4 ways to get creative with your leftovers (and save money on food) - BERITAJA

If you're struggling to usage up leftovers for illustration a half-eaten rotisserie chicken, move the duty into a imaginative exercise, says cook Margaret Li. It'll make the cooking process much nosy and little guilt-driven. Pulse/Getty Images/Corbis RF Stills

Pulse/Getty Images/Corbis RF Stills

On a caller weeknight, I opened up my fridge and recovered an assortment of half-eaten aliases ignored food.

That included takeout that I didn't find appetizing capable to eat for lunch. A rotisserie chickenhearted pinch about of the nutrient picked off. A mates of earthy vegetables from the farmers marketplace that were starting to wilt.

"There's thing to eat," I told myself. Yet moreover I knew that was ridiculous. There was plentifulness of nutrient successful my fridge. I conscionable didn't consciousness inspired to navigator pinch it.

So I asked immoderate chefs for guidance. How could I much consistently usage leftovers and the different ingredients I thin to overlook?

Start pinch a mindset shift, says Margaret Li, cook and co-author of the cookbook Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking. Think about cooking pinch leftovers arsenic a creative, experimental exercise, not a guilt-driven one.

"It ends up being this nosy crippled wherever you are creating thing from what seems for illustration thing and solving this puzzle, and past you get to eat it," she says.

There are different bully reasons to usage up your nutrient scraps. Nationally, about a 4th of nutrient products spell to waste, according to the nonprofit ReFED. In my ain household, wherever we walk about $200 a week connected groceries, that intends I mightiness beryllium throwing retired the balanced of $50 of nutrient — an unnecessary load connected my wallet, not to mention the environment.

The chefs I said to had immoderate applicable tips about utilizing up much of the nutrient we buy. Here are a fewer that I put to the test.

Find your "hero recipes"

Build up an arsenal of go-to recipes that are elastic capable to usage up conscionable about immoderate ingredient. Li calls them "hero recipes."

I tried 1 of these from her cookbook, called "Make-It-Your-Own Stir-Fry." (Scroll down for the recipe.) It includes loose ingredients for illustration "1 lb crisp-crunchy vegetables" aliases "4 cups leafy greens."

In the tone of the recipe, I pulled vegetables retired of my fridge astatine random and did not measurement them out. The condiment was a elemental substance of soy sauce, vinegar, sweetener and water. By the clip I topped my vessel pinch chopped scallions, the crockery looked for illustration a gourmet meal, not an afterthought.

Other ideas: "You could put thing successful a frittata, and it'll beryllium great," says Tamar Adler, cook and writer of The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z.

Or, if you person day-old atom connected hand, navigator it alongside different ingredients to make fried rice. "Saute immoderate aromatics — ginger, garlic, bulb — successful oil," Adler says. Then adhd your atom and immoderate leftover bits you have, for illustration the rotisserie chickenhearted and older nutrient I had successful my fridge.

"Just return the attack of making it much flavorful and crispy and past spicy, and past usually adding a compression of lemon," Adler says.

Label your leftovers 

Keep a imperishable marker and painter's portion successful your room to explanation and day your leftovers, Li says.  "That is simply a classical chef's method for knowing what thing is and erstwhile it was made. That saves you the guessing game."

Adler takes the conception a measurement further and labels her leftovers pinch their intended use. Leftover blueberries are branded "muffins-to-be connected Tuesday," she says. "I really for illustration doing that — assigning the destiny of the food."

So aft a nighttime of Ethiopian takeout, erstwhile we ended up pinch an full instrumentality of leftover injera, I followed Adler's proposal and thought about what it mightiness go successful the future.

I imagined scrambling the spongy, tangy breadstuff pinch eggs, akin to scrambling matzo into matzo brei. "Injera for eggs," I wrote connected the container. Sure enough, their destiny was fulfilled the pursuing morning.

Li keeps a dedicated container successful her freezer conscionable for scraps from which to make chickenhearted aliases rootlike stock. That container houses carrot peels, the ends of onions, other ail cloves and chickenhearted bones. Flavia Morlachetti/Getty Images/Moment RF

Flavia Morlachetti/Getty Images/Moment RF

Don't hide your likelihood and ends

Adler encouraged maine to never, ever propulsion distant the stems of herbs. Stems don't get arsenic overmuch glory arsenic tender, beautiful leaves, but they still person the aforesaid herby taste.

"I'm going to chop these herbs up aliases instrumentality them successful a blender pinch a clove of garlic," she says. Then adhd oliva oil. "And past it's conscionable gonna beryllium my guidelines condiment for everything."

So I foraged a fewer varieties of half-cut herbs from my refrigerator drawers, about of them sad looking and unidentifiable.

I threw retired the stems that had turned brownish and gooey and put the remainder successful a blender. I added ail connected Adler's instructions, nuts and kale for bulk, and plentifulness of oliva lipid and salt. Then, connected a whim, I added a scatter of oliva juice for brightness.

The consequence was location betwixt a pesto and a chimichurri, and it elevated that night's different regular dinner. And Adler was right: Once the stems were blended, it tasted precisely the aforesaid arsenic the leaves. (The aforesaid thought applies for broccoli stems successful a cheesy broccoli soup, Li says.)

Li likes to support her likelihood and ends organized pinch an "Eat Me First" container successful her fridge. That's wherever she keeps half-used lemons, leftover coconut beverage aliases nutrient that's starting to get wrinkly. "You benignant of person an thought for, OK, here's wherever you look first," she says.

Don't strive for perfection

Cooking these meals did consciousness for illustration a game, arsenic Li had suggested. It brought maine unexpected joyousness to usage up arsenic galore existing ingredients arsenic imaginable — to the constituent wherever I often spent overmuch longer successful the room because I kept reasoning of caller ideas: If I move these wrinkly saccharine potatoes into a soup, past I could caramelize this half-cut bulb for a topping, and past I could usage the leftover crockery arsenic a condiment tomorrow ...

Did I navigator much often, though? Probably not. My cooking power burned brighter but fizzled retired aft a fewer nights, astatine which constituent I ordered takeout.

So I was gladsome to perceive Li's take: If you're excessively difficult connected yourself, you're not going to bask it astatine all. " I effort not to beryllium excessively obsessive about eating perfectly everything," she says. If my takeout was genuinely terrible, I'm allowed to flip it or, amended yet, compost it.

If you really want to usage up everything, you could ever chuck ingredients into the freezer. Li has dedicated freezer bags for different dishes, for illustration rootlike scraps for soups aliases consequence discards for smoothies. (She labels them, of course.)

And really does that smoothie taste? It's "delicious," she says, "even if it's made up of each the things that person been rejected successful the past," she says.

Recipe: Make-It-Your-Own Stir-Fry 

Excerpted from Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking. Copyright ©2023 by Irene Li and Margaret Li. Used pinch support of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All authorities reserved.

Sauce

• 1 tablespoonful soy sauce
• 1 tablespoonful water
• 1 spoon sugar
• 1 spoon achromatic vinegar, atom vinegar, lime juice, aliases different acid
• 1 tablespoonful neutral oil, aliases capable to lightly overgarment the bottommost of your wok aliases skillet
• 1 ail clove, thinly sliced aliases minced, aliases much arsenic desired
• ½-inch portion caller ginger, minced aliases grated (optional)
• Pinch chili flakes aliases 1 mini chile pepper, diced (optional)
• 4 cups leafy greens, torn into bite-size pieces, aliases 1 lb crisp-crunchy vegetables, trim into chunks
• Kosher salt

Stir the condiment ingredients together successful a mini vessel and group by the stove.

Heat a wok aliases ample skillet complete precocious power until conscionable smoking, past adhd the neutral lipid and tilt to overgarment the bottommost of the pan.

Add the garlic, ginger (if using), and chili flakes (if using) and stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add the greens and/or vegetables, successful stages arsenic necessary, and flip successful the garlicky oil, past adhd the condiment and navigator to your liking, stirring frequently.

Vegetable chunks whitethorn request 4 to 7 minutes — if you want to velocity up the process, screen the cookware truthful the vegetables steam for a infinitesimal aliases two, past uncover and flip again. Sturdy greens whitethorn request 3 to 5 minutes to get tender (we for illustration to fto them beryllium for a spot and char for other texture).

Lighter leaves will request little than a infinitesimal to wilt down. Stir successful a spoonful of immoderate further condiment you like, play pinch brackish to taste, past sprinkle pinch your favourite garnishes and a generous drizzle of sesame oil.

A sprinkle of crunch is simply a awesome measurement to decorativeness a stir-fry. Our favorites see crushed cashews aliases peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, thinly sliced scallions, and fried onions aliases shallots.

Your turn: What are your favourite go-to leftover recipes?

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The communicative was edited by Malaka Gharib. The ocular editor is CJ Riculan. We'd emotion to perceive from you. Leave america a voicemail astatine 202-216-9823, aliases email america at LifeKit@npr.org.

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