Deja Food

Do you ever find your refigerator filled with leftovers and your conscience battling between usefulness and wastefulness?  Trust me, in this high-paced, grab and go society we live in, none of us are immune to it.  As much as I love to cook and do so as often as possible, there are times that the family schedule just doesn't allow for a home-cooked meal.  During the peak times in our busy schedules I find myself looking at the towers of leftover containers in our refrigerator and wondering if styrophoam is a food group!

After having a slew of family in town over the past weekend and cooking for days, I found myself with the best leftovers of all - the homemade kind.  No styrophoam was harmed in the making of this blog!  I had leftover ham, steamed broccoli, and a bunch of shredded cheese.  Add some sliced scallions and a few eggs and we had a delicious frittata for dinner tonight.  Also a beautiful side note was some of the fruit that was left over from the weekend.

An additional menu item that came into play was roasted chicken.  Last night was the, literally, last night that our older kids were to be home and I wanted to squeeze in just one more family meal and have their grandfather over.  Since we were pretty much over ham and mac & cheese (as delicious and decadent as it is) I decided to roast a couple of chickens with rosemary, lemon, and garlic.  In addition, I thinly sliced some potatoes and added the theme of rosemary & garlic, tossed with some olive oil and set them to roast while the chickens were finishing up.  Steam some brocolli, set out some rolls, and dinner is on.  Oh, if it were only that simple.  One of the stories we told about my mother-in-law was the Thanksgiving that her turkey just didn't keep up the pace and finish on time, leaving a bloody trail in its wake.  She would have been mortified had she known.  However, my sister-in-law and I kept mom's glass full of white zinfadel (ugh) while my husband shoved the thing back into the oven and crancked up the temp. By the time we all sat down to dinner, mom was "happy" and we had saved the day.  Here's the problem...those damn chickens I bought and cooked yesterday did the same thing that Thanksgiving turkey did for my mom-in-law so many years ago. Never before has that happened! Yeah, payback is hell!  Love you, mom!  I can see your big smile laughing at me right now.  Hey, how come no one was placating me with endless glasses of wine?

Eventually, the roasters finished up beautiful and succulent...later than scheduled but worth the wait with plenty left over. We had a wonderful family meal and our older kids were able to spend time with their grandpa before departing for California very early this morning.

All that leftover chicken?  Oh yeah, this girl thinks ahead!  The possibilities are endless: Chicken Tortilla Soup, Enchiladas,. Quesadillas, Chicken Salad, Chicken Casserole with some Cream-Based Soup, etc...uh, hell no!  My guess is that something spicy is next up on the menu! Stay tuned!