The art of tasty leftovers - the stuffed potato

"Leftovers make you feel good twice. When you first put them away you feel really intelligent: "I'm saving food". Then, after a month, when hair is growing out of them and you throw them away you feel really intelligent: "I'm saving my life!" --George Carlin

It's nothing personal against leftovers. But most things taste worse the next day. So you don't want to eat them, and they sit and mould over.

Luckily for me, my husband is fine with leftovers, and will actually eat them stone-cold. (This is a trait I hope our future unborn children do not inherit.)

But I'd still like to be able to save money and food by taking yesterday's Beef Stroganoff to work for lunch, or have it a second night in a row, and also get a modicum of pleasure out of it.

There's a couple ways to do this. One, is make food that tastes better the second day--Chili is the classic example.

Another way to go is what those girls on the Food Network like to do: make extra protein (meat, fish, whatever) and use the extra protein in another dish. Not technically leftovers, per se, but you are using meat you cooked from the other day, and saving some time in the kitchen.

Then there's the strategy of maksing the old leftovers by pairing them with something new and very tasty. Pouring cheese sauce over broccoli is a good example, or the stuffed potato.

My husband introduced me to the stuffed potato, and he, in turn, was introduced to it from his mother. Although the stuffed potato tastes better when you stuff it with leftovers that keep well, there's something about a hot, fluffy baked potato with crisp skin that makes yesterday's tuna casserole a bit more tenable.