How many times can you eat leftovers?

[lxskllr]

You got a weak stomach. Technically, all the meal prepping people do now are left overs for the whole week.

I have a pretty strong stomach. I work and eat in filth just about every day, but I don't want cultures growing on stuff in the fridge I don't especially want to eat anyway. I prepare my food as a single serving, almost every time. No leftovers, and tomorrow's another day. I'll plan what I make an hour before I make it.

 

[Chaotic42]

Preferably zero. I can do one day if I really have to.

 

[Muse]

If it's in the fridge sealed depending on what it is it can last a long time why only one day?

Think about it, you get a gallon of milk last you 2 3 4 + days. You take one drink and throw the rest away a day later?

Some things in the fridge last a lot longer than other stuff. You just have to do it and you realize what lasts, what doesn't. For instance, butter. It seems to keep indefinitely. Cheese will often start getting moldy, some sooner than others. I cut off the mold. If it doesn't smell or taste bad, I'll eat it then. Apples keep a long time in the fridge, literally weeks. I refrigerate bananas when they are ready to eat or a bit shy of that. By the time I eat it, it's ready. Refrigerated bananas keep 4x longer than kept at room temperature. I ripen them, often, in the oven, which due to the pilot light stays around 85 F, then refrigerate to prolong the good phase. The oven also concentrates the gas given off by bananas that hastens ripening, besides the temperature elevation. This would work for other fruits too.

 

[BurnItDwn]

You can only eat leftovers once.

After you eat them the next time you see them they will be poop.

Yes, clearly you are the only one who is correct in this post.

 

[tcG]

48 hours max after first storing it.

Eating old food, even if it doesn't make you acutely ill, represents a bacterial load that affects your gut microbiome. I don't think it's optimal to eat old food. That's my theory anyway. Shit is fucking gross.

 

[Ns1]

Eating old food, even if it doesn't make you acutely ill, represents a bacterial load that affects your gut microbiome. I don't think it's optimal to eat old food. That's my theory anyway. Shit is fucking gross.

You must be a big fan of dry aged meat.

 

[Thebobo]

48 hours max after first storing it.

Eating old food, even if it doesn't make you acutely ill, represents a bacterial load that affects your gut microbiome. I don't think it's optimal to eat old food. That's my theory anyway. Shit is fucking gross.

You ever had beef jerky? Cheese? Dry cured meats? Would you buy some cheese and slice of a slice and throw the rest away?

 

[renz20003]

You ever had beef jerky? Cheese? Dry cured meats? Would you buy some cheese and slice of a slice and throw the rest away?

All cheese should never be consumed by his logic.

 

[Herr Kutz]

I cook a lot of one thing to eat for a week+ because I hate eating.

During high school I ate reese's puffs every school morning (maybe weekends too, can't remember). It was quite some time before I got tired of it, but after taking a break the "tired" feeling was reset.

 

[Herr Kutz]

Till it’s gone... starving kids in Africa ect ect

 

[ultimatebob]

Not that this ever happens in my family, but leftover protein like a leftover steak would be awesome to have. You can have steak sammiches, steak fajitas, steak salads, steak and eggs, steak nachos, steak tacos, a steak omelette, steak jerky, and bacon wrapped steak appetizers. After all that, I'd probably want more steak the next day.

 

[Ns1]

Not that this ever happens in my family, but leftover protein like a leftover steak would be awesome to have. You can have steak sammiches, steak fajitas, steak salads, steak and eggs, steak nachos, steak tacos, a steak omelette, steak jerky, and bacon wrapped steak appetizers. After all that, I'd probably want more steak the next day.

how do you make leftover steak not turn to well done leather?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

48 hours max after first storing it.

Eating old food, even if it doesn't make you acutely ill, represents a bacterial load that affects your gut microbiome. I don't think it's optimal to eat old food. That's my theory anyway. Shit is fucking gross.

Dude, you need to wrap new tinfoil around the plastic bubble you live in. If the "bacterial load" of eating non-spoiled refrigerator food was remotely dangerous western civilization would have died out long ago. At the very worst it might trim the weakest .0000000000000000000001% of humanity, thus improving the species.

So go on, try it, eat a piece of cheese. Either you learn to stop being a simpering coward or you die a painful death of gastric distress. It's win-win.

how do you make leftover steak not turn to well done leather?

You don't really. As a steak it's done, but the meat can easily be re-purposed. Chop in up into something like a taco or cheesesteak.

 

[snoopy7548]

I eat leftovers all the time. It's really the best way to eat healthy and cheap if you work.

I usually give things five days. If I don't freeze it or eat it after five days, it gets thrown out. That's only cooked stuff, though, and sometimes I'll let things go longer if it's not something that spoils quickly. If raw ingredients still look/smell good I use them.

 

[ultimatebob]

how do you make leftover steak not turn to well done leather?

I usually make my steak medium rare. It heats up to a medium/medium well during one of those rare events where I have steak leftovers. For something like steak fajitas, that's OK.

 

[local]

Sometimes I eat day or two old pizza, other than that I never eat leftovers.

 

[Muse]

48 hours max after first storing it.

Eating old food, even if it doesn't make you acutely ill, represents a bacterial load that affects your gut microbiome. I don't think it's optimal to eat old food. That's my theory anyway. Shit is fucking gross.

Some things keep better than others. If old food were so bad, we wouldn't have refrigerators.

 

[Muse]

Sometimes I eat day or two old pizza, other than that I never eat leftovers.

See, most of you people who are afraid of leftovers are just inexperienced in the realm of food preparation. I was that way once. When I first started cooking for myself I'd get ahold of a recipe and follow it to the letter... exactly, as if it were a chemistry experiment. It took me years to loosen up and figure out what's really going on. You're not going to figure it all out in a thread like this or even a few months of cooking.

 

[Kaido]

Are anova carnitas good? To the anova thread!

As much as I love my IP & Anova, this is my go-to recipe for carnitas:

https://www.afamilyfeast.com/carnitas/

It does require some non-standard ingredients (lard AND bacon fat) and requires a bit of a different (and somewhat lengthy) procedure (cover with parchment, then foil, then bake in the oven at 275F for 5 hours), but the results are absolutely phenomenal. I make the bacon fat myself (strainer + mason jar, after cooking bacon) and order the lard (rendered leaf) from Etsy:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/FannieAndFlo?ref=l2-shopheader-name

I usually do a bulk order & then freeze it; it apparently lasts forever:

http://fivegallonideas.com/small-batch-lard/

Lard is pure fat, so it has a very long shelf life. Lard will last in a freezer for decades, for years in the fridge, and for months at room temperature.

I also use it for homemade tortillas (soooo good) & have been (slowly) learning baking with it. Unfortunately been stuck on the road forever, so it's mostly been sitting in my freezer waiting to be used

 

[local]

See, most of you people who are afraid of leftovers are just inexperienced in the realm of food preparation. I was that way once. When I first started cooking for myself I'd get ahold of a recipe and follow it to the letter... exactly, as if it were a chemistry experiment. It took me years to loosen up and figure out what's really going on. You're not going to figure it all out in a thread like this or even a few months of cooking.

No I am just one of those picky kids that never got over it. I don't eat vegetables, I may eat an apple or banana a couple times a year, I don't try new things and I don't eat used or repurposed foods. Oddly enough I still eat a wider variety of foods than my wife. Leftovers are for the kids, I get the new stuff.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I always cook for a few days. Sometimes i eat a few days the same. Sometimes i put my food in the freezer section of the refrigerator.

 

[Muse]

No I am just one of those picky kids that never got over it. I don't eat vegetables, I may eat an apple or banana a couple times a year, I don't try new things and I don't eat used or repurposed foods. Oddly enough I still eat a wider variety of foods than my wife. Leftovers are for the kids, I get the new stuff.

Some day you may change and take the pros' advice and eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. When you are young you can get away with unhealthy. When you are older, you are wondering WTH you can do to restore your youth. Pretending you're young doesn't cut it.

My mom wasn't an intellectual but she was into healthy living. She made us eat our salad at the beginning of dinner. We had fruits and veges around. There was ice cream in the freezer, but she didn't feed us dessert. She wasn't a great cook and she didn't like cooking but she gave us good eating habits that we never forgot.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

No I am just one of those picky kids that never got over it. I don't eat vegetables, I may eat an apple or banana a couple times a year, I don't try new things and I don't eat used or repurposed foods. Oddly enough I still eat a wider variety of foods than my wife. Leftovers are for the kids, I get the new stuff.

The only kid in the house is you.

I can understand not liking vegetables. They're off-putting if prepared badly and most moms shoveling out food quickly to a family don't put a lot of effort into learning how to make veggies taste good. That's something most people don't learn to appreciate until they outgrow having fish sticks, hot dogs or mac and cheese for every meal.

But not liking fruit? Seriously? How fucked up is your palate if you don't like fruit?

 

[Muse]

But not liking fruit? Seriously? How fucked up is your palate if you don't like fruit?

Yeah, seriously, if you don't like fruit you are really bent.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Yeah, seriously, if you don't like fruit you are really bent.

I can't even wrap my mind around that. I was cooking today and popped into a supermarket to pick up onions, carrots and a few other things that I had to have for the recipe. There had to have been at least 20 different fruits that I would gladly have bought. I wound up getting a bag of cherries, a few peaches, a slab of seedless watermelon, grapes and a pint of raspberries. I'll use the raspberries for a dessert, the rest are just for snacking on.

This is a great time of year for fruit. I go nuts for cherries and berries in the summer, since the season is so short I eat a lot of them when they're around.