How can I reuse Sunday roast/Christmas dinner leftovers?
Most food scraps are great for a compost heap – they tend to rot down quickly and can help keep a brown-heavy compost heap balanced, particularly in the winter when there is less fresh green matter around the garden.
But care should be taken with cooked veg and the like – if it’s been cooked with meat, fish or dairy, or soaked in a rich meaty gravy etc, the smell of that may attract undesirable vermin to the pile. Some people (particularly people with sealed bins or wormeries) are happy to chance it but other people are more cautious.
Anyway, we all know it’s much better to use them up in some other way first rather than just slinging them into the compost.
Sunday roast leftovers were always the basis of Monday night dinner in my house when I was growing up. The meat would be the star of another meal – chicken curry sticks in my mind most clearly but there were other things too – and I remember my mum used any leftover veg to make bubble and squeak.
What do you make with your Sunday roast/Christmas dinner leftovers?
We’re not really roast eaters now and steamed/boiled veg is an area in which we’re actually pretty good at only cooking what we need – but any leftovers we do have usually go down to the chickens as treats. I’ve heard you can also use them in homemade dog food.
Do you do anything else with your leftovers?
Use the leftover parts the next day before they go bad.
There are a ton of foods where random leftovers work, e.g. with taco fillings or nachos (under the pile of corn chips and cheese), or make a casserole of the leftovers. Or arancini. Or just warm some as they are as a side dish. And some things work as an omelette or on a sandwich. Or make a new sauce for some items, or quick stir fry the leftover veggies and add some sesame seed on them.
And sometimes it’s just wonderful to have a meal composed of just a lot of different leftovers.
I save all sorts of stuff for the stock pot. I even rinse out the gravy pot and use that water in my stock. Little bits will get saved in the freezer to add as needed. Potato peels are great in a stock. My girlfriend uses some almost everyday and adds leftover bits to make lunch using other leftovers.(She swears by things like leftover mashed potatoes, turnip or whatever.) We call them her “party in a pots”.
I also try to plan ahead. For example day 1: roast ham. Day 2: chicken. Day 3and 4: gumbo.
How timely! Last night I defrosted some roast which still had the juices and some of the oil with it. I chopped up some potatoes and onions into small pieces and cooked these in some garlic infused oil. Once soft, I added red peppers and a few finely chopped jalapenos/hot peppers and cooked for a minute longer. I diced the meat and added some taco seasoning to the juices. I added the meat to the skilled and once heated through, added the juice/spice mixture. One pot meals reduce the amount of dish washing too!
You never heard of stew?
De-glaze the roasting pan with some red wine, and save the liquid for stock. Stir in some flour and make a roue.
Next cut the joint and leftover potatoes, onions, and carrots if any into chunks, add extra veggies as needed (toss in some root vegetables like turnips, rutabagas, or parsnips too)
Add a little water if necessary, and cook until vegetables are done.
You can also “soup down” the joint. Toss the entire joint, including the bone into a stock pot and simmer until the meat falls off the bone. Remove excess grease from the top, and you have a lovely stock.