500 Delicious Dishes from Leftovers

Note: This edition of 500 Delicious Dishes from Leftovers has been updated to include Metric equivalents.


Rare indeed is the day when a modern housewife could not find in her refrigerator all sorts of odds and ends in the way of food. And it is these leftovers that challenge the imagination of the alert homemaker. She has learned the importance of their utilization for food value as well as economy. She knows, for instance, that the liquids from cooked or canned vegetables are full of vitamins and minerals; and so they go into cocktails and soups instead of down the sink. She has become aware of the value of saving everything from pea pods to grapefruit and melon rinds and of preparing and presenting them at the table with eye and appetite appeal.


Never a piece of vegetable so small but that it can go into the salad or be made into a garnish or added to the soup. No bit of fruit, but can be made to brighten an aspic, garnish a chop plate, top a meringue or decorate a cake. Meat is not just something to be made into hash, but an adventure in ingenuity, with a choice as wide as the imagination, ranging from fluffy timbales to velvety mousses, and never are those 2 egg whites discarded, because they make a beautiful baked Alaska or meringued fruit.


With freezing trays and modern refrigeration she may transform day old cake with custards and whipped cream into inspired desserts. She may even achieve colored ice cubes or her own special sherbets from those fruit juices that often go into the lemonade, and she may have frozen salads to her heart’s content. And all made from leftovers with just a little something added.

Then the snacks and appetizers! What colorful canapés can be made from those last two olives in the bottle, those bits of ham or liver we didn’t know what to do about, and the lone hard-cooked egg in the refrigerator. The leftover sauerkraut juice can be seasoned and served with them as a vegetable cocktail before dinner.


It can be part of the design for menus to check up each morning on the leftover tidbits and fit them into the meal-planning pattern of the day. Besides the fun of using her imagination and ingenuity the modern homemaker finds the “used leftover” is another way of saying, “Hurrah, my budget balances”—instead of “Oh, dear, where does all the money go.”


This little book is so organized that she who opens the refrigerator door may start with whatever she finds and complete her menu from the book. That is why all the dishes using leftover meats as an instance, are in one chapter, those using leftover eggs, either the whites or yolks, in another and so on.

Here’s to delicious, nutritious food on a protected budget.


Topics: BREAD, CRACKERS, CAKE AND CRUMBS, LEFTOVER COOKED CEREALS, LEFTOVER CHEESE, LEFTOVER EGGS, LEFTOVER MEATS, LEFTOVER FOWL, LEFTOVER FISH, LEFTOVER VEGETABLES, SOUR MILK AND CREAM, LEFTOVER FRUITS, LEFTOVER JAMS, JELLIES, PRESERVES, LEFTOVER COFFEE AND COCOA, MISCELLANEOUS LEFTOVERS.