So, yesterday I had advice for things you might not be upset to have left over – shrimp, cookies, and meat! And it’s possible you had those things left over, but it’s more likely that you have vegetables left over, and you’re probably wondering what on earth to do with them. Here are some ways to use a few common kinds of leftover vegetables:

Raw Veggies

You or someone you know probably decided to do the healthy thing and bring a veggie tray to the party. And everyone politely took a carrot and then left the veggie tray alone in favor of chips (or the aforementioned shrimp). Now what? Well, all of yesterday’s soup recipes call for carrots and celery, so they’re easy.

If you’ve got broccoli and peppers, turn them into a stir-fry. Get a few chicken cutlets or pieces of thin-sliced beef (I usually use one per adult, and you can use some leftover roast beef if you have any). Cut the meat into thin strips. Roughly chop 1 onion. Heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and whatever vegetables you’d like – besides broccoli and peppers, thinly sliced celery is nice. Season – I usually use salt, pepper, soy sauce, ginger, garlic powder and onion powder. Saute over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes and add meat. Season again with all of the above, plus 1 teaspoon sesame oil if you have it and, if you like things hot, some red chili paste or sriracha. Saute for about 7 minutes, stirring often to prevent sticking. In the meantime, combine 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 1 cup cold water (or stock if you have some open), and season again with the same ingredients you used before. When the meat is cooked, stir the cornstarch mixture into the pan. Keep an eye on it – it needs to boil, but after it boils, it will only take a few minutes to become a nicely thickened sauce, and only a few minutes more to get gloppy. If you do have some gloppiness, simply stir in more seasoned water/stock. Start with a little and go from there. Serve with rice (regular or cauliflower).

Cooked Veggies

If you have leftover steamed broccoli or string beans, you can toss them into a stir-fry as shown. Just put them in close to the end, because they obviously don’t need to soften, just get warm and add their flavor to the dish.

Another good idea for leftover steamed veggies is to give them a quick roast. Put your oven on 400 – don’t worry if you’re cooking something else in there at a different temperature, because this is a very forgiving dish. Put your veggies in a baking dish and drizzle with olive oil. Add minced garlic, salt and pepper and stir well. Check them after 15 minutes. Depending on the oven temperature and the size of the vegetable pieces (broccoli and cauliflower will take longer than green beans), you may be done then or you may need up to 15 more minutes.

Mashed Veggies

Let’s say everyone ate all the raw veggies and all the cooked veggies and left you with nothing but mashed potatoes. Why not make potato cakes? You can make these with leftover white or sweet potatoes. Take your potatoes and add 1 diced onion (less if you don’t have a lot of potatoes or don’t like onion), 1/2 as much flour as you have potato (for instance, if you have 2 cups potatoes, add 1 cup flour), salt and pepper. Mix well. Heat about 1/4″ oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, form the potato mixture into round “cakes” (they should look like thicker pancakes) and slide into oil (be careful not to drop them in – that’s a good way to burn yourself as I may or may not have found out). Fry for about 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown and eat as soon as possible. You can do this with leftover mashed sweet potatoes too!

Hope you’re feeling inspired to use up those leftover vegetables from your holiday meal! And, another “leftover” – a picture of a few of my Christmas penguins!

Hi everyone! Hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a wonderful one! Mine was nice, but very hectic, so I’m feeling that post-holiday letdown. I raced around like a crazy person probably for a month, but starting with Christmas pageant rehearsal Thursday night (I was one of the coordinators before anyone asks what part I had, ha ha) and straight through yesterday, the craziness was way out of control, and now it’s over. Oh well! The good part is I have some time to write!

Whether it was a pre-holiday party with friends Saturday, Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day, many of you hosted Christmas events over the last few days. And where events are, leftovers follow! So, here are a few suggestions for what to do with that old food! Please note these measurements are approximations for the most part, because I don’t know how much of the leftover item you have!

Cooked Shrimp
If you have any leftover raw seafood in your house, remove it now. Don’t read another word – I’ll be here when you get back. Double-bag it and put it outside in a closed can before your house starts smelling like raw fish! If, however, you have some leftover cooked cold shrimp from a platter yesterday, there are a few things you can do with it. First, you can cut it up with some diced celery, mayo, salt, pepper and Old Bay seasoning for a delicious shrimp salad. If you have some leftover rolls, shrimp salad sandwiches are a great way to get rid of two leftovers at once. If you’d like something a little more warm and filling, make some seafood pasta. Put a large pot of water on to boil. When boiling, add 1/2 box penne pasta. While penne is boiling, heat 1 cup tomato sauce (store-bought or out of the freezer) over medium heat. Add cooked shrimp and whatever seasoning your sauce needs – I find most store-bought sauce needs a little salt, pepper, garlic, onion powder, oregano and parsley. Turn heat down to medium-low and add about 2 tablespoons heavy cream (I usually start with one tablespoon and add more till I get the color and consistency I’m looking for). Drain pasta (reserve a ladle-full of pasta water in case you need to thin the sauce). Add pasta to sauce and stir to make sure every piece of pasta is covered in sauce. Serve immediately.

Roast Beef
My family always has roast beef for Christmas dinner. If yours does too and you find yourself with some roast beast leftovers, why not make a hash? Cut 3 raw potatoes into 1/4″ chunks and put a large pot of water on to boil. Boil potatoes for about 15 minutes. While potatoes are boiling, dice 1 medium onion and cut roast beef into 1/4″ chunks (if some has been sliced already, you can use it too, just cut the slices into smaller pieces). Drain potatoes. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons oil. Saute onion with salt and pepper for about 5 minutes. Add potatoes and roast beef and season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and a few shakes of paprika. Cook. stirring often, until potatoes are browned.

Turkey
If you have leftover turkey, I certainly hope you have the carcass, so you can make turkey soup! The recipe is basically the same as my chicken soup (https://allybearsden.blog/2018/11/10/chicken-zoodle-soup/) except you’re going to need more water. If the carcass is too big for your pot, you can break it into pieces to make it fit. Also, if you got that bag of giblets and such in your turkey and didn’t either use it or toss it, cut up all those nasty bits, saute them in a tablespoon of oil or butter, and add them to your water and turkey bones.

Ham
I was going to save this recipe till I had a nice picture of it, because it’s one of my favorites, but I’ll just have to give it a post of its own some time in the future! My favorite thing to do with a leftover spiral ham is make split pea soup. Get a bag of dried split peas. Rinse them and pick out any small rocks that may have gotten in there. In a large stock pot over medium-high, saute 1 diced onion, 2 diced carrots, and 2 stalks diced celery (plus salt and pepper) in 1 tablespoon oil for about 10 minutes. Cut the meat off the ham bone and add it to the pot. Add 4 cups vegetable or chicken stock, salt, pepper, 1 bay leaf, and 1 teaspoon marjoram (this is about the only time I use marjoram, but it really adds a nice flavor to the soup). If the bone is not covered, add water to cover. Turn heat down to medium-low, cover, and let simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. At some point during that hour, cut some or all of the remaining ham into small pieces. Add the cut-up ham, cover, and let simmer 20 minutes (you should taste it at this point to see if it needs more salt and pepper or anything else you might want to adjust – if it seems too thick, add more stock or water, but bear in mind that it should be fairly thick. Remove bay leaf and serve (if you have croutons, they are delicious in here). Extra soup can be frozen – simply add extra stock (vegetable or chicken) when heating, because it will get super-thick when frozen!

Cookies
What’s a leftover cookie? Ha! Seriously, though, if you over-baked and you’ve got more cookies than you can eat, give them away! You can probably still find cookie tins at the dollar store, supermarket or other stores (and they may even be on sale), and the Rubbermaid/Ziploc/Glad folks have holiday-themed or colored plastic containers, which also may be on sale. Drop those cookies off to anyone you see regularly – your hairdresser, the nail salon, your doctor’s office, the day care or after school program (as long as they’re open this week). Also, bring them to your office – remember, by next week, everyone’s going to be full of regret and resolutions, but this week, most people feel like they’ve blown their diet and won’t mind a cookie or two!

Hope this has helped you figure out what to do with some of the holiday leftovers. And now a holiday leftover from me – I was so busy that I didn’t get to post all the pictures of my holiday decorating, so here’s another one!