by Texas Homesteader ~
Keeping the grocery budget low & eliminating waste is important in our household. Oftentimes that means Planned Leftovers. But sometimes it’s just making Fast Food by reworking leftovers into a brand new dish.
When it’s time to plan a meal I typically look at what I have to be used and build a meal around those things. That way there’s no food waste. And if I’m using leftovers, the bulk of the meal has already been cooked. All that’s left is to do is to think outside the box and use a little leftover magic. Bibbidy-Bobbidy-BOO – let’s see what we can do!
The other day we hosted my parents for supper, serving grilled steak and roasted fresh veggies. The day after our cookout RancherMan & I enjoyed some of that steak for lunch. We sliced the steak thinly & added some onions & peppers from the roasted veggies and rolled them in tortillas for a quick meal.
It was delicious but there are still leftovers in the fridge. I don’t want them wasted!
Leftover Steak Into Beef Tips & Noodles
For today’s Fast Food dish I’ve decided to remake those leftovers into beef tips & noodles for supper tonight. I’ll warm the leftover roasted veggies separately as a vegetable side dish.
I enjoy homemade pasta – thankfully it’s super easy to make and uses precious few ingredients. But of course if need be you can make this food even faster by using purchased pasta instead.
But today I’ll make homemade pasta noodles & make them garlic/pepper flavored. I figure garlic-flavored pasta can be used in almost any dish so I’ll be able to easily use any leftovers easily without flavors clashing. See, already thinking of how to use up any potential leftover noodles!
So I used homemade broth in the noodle dough, flavoring it with a sprinkling of pepper & about 1/2 teaspoon of powdered garlic. RancherMan helped me roll and cut the dough into noodles. Then I put them into nests on the counter to dry.
When it was time to cook the pasta I used the rest of the broth I’d thawed. Fresh pasta cooks in a pot of salted water (or broth) in only 1-3 minutes.
When I drained the pasta I kept the starchy broth and returned it to the pan. I thickened it with a little cornstarch for a gravy-like consistency. Then I added a little salt/pepper & stirred in the thinly sliced steak cubes and let it heat through.
When all was ready I placed a serving of homemade noodles on the plate and ladled some of the meat & gravy on top.
It was delicious and since it was using so many leftovers the cost of this meal was almost nothing!
How do you keep your grocery bill down? Share your tips!
~TxH~
Reinventing New Meals Using Leftovers
Pork
- Planned Leftovers: Easy Slow-Cooker Pork Roast
- How To Quickly Shred Leftover Roast
- Hearty Stew – Quickest Planned Leftover Meal Of All
- Pulled Pork Enchiladas From Leftover Roast
- Planned Leftovers: Carnitas Tacos From Pork Roast
Beef
Chicken/Poultry
- Chicken Fried Rice Using Cold Leftover Rice
- Leftover Chicken & Zucchini Noodles with Herb Bombs
- Chicken Tortilla Soup From Leftovers
- Homemade Chicken Pot Pie Made Easy
- Chicken & Dumplings Using Leftover Chicken
- Leftover Chicken Into Quick Chicken Fried Rice
- Leftover Turkey & Dressing Into Patties
Vegetables
Other Leftover Posts
- Leftover Biscuit Dough? Make Cinnamon Rolls!
- Using It ALL – The Art Of Eliminating Leftover Food
- Homemade Meals Every Day – The EASY Way!
…and MUCH MORE!
See All Our Recipes
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Hi Nancy and Tammy,
No, I’m not near the Or/Wa border, I was born and raised in the Newport area (central Oregon Coast) We moved to Vancouver and worked up there for a number of years and back to Oregon in 2014, but my parents never left the area, Pa and brother built the house we now live in – inland from Newport – where the weather is generally nicer, 16 acres, where we are in the process of building a small barn. I taught school in Camas (just a few miles from where we lived in Vancouver) most of the years we were there and my partner worked for Pacific States Marine Fisheries doing stuff on the Columbia River related to the mitigation of the effects of Bonneville Dam on the fisheries/salmon in the river. My mother was in poor health and couldn’t stay at “grandpa’s ranch” any more. I had to move her to an assisted living place near where we lived when I was a kid and where brother still lives. We both retired, moved down here, it was winter and I thought I might go stir crazy so I went back to work in Newport for DHS working with families who’s children were in foster care – helping them stabilize their lives so that they could be reunified with their children. Did that for a year and a half or so and by then I decided I could handle retirement and that much “togetherness” and finally retired.
Candace
I do menus, a lot. I find that I have less waste if I know what to buy. And if something is on sale I get extra to freeze for later. Then when I’m making my menus I can use the sale items.
For instance I made vegetarian lasagna last night. It was made from a sauce I cooked last fall when I was getting tons of zucchini and tomatoes from my son’s friends. Up here there is a store called Grocery Outlet. We bought the cheeses we needed there, so the whole dinner (and after classes lunch for my son today) only cost about 6 dollars. And we have cheeses left for something else. I also have a book called Bean Banquets and I use it a lot. It has such good recipes. I want to learn to make mozzarella cheese, I have heard that it’s pretty easy. Wow! I wrote a novel, tonight!
I’ve made mozzarella before, Nancy. And you’re absolutely right – it’s one of the easiest cheeses to make requiring no special equipment as opposed to cheddar, etc. that requires presses and such. I’ve made cottage cheese too (even easier). Go for it, you’ll love it! ~TxH~
there have been a couple of Mother Earth News fairs close enough to us to attend (Albany, OR) in the last couple of years and we always try to make it to the cheese making classes. I have not made cheese in a long time, but when I was teaching in Vancouver, WA we made cheese in my 18 to 21 year old special ed classroom – it was fun, easy and the kids were AMAZED that it was so yummy on crackers with some homemade jam.
Hmm…I just was noticing that you are south of me. I don’t know exactly where Albany Oregon is but you must be close to the border if you worked in Vancouver. I absolutely adore the Pacific Northwest. I was born and raised in Washington State and we were taught in school that Oregon is a part of the PNW. The whole time I lived in the South, I wanted to come home so much. I loved certain things in both Texas and Georgia, but my Washington blood never did get use to the heat and humidity. I use to joke , when I lived in Georgia. and it was 100% humidity, where I come from when it’s 100% humidity, it’s raining….lol. And what’s with the heat index? Why don’t they just say it’s 112 degrees? Instead of 90 degrees feels like……112. I never did get that. But; Tammy, you and people at the church, made Texas bearable. And I will miss cotton and bluebonnet fields. The smell of honeysuckle in the summer and Kaleigh chasing fireflies. But the heat…..no way!!! Well….there it is, another novel….lol
Miss Susie taught me how to make ricotta cheese and I do make your yogurt recipe. And my organic chemistry son wants us to make yeast. Do you need rennet for mozzarella?
I haven’t made mozzarella in years so I had to glance back & see, but yes you do need rennet. We have one cow who is a powerhouse breeder but her front two teats blow up after calving. Even to the point that it’s hard for the calf to nurse. To stave off mastitis dangers I bring her into the chute for a couple of days & milk out those front teats and enjoy the raw milk she offers. After that the calf is easily able to keep those front teats in check. She’s due to calve in a couple of weeks, maybe I’ll make mozzarella with her milk this year. ~TxH~
I was getting raw milk from the Mennonites that we were friends with and she always made sure I got some with lots of cream so I could make fresh butter. They had a Jersey, I love Jersey milk. That was the kind I’d buy from the farm I bought from up here, before going south. Although I have wondered what the Oreo cookie cow milk tastes like.
LOL Nancy. I know some breeds of cattle produce a higher milkfat than others, and taste is mostly affected by the cow’s diet. Our cattle are beef breed so they don’t produce the same high volume as a cow specifically bred for milk production, but I get a couple of gallons from the few times I milk out only her front two teats. I typically use it for making yogurt since we eat yogurt daily. Plus by making the raw milk into yogurt I’m essentially pasteurizing it too and that appeals to me as well. But maybe cheese will be on the to-do list with this year’s milk. Only a couple of more weeks to wait until she calves! ~TxH~
Hi Nancy,
Where are you, I LOOOOOVE Grocery Outlet. We used to have to “drive” to find a grocery outlet. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when we moved temporarily to Vancouver WA and there was one that moved in quite near us. Now I live back in “God’s country” in Oregon and there is one in Newport!!! It is a great place to shop for so many things. I did buy “fake” crab in the freezer dept which was dry but the wine, the packaged dry goods, the CHEESES and even the vegetables and fruit are a godsend to the budget challenged.