Vegan Goodness:
Today we ate:
- Breakfast: Green smoothies and blueberry muffins for everyone!
- Lunch: We all had a “snacky” lunch today. Leftover tofu scramble, rice with butter and strawberries for LP. Tortilla chips with homemade salsa, pita chips with hummus and “cream cheese” fried won tons for Mom and Dad.
- Mom snacked on chocolate covered almonds after lunch
- Dinner: Vegetable Crisp from Vegan on the Cheap. Ours featured CSA zucchini and bell peppers along with red onion and tomatoes from our garden. We also had a side of baked italian tofu and some fresh bread baked by the G-man!
- Mom and Dad enjoyed a special treat for dessert – chocolate mousse with strawberries! We are celebrating both kids being in bed 🙂
Money Matters:
Today we spent the following:
- $26.26 on groceries at our local Asian market
- $185.00 on LP’s music class for the Fall
Friday Tips for Living Vegan and Living Cheap – with kids!:
Learn to Love Leftovers!
If you follow this blog and actually read the “Vegan Goodness” section, you might have noticed that we eat a lot of leftovers. In fact, our lunches are primarily leftovers, often from dinner a night or two before! When we plan our meals we usually include at least a few dishes that will make some leftovers. This helps us out in two ways.
Firstly, we save time. Making lunches (whether they are for eating at home or on the go) can be a pain. When we have leftovers, especially when they are stored in microwave safe containers, reheating and eating is a breeze. Sometimes we can even make a hot dinner that can be eaten cold the next day, like when we make pasta with veggies and pesto. Leftovers can also make future dinners simple. When the G-man was out of town last weekend we ate leftovers excursively, and it made the weekend much easier!
Secondly, we save money. When we eat leftovers we are not buying special ingredients just for lunches. Having leftovers also prevents me from snacking too much. When I eat what is basically a “dinner” for lunch I’m more full and satisfied, and less likely to have that “2 pm” snacking urge. This is true both when I’m home, and also when I’m away at work!
Here are some of the ways we make having and storing leftovers a breeze:
Choose dishes wisely: Some dishes make better leftovers than others. Soup is a great thing to double a recipe for with leftovers in mind. Salad . . . not so much. We often use soups, stews, falafel patties and pasta dishes for our main “leftover” meals.
Store in meal-sized microwave safe containers: Pretty self-explanatory. When I am working it was great to be able to just grab a small container of soup or pasta that I would eat at lunch. It was much better than trying to scoop a small amount out of a large container when I was trying to catch a bus! We love these pyrex containers.
Be creative: Sometimes leftovers don’t work out perfectly. The other night we had sushi. I was left with extra filling and rice, but we ran out of nori sheets. The next day I had the rice and filling in a bowl topped with avocado!
Leftovers sometimes get a bad rap, but they are great economical way to enjoy your favorite meals again and again. Learn to love them!
3 thoughts on “Friday Tips: Loving Leftovers!”