Leftovers for Lunch....

Last night we had the boys favorite Teri Chicken, so leftovers were for lunchu!

My oldest whipped together some sesame noodles and it smelled delicious!

Sesame Noodles Sauce

• Wide rice noodles, the kind for Pho, cooked and drained
• 1/4 cup Soy Sauce
• 2 Tablespoons Sugar
• 2 cloves Garlic, Minced
• 2 Tablespoons Rice Vinegar
• 3 Tablespoons Pure Sesame Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Hot Chili Oil
• 4 Tablespoons Canola Oil
• 3 whole Green Onions, Sliced Thin

Directions

• Whisk all ingredients (except noodles and green onions) together in a bowl. 
• Taste and adjust ingredients as needed.
• Pour sauce over warm noodles and toss to coat.
• Sprinkle with green onions and toss.
• Serve in a bowl with chopsticks. 

Throw in some perfectly steamed broccoli, which after the water reaches boiling point add the broccoli to your steamer tray and cook for 5mins. They come out perfect on our stove. Then rinse them off in cold water to stop them from cooking further. 

Salsa Chicken + Lifesaving Leftovers

Another incredible instant pot dish...Salsa Chicken!

Put 1lb frozen chicken breast into the IP...

I use this recipe from Skinny Taste

Instant Pot (Pressure Cooker) Easy Salsa Shredded Chicken 

Skinnytaste.com Servings: 5 • Size: 1/2 cup • Points +: 3 • Smart Points: 2 Calories: 125 • Fat: 3 g • Carb: 3 g • Fiber: 1 g • Protein: 22 g Sugar: 0 g • Sodium: 379 mg •Cholesterol: 66 mg

Ingredients:

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3/4 teaspoon cumin
• black pepper, to taste
• pinch oregano
• 1 cup chunky salsa

*I make my own homemade salsa.

Then I throw it all into the pot and set the manual button for 15mins. It takes the IP 15mins with the frozen chicken to reach high pressure and it was done cooking in 29mins! Incredible.

I usually serve it with refried/black beans and melt some cheese in it, white rice, lettuce, tomatoes, or corn and organic tortilla chips.

This is one of my favorites to make because it can last for days and I mean days and not just the same meal over and over because I can easily transform it into fajitas, burritos, enchiladas, etc. 

Just cut up some garlic, onions, and bell peppers and fry them up.

Then add the salsa chicken leftovers and whalla...

I found these organic corn tortillas at the commissary thank goodness. And thank goodness I made some guac earlier in the day!

For burritos I reheat the salsa chicken/bell peppers/rice/beans mix and warm up some organic tortilla wraps on my flat cast iron skillet. Then I wrap it all up and continue to heat them up in my cast iron skillet with some melted butter on underneath and over the burritos. Adding cheese on top at the end. Hubby loved that! You can also make some enchilada sauce for chicken enchiladas. 

Lifesaving Leftover at its best!

Pretty amazing and oh so good!

The Party Plate: "Corn Chip Pie!"

Today's lunch plate was a leftover leftover party!!!

In lieu, of the awesome chili recipes, we put all our leftovers from the last few days on this plate, thus the party plate!!...

Frito Corn Chips on the bottom, leftover homemade veggie chili, mixed w/ our leftover Annie's Organic Mac&Cheese and black bean soup, and green beans. Then topped with sharp cheddar cheese and our salad!

Oh yeah, who doesn't like a party plate and lifesaving leftovers all in one!

My kids sure enjoyed the party :)

Chili Taquito Casserole

So this was a totally random look in the pantry and fridge to see what foods we have meal!

We've been traveling and haven't gone grocery shopping so come Sunday I looked around and came up with this meal. 

Interesting, but the Fish Fam loved it. 

I had lots of canned Chili in the pantry that my husband bought on sale last summer to take camping and we still have lots left. 

So, then to help my creative juices get flowing I looked up some canned chili meal ideas and walla...

I had some frozen organic hash browns, which I fried up, then put at the bottom of a casserole dish. Topped the potatoes with the heated up canned chili and then bake at 375deg in the oven for 15mins while the taquitos also baked. At the same time those were in the oven I steamed some frozen corn and green beans.

When the time was up I pushed some of the chili to one side of the dish and then added all the taquitos and then pushed the chili back over them. Then topped it with the corn and green beans, with some fresh tomatoes and green onions.

Yum! Well at least they said it was yum!

Meatball Soup

This is a life saving leftover’s meal!

I make a lot of bone broth from chicken backs that I get at Wholefoods. After cooking it I let it cool overnight in the fridge and then put it in freezer bags and store in the freezer and get it out when need to use it. Easy peezy!

After heating up the frozen chicken broth I add my cut up veggies...carrots, zucchini, and yellow squash, which most of the time these veggies are pre-steamed or cut up and in a container already in the fridge. I make sure my rice is ready to go as well.

***Always make sure to clean your rice before you cook it!!! After measuring the rice put it in the pot and I like using clean purified water from our water filter to clean the rice over and over by grabbing it with my hands and rubbing it and then dumping the water out carefully to not let the rice dump out. Seriously, repeat this over and over until the water runs clear or is close to it. Rice naturally has arsenic, its in the soil, it can be reduced by cleaning the rice very well. Also, this is what Chinese people do...they always clean their rice!

Then I also used my leftover meatball to add in.

Add in sea salt, pepper, other spices to taste.

*** I also just learned that to make broths low fodmap you have to be careful about what types of bones you use. If it's from bones that still have lots of cartilage and remains it still has, I think, a good amount of polyols that will irritate your gut. It did mine, but it took awhile for me to finally discover it. So, for low fodmap Dr. Allison Siebecker suggests making bone broth that is from purely bones.

Super good!

Sweet & Sour Meatballs

These meatballs are Paleo and have no dairy (cheese) or grains (breadcrumbs) for fillers.

I know I know to not use the different variety of cheeses that can be put into meatballs is almost unthinkable, but I can't have dairy or breadcrumbs that have wheat in them, so non-traditional meatballs it is. *The meatballs are Paleo, but definitely not the mac&cheese and rice!

Luckily, Against All Grain always saves me and provides good recipes that I can mostly eat.

We made the sauce, but The Fish Fam didn't like it because it was too tangy and tart. I think if you used the tomato puree she suggests it might taste better. But, after having leftovers and still having lots of sauce and meatballs left we dumped the sauce and washed off the meatballs. And throughly enjoy the meatballs by themselves, great flavor.

The meatballs remind me of the flavorful meats in different dishes we had in Asia.

Here is Danielle's recipe for her Game-Day Sweet and Sour Meatballs...

AUTHOR: Danielle Walker - AgainstAllGrain.com

SERVES: 3 dozen

PREP TIME: 20 mins

COOK TIME: 45 mins TOTAL TIME: 65 mins

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds ground beef, chicken, or pork
• 2 large eggs
• 2 small vidalia sweet onions, about 1 cup minced
• ¼ cup almond meal (with the skins) or 2 tablespoons coconut flour
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1.5 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoon sea salt

Sauce:

• 3 cups tomato puree
• ¾ cup unsweetened pineapple juice
• ⅓ cup honey
• ⅓ cup coconut aminos
• ¼ cup tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
• 1.5 teaspoons sea salt
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon onion powder

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Make the sauce first by combining all of the ingredients in a wide pot. Bring to a low boil then reduce the heat to medium-low and let it simmer uncovered for 45 minutes, until thickened.
3. Meanwhile, make the meatballs.
4. Place the onion in a food processor and pulse until finely minced.
5. Add the egg, almond meal, beef, oil, ginger, and sea salt. Pulse until fully combined.
6. Roll the mixture into small bite-sized meatballs.
7. Space them evenly on two rimmed baking sheets and bake for 12 minutes, turning once.
8. Once the sauce has thickened, transfer it and the meatballs to a slow cooker set to low. Cover until ready to enjoy.

URL to article: http://againstallgrain.com/2014/01/23/game-day-sweet-sour-meatballs/

*We used organic beef and turkey meat. I wouldn't suggest the turkey meat with beef, but it's all we had in the freezer to make the 2lbs. Also, I made more meatballs, without the sauce and added some tamari sauce (gluten free soy sauce) in the mix.

**To make it Fodmap free for me I had to take out the onions in the meatballs. In the sauce I also had to void the honey and used maple syrup instead. Also, had to void the onion powder. I used white wine vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar. I also only had organic canned tomato sauce in my pantry and not tomato puree.

The Fish Fam topped the meatballs over rice with organic mac&cheese and broccoli for sides.

*I had a bowl of rice with three meatballs and some steamed yellow squash and bok choy.

This was our leftovers for lunch today....

Enjoy!

Chicken Potpie Soup

Taste of Home has some really great recipes and this Potpie soup looked good.

The recipe here was easy to follow.

Instead, of your traditional pot pie in a pie crust, which was my absolute favorite that my mom made, you make these little pie crust disks to dip in your soup. The Fish Fam enjoyed it!

Two days later we had the leftovers and this time my sweetie wanted it over biscuits.

So I found this recipe.

 I just wish mine would come out looking like that. Work in progress!

Both meals turned out great and smelled delicious :)

Very nice fall time comfort foods!

Lifesaving Leftovers...

Wouldn't you say leftovers really are lifesavers?!

I really stretched these leftovers to make these dishes....

Meal 1: Soy Glazed Ginger Salmon

Meal 2: Soy Glazed Ginger Chicken

Meal 3: Soy Glazed Ginger Stir-fry  

Meal 4: Homemade Chicken Soup

Ha, it may be a lot of soy glazed ginger dishes, but my family didn't mind at all.

I don't have post or pic for Meal 3.
But, I finished off all the leftover sauce w/ a stir-fry made with veggies & tofu.

Checkout all other posts below....

Meal 2: Soy Glazed Ginger Chicken & Qinnoa

I saved all the sauce from the salmon meal to marinate these chicken drumsticks.

I marinated the drumsticks for the day.

Put them in the oven an hour before dinner.

Cooked up some quinoa & veggies just before.

My family know to not throw away their bones because I rinse them off, toss them in the freezer, and save them for bone broth soup.

There was also sauce leftover...just enough for a stir-fry tomorrow!

Meal 3: Soy Glazed Ginger Stir-fry

No post or pic for the Stir-fry, but I...

Tossed some veggies, organic tofu, the sauce, & cooked rice into the Wok.

Fast, easy, and enjoyable for the Fish Fam!