Stretching out leftovers

I know I've been gone awhile, it's been sooo busy in my life! I've been sitting in on French classes at Arizona State, working athletics events (not a full-time job, just game-day stuff), writing my personal statement and also putting together a four-minute spoken segment for my graduate application!

I also got to attend my very first college football game, EVER (for free)!!

That being said, a few posts ago, I gave you guys some of my tips on how to limit spending on groceries. Now I'm going to follow that up with a meal for four that I was able to stretch into several meals. J.D. and I each had a serving's worth of Indian food for dinner the first night. We really enjoyed assembling the meal and also the new experiences in cooking and eating tofu.

So with half the serving still left over into the fridge it all went for another day of leftovers. Tofu with fire roasted tomatoes and a curry simmer sauce, stewed spinach with paneer and finally chunky spicy chick peas.

Oh and don't forget about the naan still remaining! I guess we were inspired to make Indian after watching our very first episode of Aarti Party. I absolutely love Aarti and am so excited she won Next Food Network Star!!

Dinner becomes breakfast...

Anyways J.D. surprised me with a "special breakfast" on Tuesday. He wanted to make me a spinach omelet, but since we didn't have any spinach at the time, he mixed my egg whites with the spinach and paneer and also some of the roasted tomatoes. You know, your typical egg, cheese, spinach and tomato omelet! Oh and in lieu of toast, he warmed me up a big piece of naan to go with my breakfast!

Dinner turned into lunch...

I was really inspired by how much I loved Chino Bandito earlier in August. You remember, that restaurant in Phoenix that serves Asian/Jamaican food inside of Mexican preparations?! I never thought I would have loved my Jade chicken quesadilla.... but since I did, I've tried to replicate that at home. With some left over stir fry a few weeks back, I threw that bad boy right into a whole wheat tortilla. And it was AMAZING. You see where this is going....

For lunch yesterday, I did the same thing. I had all the essentials for any burrito. Whole wheat tortilla, check. Jasmine rice, check. Beans... not quite, but the spicy chick peas worked just like magic! Vegetables and cheese, check, in the form of spinach, paneer and tomatoes. Protein, check, with the tofu and curry simmer sauce!

Oh my gosh, it was so good!!! I even threw in a tiny bit of salsa, you know, just to make it more weird that it already was. Seriously guys, I challenge you to make weird combos like this. First of all, it's fun! But secondly, you might happen across something you absolutely love and can't live without!!

If you're still skeptic, it's really not all that weird (with the exception of the salsa). Just think about any Asian-inspired wrap you've had in the past. Because that's all this really is! If I wanted to get funky, I could have ditched the tortilla in favor of a naan wrap :) Did I mention that I still had enough left for one small lunch bowl?

So in conclusion, it is soooo easy to keep a simple batch of leftovers going for several meals! A "normal dinner for four" was able to stretch into two dinners, a breakfast and two lunches with just a little bit of creativity and outside ingredients.

Next time you make dinner or feel like you're in a pinch, go ahead and make way more than you need for one meal. You'll thank yourself later when you end up having two+ meals for a rainy day :)