Laura's Laws of Thrifty Cooking #2

LOVE YOUR LEFTOVERS!

I hate to waste food, but I also have a husband who absolutely refuses to eat the same meal more than twice in a row. This has allowed me to become very creative in the kitchen. I enjoy the challenge of creating new and different meals out of the same ingredients. It saves a lot of time in the kitchen and money too. I recently created three different meals from a venison roast. We had the roast the first night with plenty of veggies (carrots, potatoes and onions) and yogurt biscuits. Venison meat can get fairly dry, but we had cooked bacon that morning and I was able to sear the roast in the leftover fat and then drizzle the remainder over the roast to keep it lubed up while cooking. Caution: This will not work with the watery stuff that you get from typical supermarket bacon. That is injected with a brine to speed curing. You need some real bacon from a farm-raised pig (more on this in a future post). You could put uncooked bacon over the top of the roast too, but I prefer eating the bacon for a separate meal. The next night, I cooked some rice, sauteed the venison and some of the onions with a red pepper and some fajita seasoning, served with sour cream, some salsa (or relish) and cheese and Ta-da! Fajitas!

The third night I put the bone from the roast, some meat (reserved when I cut it up the night before), the leftover veggies, a bit of flour and we had a wonderful venison soup. It was supposed to be a stew, but I wasn't really paying attention and added too much water. I crumbled the leftover biscuits from the first night over the top, and served it with fresh bread and a mixed salad. And, if I do say so myself, it was wicked good.

This combo of meals actually served us five suppers and five lunches, but my kids are pretty small yet, so it may not last you quite as long. I still have leftover rice that I am going to do something with tomorrow. Probably fried rice?

Anyway, the point is: it is completely possible and makes excellent sense in terms of both time and money to make meals that taste very different, and yet still use the same basic ingredients. By varying the meals, you can keep your family happy, and your pocketbook too!