What to do with Leftovers from Holiday Parties

Christmas and New Year parties will be over and we find ourselves with leftovers. So, what will you do with leftovers from your parties ? There are a few ideas that I hope will help or inspire you. We surely won't throw those leftovers away, unless it has expired.

The leftovers could be cooked or uncooked. We may freeze both cooked and uncooked meat. when we are ready we can simply slice about 0.25 inch, season and saute it until done. we can not reheat leftover cooked meat for a long time with a great heat. This will make the meat tough.
Try some ideas below :

1. We can make roast beef sandwich from roast beef leftover.
What you need only some mayonaise, pepper and bread. If you have some potato chips or pickles, that would be great.

2. Save cooked ham for ham and beans or ham soup. Cook the stock and beans with your favorite fresh pork (ham bone, bacon, salt pork, or hocks) and add the leftover ham during the last 30 minutes to avoid overcooking. Ham freezes reasonably well so either fresh or frozen can be used

3. Chop the beef or pork leftovers and make some sausages from it. Add some herbs like thyme, rosemary, or basil, add flour, eggs, onions, salt, and pepper. Mix them all, insert the dough into edible sausage container and steam them. You may serve it fried, baked, add some potatoes and broccoli.

4. Make some beef loaf of cold beef
Soak one tablespoon of gelatine in one-half cup of cold water ten minutes. Then heat a quarter of a cup of well-seasoned stewed tomatoes or canned tomato pulp to boiling, and pour over gelatine, stirring well until gelatine is dissolved. Have ready two cups of chopped and seasoned meat mixed with one tablespoon of lemon juice and one small sour pickle minced fine. Stir tomato into meat mixture and mould in an earthen dish. Let stand in mould until jelly is stiff. Serve cold. (Equally good for Lamb or Mutton.)

5. Use leftover turkey lunch meat in a salad or as pinwheels. Simply roll the slices up and cut them in one-inch sections and place the rolls where desired. Add hard-boiled egg and other toppings as desired. Serve with Ranch or your favorite dressing. For pinwheels add cream cheese and chives before rolling.

6. We can make easy barbecue from leftover beef and pork. The key is in the sauce and good bread.

You can make any side or main dishes from meat leftovers.

Cheese usually has a long shelf life but if you have a lot leftover from this year parties, you may try some ideas below :

1. Melt the cheese and use it to thicken the soup like potato soup or chicken soup or whatever soups you loved. You may make some fondue from those cheese.

2. Add some cheese with baked banana. I love to bake banana, add some brown sugar, cinnamon, and cheese..a lot of cheese, or baked banana with cheese and chocolate sprinkles.

3. Mix some cheese with fried rice.

4. Make some sandwiches with cheese and we can bake the cheese. To make cheese toast : Dry slightly in the oven and then toast as many slices of brown bread as needed.  Butter and keep them warm.  Make enough White Sauce to well cover the toast, using paprika instead of pepper.  When the sauce bubbles add one-half cup grated cheese to each cup of sauce, remove from the heat at once, and pour over the toast.  Serve very hot.

5. Make some cream cheese on crackers, Take any unsweetened crackers.  If they are not very crisp, put then on a flat baking tin and set in a moderate oven for a few minutes.  Spread with beach-plum or your favorite jelly, and drop a small teaspoon of cream cheese in the center of each cracker.

Well, I love fruit cakes and when Christmas is over, sometime we have a lot of fruit cakes on the fridge. It came from everywhere, sometime I got  the fruit cakes from friends, or cousins who really love to bake will supply me with those cakes. But if holiday is over, there are a few things we can do about these cakes,

1. First, we have to separate the type of fruit cakes we had. The light one with a few fruits or heavy one with a lot of fruits. After that, we can add some melted chocolate. Cut the cakes or squeeze them and some melted cooking chocolate. Shape them into little balls shape and let them dry. Dip the chocolate and fruit cake balls into the cooking chocolate and put them on the refrigerator. The taste is like chocolate fruit truffle and we can serve them as snack.

2. We can add some fruit cakes into the pudding. Cut the cakes in dice shape. Put them on a pudding bowl. Mix some pudding from milk, sugar, and gelatine or jelly. Pour the pudding into the bowl and make layers with the fruit cake. Freeze it. You may serve it with vanilla and chocolate sauce.

3. The simplest way, cut the cakes and arrange them on a pan and bake them. About 20 minutes, 180 degree C.

What to do with eggs leftover? I usually had a lot of eggs leftover. I can boil it everyday, but you know sometime it really bored to have boiled egg as your daily breakfast (who asked you to do that anyway..). So, there are some tips :

1. Make a sandwich with tuna fish and eggs. Boil and cut like dice or make a scramble, mix it with tuna. Add some cheese, onion, mayonaise, or mustard.

2. Make some eggs cream to smeared on the toast. I think it's quite delicious for breakfast. We can make the white cream first and add it with eggs, stir well and smeared it on top of toast or crackers. We can add some chili flakes too. 

3. Make some pasta salad. Add with celery, carrot, and tomatoes.

4. Make some sauce for french fries. Mix some cheese cream with your eggs leftover, add some sour cream or yogurt. Put them on a blender and add some onion, chicken or beef smoked.

5. Sometime I used boiled eggs as an addition into my chicken soup ingredients. Or we can add those eggs into asparagus soup and add some celery.

6. Slice those boiled eggs and used them as garnish.

7. Make some sandwich with eggs, cheese, and chili flakes. Mix the eggs, cheese, chili flakes, herbs (thyme, rosemary), pepper, and pour into the pan. Toast some bread, whatever bread you had. Remove the fried eggs from pan and flip it so you can serve on the bread. If you have a slice of cheese, put that on the bread as well.

And you can make your own dishes with the eggs leftover, just use your imagination and remember you usually can not go wrong with the eggs.

Like sodas and champagne leftovers. For champagne leftover, try to make them as ice cubes. You may do the same with wine leftover. Use cubes in recipes that call for a small amount of wine. We can add this leftover drink to make delicious dishes. Like mix the champagne with raspberries and peaches as desert.

Ingredients : lemon juice, zest, sugar, leftover sweet champagne, cinnamon, any kind of fresh fuits like peaches r raspberries.
Make some sweet and spicy sauce from lemon juice, zest, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon stick. Cool the sauce and mix with peaches and raspberries or pineapples.

We may add the spicy syrup to some angel cake or pound cake.

Pasta like spaghetti is better to consume the second time around. You may try to bake the spaghetti or make some salad and mix it with the spaghetti. One thing that I used to do with my leftover spaghetti is to mix it with eggs and make some omelete from it. You can add some tomatoes, onion, bacon, or vegetables with it.

The problem is how to store the leftover pasta, first, we have to remember to add 1-3 teaspoons of plain oil or vegetable oil so the pasta don't stick together.
Second, place the pasta in a food storage bag, unsealed until cool. After the pasta is cool, we can seal the bag and make sure the pasta is not sticking together.
And we can use the pasta anytime we want to cook it. We can reheat the pasta in the pot of boiling water just for a minute or less. Until it hot. And we can continue with the recipe.

I think the most simple way to finish our leftovers is to open our door widely during the holiday. Like sharing some holiday meals with those who need it. It so easy to share the party meals in my country. There are so many less fortunate people all around me. Like people on the street or children in the orphan house. That's just my opinion. Have a cheerful and bright holiday parties!

Happy holidays !