, my leftover meals are very tasty!
good ideas for me as living on my own
Same here Eva and I always have more than enough for one meal but I want to change them a bit each time.
This is such a valuable skill! I think people would book a cooking class where you teach them how to pimp up their leftovers! Your dinner (or was it lunch) sounds delicious!
PS: Instead of thinking of “leftovers” one could also view this as “pre-cooked food”
There used to be a show on TV, Pimp my Ride where they would customize cars totally different. I could start a show Pimp my Leftovers Tamara! LOL But I love come up with new ideas so it’s not like I’m eating the same meal over and over like Ground Hog day!
The biscuit loaded with butter is what has elevated this dish.Super creative Martha.
Yes I think so too Amrita. Can you tell I love butter?
That looks really yummy and what a creative approach to leftovers!
Making leftovers appealing is my specialty Alice. Just by adding something else to the leftovers, it makes a totally different meal.
It’s always good to have leftovers and to be creative and enjoy them. 🙂
Plus it’s a great way to save money but reinventing leftovers by just adding a few different ingredients Amanda.