The Art of Leftovers: Marketing, packaging, marketing, packaging

I'm notoriously diligent about eating up leftovers in my house.  By eating up, I mean that food gets consumed, and I try to spread that burden to more than just me.  Everyone in our house shares in the leftover consumption.  This evening for example, I pretty much depleted the rest of the leftovers that I had left from the week and now tomorrow, I get to start afresh building my stock of leftovers.

I'm lucky as I have Husband who isn't opposed to consuming leftovers, especially if they are the ones that he likes.  He needs a steady supply of Korean food, so I always have some sort of gook, or kimchi something, ready in the fridge so that I can provide a Korean meal for him at a moment's notice.  Children also are very good at eating reheated soups, reheated pastas, and leftover chicken and vegetables.  I'm lucky that no one protests too vehemently against the leftovers.

But I'm also very very diligent at keeping leftovers looking their best.  No one likes to be scraping the bottom of the bowl to finish off leftovers, and no one likes the feeling that the leftovers are just that - leftovers. You can change the perception of a leftover through careful marketing and packaging which is what I do.

I regularly repackage leftovers.  Instead of eating from the same container until you're picking out the dregs, I tend to move food into smaller containers as we consume more of it and less is left.  I always use a clean dry spoon to do the movement and I always move it into a clean dry container.

Here are some examples of how the food looks different after you move them into smaller containers.

Chili

Rice Porridge

Brownie (Okay to be truthful, this probably doesn't need to be moved around to be consumed, but it does look much cuter in the smaller container...more decadent and more special.)

I wish I had a great picture of my fridge with a bunch of single serving portions laid out, but alas, this week, I forgot to take the picture on Saturday before we ate them all up.

Ideally, you want to be able to have single servings of a variety of leftovers so that people can pick and choose their choice of leftover to help you eat out the fridge.  Placing them in microwaveable glass dishes with sealing lids is also advantageous.  It LOOKS better.  A bowl with a bunch of food in it, haphazardly covered with some saran wrap just isn't that appetizing.  One that is placed in a glass, tightly locked lid, is far more appealing.  If someone gets the munchies (Husband) you can easily offer him one of three choices of things to eat, and he can easily consume another neatly packaged leftover.  It's like a tidy little meal.

Saturday lunch is my favorite day to pull out all my single servings and to eat up what we have.  I don't cook, we pull out the leftovers, and as a family collectively enjoy the food that was cooked carefully on another day.  No one complains, because there is some choice, and everyone gets a little bit of something they like.

I hear the protests - Joanne, all those extra dishes, all those containers.  This method isn't for everyone.  I know.  The act of washing additional containers may not be desired.  However, I can honestly say that we consume all of the food that I cook in my house and everyone participates in the leftover consumption.  It's definitely worth a try if you're willing.

Here are my choice of glass containers.  These are handy because they have some great "single portion" sizes, completely with a lid so you are ready to go.

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