Smackdown: Leftovers -- yay or nay?

I live for leftovers.

Many of my favourite meals are based on leftovers.

I definitely prefer the food the day after Thanksgiving/Christmas to the original meal. I love Thanksgiving leftover casserole - everything layered and baked.

A lot of the potato things I like start as something else - baked mashed potato cakes were once mashed potatoes - now they've got onions, mushrooms, herbs added and they're uhhh baked!

How could I have a turkey/cranberry sandwich without the turkey to start things off?

Pizza bases with leftover veggies and shredded cheese are paradise.

and well, the truth is, I'll eat pretty much anything if you add onions and mushrooms to it

I hate to just solidify someone else's post since I can be sassy myself, but ehBeth said it all.

Do you have a good recipe for Thanksgiving leftover casserole?

My mom used to make one with wild rice but she can't find the recipe. It was divine! I love a good casserole. That's something I don't cook often enough.

I try to convince Mr. B to go out for Thanksgiving because it is just too much food for the three of us and I spend the whole damn day cooking, alone, while they watch football. Every year he reminds me that we won't have any leftovers if we don't cook the real deal.

(sigh)

At least they do all the clean up....

Eat it till it is gone, though I might reinvent it.

BTW: cold pizza in the morning is the breakfast of the Gods.

here's the trick to getting those Thanksgiving leftovers with less annoyance (it only took me 25 years to figure out )

you don't actually have to prepare and serve the food on any one day

neither Set nor I really care about a whole turkey so I cook a turkey breast and a bunch of turkey legs the week before Thanksgiving - make the gravy at that point. Sometimes I do the dressing at the same time - depends on what else is going on.

I like to make a layered veggie bake for faux Thanksgiving. Layers of garlicky mashed potatoes with layers of spinach with nutmeg and egg (sort of faux quiche-like) and layers of mashed squash with spices. I usually do the mash a few days in advance - I make a lot so we can have some the day its made and plenty for different leftover purposes. The squash can be prepped in advance as well. The spinach egg layers don't exist til the day the whole thing is baked. I tend to serve it Thanksgiving or the day before. This veggie layered thing is very popular with kids - they seem to ignore the fact that it's all veggies just because it looks cool.

Asparagus tends to be one of the other veggies for the leftover casserole. We have asparagus a lot - there are normally no leftovers so I have to prepare extra to create leftovers.

Sometimes I make fancy cranberry sauce, sometimes it's simply cranberries cooked into easy applesauce.

The day I want the leftover casserole I literally layer everything, toss on a little shredded tangy cheese and some melty cheese and bake it. I like it best with mash at the top and bottom, dressing in the middle near the turkey, and the cranberries above the dressing. Veggies find their place - generally between dressing and the lower layer of mash.

Given that Set doesn't like food that touches - he loves this weird combo.

Yes - there are sometimes 2 layers of mash near each other - one from the veggie layer bake - but no one's complained about that yet - and I tend to make the taters quite differently for mash than for the layered dish. Less garlic in the mash and more herbs/spices, potato skins, yogurt and cream cheese.

I have more formal recipes for casseroles but this is a fun way to have leftovers and it's popular. I have a friend who will drive hours if he knows I'm making holiday leftover casserole.

I like "some things" as left overs but not much... I freeze it and give it to the future father-in-law, good cause.

David "fiancé" Chef.... He will always, every evening, always, eat what ever I cooked that night (for 2) whilst he is not even here.

I love sautéed mushrooms & onion that I would eat the next day on toast and butter.

I do like making pies with left overs though, have to admit.

We call it bubble and squeak.

I refer to leftovers as breakfast.

My first husband would NEVER accept leftovers.

2nd husband would eat anything - for days afterwards.

The fella I date now owns a restaurant, so 'leftovers' are not even in his vocabulary.

I'd kill for leftover pizza for breakfast. (cold)

I also don't like hot food. I prefer that it be room temp. The flavors come out more. I don't know what the attraction to hot soup is.

At home, Monday was the day for leftovers (from the Sunday lunch [lunch is traditionally the main meal here].
If there wasn't enough left, it was stretched to a "across the garden" stew.

The question of hot food is interesting. One could allege that people who preferred hot food were less likely to be exposed to pathogens, and therefore the preference for hot food is evolutionary. I think that's a suspect notion, and i don't know if anyone has ever advanced it. But one might also consider that food served at table to affluent people often came from a kitchen, far away from the dining room. In the United States, the food might come form a seaparate building (fires in the home were mostly likely to originate in the kitchen, and putting the kitchen in a separate building was an obvious safety measure). To get food that was at least warm, it had to leave the kitchen hot--scalding hot. Over time, it may be that people came to expect not just warm food, but hot food.

These are just speculations on my part.

Unless it's a snack, I cook with the idea of making enough to last a few days. I'm way too lazy to start from scratch every time I'm hungry. If it passes the sniff test, I'm game.