In the past I was a bottled sauce gal, I’d only eat fish if it came from a box that had ‘Fish Fingers’ plastered on it, and I never baked – that is what I thought the biscuit aisle at Woolies was for. Fast forward to having kids and realising that eating this way just didn’t work for any of us; I started to change.
You see now I cook dinner from scratch every night and mostly do it with ease too. There’s one key secret that I follow to get me there, and that’s to make enough for dinner to use up tomorrow night in a new way. Pad out the meal, reuse the leftovers, reinvent the recipe – this is how I cook from scratch each night.
Don’t get me wrong; you won’t find yourself ploughing through a giant pot of spaghetti bolognese for 2 to 3 nights in a row. Instead, I’m talking about reinventing your meals by using the same base meal to make something else the next night. A new meal that’s quite different, but just as yummy.
Let me break it down for you.
Night 1 – Slow cooker chicken satay
Night 2 – Leftover satay on top of wraps that you bake and chop into pizza slices. Yum, right?
Here’s another…
Night 1 – Mexican nachos
Night 2 – Leftover mince turned into a Shepherds Pie you eat with a side salad. Trust me on this one, the flavours in the meat just get better and better and who doesn’t love something you pop in the oven and walk away from.
Or…
Night 1 – Stir-fry and rice
Night 2 – Sushi made from the leftover rice that you have and mash an avocado and a tin of tuna through. A great light meal and the perfect hack for lunch boxes too.
Try some of these ideas too: From Dinner to Lunch Box
You see, I think too often we feel like we have to reinvent the wheel every single night. We feel like we need to be in the kitchen every night when really, stretching out a meal and recreating it into a yummy dinner for tomorrow night, or lunch the next day, is the way to go. Think about the time you’d save if you start cooking this way. You could be out of the kitchen and enjoying your kids, getting a load of washing on or taking a shower for yourself after a long day.
Tell me, is there a meal you make one way one night and then tweak the leftovers into something else the next?
Stace x
