Mixed nuts

The holidays have passed and there are still nuts in their shell left in my Christmas nut bowl that adorns my table every year.  The family has grown tired of them and so they sit. But what can you do with the leftovers?

Here are a few ideas that come to mind.

Use Egg Yolks for this Mask

Now that you’ve made your homemade Egg Beaters, what do you do with all those leftover egg yolks? Homemade facial masks and shampoo is one solution. Another is your own tempera paint (remember that from grade school?)

The mask and shampoo couldn’t be easier. Only fresh egg yolks are required. And we love the way we’re saving money too!

My secret ingredient

We’ve all had this happen before…milk that’s just too sour to drink. Do you pour it down the drain? Don’t! Slightly sour milk is fine for cooking. The challenge: use up the 1/2 gallon so I don’t throw it away.

I have 1/2 gallon of fat free milk that no one wants to drink, even me! After performing the “sniff test” more than once, the milk was deemed past the drinkable stage. It’s time to cook creatively!

A half a gallon is a lot of milk! I can’t think of one recipe that would use it all, so it looks like I’ll be cooking all weekend. Here’s how I used up this milk, and by using food already found in my pantry and freezer.

Italian Chicken Stew

I get home from work after 5 PM, and like many of you, I don’t plan anything to make for dinner. I know, there are many websites out there that will teach you to plan your meals a week ahead, or cook all day Sunday for the whole week.

Are you kidding me? I don’t enjoy cooking that much! My youngest son is a vegetarian in the midst of meat-lovers, so in addition to cooking dinner every night, we have to fix something for him. Here how we do it. Tonight, once I ransacked the refrigerator, I found these ingredients to play with.

Tuna Cakes

I hate wasting food. I am a proud member of the “Clean Plate Club”, and save any and all leftovers when we go out to eat (yes, even the relishes that come with a hamburger). My husband gets a chuckle when I save even 1/4 cup of leftovers. And why not? With some creativity and experimentation, you can create some tasty, economical meals from left-overs.

Many nights, I peek into my refrigerator, see what morsels of food I have, and try to concoct something yummy. Thankfully, I have a husband that will eat most anything without complaint. (Love you, hunny!)

Fajitas

Something spicy sounded good to me. We love fajitas sold in our neighborhood Mexican restaurant, but at $15 per plate, it’s a pricey meal. Plus many times it contains too much oil and fat for my liking.

Let’s find creative ways to use leftovers to make economical tasty meals, such as fajitas.

Not only does using leftovers make financial sense, it’ll stretch your dollar even farther by using less meat to serve more people.