Well, here are two of my leftover remedies: eggs & potatoes! Both are really cheap, right now a dozen eggs costs me $2.09 (and you'll only use 2 or 3) and 1 large potato $.93. If you have all the rest of the ingredients, that's a pretty cheap meal.
Eggs! My Saturday morning "go to" brunch for me and my son when it was just the two of us, was an omelet. I would take about 3 eggs, mix in a little milk, S&P, Worcestershire, maybe a little hot sauce, red pepper flakes and what other seasonings that sounded good. Then in a sauce pan, over med. high heat - with a little olive oil, I would put the egg mixture. As the sides of the eggs started to cook, I would add what ever left over meat I had (taco meat, roast beef, chicken) and then sprinkle with cheese. Once the eggs looked cooked through (solid in color and nothing runny) and the cheese was melted, I would take 1 side of the eggs and fold it over. Then I would take the opposite side of the eggs and fold it over (like a big enchilada or wrap). Slide it off onto a plate and my son and I would share it. If my ingredients had a Mexican flavor, I would top with sour cream and leftover guacamole. Very filling and pretty easy.
(FYI - it's eggs, if you mess up the flipping, it's never too late to turn it into a scramble!)
Potatoes! My hubby and I did this just the other night. We had steak for dinner one night and there was quite a bit left over. He cut the steaks into chunks and set it aside. He baked the potato in the oven (yes, you can do this in the microwave too!). In my opinion the oven baked potatoes taster better and here's how we do it:
Pre-heat oven to 375. While the oven is heating, clean the potatoes with warm water (you can use a clean scrub brush if you want but I just use my hands), lay out a piece of aluminum big enough to wrap the whole potato. Take a fork and poke some holes into the potato, then lay it on the aluminum. Drizzle with olive oil and season with S&P. Wrap it up in the foil and place in the oven. It will take an hour (maybe longer depending on the size of the potato) to bake. When you can squeeze the potato and it feels soft, it's done (please use an oven glove when you do this, it will be HOT!).
Once the potato is baked, cut it in half length wise (think canoe), and scoop out the fleshy part and put in a bowl, leave the skin intact, we'll be filling it up with potatoey goodness. Now take whatever leftover's you have and add to the potato innerds; steak, chicken, turkey, ground beef, broccoli, carrots, cheese, etc. I would recommend waiting to add things like sour cream until the end, you want the potato hot enough to warm up the meats and cheeses and the sour cream will cool it down. If you want to heat up the leftovers ahead of time, that will work too! Mix up the leftover stuff with the potatoes and then place that mixture into the potato shell. If the mixture has cooled down too much, stick the whole potato in the oven for a few minutes. You may have figured this out already but this makes two meals, so if you don't want leftovers again, share with a hungry friend.
As you can see by the receipt, we spent $3.77 total and that was because we were out of cheese and I wanted mushrooms with my steak. We even had too much food and ended up making this into another left over meal.
Sorry I don't have pictures of the food but I can tell you it's good, tasty and filling!
Enjoy!
