DigsMagazine.com | nourish: 5 WAYS TO AVOID THE LINGERING LEFTOVER

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07.31.2000

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other recent NOURISH articles:
o Use What's in the Fridge
o The Lazy Shopper's Kitchen Essentials
o Grilling 101
o When it's Too Hot in the Kitchen

5 ways to
avoid the Lingering LEFTOVER
by Amber Link | 1 2

I don’t eat leftovers.

Maybe its years of being "left over" when teams are picked, or when dance cards were filled that gives me a certain affinity to food left on the plate. Maybe I’m lazy and like to eat out at lunch. Either way, I refuse to banish the unwanted portions of my plate to a Ziploc bag or a separated Tupperware container.

There's just something so sad about opening tomorrow’s lunch only to see a rerun of last night’s meal. Leftovers are filled with good intentions—-to not waste food, to save a little money --but really they're just food that’s been stood up. Prom dress of alfredo sauce, corsage of parsley, left to sit on the china stoop wondering why he didn’t come. Even if your attitude toward passed-over portions isn’t quite as melodramatic, learning how to avoid the leftover has its practical rewards. Portion control in the beginning can translate into less control tops in the end. And unless playing "guess what’s growing on the lasagna" is how you teach your nieces and nephews about the wonderful world of fungi, learning how to cut back on excess food can make your monthly fridge clean-outs a little less, well, gross.

1 Throw it out
Try to forget your mother’s incessant pleas to save the starving children all over the world; open the trash can and dump it in. If, like most leftovers, it will end up in the trash anyway, why waste the time banishing the leftover pizza to a refrigerated purgatory until it resembles a petri dish? It’s much easier to rid yourself of the beastly leftover now, while your dishes can come clean with a little soap and water, rather than to wait until you have to get the blowtorch out to melt the cheese off the side of your Corningware.

2 Make Less
If you always find yourself with more than you can handle after making a meal, cut your work in half by cutting your recipes in half. The kitchen is a world of simple fractions. Half a cup of this, a quarter teaspoon of that and you’ve got yourself a gourmet meal. Divide by 2 and you’ve got yourself half a gourmet meal. And less chance of eating more.

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