Today I have a guest post for you by Joseph Morris, a professional chef for over 20 years. He also owns the site Culinary Arts College for students interested in getting a degree in culinary arts. Have a look at his site, and enjoy his leftover tips.

Thanksgiving is over and you may have already worked your way through the leftovers, but Christmas is just around the corner, which means even more leftovers! Here are some creative ways you can make your leftovers seem new again.

1. Mashed Potatoes – Add some chopped onion and egg, then make patties and fry them in olive oil. You can also add some cooked rice for a little more sustenance.
2. Cranberry Sauce – Add chopped nuts and serve with cheese and crackers for an easy snack. You can also eat it at breakfast as a topping for pancakes or mixed into yogurt.
3. Rolls and Breads – There are lots of easy options here. You can make croutons or breadcrumbs to use for later. If you want to use it up, leftover bread also works well as French toast or bread pudding.
4. Stuffing – Bake “stuffins” (stuffing muffins)! Simply press stuffing into a muffin tin and bake for 10 minutes. You may even want to add nuts, dried fruit, or herbs for more flavor.
	5. Sweet Potatoes – Make a sweet potato bisque to warm you up on a cold day. Puree sweet potatoes and add stock and coconut milk. You may also want to add some herbs or exotic spices like curry or cumin.
6. Roasted Vegetables – Chop up your vegetables into small pieces and make a quiche with some crumbled cheese and diced ham.
7. Ham – Dice up your ham and cook it with lentils, onions, and plenty of spices. Alternatively, you can make ham and lentil soup with mixed vegetables to use up the ham bone as well.
8. Roast Beef – Make roast beef quesadillas with peppers, cheese, and onions. This can be a great alternative to a boring grilled cheese sandwich.
9. Turkey – Forget plain sandwiches made with slices of turkey – make turkey salad sandwiches instead. Dice leftover turkey and mix it with mayonnaise, mustard, chopped apple, and celery.
10. Gravy – Use gravy as a flavorful sauce for whole wheat pasta or egg noodles. You may even want to add some herbs and/or spices to change the flavor.

There are lots of other options for reusing leftovers – all you need is a little creativity. Meals like soup, pizzas, and savory pies could easily use up many leftover foods that might otherwise spoil in your fridge.

Speaking of which, it’s important to remember that even leftovers don’t last forever. Most dishes will only last about three or four days after the big meal unless you freeze them. Make sure you reheat foods thoroughly to kill all the bacteria they might have gained since they were originally cooked.

Remember that mozzarella roll we made for the dinner party?

It was like a jellyroll of cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil. It struck us that it would make the perfect filling for a paninni. So I picked up some nice bread, sliced up the roll, and laid it out between slices of bread and grilled it to perfection.

Why was this idea so great? Because when you usually make paninni, the filling is layered. The cheese melts but doesn’t always/usually bind everything together. With the roll, the various bits of filling are more or less evenly distributed. Most significantly the cheese is everywhere. Omnipresent cheese … mmmmm.

Anyway, it turned out very well. Ya, I know, this is the internet … pic or it didn’t happen. So here you are: