Whenever we go to restaurants, it seems like such a waste to throw away all of those bread sticks or rolls that they give you. Often their servings are so large, we end up with 5 to 6 leftover. Here is a recipe that uses those bread sticks or rolls. If you don't have the bread sticks, simply substitute torn up bread pieces. If you don't have leftover pasta salad, use leftover or fresh cooked pasta. To make this recipe a complete meal, add cooked chicken and serve a salad on the side. Enjoy!
Baked Pasta Salad
Ingredients:
4 Cups Bread sticks, toasted
4 Cups Pasta Salad
1 Egg
1/2 Cup Sour Cream
1 Can Cream of Soup
1/2 Cup Milk
1 Cup Mozzarella Cheese
1/2 Envelope Onion Soup Mix
Parmesan Cheese
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut or tear bread sticks into large chunks and put in the oven until lightly toasted. Let cool before mixing with other ingredients.
2. Mix together bread sticks, pasta salad, egg, sour cream, soup, milk, mozzarella cheese, and onions soup mix in a large bowl.
3. Spray a large baking dish with Pam. Pour mixture into dish. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 to 35 minutes. Dish is finished when top is starting to brown and bubbly.
Ohhh, I had forgotten how busy the start of the school year is! After a crazy month of August, I finally get to sit down and post a recipe. Hooray! This is a recipe I made a couple of weeks ago. I loved it! It was a fabulous mixture of tastes that you wouldn't necessarily put together regularly. We bought our Sicilian Eggplant and all the peppers from our local farmer's market. If you can't find a Sicilian one, just use a small regular one. Happy cooking!
Tortellini with Eggplant and Peppers
Ingredients:
1 Small Sicilian Eggplant, peeled and diced
1/2 TBSP Salt
1 Fresh Banana Pepper, diced
1 Poblano Pepper, diced
1 Small Onion, Diced
1 TSP Minced Garlic
1/2 Cup Olive Oil
1 Can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1/3 Cup French Onion Dip
1/2 Can of Milk (use cream of can)
2 Bags of Meat Tortellini
1. Pour olive oil and eggplant into a large skillet. Sprinkle salt on eggplant. Saute on high. When skillet is hot, add peppers, onion, and garlic. Stir frequently. Saute until eggplant softens.
2. Add cream of mushroom, French onion dip and milk to skillet. Lower heat to medium, continue stirring frequently. Cook until bubbly and thicker (about 15 minutes).
3. While finishing sauce, cook meat tortellini in a separate pot following directions on package. Mix sauce and cooked tortellini together and serve. Serves 4 to 6 people.
We had a bbq last night and amazingly enough, we ended up with more food leftover than when we started. It was totally loaves and fishes :) We have such great friends! This morning when I was figuring out breakfast, I realized that I should probably use some of the myriad of hamburger buns sitting on my counter, but I was tired of making the same old breakfast regulars. Here's a twist on French toast and peanut butter and jelly that was a huge hit! We ate them as a finger food. They are great for kids and husbands with very little clean up!
PB Jammerwiches
Ingredients:
4 to 6 Hamburger Buns
2 Eggs
1/4 Cup Milk
1 Tsp Cinnamon Sugar
Peanut Butter
Jelly or Jam
Powdered Sugar
1. In a shallow bowl, mix together milk, cinnamon sugar, and eggs.
2. Spray your griddle with non-stick spray and heat it up.
3. Spread a thin layer of peanut butter and jellly on the "wrong" sides of the bun. Put together like a sandwich and smash flat. Dip both sides of sandwich in egg mixture. Place on griddle and cook until both sides are golden brown. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Makes 4 to 6 PB Jammerwiches.
What a beautiful day! The sun's shining and I'm on Springbreak- Woohooo! I wish everyday was Springbreak. We've had a very exciting week. We went to the zoo yesterday and Monday we spent the day working in the yard. I'm hoping to start a small garden this summer, so I can create lots of fresh veggie recipes for What's for Leftovers? Are you all planting gardens? What kind of delicious recipes are you looking for?
On Monday, I made these Spanish Rice meatballs for dinner. My brother and I figured out that they have 71 calories per meatball and a serving of the greenbeans had 30 calories. They were so easy to make, and really delicious and flavorful, in addition to being healthy for you. In fact, Mike doesn't normally like to eat frozen green beans because he thinks they taste waxy. If you cook them this way, they are extremely tender. No one will complain about them! I used a box of Spanish Basmati rice mix to make the meatballs (see Amazon add for exact type). You can also use a box like Uncle Ben's chicken rice or wild rice mix. The boys sprinkled Chili Powder on theirs, but I ate mine as is. Both options are delicious! This recipe makes 18 to 20 meatballs.
Spanish Rice Meatballs
Ingredients:
1 Pound Ground Turkey
1 Box Spanish Style Rice Mix
1 Egg
1/4 Cup Breadcrumbs
1/8 Cup Milk
1 Can Chicken Broth
1 Bag Frozen Green Beans
Chili Powder (Optional)
1. Cook rice following the directions on box. When finished, let cool completely.
2. Add ground turkey, egg, milk and breadcrumbs to rice.
3. Spray a large frying pan with non-stick cooking spray. Roll meat mix into small to medium-sized meatballs and place in frying pan. Pour chicken broth on top.
4. Cook meatballs on medium heat. When one side of meatball is finished cooking turn them. Pour bag of green beans on top of meatballs. Cover and continue cooking until meatballs and greenbeans are thoroughly cooked.
5. (Optional) Sprinkle a small amount of chili powder on meatballs right before serving.
I made a Bacon-Wrapped Pork Loin on Valentine's Day for my little family, my parents and my brother. It was huge! We had about 1/2 of it left. So last night's dinner was a dish made with leftover pork loin and tonight's will be too. Growing up, my mom used to make a great beef stroganoff. It wasn't fancy, but it was really good. She made it with hamburger, but since we had so much pork leftover, I made a version of it with pork. We had some friends over for dinner last night and they seemed to really enjoy it. I hope your family does too!
Remember, you can make any recipe provided by What's For Leftover's healthier by using low-fat and fat free ingredients.
Pork Stroganoff
Ingredients:
1 1/2 Medium Green Peppers- Chopped
1/2 Cup Finely Chopped Onion
1/2 Cup Water
1 Can Cream of Soup (I used celery)
1 Can of Milk (use the cream of soup can)
1/4 Cup Sour Cream
1/2 Cup Spaghetti Sauce
1 1/2 TBSP Sugar
2 Squirts of Ketchup
1 TBSP Minced Garlic (refrigerated kind)
3 Cups Chopped Pork Loin
Salt
Pepper
2 Cups Uncooked Pasta (3 cups cooked)
Cook Pasta in a separate dish.
In a large frying pan, saute green peppers and onions in water. Cook until water is almost gone and onions start to become translucent. Next add cream of soup, milk, sour cream, spaghetti sauce, sugar, ketchup and minced garlic. Cook until sauce thickens up. Generously season with salt and pepper. Add pork loin and continue cooking. After pork loin is heated, add cooked pasta and cook until dish is nice and creamy.
This past weekend we celebrated Valentine's Day at a progressive dinner. Everybody's food was delicious. Lucky us, my friend Kimberly sent us home with a whole bunch of lasagna. It was delicious! I ate it again as soon as we got home. However, after a couple of days, lasagna starts to get a little dry, so when we ate if for dinner tonight, I jazzed it up again by turning it into an open-faced sandwich. It was totally different from anything we've had before. We really enjoyed it. I hope you do too!
Open-Faced Lasagna Sandwiches
Ingredients:
For the Sauce-
1 Cup Vitamin D Milk
1/2 Cup Grated Parmesean Cheese
1 Egg Yolk
2 TBSP Butter
1 Cup Spaghetti Sauce
For the Skillet-
2 1/2 Cups Cooked Veggies- Chopped
3 Cups Lasagna- Chopped
Garlic Bread
Cut up 2 1/2 Cups of cooked vegetables. I used frozen onions and peppers and leftover eggplant, mushrooms and peppers. Cut lasagna up, measure it after it's chopped. Set aside. Next prepare sauce. Turn stovetop burner onto medium. Pour milk into your sauce pan. Add parmesean cheese and egg yolk. Start whisking milk mixture. You want to be careful to keep whisking so your sauce won't burn. Add 2 TBSP of butter. Sauce will boil and start to thicken, continue stirring. After sauce thickens a bit, add red spaghetti sauce. Keep whisking while it boils for a minute. Then turn buner down and let it simmer while you cook your veggies and lasagna, stirring ocassionaly so it won't burn.
Before cooking veggies, warm up or make your garlic bread.
Drizzle olive oil on your frying pan. Put chopped veggies into the pan and saute them. When they are thoroughly warmed, add chopped lasagna to pan. Mix together and continue cooking and stirring until both are warm. Add sauce to mixture. Cook until lasagna mixture is bubbly. Turn the burner off and let cool for a minute to thicken up. Pour lasagna mixture on top of a slice of garlic bread. Enjoy!
I love potato salad. It reminds me of summer fun and church picnics. I think when you eat it in Winter, it's an automatic mood lifter because it reminds you of sunnier, warmer days. However, there's only so many times you can eat leftover potato salad before you say, "Blah, potato salad again!" Today when I looked in our fridge and saw our leftover potato salad, that's exactly what I said to myself, so I decided to do something with it. This recipe is really fast to put together. I think it took me 15 minutes, and that included a 2 minute break to bandage myself up when I grated my thumb. It was also easy to clean up my mess since everything goes into one pan- this will make Andy happy since he's our official kitchen cleaner!
Ham and Potato Casserole
Ingredients:
1 Cup Potato Salad
1 1/2 Cups Cubed Ham
2 Eggs
1 Cup Milk
3/4 Cup Water
1 Cup Chopped Carrots (about 30 baby carrots)
1 TBSP Dried Onions
1 Box AuGratin Potatoes (I used Betty Crocker)
1 Cup Shredded Cheese (I used 1/2 cup of mozzerlla and 1/2 Cup of Colby)
Preheat oven to 35o degrees. Spray a 9" or 10" glass, pie pan. Crush dried potato rounds from augratin potatoes into smaller pieces. Mix first 8 ingredients together, including spice packet from augratin potatoes. Pour in 1/2 cup of the cheese and mix. Next put the mixture into the pie pan. Bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, lightly stir mixture so liquid is equally dispersed. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top. Cook for another 15 to 20 minutes. When finished, cheese will be completly melted on top, and the edges and bottom will start to turn light brown.
So the last two leftover recipes I tried did not go to well. I tried to make banana pancakes for Celia and Charlie for breakfast, but they had too much banana and not enough pancake. Charlie fed Celia's to our dog, Hammie, when I wasn't looking. Then, tonight I made a cucumber bean salad for dinner. It tasted okay, but just okay. I think it's missing a spice. As soon as I figure out what needs to be added, I'll post the recipe. So my recipe tonight is not actually a leftover recipe, instead it's a beginning recipe for pork chops. It's really good and smells great when cooking. It's a recipe I created a while ago, so there's not as much detail as there is in my newer recipes.
Creamy Pork Chops
Ingredients:
4-6 Pork Chops
1 Can Cream Corn
1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup
1/2 Envelope of Onion Soup Mix
1/2 Can of Milk (use cream of soup can)
Layer pork chops in a crock pot or baking pan. Pour all ingredients on top. Cook in the crockpot on high for 2 to 2 1/2 hours or cook in the oven at 300 degrees until pork is completely cooked. While cooking, baste pork chops with gravy several times to keep them moist. Remove from oven or crockpot when pork is at correct temperature and let cool a bit.
