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Planned Leftovers
by Monica Resinger - Plantldy98@aol.com

Description: How to plan your menu to have leftovers for another meal.

Using leftovers not only saves money, but it can also save time. The most obvious way leftovers save time is that the dish is already cooked and usually all you have to do is warm it up. But, I am not talking about this way, I am talking about planned leftovers.

Planned leftovers means to plan on cooking more of something in your current meal to use for an upcoming planned meal. For example, if you are having roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, and roasted vegetables for dinner tonight, you could plan on cooking double the amount of roast beef that your family normally eats so you can use the extra already cooked roast beef in tomorrow nights dinner which is planned to be open faced, hot roast beef sandwiches and green salad. You could even go the extra length and make double the amount of mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables to make potato pancakes and pasta salad with sliced roasted vegetables to go with the open faced hot roast beef sandwiches. You would have most of your meal already prepared for you.

Of course, this takes a little time to plan, but cooking this way will save you a lot more time than what it took to plan it. Planning will ensure that you have the right ingredients on hand for your planned meals.

You don't need any special cookbooks or recipes to plan meals this way, just some thought about the way you use your leftovers. You could sit down with a notebook and pen and write down all the ways in which you use leftovers. If you need more ideas, surf the web or ask your friends. Note: This notebook could have ongoing leftover ideas for variety. Once you have this information, you can then plan your meals for the week either in your notebook or on a calendar. Say you want to have chili and cornbread this week. Plan on making a double batch of chili to use the next night as chili dogs (or maybe even a triple batch so family members can use some for lunches). Once you have your menu planned, then you'll need to make a shopping list to ensure you have all ingredients needed.

Have fun, save time and please let us know if you try this!

Monica Resinger is editor/founder of Creative Home Newsletter; a free, weekly newsletter with articles and tips to help make your home a better place to live. To get this free newsletter, sign up at HomemakersJournal.com.