works well as leftovers:
pasta/soup/pizza

does not work well as leftovers:
a sandwich/a cookie/a potato chip

I know my mom puts meat in Ziploc bags with marinade and freezes those, but you don't eat meat.

Most all Korean food is designed to keep well. If you have a Korean market around, you could pretty much just buy a lot of kimchi and side dishes and keep them in the fridge for a while.

chili and lasagna freezes well. both can be veggie.

I could marinate and freeze tofu!

pasta dishes are good for leftovers, you can eat cold or warm it up.

and if you just make plain pasta, you can have pasta salad or perhaps mac and cheese, the possibilities are endless.

We did this for a month and as well as it worked out, I never got around to arranging it again. I still have the little calendar template thing I made if you want it.

My favorite leftover friendly meals are:

-Stir fry
-Chicken and dumplings
-Lasagna
-Enchiladas
-Carne guisada
-Arroz con pollo
-Beef and Guinness stew

I can't think of anything else right now.

French fries also do not refrigerate well.

i love leftovers. just as delicious, no prep time.

You can freeze potstickers, too.

I'm just bringing in all the Asian flavas.

home-made gnocchi.

super easy to make several lbs. once they harden a bit on a pan in the freezer you can separate it all into 1lb bags. can last several months in the freezer. takes only a couple min to cook from their frozen state in boiling water.

good idears. thanks, folks!

pierogi would be great to whip up in advance too.

eric, have you made different flavors of gnocchi?

Gado Gado tastes awesome as left overs. ( i had left over gado gado for lunch so its all i can think about right now)

what's gado gado?

...she asks instead of googling

-large batches of hummus. I've never tried freezing hummus because we all eat it so fast.
-vegetable stock and then freeze it in ice cube trays. this makes it easy to use. also its more awesome because you actually know what is in your vegetable stock.
-tomato based sauces are great to keep in the freezer.
-freeze everything in glass or freezer safe zip-loc bags too to make sure they don't get icy and stay fresher longer.
-potatoes do not freeze well.
-as xiv said, pasta freezes well. homemade biscuits or breads or pizza dough do too (raw/unbaked).
-you can freeze berries and herbs of course.
-sangria

It'd be cool to have one day a month where you fold together great pasta dough's and bread dough's and tortillas, and make awesome tomato bases sauces (I find that tomato dishes always start the same by caramelizing onions, garlic, and peppers- the personality is added later), and vegetable stocks. and if you are into ice cream you can make a home made ice cream and butter that day too. and then from there every two weeks you can marinate your tofu (cilantro and lemon=nom) and just go with the flow from there.

and let's say you find some really cheep cilantro or basil, you can just save that forever yo. or cherries or cranberries. just buy what's cheap and create your own fresh wonders in the freezer.

geez, I am an old woman.

batters can stay in the fridge too. crepe batters (with cinnamon of course) or home made barbecue sauce. you got this!

yo, it's Criistie.

Yeah, I freeze ingredients too. Usually cilantro, onions, and bell peppers, all pre-chopped or sliced, since that would be tricky to do after freezing.

eric, have you made different flavors of gnocchi?

I believe the traditional way is with potato, but I prefer it with ricotta cheese and spaghetti sauce on top. You can add a bunch of different seasonings that you like but i would just add those to a sauce to put over them.

Home-made spaghetti sauce holds up decently in the freezer too (about 7-10 days in the fridge).

Both are super easy to make and arent that expensive. Pasta is prob. one of the cheapest things you can eat.



Dont know if you eat red meat or chicken but:

- have a cut of beef ground into hamburg and make up a bunch of patties.
- a roast chicken or chicken breasts cooked with yellow rice/peas/onion lasts about 7-10 days in the fridge.

shakethesheets on Jan 10 '12 at 12:04
pierogi would be great to whip up in advance too.

Fact

also stew or something

Planning ahead. What a novel idea. Maybe I should try it sometime.

I do this quite a lot. Stuff made with a bechamel (white) sauce doesn't tend to freeze well as the sauce seperates, neither does pasta and rice but I usually find it'll last for a week or so in a sealed container in the fridge. Stuff like blognase, stews and curries are good to freeze. And they also taste better the longer you leave em.

I agree! Curry definitely tastes better over a few days!

LOVE to make Chicken Tortilla soup in the slow cooker to last a few days.

out the following ingredients in slow cooker and cook on low 8-10 hrs.
1.5-2lbs chicken breasts, 1 carton (big size) chicken broth, 1 can rotel, 1 can chopped green chile, 1 container fresh salsa (deli section), seasonings that you like (I put garlic, salt, pepper, cumin)
You can also add a little cilantro or lime if you want. When it is done, you take out the chicken, shred it and put it back in.

It is soooooo good with tortilla chips and shredded cheese!!!

i'm going the opposite direction.

my goal is to never yearn for any type of food or "plan" out meals too far in advance. i hope to get to the point where i simply eat whatevers around, when i'm hungry.

i have a tone of frozen cubes of vegetable stock that i made a few weeks ago. i just need to get around to making some soup now. last time i froze it in an ice cube tray, but that got annoying 'cause each cube was only 1/8 of a cup, so this time i froze it in 1/2 cup tupperware containers.

also, vegetable stock is so easy to make, and since you're vegetarian, you totally should do it if you don't already. instead of throwing out veggie scraps, freeze them in a big plastic bag. once the bag is full, make stock. if the bag doesn't contain any onion, carrot, or celery, add some fresh to the pot since those three ingredients are the classic base for stocks.

i'm going to make a lot of pizza dough this weekend.
but, come june, we'll be "preppers" as we'll be canning a whole lot of stuff

Technically Gnocchi is potato based. Ricotta cheese based pasta is Cavatelli. Both are great to make and freeze. You have to make sure to spread on a cookie sheet and freeze that way so they're not touching or you'll have an icky mess when you try to boil it :P

I've been doing fritatta's in the evening and reheating them for left overs.

I'm bad though cause I don't ususally plan out meals since my husband is not a fan of leftovers. He won't eat them unless there's no other choice hehe.

Soups are good. I'm going to make a big pot of crock pot chili tonight :D

shirtflirt on Jan 10 '12 at 1:18pm i'm going the opposite direction.

my goal is to never yearn for any type of food or "plan" out meals too far in advance. i hope to get to the point where i simply eat whatevers around, when i'm hungry.

--------------

Garden of eden, man.

Just don't eat the fruit from that tree.

My biggest fear about eating "whatever's around" is that it might end up being tree bark.

All that talk about foods that accutually taste better after a few days reminds me of one of my favorite foods that you have to make in advance. Four bean salad. Now I'm hungary.

i really don't like eating leftovers...I feel kinda bad about it but I've just learned that I really can't make myself eat the same meal twice or three times in a row. So I try and plan a meal where I can re-use the ingredients for something.
Especially since I'm usually cooking for one or two, I can't finish most ingredients in one go. So for example if I get a head of cabbage, I'll make cole slaw one night, put it in won tons or spring rolls the next, and then a curry the last night.
Or if I make something I'll try and cook the leftovers differently to make them into something else. If I make risotto, I make arancini the next day. If I make quinoa, I'll have it as a main one day and use it stuff peppers or something the next.

Tont,

kinda, yeah. the more i read about homesteading, the more i'm ready to take on the challenge full-on and separate myself as much as humanly possible from all external food preparation.

down the road, i envision our home having one cow, maybe a handful of chickens, fish vegetables fruits and herbs...