Sooooo..... Now they've really gone and peeved me off immensely!

It's been a while since the last time I posted, sooo... well... yeah...  For someone with not a lot to do I just have been busy. Busy, busy, busy.  Busy putting my two cents worth all over the interwebs.

But that's not why I'm here.  

Nope.

I'm here because of something disturbing I've been reading about for the last few years.  Something so unholy and earth-shattering in a bad way that, well, I just have to vent.

So here it goes...

Why do people hate Leftovers?

Seriously.  There's a lot of hate over leftovers. And a real hatred for people who cook for more than one day's worth of food at a time.  And eat leftovers for lunch at work instead of going out and blowing $5-20 for lunch?

Same with just fixing dinners.  You can buy a meal kit for two, three, or four.  For one friggin meal.  What's up with that.

Let's see... (gets up, groans, waddles over to the 2nd refrigerator/freezer) 

2nd Fridge/Freeze, Beans?  Yes.  When the Family Beans moved to the apartment from the house, we left the 24cuft fridge/freeze at the house.  Old, kind of worn, and wouldn't fit. So we went with what the apartment came with.  A 16cuft.  Hey, cut down on stuff, smaller life, try, yada yada...  And I tried.  Tried through July 4th and barely managed, no room for drinks and food or food or drinks and faced with the prospect of the upcoming holiday season (this was 2017, by the way) I just freaked and bought a 16cuft.  Which now sits where normal people (hey, I'm not normal, neither is Mrs. Andrew...) put a kitchen nook table chair thingy.  

By the way, 1st fridge holds to be cooked stuff, butter, open milk jug, cheese, veggies, pickles, eggs while 1st freeze holds chicken breasts (10oz and 5oz) and hot dogs, packs of ground beef (8 oz or 4 oz) and stuff like that.

2nd Fridge is for sodas (neither of us drink alcohol, so diet sodas it is) and extra milk and extra orange juice and extra stuff and big items to be cooked that are thawed or thawing (currently housing 2 7.5lb turkey breasts and egg nog and 3 gallons of milk and sodas and my fish-fry oil.

2nd Freezer, on the other hand... That's me leftovers storage container.

(Ominous sound as door opens) And we have... 2 nights  worth of Killer Lasagna. 1 night's worth of chicken enchiladas (thaw, heat, add side order of rice and sour cream...) 5 packets of chopped up turkey breasts leftover from Thanksgiving and the spare turkey breast, all chopped up into bits and parceled out into 2.5 cup packets.  For to which to make turkey pot pie with.  A brick of last year's boiled down turkey juice (take all the turkey carcasses, put in really big stock pot, boil the living heck out of it all, scoop out all the chunks, save the meat, discard the non-edible stuff, boil down remaining liquid into a thick sludge, cool, skim off the turkey schmaltz (fat) and then let the de-schmaltzed sludge gel and package) for which to make turkey pot pies with.  And 3 new carcasses to boil down once the two from New Years are picked apart and do the whole rendering thingy all over again.  

Last year's ham bone that I really need to saw into chunks for to use in making pots of beans.  This year's ham bone to do the same. Need to make space for the bags of chunked up leftover ham for to use in making beans and other things (like grits with ham, yum (sound of Mrs. Andrew gagging at the thought of grits)(what does she know, she used to eat Cream of Wheat and she still eats rice with butter and sugar, blech.)

Sorry, no pulled-pork from the Anniversary dinner left over. May have to make some more.

So, well, we love leftovers.  Even when we make something like (Our Version of) fried rice, we make enough leftovers for lunch the next day.

Thanksgiving?  We ate Thanksgiving meal - turkey, candied yams, cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce for 6 days before the dressing and yams ran out.

Christmas?  We ate ham, candied yams, dirty rice and cranberry sauce until, well New Year's Eve, whereupon the yams ran out and there's some dirty rice left over for my lunches and the ham goes into small bits to make stuff with...

New Year's?  We'll eat New Year's meal - turkey, candied yams, cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce for 5-6 days before the dressing and yams run out.  

Yum.

And even non-holiday meals are ripe for tasty leftovers.

Enchiladas.  Make 16, bake in a pan with lots of cheese, eat 4 for first night fresh, refrig and eat another 4 the next day and freeze the remaining 8 into two packs of 4.

The aforementioned Killer Lasagna?  (which is just a regular recipe with lots of extra cheese and meat and sauce and cheese and cheese. Did I mention cheese?) A pan of my lasagna makes for 6 night's worth.  Have it the first night fresh, then manga another few nights off of it and portion out and freeze the remaining.

Same with roast.  I mean, why do a roast for 2 people for one night?  Come on, you're already wasting all that 'lectricity or gas or dried cow patties or whatever you're using for fuel (yes, I have cooked meals over dried cow pats.  Who hasn't?)  So for two people I start out with 5-6lbs of meat, a big bottle of wine, about 2 pounds of carrots, another 2 lbs of spuds and eat it first night fresh, eat another 2-3 nights reheated and the rest gets chopped up and turned into vegetable soup (big frozen bag of mixed veggies, and several cans of petit diced tomatoes) and eat that fresh for one night with cornbread (save the leftover cornbread for cornbread and milk for breakfast (it's a southern thing) and the rest frozen) and then eat soup and fresh cornbread for 3-5 nights and freeze the rest of the soup.

Beans?  Start out with 2-1 ratio pinto and white beans, soak, cook with hambone and extra leftover ham mini cubes.  Eat fresh with cornbread and eat for days until it's time to turn the leftovers into chili with beans (you can add extra beans from a can, but starting it with the leftover beans and bean liquids works...)

Eat chili with cornbread until you're tired of it, freeze most of the remaining chili into individual night's servings and have chili-dogs with the rest.

Turkey pot-pies?  I make 4 mini-pot pies using one chunk of turkey, a chunk of frozen turkey juice, more mixed veggies (the secret is to cook the mixed veggies beforehand in the microwave (say it with a French accent...) for 15 minutes before hand so the green beans are cooked through, and make fresh pie dough and make 4 mini pies and you have one night of turkey pot-pie and stick the other two in the refridge and cook them the next day.

Even our fried rice is leftover based, kinda.  Start out with fresh veggies, and 1/2 makes one night's worth of FR, then a couple days later make some more FR with the remaining 1/2 veggies.

LEFTOVERS!

And people throw them out, or don't even cook and throw out their take-out leftovers.  What... savages.

 

Did you think this was going to be a political post?  Sorry, it isn't. 

Except that leftovers are a great way to save time while reloading, or slitting throats.. I mean, who has the time to do a big dinner when you're out tarring and feathering...