Leftovers Recipe: Potato Corn Chili Fritters

This tasty recipe puts a brand new twist on mashed potatoes, while doing double-duty: using up both the leftover potatoes and corn.

It's simple, easy, and deliciously different - your family won't even recognize it as leftovers!

Potato Corn Chili Fritters
(Makes 14-18 fritters.)

Ingredients: 
 
4 cups mashed potatoes
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup corn (cooked)
1 tsp finely chopped green onion or chives
pinch chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 to 1 cup flour (more or less to form consistency desired)
Peanut oil for frying

Directions:

• In a bowl, put the potatoes and the eggs and stir until well blended.
• Mix in the corn, onion, and chili powder; taste and season with salt and pepper if desired.
• Add flour gradually, mixing as you add until you get a dough consistency that holds its shape well enough to stick together when you press it into a spoon.
• In a large heavy skillet, put enough oil in so you have about 1/2 inch; put the heat on medium-high, and heat until sizzling.
• Firmly scoop a heaping tablespoon full of batter, pressing and forming with your fingers until the dough sticks together, then push off into the hot oil.  Cook for about 2 or 3 minutes until golden brown, then flip gently and cook the other side for about 2 to 3 more minutes or until golden brown.
• Remove to a paper towel covered cooling rack, salt if desired, and allow to cool slightly before serving.
• Serve with ketchup, mustard, or other dips.

Creative Ideas for Using Up Traditional Holiday Leftovers

Holidays always leave us with a ton of leftovers. I guess when you feed a house full of guests, you just get left with a heap of food.  It's not entirely a bad thing, but sometimes it's hard to feel all creative about food that you just spent twelve hours cooking. Well, it is time to regroup and recharge, and rethink the typical leftover redoes. How do you turn holiday leftovers into something fun and exciting to eat? Here are a few ideas to help you get started on the path to cleaning out your refrigerator without boring your family.

Shift Cultures

Turkey enchilada casserole ingredients. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If your holiday dinner was the classic American feast, your table was filled with turkey or ham or lamb or beef, green bean casserole, stuffing, bread, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, corn, cauliflower, and just about everything else imaginable. Instead of just reheating the same dinner over and over again in exactly the same ways, with exactly the same flavors, why not shift your culture a bit and try something a little bit outside of what you're familiar with.

Chop up your ham or turkey and mix it with some mashed potatoes, wrap it in a little wonton and make your very own Polish perogies. Spice up your leftovers with classic Italian seasonings and recreate them into soups, salads, casseroles or salads with a Mediterranean flavor.  Get out your soy sauce, sesame oil, and turn your leftovers into Asian inspired dishes. Squeeze some lime, chop cilantro, and grab the tequila to marinate your leftover turkey to use in a simple Mexican inspired wrap. Use leftover bread and make a wonderful bread pudding using English inspired recipes.

Shift States

In order to get really creative with your leftovers, all you have to do is shift states.  No, not continental states, but science states. Remember learning about solids, liquids, and gasses when you were in science class? Yes, those states. For instance, you can transform a solid ham bone into a delicious stock for a bean and zucchini soup. You can also use that stock to cook rice or steam some vegetables. Your once-solid ham bone has now been changed into a liquid and a gas...and it never tasted better. Don't forget the frozen state. Puree your cranberry orange relish in some orange juice and turn it into frozen treats or ice cubes for drinks.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Or, if you want to get super creative, and you have some small children at home, you can combine flour and your leftover mashed potatoes to make a mashed potato play-dough. Not only is it fun to mold, it is absolutely non-toxic, and, yes, edible.  It's one of those things that, although it doesn't really get eaten, the leftovers are put to a good use: keeping the kids busy. So, once again you have shifted the state of your leftovers; this time from a food to a toy!

Shift Your Beliefs

When you have a bunch of leftover food, the only way to really enjoy it during the constant reappearances is to totally rethink what the food is.  You have to forget that the potatoes are potatoes, for instance, and think instead that they are a thickening agent, or play-dough!  Turkey can be pureed, too, and turned into a pate if you like, and even used to stuff deviled eggs.

Even desserts can be rethought.  If you are fortunate enough to have leftover pecan pie, think about scooping out the filling into a sauce pan and melting it down.  Then whisk in a good balsamic vinaigrette and pour it hot over a spinach and bacon salad.  All the ingredients are there; they just needed to be re-imagined.

If you want to use up your leftovers quickly and creatively, all you need to do is think about where your food is and where it can go. Your leftovers may need some creative seasoning. They may need to be transformed into different physical states.  Get creative, get cooking, and help your leftovers reinvent themselves this week!

Reinvent Rather Than Resurface: Holiday Leftovers With A New Face

Having leftovers after the big holiday meal is not always a bad thing. As a matter of fact, many families actually look forward to these repeat performances. What you don't want is to have to settle for the same old holiday leftover sandwich. With a little bit of prep time and some imagination, you can create  new ways to enjoy your holiday favorites. Let's take a look at some creative ideas to re-purpose your holiday leftovers.

Soup Sensations

Leftovers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Start your reinvention by creating a soup stock out of the turkey carcass. Once you have your stock, you have the beginnings for meals that don't resemble a sandwich in the least. Make a simple turkey soup by dicing up some of the leftover turkey, then add to the stock with vegetables and noodles or rice for a hearty meal. Don't forget to include other leftovers in your turkey soup ideas. Sweet potatoes, processed until they're smooth, then thinned with turkey stock makes a wonderful smooth and satisfying soup.

You can make other familiar soups, as well. If you have leftover ham and a ham bone, for instance, you can make a wonderful minestrone soup. With leftover corn or crudite, you've got a good start. Your ham can also be the start to a classic pea soup.  Consider using up a few leftovers at the same time.  Make your ham stock and stir in leftover mashed potatoes for an wonderful potato and ham chowder.  And don't stop there.  Consider the ingredients in green bean casserole; green beans, dairy, mayonnaise, soup, onions; if you puree this particular leftover and add to some stock you have a creamy vegetable soup that can be the base for any chowder.

Salad Without Limits

Simply cutting up leftover turkey, ham, or other meat and topping a big lettuce salad can be a treat. Now look at your other leftovers.  Are there still radishes, carrot sticks, celery stalks, olives, and cheese left from the holiday meal?  Throw them on the green salad.  And don't stop there. Are those nuts I see on the buffet?  Perfect topping for your salad.  You can even whisk together a little leftover cranberry sauce or cranberry and orange relish with balsamic vinegar and create a unique dressing for your turkey and greens salad. (See last week's recipe for an example.)

Of course, you can expand your salad beyond the lettuce with topping style. Cut up your leftover meats and mix in a vinaigrette or salad dressing, stir in leftover corn, celery, radishes, onion, carrots, or even fruit and nuts.  Serve in a bowl or over a bed of crunchy lettuce or cabbage. Don't limit yourself to one temperature, either.  Go ahead and serve heated or roasted leftover meat or vegetables over greens. Drizzle with olive oil and vinaigrette for a nice combination of hot and cold, sweet and tangy. Toss in leftover cranberry sauce, too, hot or cold.

Green bean casserole (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Casserole Creations

These one dish meals are already a hodgepodge of ingredients mixed together to form an easy to make meal, so why not make a holiday casserole full of your favorite ingredients? Stack the mashed potatoes and stuffing and turkey to make a super simple holiday version of shepherd's pie. Want to stretch your creation a little more? Roast any leftover vegetables from your crudite tray and put in a casserole dish, then top with slices of turkey. Then spread the leftover cranberry sauce or relish over the turkey, cover and bake.  You have a turkey vegetable casserole that has the tangy surprise of the cranberries. 

Leftover green bean casserole is always a fun challenge.  Yes, you can reheat and serve it up again as a side dish.  Or you could incorporate it into a big, beautiful scalloped ham and potato dish.  The flavors and textures are perfect when you put them all together. Green bean casserole is also the perfect addition to a pot pie or shepherd's pie.  Leftover mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and sweet potatoes are also perfectly suited to use in casseroles, either as the bottom or top, or to thicken liquid ingredients.  And don't forget the buffet snacks.  If you have nuts, cheese, olives, or other goodies leftover, try to incorporate them, too.

Bread Gets a Boost

A fun substitution to try is using mashed white potatoes instead of flour in a quick bread. Try using about one cup of mashed white potatoes as a substitute for two cups of flour in your recipe and get a dough that is more moist and has more flavor than your typical homemade dough.

Another bread boost is using leftover sweet potato casserole, especially the sweetened recipe type, in a quick bread that normally calls for another moist ingredient, like zucchini or apple.  If you've got the cinnamon-marshmallow casserole already, the bread turns out very delicious and fun.  You can also add leftover vegetables to any quick bread recipe to add color and nutrition.  And don't forget leftover cheese or nuts.

Sauces Get a Second Audition

Gravy and cranberry sauce are two versatile ingredients that may go overlooked if you're overwhelmed with turkey, potatoes, and stuffing.  After a holiday dinner, chances are you will have a few sauces left over.  Gravy seems to grow in the bowl, so start by rethinking beyond the potato topping sauce.  Of course you can use the gravy to pour over sliced turkey in a casserole.  You can also use the gravy to make hot shredded turkey sandwiches.  But, the gravy is also basically a thickening agent, making it a perfect addition in creating thick, hearty stews and casseroles.

Your leftover cranberry sauce is a natural choice to make muffins or quick breads.  As mentioned above, cranberry orange relish also makes a sweet and tangy salad dressing when whisked with a little vinegar and olive oil.  You can also use this sweet relish in baking cookies.  Pair cranberry orange relish with a soft cheese for a great appetizer. Cranberry sauce, without or without the oranges, makes an excellent glaze for grilled pork, too.  You will definitely want to plan for leftover cranberry sauce after all these ideas.

You don't have to be satisfied with eating the same holiday meal over and over again until your leftovers are gone. Be creative and unique. Use your leftover ingredients to make something new that your family will love – and won't recognize!

Leftovers Recipe: Cheddar Potato Veggie Soup

Mashed potatoes are an essential side of most Thanksgiving dinners, but what on earth to do with the leftovers? They're not as easy to just throw into something as leftover turkey is, and they don't always reheat well, and certainly aren't good cold. This recipe offers a creative use of leftover mashed potatoes, so you can get rid of that bowl sitting in the back of the fridge! Rather than having to blend up the potatoes to make a creamy soup, just use the already mashed ones. The addition of cheese, carrots, celery and cauliflower makes this filling and hearty potato soup anything but bland. Next holiday, you may just make extra mashed potatoes on purpose!

Cheddar Potato Veggie Soup
(Serves 4.)

Ingredients:

 (Photo credit: lynn.gardner)

1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 cup cauliflower pieces
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
4 cups mashed potatoes
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar or white Cheddar cheese
1 (8 oz) package lower fat cream cheese, warmed to room temperature, and cut into small pieces
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. In your food processor, put the onion, carrot, celery, and cauliflower and pulse until fine.  You can use either cooked leftovers or raw.
2. Put this mixture into a large soup pot, add the olive oil, and put over medium heat, stirring to saute for 2 minutes.
3. Add the broth to the soup pot, turn heat up and bring mixture to a boil, immediately turning heat down to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Keep heat low, and slowly add in the potatoes and milk, and stir until well combined; simmer slowly for 5 minutes.
5. Keep heat low, and stir in the Cheddar cheese and cream cheese, stirring constantly while heating until the cheeses are completely melted and soup is hot - but do NOT boil. Be patient, this should take a few minutes to do correctly.
6. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.
7. Remove from heat, cover and let sit for five minutes.
8. Serve in soup bowls with a pat of butter on top, a sprinkling of more Cheddar cheese, or a few chives or green onions.