Contemplating leftovers
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- December
- 1
When my mother-in-law comes for Thanksgiving, we take the turkey carcass and make soup. When it’s just the family, we dispense with a whole turkey and make house rice out of the remainders.
It may be a generational thing. My mother-in-law grew up during the Great Depression on an Ohio farm in a large family — something like seven brothers and sisters. Everything was used and everything was expected to stretch.
My family is fairly small — my husband, our three children and me — so we’re less inclined to overcook and seldom have leftovers. My children, thankfully, are willing to eat leftovers. They just are very particular about how that leftover food is served.
That’s how we created house rice. It’s based on a typical fried rice offering at the local ethnic eatery, but with leftovers instead of — er — new food.
When I was a child, we had ‘clean out the refrigerator night.’ My own children know that house rice means ‘everything we have in the house goes in the rice.’ So after Thanksgiving, I took what turkey still remained after my son finished his midnight raid, the leftover vegetables, some frozen peas (because you always have to have peas in house rice. Don’t ask), an egg and mixed them in the wok with cooked rice and soy sauce and had no complaints about yet another turkey dish.
Any other family leftover recipes I can try? We’re out of turkey, but I still have some stuffing and mashed potatoes to get rid of.
This entry was posted
on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 3:39 pm by Randi Weiner.
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Nothing says the leftovers cannot be part of a newer meal.
Thats what we tend to do. add the pieces of other meals togewther. or use the leftovers as a side to a new meal.
you have stuffing and mashed potatoes. so make some fried or baked chicken. and heat up the stuffing and potatoes.
and you done. I too was raised by depression era family. I always cook on a large scale counting on the leftovers to be another whole meal or a part of another. Waste not.. want not..