OK, here’s a quickie Leftovers for Lunch post for today. Whenever we make potato salad for parties, we usually make extra and set it aside for ourselves. The next day, I usually make a potato salad sandwich. I know. It sounds a bit strange, but trust me, it’s actually pretty good. Kind of like an egg salad sandwich, but with potato in it.

We make our potato salad differently than the traditional American variety you might buy in those tubs at a supermarket. No mustard or dressing or onions or herbs, and light on the mayo. It’s a very light, clean tasting salad. We use a pretty high ratio of hard boiled eggs. We also throw in cubed cooked carrots, cucumbers (we use either the persian pickles or japanese cucumbers) and occasionally apples.

I like to spread it on warm french bread, but it tastes great on pretty much any type of bread. The great thing about potato salad in sandwiches is that the mixture clumps together, making it easily spreadable on bread. And since potato salad invariably tastes better the next day (or the day after that), it’s perfect for incorporating into leftover lunches.

Remind me to get pissed off at food more often.

The other day I was sitting down to watch a hockey game. I had procurred one of those prepared meals from Fresh and Easy - this one was an enormous lasagna about the size of a small third world country. OMG, it was horrible, horrible, horrible. I’ve had really good experiences with F&E stuff, but their spaghetti meal is crap and this lasagna was probably the worst I’ve ever had EVER (a review is probably upcoming, if I can bring myself to revisit the horror).

Anyhow, here I was with a hockey game and nothing to eat. Farketty fark. I started to get mad. And when I get mad, instead of getting even, I usually cook something (I guess that is sort of getting even with the food). Usually something crazy, or at least something I haven’t tried before.

That something was Deep Dish Pizza.

I had just made up a batch of pizza dough the previous day, so I had the crust covered. I’ve always wanted to try to make one of these deep dish pizza things. I didn’t have the exact ingredients, but I decided to give it a go. In between the first and second period of the game, I set me up a cast iron pan with olive oil, the dough, cheese (I didn’t have Moz, only Jack Cheese), cooked sausage, mushrooms, diced tomatoes, bit of leftover spag sauce, some canned parm cheese.

Then I whacked it in the oven. It’s fun to whack things in the oven when you’re mad.

I came back during the commericals to find a pretty good approximation of a deep dish pizza. I know it’s not like the kind you’d get in Chicago, but I thought it was pretty darn good for being a first try.

After inhaling about three slices, I cut up the remainder and put it in the fridge for leftovers the next day. They actually held up pretty well which surprised me - as the pizza cools it solidifies, allowing you to move it around more easily. When I first took it out of the oven, it had been a little wet.

For those who make their own deep dish pizza, I had a question: do you cover deep dish pizza with aluminum foil while baking? I thought of doing this, but didn’t. Because of that, the crust got a little too crispy, though it wasn’t bad.

Next time, I also would probably omit the extra spaghetti sauce and just add more chopped tomatoes. The mushrooms were uncooked which was a mistake that I should’ve caught - that extra water came out and added too much moisture. I’d also use mozzarella cheese, and more of it. I think I didn’t use enough cheese. You can never have too much cheese.

Other than these minor issues, I thought it was surprisingly good.

Oh, and we won the hockey game.

So it ain’t the prettiest of meals, these leftover Stuffed Bell Peppers. But they’ll do in a pinch for lunch the next day. We make stuffed cabbage more frequently than the peppers, since we have extra cabbage more frequentlyin the fridge. But when there’s a sale on green bell peppers, we usually plan a stuffed pepper night. And the next day I’m rewarded with Leftovers for Lunch.

Lately, I’ve been on a ground turkey kick - previously we’d go with a mixture of 2 parts ground beef to 1 part ground pork. But I’ve found the ground turkey works just as well - you can also mix it with the pork to give it some tenderness, but it’s not really necessary. We add cooked rice and sauteed onions (cooked until they’re very soft) to make the meatball interior mixture less dry. Maybe add some bread crumbs, toss in an egg or two for binding power. Fill up the peppers, add tomatoes and tomato paste (or tomato paste diluted with water) plus chicken stock and throw it in a big pot. That’s pretty much it.

The next day, the stuffed peppers will sometimes taste better now that the flavors have had a longer chance to meld. Inevitably, you’ll have some “pepper” breakdown - they can get a little mushy and the meatball mixture tends to fall out of the pepper. That never bothered me, though. It becomes more of a tomato pepper meatball stew, which is fine with me for a quick lunch the next day.

URGH I didn’t really feel like writing a novel today (again). So we’re going with Leftovers for Lunch. While we do cook at home fairly often, we still hit the restaurants sometimes for meals throughout the week. I know that J food isn’t the cheapest type around - but what are you gonna do. Yes, I know I could drive 10 minutes to my mom’s house and ask her to cook Japanese food, but sometimes you don’t want to do that. =)

Anyhow, we find that even with a more expensive restaurant, taking home the leftovers can cut a chunk off of the higher price. Or, at least it’ll make you feel like you saved a little extra. It helps that we’re not the biggest eaters on the planet, so we usually do have leftovers. The trick is to “doctor up” the leftovers at home. I’m not talking about making it look pretty, although that’s another good way to make cheap food taste better. I mean just add stuff to it.

One of our favorites to fix up is soup or stew. To this leftover Sukiyaki I added a pack of enoki mushrooms, some chicken stock to thin it out (often necessary when you’ve got leftover soup) and a small pack of cooked udon. It made a pretty good lunch. One trick for couples who get tired of eating the same leftovers from last night - switch and eat your partners leftover meal. Works pretty well - except when the leftover meal is so good you don’t WANT to switch, hehe.

I’ve been on a bit of a pizza kick lately. That’s homemade pizza, including the crust. Up until now, I’ve had a difficult time with making the pizza crust taste somewhat decent. But last week, I received a pizza stone as a gift. Cheap Eaters should note that you can probably go the Alton Brown way and buy safe ceramic tile as a pizza stone stand-in for much cheaper. I just never got around to it.

Anyhow, the difference in the crust is pretty striking. Here’s a slice of leftover BBQ chicken pizza, with ingredients in the style of California Pizza Kitchen. This homemade pizza thing is still new to me, so I’m experimenting with the toppings and such. On this one, it’s grilled chicken with BBQ sauce, red onion and cilantro. I omit almost all the cheese except a sprinkling of parm. Also, I found that it tastes better to me if the onions are pre-cooked. I also found out not to put the cilantro on until the pizza comes out - it’s pretty darn hard to sprinkle stuff into a hot oven, haha.

This one turned out pretty well, and I’ll probably make it again. I’m going to be keeping a blob of homemade bread dough in the fridge at all times so we can make a quick pizza when needed.

I realize I’ve sort of been ignoring Leftover for Lunch here on Cheap Eats. I used to post them up at least once a week since I do eat a lot of leftovers. I’ll try to get that back into the posting schedule. It also saves me a lot of time because I don’t have to write a fricken novel (or love letter) for these type of posts.

Eating leftovers is one of the keys for people looking to save money on food in these tough times, especially for those single professionals who do cook on occasion. You don’t have to cook every day, though you could. But when you do, try and make extra of whatever meal it is and then pack it up for lunch the next day.

The incremental time, effort and cost of making a little extra is nearly negligible - unless you’re making lobster, steak and other fancypants meals. I know it ain’t glamorous and your co-workers may make fun of you. Listen: who cares what they think?

This is a photo from a few months ago of a half roast chicken, roast potatoes, carrots and broccoli. It’s not pretty, the chicken isn’t perfect, but it sure gets the job done for a quick lunch.

All righty folks. It’s just about that time when I’m starting to wind down the post-Thanksgiving Festivus 2008 over here at Cheap Eats. Thanksgiving is a very important time of the year for us. It is a time for massive food banditry - the squirreling away of turkey carcasses, carts of mashed potatoe [sic] and slices of pumpkinus pieus while relatives loaf around watching American dorkball. Sorry, I mean football.

You need to start your food sneakage early, preferably right after dinner and before the dessert is served. You snooze, you lose. But just remember the Turkey Bill of Rights - he/she who baked it gets to take it. I mean the bird bones. For that reason alone, I don’t mind trying to cook the turkey usually. It allows us to bag all the bones if we’d like to. Another way to snag extra morsels of turkey is to offer to carve the bird. This method only works if your family doesn’t carve at the table. In the kitchen, you simply sneak pieces as you cut them into a ziploc bag at your waist. Try and distract any would be turkey spies by doing a little dance. Preferably with a song composed specially for it.

Warning: don’t try and hide the ziploc bag in your pockets. No one gains THAT much weight from eating just one dinner. Also, guys, do not put turkey drumsticks down your pants. It is not recommended since the sudden bulge is too big to explain to people. If you must, wear an extra long sleeved pea-coat and hold a drumstick in each hand. But this only works if you aren’t going to shake hands with the inlaws. Also, be careful not to knock over Grandma’s ming vase.

For mashed potatoes, I recommend wearing a fedora. When no one is looking, quickly doff the hat and scoop mashed potatoes into it, replacing it on your head. You can also buffer some stuffing first before you slather the potatoes in. The potatoes will adhere to the inside of the hat, keeping the stuffing from falling out.

Gravy and cranberry sauce are thorny issue since they need to be stored separately. Here is a nice trick. Bring a small kids shovel. Before the party begins, excuse yourself to the restroom. Open up the back of the toilet and place two ziploc bag inside the water well. Dude, it’s not dirty, that’s clean water. If you must, double bag the two ziploc bags. Then, every so often during dinner, get up to go the bathroom and pass through the kitchen scooping gravy and cranberry while jogging to the bathroom. If you meet anyone, just say, “Little Jimmy had an oopsie accident,” and point at the shovel. They’ll steer clear, trust me. Open the toilet and dump (hehe, dump) the cranberry and gravy into each bag. At the end of the party, excuse yourself to the bathroom again and retrieve your contraband. This works VERY well if, like many in my family, you have a genetically small bladder that makes you pee frequently. So they won’t even be suspicious.

Pumpkin Pie presents a real problem. I haven’t yet figured this one out, but I had one idea which I might try next year. Bring a ferret (or kiwibird, or iguana) to the party in a shoebox. What you want to do is build a pie-shaped compartment on the side of the box. If anyone asks why there is a pie shaped compartment attached to a ferret box, just say your ferret has a taste for cheese so you keep a wedge of gouda in there all the time. And then, let the pie, I mean the ferret out to “play”. Your host will be so happy about this that they won’t notice you sneaking a wedge into the compartment. Catch the ferret and say “Bad boy, bad…” and put him back in the box. Look chagrined and offer to do the dishes.

Haha, damn that’s entertainment.

OK, back to the real turkey wrapup. We make a number of things with the leftovers. The main one is a turkey stock, as shown in the picture way at the top. You can actually skip making a stock and just make a soup - my mom used to do this all the time. I just like making the stock first since you can use it later in different ways than just soup. I usually make it the day after Thanksgiving. It’s just turkey bones and scraps, water, round onion, celery, carrots, bay leaf, garlic and maybe a few herbs if you have it left over from making a dish that year. Don’t let that guy boil, you just want it to simmer for several hours. Salt to taste. Later, if you want to make soup, strain out all the stuff and restart the broth adding onions, celery, carrots, potatoes and noodles.

One of my favorite Thanksgiving leftover creations is the open faced turkey sandwich. The first time I had this was at a restaurant in the 80s. My first thought was, “Dang that’s good.” My second thought was, “Why are we not eating this every Thanksgiving?” This isn’t the type of sando that you pick up - you eat it with a knife and fork. Get two slices of bread and toast it. Meanwhile heat up slices of turkey with gravy in a pan. Microwave some mashed potatoes and stuffing. Assemble on a plate the bread, mashed potatoes, stuffing and turkey slices. Pour extra gravy on the top - sometimes I add a little cranberry to the top. Usually this sandwich ends up being around 5 inches tall… yums.

I also enjoy a good turkey hash with the leftovers. This uses cubes of turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. The idea is to mix everything together (use a little gravy if its too dry) and then fry it in a skillet with a little butter. You want the potatoes to be sorta crunchy on the outside, so be sure to flip the mixture with a spatula once to brown both sides. Some people make little “cakes” out of the potato mixture instead. I usually fry an egg up to go with this breakfast, but you can also mix the egg into the potato for a sort of egg scramble.

Well, I hope your Thanksgiving turned out nicely as far as leftovers goes. I’m sad that it’s over, but looking forward to next year’s after-party. I was also thinking about getting a ferret for the aforementioned pumpkin pie scheme. But alas, they’re not legal here in California.

I guess it’s time to buy an iguana.