I’m a planner. We write down our meals for the upcoming week on Saturday, factoring in leftovers for second meals or lunches, and go to the grocery store and farm market on Sunday. Other than the necessary staples for the week (almond milk, soy yogurt, orange juice, Lara Bars), we generally stick to putting items in the cart that will be used for the specific meals. This ensures that we don’t end up with leftovers we can’t use or wasted food.
On occasion, however, things get away from me and we end up with odds and ends that we don’t know what to do with. I get thrown off because they didn’t factor into my plan. I’m trying to be better about using them because sometimes they sit there for days while I ponder them, only to decide that they’ve been around too long and in the best interest of our health, should be thrown away.
Recently, I found myself in one of these situations again and vowed to use all my leftovers to make a new meal. It was simple and pretty tasty. Here are the ingredients I threw together:
· A few strips of marinated baked tofu, cut into cubes
· Thin whole-grain spaghetti noodles
· Half a red bell pepper
· Button mushrooms
· Trader Joe’s Soyaki sauce
· Frozen pineapple chunks
· Crushed red pepper flakes
I sliced the pepper and mushrooms and sautéed them in a little bit of olive oil. Then I added the noodles, tofu, Soyaki sauce (not sure how much since I just used what I had left in the bottle), and pineapple. I covered it and heated it until everything was warm, then stirred in a few shakes of crushed red pepper, and served. On the side we had some Brussels sprouts roasted with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Not a bad meal and best of all, nothing went to waste!
