How to Get Your Family To Love Leftovers
How to Get Your Family To Love Leftovers
Most people who spend a great deal of time in the kitchen already know the horrors of watching their family devour a meal and leaving a full serving or two behind. That extra food screams out to us to be saved and used. We don’t want to waste it and it tasted so good! Why then, do we often find ourselves dumping it out anyway? Some of us might say that we simply did not feel like putting it away. I bet the majority would say, however, that family members would never eat it. It would end up sitting in the refrigerator and growing all kinds of unsightly things upon it. Rather than letting it die such a slow and unbearable death, you simply dump it into the trash and move on.
Well no more.
You can use those leftovers and prevent waste and you can even make your family love them. Here are some tips to make this happen and ease your conscience:
Invest in some good containers for the fridge
Having an easy, effective way to store leftovers is huge and half of the battle. Invest in the good stuff so that your family can then microwave it right in the container. Just be sure they only microwave one serving at a time and not over and over. A good set of containers is a huge step towards making family members enjoy leftovers.
Play to their favorites
If you are cooking things they love, they will likely not be leaving very many leftovers in the first place. When there are leftovers, however, they will probably be fighting over them. Do you notice how long a slice of pie lasts in the fridge? Exactly.
Post instructions on the fridge to reheat
Some folks need to be lead directly to the water to actually take a sip. Make it so easy that your kids could do it and you will see more of the leftovers getting gone. If you teach them, they will eat them.
Use the leftovers in recipes the next day
This is the best way to make sure nothing is lost and wasted. Give them twenty four hours to eat the leftovers and then you use them in a recipe. This will ensure that they get gone and you can feel good about it. Best of all, leftovers make for incredible yumminess when used properly. I do this often with meats. I can often create an amazing and Easy Pot Pie recipe using almost any left over meat. Most of the time the family doesn’t even realize I used the same chicken we had the night before.
Commit to the change
This is the biggest part. You have to be willing to not waste food and do whatever is necessary to not throw it out. If you are going to do this, you might as well do it right. Your change and commitment will rub off on the family as well.
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