More HOliday party left over meals

So to stretch the cost of my meals, you may have noticed that I typically make a huge batch of carbs.  In this case since most of my holiday leftovers had italian theme, I made huge batch of spagetti.

I took that spagetti, added cheap tomato sauce and home made white beans.  Then took the chicken from party, and freegan Kale salad and tossed all together to make this awesome KALE veggie, Spagetti Chicken dish.   Super healthy and cheap meal for my work day :)

Christmas Leftovers Recipe REmix

I just had to post on this RECIPE remix/extender.   So been getting crazy amounts of leftovers from group parties and stuff, yes this is why I always have emergency Tupperware at my desk.  You never know when some group is going to have a party and just a ton of leftovers.  Case in point, I had huge pan of leftover CHICKEN Parmesan, EGGplant Parmesan, Pasta stuff basically.  

After eating so many meals of this you do get sick of it alil so this is why I make remix recipes. 

And of course I freeze things till I'm ready to return to my leftovers.  

This holiday my

PASTA Lima Bean Chicken Parmesan 

was born!

So when I cook at home, I'm really sparse with the cheese and meat.  My leftovers were literally huge chunks of chicken and cheese, way too rich/ gluttonous for me after a few meals.  So I basically extended this recipe to include cheap and healthy fillers.

In this case, I had dried Lima Beans (originally thought they were white beans) and my free veggie pasta from couponing.  Way healthy and grease free by themselves.  I put 1/2 bag of beans in crockpot and cooked the pasta.  And of course put them in tupperware.   All in all very little work.

Then when I was ready to eat the meal, I just put my pasta, white beans, cheap Ragu sauce in microwave ( you can do oven)  and let it cook for 90 seconds.  Then added in the party leftovers cheese and chicken for another 60 seconds.

And magically I have a more healthy meal than the chicken parm I had taken home.

Beauty of this meal for me is all I paid for was the tomato sauce and I'm going to get a lot of meals out of this one original tupperware full of pasta leftovers.  What would have been 2 meals alone now I can easily stretch into 6 meals by adding cheap healthy food staples.   Not to mention I'm going to have left over beans and pasta and pasta sauce.

I'm sharing this idea because realistically everyone can usually get pasta/beans/pasta sauce for about $1 each on a regular supermarket sale.  And this is a really really recipe, you can technically make all in one pot if your lazy like me.  And for me to save money on food, key principle is to add as much cheap fillers as possible. 

Pret A Manger's Curry Egg Arugula Sandwich

The other day, I got a craving for Pret's Curry Egg Arugula Sandwich...which is so so ridiculously expensive at least $5 for a small meatless sandwich (ok yes PRET does use organic everything and cagefree eggs) but seriously kinda ridiculous.  And then it hit me!!!  I had organic bread for Le Pain Quotidien still in my freezer and lots of organic Arugula from my food rescues.  I basically just hard boiled eggs the prior night and brough some condiment mayo from resturants and put in a zip lock my seasonings of curry powder, salt and pepper and it was the most amazing work lunch ever!

So I'd thought I'd post about it today since I just had to share this yummi cheap meal.

Below are my freegan ingredients.

What you need to make this is 

2 Hard Boiled Eggs

2 Tablespoons Mayo

1 Teaspoon Curry Powder

Handful of Arugula

Salt and Pepper to taste

Bread if you want to make it a sandwich

Add mayo in bowl with seasonings.  Mix.

Add in your hard boiled eggs and mash with back of fork.

Then mix everything or if your doing this at work shake your tupperware.

Adjust seasonings if you wish.  

Transfer mix to your bread that you've layered with Arugula.  

Or if you have left overs just mix in more Arugula for a Salad!

I'm just blown away by how much a difference Arugula makes !