Jazzing up leftovers

I should just go ahead and admit it now; yesterday’s meals weren’t extremely exciting. The good news is that it could have been a lot worse (My first instinct when I realized we didn’t have anything fun in the house was to cook a box of Kraft Dinner Macaroni & Cheese…yum!) but then I told myself that there was no way that my second post would be about Kraft Dinner! So thank you, blog, for helping me make better choices. 🙂

Now let’s start with lunch. As I mentioned already, I realized that I made very poor decisions at the market this week and, therefore, I really didn’t have many interesting ingredients to work with. This is how I came up with a lunch that might sound disgusting to many but that I really did enjoy; a jazzed up version of canned baked beans. So I grabbed the single hot-dog left in the fridge from our last camping trip, a few veggies and mixed it all together in a pot.

Here’s the recipe although it’s all made up and you could really make it with different veggies and leftover meat (there are definitely smarter options than hot-dogs). Also, I knew I was making this just for me so I didn’t make it too big. It ended up making two portions.
Jazzed up baked beans
Ingredients:
– Can of vegetarian baked beans
– 1 hot-dog
– 1/2 cup of broccoli
– 1/2 cup of spinach
– 1/4 cup of onions
What’s next?
1. Chop the vegetables into small pieces. I didn’t want mine to be much bigger than the beans but it’s a personal choice, really.
2. Slice up the hot-dog.
2. Brown the onions in a small pot.
3. Add the hot-dog and cook until they appeared to be browned as well.
4. Add the baked beans and the vegetables, stir regularly.
5. Simmer until it looks nice and hot.

So that’s it! I didn’t put any spices as I love the baked beans flavor already but you could definitely add a little extra kick with a little bit of hot sauce or hot pepper flakes. I initially made this on Tuesday and ate it with a slice of homemade Irish soda bread. Yesterday, I ate it with the leftover rice from fish dish I made the night before. I just think it’s nice to soak up the flavors with rice or bread.

For dinner, I had first planned to make chicken tacos but plans changed and I didn’t want to make such a big meal if my husband wasn’t going to eat it as well. So I had to come up with another leftover meal. I knew I would eat the fish fillets leftover from the night before but what with? I had already used all the extra rice with my lunch. So I decided to make a quick salad. Nothing fancy or requiring a recipe. Just spinach, strawberries, apples, grated mozzarella, and a dash of raspberry dressing. It turned out to be a better meal than I first expected it to be! The fish fillets were surprisingly good after being reheated! I didn’t think I would like it as much but it was almost better than when I first baked them.