Thought I would share an idea for those "not quite enough for another meal" leftovers. For years I have kept a soup bucket in my freezer. My soup bucket is a recycled ice cream bucket, but any medium or large sized bowl with a lid will work.
Usually our leftovers are warmed over for another meal or possibly carried to work for lunch, but sometimes we have small amounts that aren't really enough for another meal or no one really wants to take it for lunch. Those leftovers are added to the soup bucket. Now the first time this was mentioned to me my thought was "HOW GROSS!" After thinking about it awhile though I realized that it might actually be a good idea. If nothing else the end result could be quite interesting.
The way it works is that anytime we have a few leftovers like peas, corn (off the cob), green beans, pieces of meat (cut into bite size portions), rice, potatoes, gravy, and vegetable broth, etc. they are tossed into the soup bucket. When we need a quick meal, or the bucket gets full, or maybe we're just feeling adventuresome, we pull out the bucket and dump the contents into a soup pot and add liquid if needed. Quite often water is all that is needed since most of the leftover vegetables already have some liquid with them. Occasionally I will add turkey or chicken stock or maybe even tomato juice if I have it on hand. Since the leftovers were already seasoned I don't usually worry about adding additional seasoning. After that you just heat it up and it's ready. You would be amazed at how many really delicious soups we have made this way and since it is made with leftovers you can actually consider it a "free" (or at least almost free) meal.
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