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jennthmg Forum Rookie
Joined: Sept 01 2007
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Posted: June 17 2008 at 12:16pm | IP Logged
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Along the lines of the topic "If you only had..." as recommended in hard times menu today I'm boiling a chicken, deboning it, adding the meat back to the broth & making chicken & dumplings...then tomorrow I'll fish out the chicken from the left-overs & 1 cup of broth, add rice & veg's and bake a casserole...then use the rest of the broth for raemen noodles.
I am clueless how to stretch recipes like this. I love the idea. The only recipe stretching thing I've done is add 1c grape nuts cereal to 3 1/2# hamburger as it cooks and divided it into 5 meals of 1# each (you can't taste the grapenuts and it stretched the meat really well for things with a sauce or casserole.
Any other recipes to stretch food? I like the idea of using a portion of left-overs to make something new...I just don't know what...
Thanks!
Jenn
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asplendidtime Forum All-Star
Joined: Dec 14 2005 Location: Canada
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Posted: June 17 2008 at 12:21pm | IP Logged
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I stretch lots of things with beans and veggies. And I like this website it has lots of useful info along those lines...
Crystal Miller's The Family Homestead
__________________ Rebecca~Mama to
Noah 17,
Katie 16,
Mary 14,
Tim 13,
Jonah 12,
Josh 10,
Zoe 9,
Will 7,
Peter 6,
Laura-Mae 4,
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Genevieve & Gabriella 1
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Jen L. Forum All-Star
Joined: Oct 18 2005 Location: Virginia
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Posted: Aug 23 2008 at 12:13pm | IP Logged
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bump -- Anyone else have ideas?
__________________ Jen
dh Klete,ds (8/95),dd (12/97), dd (11/00), and ^2^ in heaven
"...the best state in which to glorify God is our actual state; the best grace is that of the moment..." St. Peter Eymard
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JodieLyn Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006 Location: Oregon
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Posted: Aug 23 2008 at 12:24pm | IP Logged
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when doing mexican food.. say tacos.. I've stretched the hamburger with potatoes in a small dice.. they take the spices well and taste good.
I buy turkey when it's on sale at thanksgiving.. when I cook one up we have the normal roast turkey meal.. then I toss the carcass and boney parts after taking off the meat back into my electric roaster.. toss in some veggies (whatever I have but I try and get celery and onion in for sure) and cover with water and make a broth. The sliced meat goes in one bag.. and usually goes in the fridge for sandwiches for the week (though if there's a lot of it's not getting used I toss it into the freezer) and the rest of the meat is chopped up.. and frozen.. then I can use it in various casseroles (white enchiladas!) or soups (pozole!).. and then I strain the broth and package it up in 4 cup portions in the freezer and I have my "chicken" broth for any recipes that call for that.. or for making a quick batch of soup (some of the frozen chopped turkey tossed back in the broth, a few veggies and noodles and it's soup)
when you need pieces of meat.. the smaller you cut it the more it spreads out in the finished item. You can make sausage gravy for over biscuits for instance with a half pound of sausage.. you brown it and chop until it's in tiny bits and add extra spices to the gravy and it's quite good.
I'll cook a large pot of beans.. have "bean soup" the first night.. and then possibly freeze some portions.. but use the leftovers (And I make a huge batch to have lots) as refried beans in whatever dishes I use those in, soups, stews, chili.. so much cheaper than buying canned.. and I don't have to cook the dry beans from scratch for each of those dishes. I had it down last winter where I'd cook a large batch every other week and cover all the bean dishes for the time in between the "bean soup".
__________________ Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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JodieLyn Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006 Location: Oregon
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Posted: Aug 23 2008 at 12:32pm | IP Logged
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You know.. I don't think of it so much as "stretching" recipes as I think of it as a series of meals.. I'll cook enough to get X number of meals from something rather than think of it as stretching a single meal. I'm not sure if that helps.. but it seems to be more the way my mind works.
__________________ Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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CrunchyMom Forum Moderator
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Posted: Aug 23 2008 at 12:54pm | IP Logged
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Rice works really well in stretching taco meat, too.
I think like Jodie in the series of meals. Ironically, just today, I was trying to get back into menu planning and was making notes thinking that I really needed a flow chart, lol.
For instance, I will cook a pot of beans and a pot of brown rice, and we'll have just beans and rice with cheese one night, bean burritos with rice and cheese (sometimes I refry, sometimes not), taco soup, or 7 layer dip with chips,etc...
I will also use the rice and beans to stretch a pound of meat into 3 meals of tacos or taco salad.
I will roast or crockpot a chicken, and we'll have roast chicken and rice with veggie one night, and then after I remove the meat from the bone, I'll fill the crockpot and make broth for soups and use the meat for quesadillas, on an entree salad for protein along with boiled egg, or stir fry it with veggies to serve over the rice.
Also, I'll use the chicken stock (which besides saving money, homemade is SO good for you and gives you a lot of nutrition you don't get from a can--not to mention flavor!) to cook rice for added flavor and making it more substantial.
Leftover pot roast can also be used in sandwiches, on salad, and chopped up small and mixed with leftover gravy to serve over toast (or egg noodles).
__________________ Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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JodieLyn Forum Moderator
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Posted: Aug 23 2008 at 1:04pm | IP Logged
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Lindsey.. you can back this up one step further
Quote:
For instance, I will cook a pot of beans and a pot of brown rice, and we'll have just beans and rice with cheese one night, bean burritos with rice and cheese (sometimes I refry, sometimes not), taco soup, or 7 layer dip with chips,etc...
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And have just beans one night.. and have a stir fry or such with rice.. then have the beans and rice together as leftovers..
__________________ Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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Jen L. Forum All-Star
Joined: Oct 18 2005 Location: Virginia
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Posted: Aug 23 2008 at 1:29pm | IP Logged
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Thanks for the ideas :-)
(I use a can of refried beans to stretch the taco meat sometimes. Even my "bean hater" doesn't care.
__________________ Jen
dh Klete,ds (8/95),dd (12/97), dd (11/00), and ^2^ in heaven
"...the best state in which to glorify God is our actual state; the best grace is that of the moment..." St. Peter Eymard
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CrunchyMom Forum Moderator
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Posted: Aug 23 2008 at 3:36pm | IP Logged
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JodieLyn wrote:
Lindsey.. you can back this up one step further
Quote:
For instance, I will cook a pot of beans and a pot of brown rice, and we'll have just beans and rice with cheese one night, bean burritos with rice and cheese (sometimes I refry, sometimes not), taco soup, or 7 layer dip with chips,etc...
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And have just beans one night.. and have a stir fry or such with rice.. then have the beans and rice together as leftovers.. |
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Yes, absolutely (though I think that my husband would prefer rice with the beans--its a favorite combination that I feel fortunate he loves!). And sometimes the rice comes the day of a chicken, and beans come another day, and beans are mixed with the chicken for quesadillas.
We do do a good bit of Mexican/Tex Mex cuisines it is easily adapted from the basic ingredients we like to eat and which can also be cooked in larger quantities easily. Not only does it save money, but it is a lot faster to take out leftover cooked chicken to toss in a stir fry than it would be to cook a couple of boneless breasts from scratch.
I love winter cooking, too, because soups and stews are so easy and pretty much any leftover in any quantity can find a new life inside a soup!
__________________ Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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monique Forum Pro
Joined: Sept 11 2007 Location: Wyoming
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Posted: Aug 23 2008 at 7:26pm | IP Logged
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Along the same lines. I used to use Flylady's Rubber Chicken. Roast the chicken the first night use left over chicken with beans, salsa, and cumin for burritos, then boil the chicken bones for broth and make soup with leftover veggies in the fridge. I like to put noodles or barley in with my soup to make it go farther.
__________________ Monique
mom to 5
Raising Saints
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