What do you do with leftovers?

We eat all of the leftovers unless they have spoiled or if the dish was unsalvageable (just a generally awful failed cooking / baking experiment.) We had leftover tenderloin yesterday and needed a quick meal so we boiled it in some tomato soup and the result was spicy and delicious. Leftover meat is the easiest to reuse (in sandwiches, soups, pastas, or tortillas). Leftover sides will just be reheated and eaten with a different entree.

We don’t make a lot of money and since I only cook for two people, leftovers are bound to happen quite often. It would be a waste if we tossed the food out in the garbage.

I would like to look into composting the failed experiments, though.

I try to eat them, but I often end up throwing them out. I am not home a lot at night, and I have other arrangements at lunch (which is partly what generates most of my leftovers) so unfortunately, they usually end up in the garbage.

You mean science projects?

I hate wasting food. I find that virtually every restaurant meal is bigger than I need so I usually cut it in half when it is served and take the other half home for another day. Even if I don’t eat it later, that is better than carrying it home in my gut and eventually on my butt.
I generally eat (and enjoy) it the next day. If the meal cannot be eaten in a few days I will put it out back for the neighborhood fox or coyote. I noticed they will always pass on the veggies. Racoons will eat their leftovers.
Rarely does food go in the trash.

If I have leftovers, I eat them. However, I’m not a big fan of leftovers, so I usually cook only what I intend to eat within that meal.

Get some cheap Styrofoam containers or something, box them up, wrap them in plastic I know you would pass by some homeless person to or from work or lunch or during your shopping junkets; give it to them. There is a place in nearly EVERY city larger than Mayberry that has an area where the poor homeless are regulated unofficially to. Go there and pay your leftovers forward.

I eat them. We almost never throw out leftovers. Often my husband takes them to work the next day for lunch. I don’t understand people who have a rule that they don’t eat leftovers.

I purposely make too much food usually, because who wants to cook and clean up twice? Some food isn’t good when you reheat it, but most is. Some dishes are better the second day. As far as restaurant food; we usually don’t have leftovers, maybe 25% of the time. My husband and I usually split an entree and starter, or only get entrees, we try to not get huge portions, because even if I intend to take half home, I inevitably eat more than I should have. Sometimes we purposely order so there will be leftovers so I won’t have to cook lunch for him the next day.

I am like @glacial – I try to only cook what will be eaten right away. But leftovers from dinner are lunch or dinner the next day.

Just want to add tha tI do try to eat leftovers before they become science experiments but it doesn’t always happen. I don’t like to throw out food.

Two words, spatula tennis.

Most of the time, I freeze them. Pre-packaged convenience food is expensive and often unhealthy, so I’m a big fan of home-made frozen dinners.

Eat them. Often the next day, for lunch, at work.

My fiancé and my son both hate leftovers.
I try to use them in creative ways and hope for the best. lol
It’s mind boggling how picky these two are.

@Sunny2 China. The starving people are in China!

^^^My parent’s didn’t insist on China.
My brother studied micro-biology, he says, because he was always curious about the things growing in my mom’s refrigerator. I rarely don’t use leftovers. If there’s not a full portion left, everything goes into salad or soup. Even leftover salad goes into soup.I make a lot of One-of-a-Kind soup. Some people call it Kitchen Sink soup, but I find that too close to the drain.

I never was given the line about starving people. My mom’s schtick, and still is about almost everything, is that she hates waste. We were never forced to eat. We were expected to take what we could eat. She rather we take too little and go back for seconds if we are still hungry.

I wish we could afford to have some rule against eating leftovers.

We eat leftovers every week. I’ll cook Sunday night, have leftovers Monday night, cook Tuesday, and so on through Friday. We usually eat cheap fast food on Saturdays. My husband also takes leftovers for lunch on weekdays, which is why I cook Sundays.

If I’m home early on leftover nights and we had chili or spaghetti the night before, I might make baked chili cheese nachos or baked spaghetti so it’s a little different. When I’m not worried about calories, that is.

@livelaughlove21 Why? Why do you want to throw out leftovers? I have the money to do it, and I still can’t throw money in the trash.

@JLeslie No, I wish I could afford to do it. Would I? Probably not, but having the option would be nice. We have no such choice.

@livelaughlove21 I guess I didn’t understand what you wrote, because I don’t think of it as being able to afford it. I understand better now what you meant though. We could be multi-millionaires and we would still not throw out food. It wouldn’t occur to my husband or me to do it. Unless it had gone bad of course.

Why would anyone refuse to eat leftovers? Unless the food has become worthy of a petri dish, it often tastes better when reheated.

But, if someone has a compulsion about this, leftovers are easily incorporated into other meals.

I think I see a Jewish trend on this Q.

Mostly I use them, but sometimes they go in the trash if a few days have gone by.
Like @LuckyGuy, for years I tossed things out for the wildlife on my property. Now I still have a rural backyard that backs up to a cemetery but I don;‘want to throw food on the cemetery grounds that split off just at the back of the hill here.
I do throw out old fruits and bread still for the deer and birds.

I just threw out almost ⅔rds of a red velvet cake I was “gifted”, from a party someone had a last weekend. If I was still at my old house the raccoons would have had a great party. haha
I cut 2 slices off and put the rest out in the trash. Nobody else wanted it and I sure as hell don’t need a 400,000 calories whole cake in the fridge so I can be tempted every time I open the door. haha

We don’t have leftovers, we have tomorrows lunch.

I threw out food today! A cup of coffee.
It was still in the pot, left over from last night. That isn’t why I threw it out.
I put in some powdered French Vanilla creamer that was “Best by Mar 2012”. That isn’t why I threw it out.
I put in some expired Soy milk that was “Best by Sept 18”. That isn’t why I threw it out.
It was the couple of clumps of unidentifiable congealed masses that fell out of the soy carton that caused me to donate the entire cup to my septic system bacteria.
I am drinking green tea now.

Nuke it, fry it or toss it.

I give it to the crows in the winter. I don’t usually put out food in the summer, because it will rot in the sun and smell. The crows know me and they will be waiting for me on winter mornings. The crows are my friends! :)