I’m happy to announce the birth of a new blog! Thrift Kitchen! It started out as a solo deal – to help me cope with the reality of a shrinking budget – it’s turned into a collaborative project of three woman who love food, but don’t have a lot of money to be spending on groceries. Mostly vegetarian with some local meats in the mix is the foundation of our cooking styles.
Thrift Kitchen is in many ways an extension of Craft Leftovers into the Kitchen, so I’m planning a few cross over posts. Leftover food recipes and inspirations from the Thrift Kitchen here on Craft Leftovers from time to time and kitchen craft projects from Craft Leftovers posted on Thrift Kitchen. You get the idea. Don’t worry, Craft Leftovers won’t be flooded with recipes, just when it makes sense.
You can see the introductory post here or get to the blog’s homepage here.
Today’s post is brought to you by Thrift Kitchen!
Leftover Spaghetti Sauce :: Eaten up 5 ways!
Spaghetti sauce is great. You can make up a huge pot really inexpensively, it will feed you for days. Through some onions, mushrooms, garlic, carrots and chopped tomatoes in the mix and it’s really quite nutritious too! But after 3 days of breakfast, lunch dinner spaghetti, well, you get sick of it. Being such a great dish to make and enjoy, not be forced down because you are trying to save money or worse be banished to the back of the frig, condemned to mold over.
Well no more! Here are five great ways to completely change up your spaghetti into a brand new dish!
1. Pizza!
Who doesn’t love pizza? I’m sure there is someone out there, but that person is not I, because I love pizza! Spaghetti sauce is the perfect thing to use as pizza sauce. And if you know that you will be using it for pizza, just make it with basil instead of oregano and you are golden. Pizza made at home is actually a great way to use up all your leftover bits of veggies from other meals. Any scraps of cheese. Over ripe tomatoes, garlic. Just layer it all on and your golden. My friend swears by Jiffy Mix pizza crust and after eating it over at her house I’m convinced that it’s actually a pretty good way to make homemade pizza crust in a pinch. If you have the time, or the foresight, you should make your own. With Just a few cups flour and yeast you are set to make a delicious crust (I’m going to post more on pizza specifically next week). I found this recipe that is supposed to be really good and quick to make. Or you can keep some pre-made pizza crusts on hand.
Oh yeah, that’s totally a little bit of 2 buck chuck wine right there.
2. Pasta Bake!
Sometimes it’s not that you’re sick of spaghetti that causes it to be condemned to back of fridge molding, sometimes you just run out of spaghetti noodles! This is a super easy fix. Just make up any other noodles you have on hand – such as macaroni or egg or shell pasta. Take out a nice big baking dish, add in the leftover sauce, noodles, and sprinkle about a 1/4 – 1/2c shredded cheese on top. Bake at 375 degrees until the cheese starts to brown and the sauce starts to bubble – about 35 to 40 minutes.
3. Omelette!
Omelette are great. A perfect source of protein and just downright delicious! The way I use sauce in my omelet is super easy. After getting your omelet just about done, place about 2 T of sauce on the top and place a lid on the skillet so sauce will heat up quickly. You can add a little cheese on top too! It just adds a little something extra to it. Like the denver omelettes at Village Inn. (I’ll be posting my favorite omelette recipe later)
4. Eggplant Parmesan
If it’s in season, eggplant is a pretty good buy. Use your favorite eggplant Parmesan recipe and substitute the spaghetti sauce for your red sauce the recipe calls for. In fact, drizzle a little spaghetti sauce on any baked veggies or chicken. It’s pretty tasty.
5. Tomato Garlic Bread
This is a great snack any time. Just use a slice of any bread – this is really great for the last bits of homemade bread that might be a little stale – , a little sauce on it, a clove of sliced garlic, and a sprinkling of cheese. Pop it in the toaster oven – toast it on the medium setting – and enjoy!
I’m going to be baking some homemade bread this weekend, so I’ll be posting all about my favorite bread recipe and how to make it on Sunday.
Best wishes and happy cooking!
Kristin
Sounds like my kinda thing!
I’ll go and add it to my bloglist now :)
I put mine on a baked potato. It’s much better for you than butter or sour cream, too.
Spaghetti also freezes very well too so if you make up a large batch you can freeze some. I am a Boboli shell girl for pizza (the whole wheat kind) it takes about 7 tablespoons to cover the shell, so I have been known to scoop out the sauce into snack size ziploc bags and then freeze them so I can just pull out a pre measured packet. You could also use an ice cube tray to freeze them and then pop them into a bag. You can also use spaghetti sauce in a chili or goulash as well.
My dad insisted that any leftovers + egg = omelet. A friend of mine thought this was ridiculous, but the morning after his wife made a huge pot of jambalaya, he discovered it was true. I’ve had pork loin and mushroom omelet, spinach and ricotta omelet (leftover calzone filing), and of course everyone’s favorite, half of a restaurant burrito omelet. Over Christmas we enjoyed General Tso’s omelet, to the amusement of the inlaws. They don’t know what they’re missing.