Jazzing Up Leftovers

by Christine Steendahl

Most refrigerators are packed with leftovers. While a lot of us hate to let food go to waste, the only alternative is to reuse food we didn’t finish a few days ago and prepare dinner out of leftovers. While leftovers were once a tasty meal, sadly, to many family members they are no longer appealing. Fear not, with just a few tricks, you can create tasty meals once again simply by utilizing leftovers. Following are some hints.

Mix Your Leftover Meat Dishes with Fresh Pasta
One way to recreate a great meal from your leftovers is to blend it with fresh ingredients. In this example, pasta works good with many different beef and chicken dishes. Use thin spaghetti, wide noodles, wagon wheels, spirals, you name it with your meat leftovers. Add gravy, ketchup, tomato sauce or even chili to to turn an ordinary dish into an extraordinary dish.

Vegetable Dishes with Rice- Twice as Nice
If you have leftover vegetable dishes that you would like to reuse, one of the greatest ways to do so is to prepare it with rice. Whether you choose white or brown rice, you can prepare an awesome vegetable dish and make it into an entirely new meal. Usually with vegetables, you have little opportunity to reuse them as leftover before they become mushy. Try to keep them crisp and fresh.

Create Soups with Leftovers
If you are stuck with a few meals in your refrigerator and you don’t know exactly what to do with them, you can always toss them into a pot and prepare delicious soup. Whether it is chicken, turkey, hamburger meat or beef, making flavorful soup out of leftovers makes sense and also is quite great.

Preparing soups using leftover is extremely painless. You can pretty much add in any sliced meat and chopped vegetable into some broth or cream to create a great tasting soup. Even old bread can be useful.

Use Leftover Fruit for Fruit Smoothies
Generally, many houses will have a couple leftover apples, oranges or bananas in their refrigerator. While the odd piece of fruit is not necessarily a leftover, practically all fruit can be utilized to prepare delicious fruit smoothies. Fruit smoothies are easily prepared with some milk, yogurt, fruit and a blender. Not only are they healthy, but perfect for a treat or even breakfast. Fruit smoothies are ideal for leftover fruit or even slightly over ripen fruit. Mixed with many other ingredients, they still taste good and won’t go unused.

The next time you search deep into your refrigerator and see all the meals from the past week, don’t panic, use them to prepare new meals, soups and even savory desserts.

Author Resource – For delicious family friendly dinner recipes visit www.dinewithoutwhine.com

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The Benefits Of Family Meal Planning

Are you ready to save some time, feed your family healthier meals and save some money along the way? These are just some of the benefits of family meal planning. Let’s look at all of them in a little more detail.

Eat Healthier

Planning your family meals will cut down on your trips to your favorite fast food restaurant and the amount of pizza you have delivered to your door. Food you prepare at home tends to be much healthier than hamburgers with fries, fried chicken or pizza. When you plan your meals include some lean protein like chicken breast, as well as some salads and vegetables. Your entire family will benefit from the healthier meals.

Save Time

How much time are you spending now running to the grocery store a few times a week. I used to run to the store at least 3 times a week to buy something to fix for dinner. Planning your meals out for a week at a time and then putting together a grocery list with everything you need to cook those meals will cut your trips to the store down to one a week. This alone will save you a few hours each week. Plus you won’t be standing in front of your fridge and pantry every night trying to come up with something you can fix with what you have at hand.

Save Money

All that eating out and having food delivered can quickly add up. By preparing more meals at home you will save quite a few dollars each week. In addition, you will save on your monthly grocery bill, since you will be making a list of everything you need for the week and won’t end up buying extras that just go to waste. I used to throw out food almost every week before I started meal planning.

Less Stress

You know the routine. It’s 6 pm, everyone in the family is starving and you have no idea what’s for dinner. Trying to come up with something to cook from what you have in the kitchen while your kids are tired, hungry and screaming isn’t one of the most fun family activities. You will be much more relaxed about dinner, when you know exactly what you are going to cook ahead of time and known you have everything you need in the house.

Quality Time Together

Meal Planning also encourages everyone to gather around the dinner table each day. Who could resist the delicious smells coming out of the kitchen? Dinnertime has always been a great time for families to gather and share news and experiences of the day. Parents and children can pay each other undivided attention. Cook some dinner, set the table and don’t forget to turn off the TV. Make dinner a daily family tradition again.

I encourage you to give family meal planning a try. I am sure you and your family will see the benefits within less than a week.

Don’t have the time or patience to plan your family meals? Let us do it for you!

Christine Steendahl Is The Founder Of Dine Without Whine – A Family Friendly Weekly Menu Planner.  Eliminate Your Dinner Hour Stress And Re-Discover The Pleasure Of The Dinner Hour!  For A Free Sample Menu Visit http://www.dinewithoutwhine.com/info

If you think meal planning is an impossible task, here’s the simple solution you’ve been looking for! Meal Planning For Busy Moms provides you the step-by-step techniques to save time and money by meal planning. Another great resource brought to you by The Household Helper.

“If you think living frugally is an impossible task, here’s the simple solution you’ve been looking for! I just released a new resource on about frugal living. Frugal Living: How To Make Your Hard Earned Dollar Stretch provides you the step-by-step techniques to finally get your get your finances under control and start saving.”

Oh No! I’m Out of ……… Cooking Alternatives To Help When You Can’t Get to the Store

by The Menu Mom

For many cooks, there are occassions when we do not have the appropriate ingredients in the cupboard to make our desired food. If you find yourself in this situation, don’t despair, there are usually other ingredients that can easily be substituted, saving the cook a trip to the grocer. Here are some hints.

Milk
A lot of dishes call for milk. If you realize you are out of milk or short on the amount necessary to prepare a specific recipe, make sure you keep a supply of evaporated milk on hand. Evaporated milk or reconstituted milk can be stored for long periods of time and once combined with water and often a bit of butter, can easily taste just as good as regular milk.

Baking Powder
If you do not have baking powder available, use baking soda and a dash of buttermilk. For a tablespoon of double acting baking powder, substitute 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and a 1/2 cup of buttermilk.

Self Rising Flour
Self rising flour is simple to make from scratch, just mix one cup of all purpose flour with 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

Butter Milk
Out of butter milk? You can quickly whip up your own. You can substitute 1 cup of butter milk with 1 cup whole milk and a tablespoon of vinegar. You can also substitute 1 cup of butter milk with 2/3 cup of plain yogurt and 1/3 cup whole milk.

Garlic
Ran out of garlic? Replace it with garlic powder instead. About 1 clove of garlic equals 1/8 of a teaspoon of garlic powder.

Honey
You can easily replace honey with sugar and water. 1 cup of honey equals about 1 and 1/4 cup of sugar and a 1/4 cup of water.

Substituting Sugar
If you are short on sugar on hand or would like to exchange it due to health issues, here are some tips to substitute sugar:

Sugar can be exchanged with with maple syrup, corn syrup, brown sugar, honey, stevia, and molasses. Although, some recipes will ask for sugar or a granular sweetener instead of syrup due to baking and texture requirements.

If you are hoping to reduce the amount of sugar you eat due to health concerns, consider the many sweeteners, sometimes called sugar alternatives on the market. They include but are not limited to, Sweet and Low, Splenda, Equal, and plant derived Stevia.

Christine Steendahl Is The Founder Of Dine Without Whine – The Number One Online Source For Affordable And Family Friendly Weekly Meal Planning. Eliminate Your Dinner Hour Stress And Re-Discover The Pleasure Of The Dinner Hour! Click here to receive your Free Sample Menu And Grocery List.

Article Source: http://www.thewahmshack.com/articledirectory

Click here for The Household Helper’s FREE Ingredient Substitution Chart (PDF file)

If you think meal planning is an impossible task, here’s the simple solution you’ve been looking for! Meal Planning For Busy Moms provides you the step-by-step techniques to save time and money by meal planning. Another great resource brought to you by The Household Helper.

“If you think living frugally is an impossible task, here’s the simple solution you’ve been looking for! I just released a new resource on about frugal living. Frugal Living: How To Make Your Hard Earned Dollar Stretch provides you the step-by-step techniques to finally get your get your finances under control and start saving.”