Creative leftover eating can come about because your refrigerator went out or you just want to not let things go to waste.  You cannot save all the old food, but salvagin critical edibles forces you to  try new things.

Our next odyssey will include steak we indulged in to experience first-hand the rapid increase in beef prices that aren’t included in the nation’s inflation index.  Not wanting to waste any of this expensive main course featured item, we saved about half of one cut.

That will be enough to serve as the base for a stir fry.  What else lurks in the frig?  Sugar snap peas, an onion, mushrooms.   Pull them out, slice the steak thinly and sautee all of them together.  Some A-1 or Heinz steak sauce can be sprinkled in to add some flavor.

 Fry at a medium high heat together in very light oil, keep the crispness of the peas and soften the onions and you’ll know it’s ready.  Serve with some rice that’s been in your pantry for months and waiting to join the right meal.

It will make a great stir fry.  Deflect any compliments, “Aw, it was nothing,” because really, it was. 

Our refrigerator broke down again this week. Consequently we had to eat a lot of things that had been in the freezer and hiding in the back of the frig, or else let them go to waste. I’m not letting that happen.

So, a hamburger and turkey burger patty defrosted, we had a cucumber that had been sitting around for a long time, and some Newman’s salsa that looked like it was old enough to start walking.  Time to use them.

My wife got some El Paso taco sauce and shells.  She fried up the beef and turkey and mixed in the sauce.

Making the tacos is where we added the new stuff, and made this slightly healthy.  We had some leftover salad mix, that stuff you can buy pre-prepared at the supermarket.  I’m not a big fan, because it tastes bitter unless you use a ton of salad dressing, so I figured it might work well with the taco meat. We sliced up the cukes and diced some cherry tomatoes that also needed to be eradicated from the warming refrigerator.

Lay out a soft tortilla (better than the shells because they hold more cargo). Coat with the salad mixture.  Sprinkle some of the meat on and onion flakes, topped by grated Mexican cheese. Strategically place the sliced/diced cucumbers and tomatoes on top, and coat with the Newman’s salsa.  Fold and gobble.  It tastes pretty good and with all those extra veggies in it, you can feel like you’re not totally poisoning your body with garbage.