What to Make from these Leftovers?

[Amaranth]

On a segment of the food show Chopped, they challenged the contestants to make something new and interesting out of leftovers. They are required to use some of all four of the leftovers in their dish for each course plus they have access to a good range of pantry and fridge items.


For the Appetizer plate the leftovers that needed to be incorporated were:

Matzo ball soup
Mac and Cheese
Sub sandwich of cold cuts
Bloomin' onion with dip(I think it was a cheese sauce dip)

For the Entree plate they had
Beef on the bone cooked rare
Mashed potatoes
Greek salad with dressing on the side
Packets of ketchup

For the dessert plate they had
Ripe bananas
Homemade tortilla chips
Ice cream sundae with a cherry
Flat cola

What would you make for each dish to make the leftovers seem completely different?

[Valley]

I saw this episode and was amazed by the creativity these chefs showed!

[Zoebird]

I would find that challenging.

We try to not have left overs, and so far we are doing great. For breakfast and dinner, we only prepare what we can eat. DH makes sliders and hard boiled eggs which we eat over a couple of days. But there's less food waste this way, and our food bill went down as well. It's great. :D

[leslieann]

It does sound challenging and the leftover food, some of it, sounds nasty. I might have to check out this show.

[Maxamillion]

It's a really interesting show, I love seeing the chefs creativity too!

Okay, the following is if I was on the show. Otherwise, I'd probably just reheat as necessary and eat it as is. Except the meat, which would be further cooked, I don't like rare meat.

For the appetizer, I would take part of the bread from the sandwiches, toast it, then crumble it to make bread crumbs. The cold cuts I would use to line the inside cups of a muffin tin. Then mix in some of the bloomin' onion pieces with the macaroni, scoop it into the cold-cut-lined muffin tin cups, sprinkle with bread crumbs and add a small pat of butter to each and bake it. In a blender I would put the soup and rest of the onion, add meat from smoked turkey legs and more chopped onion, and boil it to make a thick soup, adding a little flour as necessary to thicken it. I'd take the rest of the bread from the sandwiches, pour the soup over it and serve with the macaroni cups.

For the entree, I'd take the meat off the bone, add it and the salad ingredients (minus the dressing) and the ketchup and put in a blender, chop it all up together, take it out, add an egg and some bread crumbs, and push it all into a pie pan. I'd mix the potatoes with powdered garlic and powdered onion, and put it on top of the meat mixture, to make a kind of meat pie, then bake it. Then I'd mix some of the dressing with green beans and cook, and serve those alongside the meat pie.

For the dessert, I'd mix some of the flat soda with the ice cream sundae, stir all together, shape into balls and coat them in crushed corn flakes and refreeze. I'd spray the tortilla chips with cooking oil, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and put them in the oven long enough to get them warm. In the meantime, I'd slice the bananas, coat in a little flour, and fry them. Then I'd put the chips on a plate, add the ice cream balls, set the fried bananas along side them and drizzle it all with a little honey.

[Florence]

I have no idea how to use those things up. Whatever isn't eaten at dinner becomes lunch the next day at my house. Sometimes I make freezer meals from a casserole or beans. Guess I am not very creative.

[puglogic]

((puglogic sits in awe of Maxamillion)) :0!

[Mrs-M]

Wow, Maxamillion! You are our official resident chef!

[Maxamillion]

Thanks y'all. I can't promise any of it would actually taste good though. ;) I like cooking shows that have a challenge, like Chopped or Iron Chef. There's another one...Top Chef maybe? that's like that. It's really fun to see the different things that everyone comes up with using the same ingredient(s).