What to do with leftover peas and Ritz crackers...

Andy loves meatloaf.  It is a childhood favorite of his.  However, it is not one of mine, so I always forget to make it for him.  He has been so sweet lately that I wanted to surprise him with a meal he'd love, so I made meatloaf with an Italian twist.  The fun thing about it is that I made it in the shape of a giant meatball which the kids loved!


Italian Meatloaf or Giant Baked Meatball
Serving Size: 8
Weight Watchers Points: 5
Ingredients:
1 lb Ground Beef
2 Eggs
1/3 Cup Sliced Black Olives
1/3 Cup Parmesan Cheese
2/3 Cup Smashed Ritz Crackers
1 Cup Cooked Peas
1 Tsp Italian Seasoning
1/2 Tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 Tsp Onion Powder
1/8 Pinch of Salt
1/3 + 1 Cup Spaghetti Sauce

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl mix together ground beef, eggs, black olives, parmesan cheese ritz crackers, and peas.  Add Italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion, salt and 1/3 cup of the spaghetti sauce.  Mix thouroughly.
2. Form meat into a meatloaf or giant meatball.  Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  After 30 minutes, pour 1 cup of spaghetti sauce on top and sprinkle parmesan cheese on top of the sauce.  Bake for another 30 minutes.

What to do with leftover spaghetti and fried okra?

My mom is semi-Southern, so, we grew up eating fried okra.  For us, it was a treat when my mom would take the time to cook this Southern delicacy.  Although, I have battered and fried okra by hand, I am lucky enough to be able to buy it in the grocery store.  I love it when it is on sale for $1 a bag.  While I think fried okra is simply delicious, I was very surprised to find out that my children aren't as thrilled about it (although they both tried it for me!).  With all this fried okra leftover, I seriously thought I might have to throw it out, but then I got to thinking.  I hid it in this Cajun Spaghetti that went over extremely well with my husband and father.  Enjoy the recipe, it's spaghetti with a twist!

Cajun Spaghetti
Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Diced Onions
2 Celery Stalks, Chopped
1 TBSP Minced Garlic
2 Chorizo Sausage Links
1 Brat or Smoked Sausage
1/2 Cup Chopped Ham
1 Diced Tomato
1 Cup Fried Okra
I Can Diced Tomatoes
1 & 1/2 Cups Spaghetti Sauce
1 Cup Water
1 TBSP Creole Seasoning
4 Cups Cooked Pasta

1. In a large soup pot, saute diced onions, celery and minced garlic in a little olive oil for 5 minutes. 
2. When celery turns bright green add chorizo (decased and crumbled).  Cook for another 5 minutes.  Add smoked sausage, ham, tomato, fried okra, diced tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, water, and creole seasoning.  Simmer on  high for 10 minutes. 
3.  Turn to low and mix pasta in.  Cook until pasta is thoroughly heated.  Serves 6 people.

What to do with cabbage and spaghetti sauce?

Now that Spring is in full swing and Summer is right around the corner (hallelujah!) fresh fruits and veggies are popping up everywhere.  We have the cutest little vegetable stand right down the street from us and everytime I go there, I buy just a little too much!  It all looks so good and the prices are very reasonable.  We're also attempting to grow our own fruits and veggies this year.  I'll keep you updated on how it's going.  So now I'm motivated to create some new vegetable recipes.  Here's the first for the season- Italian Style Cabbage.

Italian Style Cabbage
Ingredients:
1 Head of Cabbabge
3/4 Cup Spaghetti Sauce
2 TBSP Grated Parmesan or Romano Cheese
Olive oil


1. Wash and chop cabbage into small strips. 
2. Pour a thin layer of olive oil into the bottom of a large frying pan.  Toss cabbage into pan.  Start frying.  Stir while frying so cabbage doesn't stick to bottom of pan.
3. When cabbage turns brighter, stir in spaghetti sauce.  Continue cooking until cabbage is cooked all the way through (7 to 10 minutes).  Add parmesan cheese.  Let melt and serve.

What to do with French Onion Dip?

This weekend my wise, older brother turned 33.  Yea Mike!  My mom and dad threw him a really fun surprise party with lots of family and friends.  We were fortunate enough to be the beneficiaries of some really yummy food leftover from the party.  Lately, we've been so busy that I really haven't had a lot of time to cook.  On Monday I looked into our fridge and knew I needed to cook a lot!  Our fridge was stocked with food.  So, from the leftover French Onion Dip was born Mini Turkey and Broccoli Cannelloni.  I made them with a red sauce, but I think they would be even more delicious if you used a white alfredo sauce. 

Mini Turkey and Broccoli Cannelloni
Ingredients:
1 Box Manicotti Noodles
1 Lb Ground Turkey
1 Package Chopped Frozen Broccoli
1/2 Cup French Onion Dip
1 Cup Ricotta Cheese
1 Bag Mozzarella Cheese
1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1 Egg
1 and 1/2 Jars Red Spaghetti Sauce or 2 Jars Alfredo Sauce (or a combination of the two)

1. Boil manicotti noodles following the directions on the box.  When finished, drain water and cut noodles in half.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Cook broccoli in microwave for 5 minutes.  Let cool when finished.  If there are any large pieces, chop them up.
4. In a large bowl, mix together ground turkey, broccoli, french onion dip, ricotta cheese, 3/4 bag of mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese and the egg.
5. Spread a thick layer of spaghetti or alfredo sauce on the bottom of two medium sized baking dishes.  Stuff manicotti noodles with turkey mixture and place in baking dishes.  Cover finished noodles with remaining sauce. 
6. Bake covered for 35 minutes.  Add remaining mozzarella cheese and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese to the top of the noodles.  Cook for 5 more minutes uncovered.   Let cool before serving.

What to do with a pork steak and spaghetti sauce?

Aaaahhh, I can smell it, Spring, bbq season, baseball- summer is getting closer and closer.  As a teacher, this is very important :)  We had a fabulously busy Easter weekend.  What great fun we had celebrating Christ's ressurection with friends and family.  However, we now have many leftovers.  Here's a recipe using a leftover pork steak.  The pork steak I used was huge!  If you don't have a huge pork steak, use two small ones.  It's a great recipe for after grilling; we always end up with one or two pork steaks leftover!  This solves the problem of what to do with them in a new, delicious and very easy way.

Stuffed Pasta in a Pork Sauce
Ingredients:
1 Large Pork Steak
4 TBSP Creme Fraiche
1 and 1/2 Jars of Spaghetti Sauce
3 Bags of Stuffed Pasta (I used tortellini, ravioli and stuffed mostacolli)

1. Cut up pork steak into bite-sized pieces.  Put into a large soup pot.
2. Pour spaghetti sauce and creme fraiche in with your pork.  Stir.
3. Cook until warm and bubbly.  Keep on low until ready to mix with pasta.
4. Boil a large pot of water.  Cook all pastas together according to the directions on their bags. 
5. When finished, combine pasta and sauce.  Serve with a side of parmesean cheese.

** This recipe serves 6 to 8 people.

What to do with Spaghetti Sauce?

A while back, our grocery story had spaghetti sauce on sale for ridiculously cheap prices.  Being half Italian, I never pass up a sale on anything to do with tomatoes, so I stocked up!  The other day I was looking in my pantry and I realized I haven't used any of my sauces yet.  This really surprised me.  I immediately set to remedy this situation.  Since I was on Spring Break and my kids were at the sitter, I wanted to make something fast so I could clean our house a bit between my appointments that day.  In these situations, our slow cooker is my best friend.  It was rainy and cold that day, I made a Tomato Basil Soup.  The aroma was delicious and it was so simple to make.  Our friends Erin and Drew came over for dinner that night.  We served it with roasted chicken, cantaloupe and cheesy garlic bread.  It was a perfectly simple dinner that was delicious.

Tomato Basil Soup
Ingredients:
1 Can Northern Beans
1 Can Diced Tomatoes
1 Can Cream of Mushroom Soup
4 Cups Milk
1/2 Jar of Spaghetti Sauce
1/2 Pack Frozen Peas
3 TBSP Creme Fraiche (or sour cream)
2 Pinches of Salt
1 Tsp Onion Powder
1 Tsp Dried Basil (Use fresh if available, I didn't have any)
1/2 Tsp Garlic Powder

1. Pour all ingredients into your slow cooker, cook on high for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally so it won't bubble up and burn.
2. Before serving, pull out about 1/4 cup of liquid.  Mix together with 1 Tbsp of flour until a paste forms.  Mix paste into soup and put lid on until soup comes to a boil.  Continue cooking until soup is at desired thickness.
3. Serve with cheesy garlic bread.

What to do with leftover Pork Loin and Spaghetti Sauce?

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.

What to do with leftover lasagna and garlic bread?

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!

What to do with stale hot dog buns?

Last week I asked Andy to pick up some hotdog buns at the bread store on his way home from work.  When there, he was overcome by the cheap prices and bought a giant loaf of white bread, a 16 pack of hotdog buns, and a box of powdered sugar doughnuts.  The doughnuts were gone within 24 hours, but the bread and hotdog buns lingered longer.  I have had to think of all kinds of creative ways to cook with bread over the past week.  Tonight I made Pizza Burger Pie in memory of my grade school days.  I loved when we had pizza burgers at lunch.  In fact all the kids loved them.  They were basically a bun topped with spaghetti sauce, hamburger, and cheese.  I took that basic recipe, made it into a large dish and fancied it up.  After it was finished cooking and I placed it on the table, Charlie proclaimed, "That's my favorite- Yummy pizza!"  And sure enough, everyone in our family had two helpings.  I hope your family enjoys it as much as mine did.


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Pizza Burger Pie


Ingredients:
5 Hotdog Buns
Olive Oil
Garlic Powder


1 Cup Ground Turkey
1 1/4 Cup Spaghetti Sauce
18 Black Olives Sliced
1/2 Cup Red Onions Diced
1/2 Large Green Pepper
1/2 TBSP Dried Basil
2 1/2 Cups Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
Parmesean Cheese


Spray a round 10" to 11" baking dish with Pam.  Tear up hotdog buns and spread out over bottom of dish.  Drizzle olive oil over torn up buns and then sprinkle garlic powder on top.  Bake in the oven  at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes until toasty.  Brown ground turkey while buns are toasting in the oven.


Take the buns out of the oven.  Spread tomato sauce over toasted buns.  Next spread the browned ground turkey on top of the sauce.  Add the onions, peppers, and black olives to the top of the pie.  Sprinkle dried basil and parmesean cheese on top of veggies.  Finally top Pizza Burger Pie with shredded mozzarella.  Bake for 20 to 30 minutes at 350 degrees until cheese is melted and starting to brown around the edges.  Let cool and enjoy!

What to do with extra spaghetti sauce and celery?

I'm half-Italian.  My father is full-blooded.  This makes me a rather emotional person sometimes, it also makes for great cooking.  Growing up, we had a dish called spedinis for special occasions.  They were delicious.  Several times I have tried to order spedinis in restaurants and they're never made like my grandma's or as delicious.  Either the restaurants are getting it wrong or my family is mistaken of what a spedini is.  The restaurants always serve marinated meat, that might be breaded, on a skewer.  My family took a cut of meat (chicken or flank steak) and pounded it.  We then created a stuffing out of tomatoes and breadcrumbs and stuffed the meat.  We rolled the spedinis up, coated them with breadcrumbs and baked them- yum!  Our spedini recipe was the inspiration for this casserole.  I had some extra spaghetti sauce and celery I needed to use up, so presto, Italian Chicken Spedini Casserole.  This would be great with a side of pasta, salad and garlic bread.  Mangiar Bene!


Italian Chicken Spedini Casserole


Ingredients:
6 Small Stalks of Celery
1/2 Green Pepper
1/2 Medium Yellow Onion
1 TBSP of Minced Garlic (mine was not dried)
4 Boneless Chicken Breasts
Olive Oil


1 1/3 Cup of Spaghetti Sauce
1/2 Cup Italian Style Breadcrumbs
1/2 Cup Cottage Cheese
3/4 Cup Mozzarella Cheese
1 tsp Italian Seasoning
1 tsp basil
1 Egg


Cut up chicken into to chunks.  Dice celery, green pepper, and onion.  Pour 1/8 cup of olive oil into frying pan and heat.  As soon as it gets warm, add celery, green pepper, onions and chicken.  Saute until chicken is no longer pink and veggies are completely cooked.  Mix in garlic towards the end of cooking.  Let mixture cool.


After cooled, pour mixture into a large mixing bowl.  Add spaghetti sauce and bread crumbs.  Mix thoroughly.  Add cheeses, egg, Italian seasoning, and basil and mix.


Spray your pan.  I used a round, 10 inch, deep dish Pamper Chef baking pan.  Pour chicken spedini mixture into pan.  Sprinkle 1/4 Cup parmesean cheese on top.  Sprinkle 3 Tbsp of breadcrumbs on top of the parmesean cheese.  Bake at at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  Broil for 3 minutes until toasty on top.