I don’t know about you, but even though our home is empty of guests, decorations, and piles of wrapping paper, our fridge and freezer are still quite full. Not that I’m complaining! We love leftovers in our house, and I love coming up with new and unique ways to incorporate our leftover meals into kid-friendly and yummy dishes. So the day after we said goodbye to our family, I assessed our food inventory and came up with one new recipe, and two toddler friendly ways to continue to enjoy your holiday food.
First up, we had a decent amount of delicious honey baked ham, which I decided to turn into a yummy Tuscan Ham & White bean stew! It was super easy, and I really just incorporated a lot of what we already had.
TUSCAN HAM AND WHITE BEAN SOUP
Ingredients
- 3-4 cups of ham (cut into small chunks)
- 8 oz (¾ bag) of frozen onion/carrot/celery mix
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- 32 oz vegetable broth
- 32 oz chicken broth
- 1 cup water
- 1 can great northern beans, drained
- 1 can white kernel corn, drained
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tbsp fresh chopped rosemary
- 2 cups chopped spinach
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- In large pot, saute onion/carrots/celery for 4-5 minutes.
- Add garlic and saute 2 more minutes.
- Add in ham, broths, water, beans, corn, and herbs.
- Bring to simmer, top with lid, and cook for 30-45 minutes.
- Before serving, add spinach in and cook for 5 more minutes.
- Serve and enjoy!
Next up, sweet potatoes! We love sweet potatoes, basically in any form. The kids love them too, so I decided to divide up the remaining sweet potato casserole into our favorite pouches and silicone freezer tray. The kids loved helping scooping the leftovers in and out of the containers, and then of course sampling them as we worked. The pouches are perfect for the fridge or freezer, and the tiniest of hands can enjoy them! We love the pods for the individual portion sizes, the fact that they can go in the fridge, freezer, oven, microwave AND dishwasher! As you can see, I added the sweet potato topping (a brown sugar, flour, and butter mixture) on some of the pods, because my son loves the topping! When we are ready to serve them, I’ll just pop them out for a quick and easy side dish or snack!
