There have been a lot of left overs coming in to the house and I can't stand waste, so over the last few weeks I've had to get creative. How do you take leftovers that come from a restaurant and work them into your diet? Well I'm not an expert, but I've taken a number of items brought home and made them into something new!
Last night my husband and I went out to Chili's and had a date night. We came home with some cinnamon apples, chicken strips, and shrimp. The shrimp was easy - I can eat that just how it is. So shrimp = check! What was I going to do with those apples? They are too sweet to eat on their own for me, so I took the extra syrup off the apples and had left over flavored apples. I had some whole wheat, whole grain pancake mix and mixed it up for a WLS friendly pancake. I added a little vanilla to the mixture, put in the apples and made pancakes. The batter was a little chunky, but it flavored the batter nicely and was something different to eat for me. And a huge plus - with the sweetness of the apples made me use less sugar free syrup. Score!
Apples down, what am I going to do with chicken strips???? So I thought...hmm you really can't re-cook them, and I can't eat the breading, but voila' I can remove the breading and though for the average person strips without breading wouldn't be much...I can totally do a lunch with that. So I'm going to take the de-breaded strips and cut up the chicken. I'm going to pick up some greek yogurt at the store, some purple grapes, and mix it all together. Yummy chicken salad with some cheese on the side. Chicken strips = check!
This past week I was also able to transform leftovers into two additional meals for me. After eating in the cafeteria at school, I had extra onions and some slices of swiss cheese to bring home (with 3/4 cup of milk). Instead of throwing them away, I took the onions and mixed them in with my packet of tuna - a staple in my pantry- added some mayo (no greek yogurt because I am out), some relish, and mixed it together. I took the extra slices of swiss and put it all together on a mini round whole wheat thin slice bread that I had in my freezer. Easy meal! I also have enough left over to eat it today for lunch and I think I'm going to treat myself and put it on a left over taco shell that my husband didn't use for some crunch!
Now what did I do with the milk? Well I didn't actually use it in a recipe, which I totally could have. I don't drink my calories very often so I thought that I would take my sugar free chocolate syrup ( i love hersheys!) and drank some protein! It was so yummy and I got to have some really yummy drinkage that upped my protein too!!! Squee.
I know it isn't ideal to eat out and sometimes take in items that aren't 100% are on the diet, but life is life and sometimes you need to get out and go on a date! I'm so thankful that my husband lets me eat small portions and bring his leftovers home! I'm so thankful that overall I've had servers and restaurants that allow me to make substitutions to eat on my diet and make my tummy happy, but I'm also excited that I have a healthy attitude with food, with how my tummy process things, and how I am able to make something exciting out something bland. I've learned a ton....here is to more learning and more kitchen adventures!
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