Food - Two meals out of one - or how to save time and money

 Two or more meals out of one

- or how to save time and money

I once had a friend who made all her meals for the entire month in one weekend. She chopped veggies, and cooked meats that would make enough frozen casseroles to last the month. I happened to stop over once when she was in the middle of this endeavor. She had quite the assembly line and efficiently gathered all her pots, pans and dishes ready for the meals. I'm not sure how long she did this, once, twice, maybe more, but it sure looked like a lot of work, not to mention the number of containers to keep all the meals in. I also heard she was called the queen of leftover re-imagining. 

That's what stuck with me. Take a leftover and make something new. I thought I could do one day's meal and stretch it to two or maybe three nights. Over the years, I've heard other cookbook authors who do the same, although I haven't looked for these recipes. I just know what's worked for me over the years. I think it was called cook once, eat twice or something like that. Actually if you search for this, you will find a variety, such as cook once, eat all week, etc.

Now that I'm retired and only cooking for two, it's a good way to make my favorite family size meals, but not have the same old leftovers.

So this page is a start of my list of favorite meals. I'll post links to the recipes as I build the list. 

I'm sure someone did this much better than me. ;)

Main Dish Ideas

Best economical tip is to buy the whole chicken, Beef roasts or other meats when they are on sale. If you aren't grilling, these can be froze until you are ready to use them.

Cooking for a family, Make double the amount of everything to use for the day 2/3 meals

Cooking for 1 or 2, use the regular recipe.

Fast Food from scratch

These meals are my no fuss, fast cooking meals created when I have under 60 minutes sometimes 30 minutes to cook a meal from scratch.

Hamburger Hash

Beef Stroganoff 

Side Dish Ideas

I always have ideas for the main dish, but then I get into side dish quandaries, mainly because of family members dislikes. I LOVE all vegetables, unfortunately onions don't agree with me, so in all my recipes you will see them listed as optional unless they should not be used in the recipe. I don't add them if they will overwhelm other flavors in the dish.

I always do one starch and one non-starch or two non-starch vegetables. So you won't see corn and potatoes in the same meal, unless they are in a soup or casserole with other vegetables.

This is due to nutritional practices to avoid complex carbohydrates and low fiber which tend to be starchy side dishes. In other words, you don't want to get plugged up from low fiber, slow moving food in your intestinal tract. This is especially true if you have IBS, SIBO (like me), or other intestinal problems, as these foods can cause more distress aka flatulence. 

Roast Chicken

Day 1 - Roast chicken with Potatoes and Carrots (save the chicken carcass and drippings to make the best soup/bone broth ever)

Day 2 - Chicken salad sandwiches with roasted potato salad

Day 3 - Chicken soup 

Beef Chuck Roast or Pork butt 

Depending on the size, you can stretch this to several days. The following works for 2 people using a 4 lb. roast. 4-6 using two 4 pound roasts. 

Day 1 - Oven or Crockpot roast beef with potatoes, carrots or other veggie

Day 2 - Pulled beef or pork sandwiches

Day 3 - Pulled beef or pork tacos

Day 4 - Beef or pork stew

For any oven baked chicken or roast, bake some potatoes for a separate meal. I rarely bake potatoes for just a baked potato meal.

Fish dinner - Mahi Mahi, cod or other firm fish

Not sure I want to eat leftover fish past two days, so having leftover fish is usually only a day 2 meal. Some people say they don't like cold fish, but then admit they like Tuna salad. 

Day 1 - Blackened Fish

Day 2 - Fish Tacos, pasta salad, or your favorite Tuna salad but with your leftover fish

Side dishes

From the leftovers:

Roasted potato salad - I use the leftover potatoes and make with a standard potato salad recipe

Coleslaw - I make this with pulled beef or pork sandwiches, and even the tacos. For the tacos I add Cayenne, or my favorite hot sauce (Organic habenero sauce). You can try it with Sriracha, Tabasco, etc.

For the taco, I LOVE the soft flour tortillas that you finish cooking. But you can buy hard corn tacos or ready made if that's your preference. 

Note: I avoid ready made because they have ingredients that I would never find in my own pantry, aka lots of chemicals you never heard of. Look for the ones that you cook yourself that have 4-5 ingredients, all of which you would use if you made them from scratch yourself. You will not go back to using the ready made.)

Fresh side dishes for Day 2, 3, etc.

Taco ingredients: Fist your meat from the previous meal, then if you have coleslaw, add that. Then anything you would put on a salad such as, lettuce, avocado, cucumber, jalapeño, radish, green onions, olives, shredded carrots, etc. 

Top with Cream dressing - I never buy store bought because this is so easy to make from scratch (recipe will be posted soon)

The following vegetables, steamed or roasted 

 (if steaming set aside some for making in a veggie vinaigrette, or pickled)

Green beans - kick them up with slivered almonds, chopped garlic butter

Asparagus - steam or roast with olive oil and sprinkle Balsamic vinegar

Broccoli - Steam and top with shredded cheddar cheese or Roast with balsamic vinegar

Carrots - steamed nothing added, roasted with olive oil and garlic

Potatoes - oven baked, make extras and use for Day 2 stuffed bake potatoes (with your roasted veggies and leftover meat) 

 More updates to come