Save Some

It's Tuesday. Nothing special, just a normal Tuesday, so I made just a normal supper. We had burritos. You know, the kind made with Ol' El Passo tortilla wraps and ground beef seasoned with taco seasoning. Throw on some cut up peppers, onions, cheese, and salsa and there's dinner.

My daughter was working tonight and would not be home until after 9:00. That means she will want supper when she gets home. That means I had to remind my husband, when he went back for seconds that he has to save some meat for her. There was plenty of everything else, but a limited amount of seasoned ground beef. Sometimes (often) my husband will just "clean up" the food that is still there by eating it. I do have to mention that one, or both of our kids will want some of this when they get back home. This is standard. But I still say something. I must be annoying.

There is a reason, though. I don't know if you have a husband, wife, partner, dog, whatever, that cannot be trusted around food. Although this picture is not my daughter's, it is something she has done on various occasions with leftover take out food, usually pizza. (She does not include the death part).

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Sometimes it works, other times he doesn't even look at the box. There have been many sticky notes over the years. One thing I have had to hide is cheese. God love him, he really can't be trusted with cheese. I will put cheese in the crisper drawer instead of in the drawer where we keep sandwich meat, eggs, and cheese. In the past, when I was the lunch-making mama, I would sometimes buy special sliced cheese like Havarti or swiss for sandwiches. If I did not hide it, there wouldn't be enough for sandwiches that week.

His birthday was this past week. He LOVES Stilton blue cheese. I bought him a nice big piece, but I was planning on using a bit of it in the salad and to go with the steak I was making for his birthday dinner. So, I put it in a paper pharmacy bag and kept it in our other fridge until the birthday supper. It was safe.

I work in a place where almost everybody brings their own lunch from home. There is a fridge in which you can keep your lunch if it needs to be refrigerated. Every once in a while someone mistakes someone else's food for their own. This usually happens when it is not in an actual lunch bag. Some people bring their food in just a grocery bag, or they just have a yogurt or some fruit that they put in the fridge. I find this utterly ridiculous. If I made my lunch, I would know which one is my lunch!

But what is worse, is the person who just leaves their food in the fridge, and then forgets about it. I've gone on some mighty fridge purges at work, reading "best before" dates out loud before chucking them in the garbage. The mold encrusted food, the leaking container, the shrimp dear lord the shrimp, the very very old cream... it's all been tossed after I just can't take it anymore. How do you not know you've left your food for that long??

But I digress, my theme was making sure there are leftovers for those people who are not present at meal time due to varying work schedules by reminding my husband not to eat it all. You know, this is usually only a meat issue. I've never had to say, "Leave some of that salad!" or "Make sure there are still cucumbers!" or "Don't eat the last of the carrots!" It's not that he doesn't eat vegetables, but meat is really his passion.

Not to sound perfect, if there is chocolate in the house, there really is no hiding from me!

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Sometimes chips are on sale (potato chips = crisps to my lovely English readers) so I will buy a couple of bags. Both of my children are terrible for staying up late. One likes to be in front of the tv in the den until all hours and the other prefers his bedroom with his computer. They both like to snack. I hide the chips in my bedroom closet. I think they both know they are there, but they know my closet is off limits (like little kids at Christmas who know where the presents are hidden, but don't want to spoil the surprise). I like to have snacks in reserve if someone should drop by.

There have been many times over the years when I have gone to the fridge to get something that I was planning on making, or using in a recipe, or putting in someone's lunch only to look high and low, and then utter the famous words, "R., did you eat the ________?"   They are usually followed by a , "Sorry, I didn't know!!"

I shall finish with something that perhaps a few of us can relate to:

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Mom's Throw - Together

I make supper. I make every supper. Every once in a while, we get pizza (no deliveries out where we live, we have to phone in an order and go pick it up), or go out for supper. But usually, I make supper.

Sometimes I am very organized and I plan ahead what I want to make, purchasing the necessary ingredients on the weekend when I go grocery shopping. I have lots of staples in the house like seasonings, dry pasta, canned soup, baking supplies, frozen ground beef, and way too many frozen bags of rhubarb and pumpkin!

However, sometimes I just don't really know what I want to make and don't have a lot of desire to make anything anyway. Then it's time for a Mom's Throw-Together. That's what these meals have come to be known. I don't know if I started the notion of "throwing some stuff together" and then it evolved into, "What are we having for supper?" "Oh, I'm just throwing things together." Now they are just referred to as Mom's Throw-Togethers and my husband is usually very happy to hear that it is time for another one.

I'm sure this is nothing new. You open the fridge, see what is left over in some various plastic containers, check the freezer, look in the pantry and create something. Usually in casserole form, these meals are great to use up bits of this and that. Throw-togethers are never the same thing twice.
As I was driving home from work I was thinking about what I was going to make for supper. I knew there were sausages left over from two nights ago (unless the husband ate them late at night!) so I started building a meal around those in my head.

Here's what I ended up throwing together!!

Three leftover cooked sausages (and a piece of my finger apparently, at the side of this picture!)

Some leftover boiled red potatoes got cut up and there was a handful of leftover peas.

I boiled up some frozen green beans and threw them in, too.

I normally would use a can of mushroom soup but shockingly I didn't have any (I DO have several cans of tomato soup, guess I keep forgetting I have some on hand and keep buying more), so I found a can of cream of celery soup, which I mixed with a half of a can of milk.

I put in a half a container of French's crispy onions, just like the kind used in green bean casserole.

A few dashes of Worchestershire sauce helps.

Bubbling hot out of the oven, it is ready for a sprinkling of the rest of the French fried onions.

And, voila!  Dinner is ready.


What about the rest of you? Do you make use of your leftovers? Do you create your own versions of throw-togethers? I look forward to your comments!