Photo: Jennifer Iserloh.

It was one of those things that my granny always insisted on: finding ways to use leftovers and never wasting food. Even though I've grown up eating leftovers, I've never liked eating a big plate of odds and ends, a spoonful here and bite there.

I wondered if that's why Americans waste about 27 percent of their available food. But what if you could turn those tidbits into something luscious? I guarantee that you won't be tempted to toss that handful of broccoli florets, those spoonfuls of blue cheese crumbles or your remaining half a jar of olives.

First I took a look in my freezer before proceeding on to my self-imposed "Top Chef" challenge. Frozen dough disks didn't look that interesting resting in my freezer door, until I remembered that they're Goya empanada wrappers that you can fill with just about anything. Bingo!

Photo: dan4th, Flickr.

The debate this column fueled last week concerning the standard baseline tip isn't the sort of thing most servers spend much time considering: We'd all like our patrons to leave us lots and lots of money, thanks.

But that doesn't mean there aren't service issues upon which front-of-the-housers may never agree. I'm thinking here of doggie bagging, a practice that I've seen pit close friends against one another. The contentious question is who does the boxing.

At the white tablecloth restaurants where I've worked, it's understood that the task of wrapping a guest's half-eaten food in foil – ideally sculpted into a graceful swan – falls to the server (although since foie gras and lobster tail make for notoriously bad leftovers, many diners opt to have the vestiges of their five-star meals scraped straight into the trash.)

That's not always the case at slightly more casual restaurants, where many servers routinely plop Styrofoam boxes onto their guests' tables. As a veteran of fancy dining rooms, I always figured those servers were lazy. Turns out, they're looking out for their guests' interests.

A papaya facial scrub. Photo: Jennifer Iserloh

Papayas are large, luscious tropical fruits that I prefer to buy whole. After I make my smoothies and a fresh papaya cooler (that can also be spiked with rum for an impromptu party cocktail), I still find that there are plenty leftovers.

My friend Chad shares the leftovers with his cat, who adores papaya. He swears it's the reason for kitty's incredibly shiny coat. Since I don't have a cat and hate the idea of waste, I created a papaya facial that I can use when my budget for beauty products runs low.

Papaya makes an excellent facial, because it smells lovely, is naturally high in vitamin C, A, E -- an antioxidant-rich choice for the body inside and out. Get the recipe after the jump.

Large Tupperware might be handy, but it's not the best when freezing for later.

Wedding leftovers. Photo: Kenno McDonnell, Flickr

Most caterers will over-estimate the amount of food you'll need for your happy nuptials -- at least that's what we've been hearing. So what do you do with all of those leftovers? You've paid for the food, and it really is a shame to see it go to waste. I've recently heard some great suggestions.

A colleague of mine utilized Tupperware: If you're having an out-of-town wedding that the majority of your guests are coming out for, it's nice to send them back to their hotel room or back home with something to nosh on. Simply leave containers out near the food and have it made known that everything is up for grabs. They'll appreciate it when they get those midnight cravings!

It's also a great idea to donate the leftover food to a local soup kitchen or homeless shelter. Though, brides beware, not all states permit caterers to donate leftover food. Jon and I found ourselves in this situation. We wanted the food to go to good use, but Washington, D.C., law declares we're not allowed to donate directly to shelters.

Prosciutto, anchovy and onion pizza. Photo: Gio JL/Flickr

• Frank Bruni looks into the food world's obsession with pizza, and examines what makes a perfect pie.
• Young butchers are becoming the rock stars of the meat world.
• Looking at leftovers, with anecdotes from everyone from novelist Diana Abu-Jaber to Patti LaBelle.
• The Minimalist goes green with pea dip.
• Austrian grüner veltliner offers both an umlaut and some of summer's most enjoyable white wine.
• It's been raining a lot, so what does that mean for this summer's crops? Some fruit is suffering, but corn is loving the moisture.
• Mark Bittman discusses the evolving world of Parisian bistros.
• Will Allen is an urban farmer who creates his own soil and grows food in greenhouses located in a working-class neighborhood in Milwaukee.
• To better understand beer, Ben Granger of Bierkraft started growing lush vines of hops for home brews.

Last night on a subway halfway under the East River a quick purse excavation confirmed what we suddenly feared -- a distinct lack of house keys on our person. The day's lunch of leftover Easter ham and homemade challah bread satisfied our epicurean side but was woefully inadequate when it came to blood sugar maintenance -- hence the walking away, the leaving the keys behind and the "aw, crap!"

We panic a tad in moments like this and scramble right to our happy comfort place -- mentally cataloging the contents of our fridge, flipping the pieces this way and that until they interlocked and a picture formed.

The ham, gotta get through the ham. Well it could go with the red cabbage ... no, no ... the scallions. And eggs, oh right! We remembered to buy eggs. Tortilla espanola? Oh wait, got it -- still have that puff pastry left over from the Eccles cakes and that makes ... sacre damn bleu! We've got the makings for a serious quiche -- if we can actually get into the house.

By some strange miracle (we like to think it's The Secret, of course) our beloved husband materialized on the same train car two stops before ours, and in lieu of a civilized "Hi honey, how was your day?" we collapsed into him sighing "We'regonnahavequichetonightpleasedon'targue." Once in the house, we made a beeline for the Julia Child to verify proportions, and got to rolling, chopping, whisking -- grateful not to have to think, just to act. Half an hour later, there was a ridiculously delicious quiche in front of us, without single extra cent or second spent at the grocery store.

Perhaps y'all are more forward-thinking than some of us, but when do you actually decide what's going to be for dinner that night? Do you cook it all up on Sunday, and apportion throughout the week? Do you daydream about what's on hand and pick up any extra ingredients on the way home? Or do you stand in front of the fridge, staring, and make do with what's in front of you?




Get the Ham and Gruyere Quiche recipe after the jump.

We can only imagine it wasn't just us having a culinarily significant weekend, what with the late-breaking Seders and Easter feasting. Sure, Monday drudgery is upon us, but howzabout dishing up your biggest cooking tales of the past few days?

We'll go first. 'Round these parts, we rustled up our very first Sweet Potato Kugel (Elijah even asked for seconds), braised and glazed an Easter ham in Cheerwine cherry soda, bourbon and pomegranate molasses, and shook up a few Ramos Gin Fizzes from all the extra eggs lying about. Somehow, it all managed to coexist quite peacefully in both our hearts and digestive systems, and while we didn't get 'round to sourcing the lambs' blood for the Icelandic Slatur we've been double-dog-dared to make, there's always next weekend.

For now, we're hungry for your tales of kitchen woes and triumps. Didja best a crust that's been troubling you, or experiment with an unfamiliar veggie? Dish 'em up in the comments below.

Got more Easter candy than you can deal with? Don't gorge and eat it all, don't save it 'til it goes bad and definitely don't throw it away! Get crafty in the kitchen and re-use it.

Just as April showers bring May flowers, so do the hard-boiled eggs that arrive via Passover seder or an Easter egg hunt bring us, well, a lot of hard-boiled eggs. What to do with them all?

Many of those who celebrate Easter open a lunch box the first Monday thereafter to be confronted with a big scoop of egg salad. And while that's always an option -- as is the Cobb Salad that centers many an April luncheon -- there are recipes out there beyond the standards. So hide your eggs and eat them too.

First, though, safety is critical. According to the USDA, Easter eggs are safe to eat after the hunt provided you follow a few basic guidelines: Use food-safe coloring to dye the eggs and refrigerate them within two hours of boiling them. Boiling an egg removes a protective coating that occurs naturally on the shell, which leaves the shell vulnerable to bacteria. After the hunt, discard any eggs whose shells have cracked or that nestled in a bacteria-friendly environment such as dirt, hay or anywhere accessible to pets. Don't keep hard-boiled eggs away from the fridge for longer than two hours and use them within seven days of boiling them.

Beyond the jump is a delicious recipe for using those safely-handled eggs. (Hint: It's a salad, but it's not egg salad).

What to do with the leftovers? It's one of the great questions of cooking, if not of life. Lately, I've been making pizza with them. Truly, if you keep some pre-made crusts on hand (or mix up your own dough in advance), you can quickly turn last night's dinner into today's lunch.

For example, faced with leftover pork cutlets and some bacon that needed to get used up, I added some red onions, red peppers, mozzarella cheese and canned pineapple to make perhaps the greatest Hawaiian pizza I have ever had.

Some leftover chicken and an abundance of cilantro was turned into Thai pizza with the addition of some shredded carrots, green onions and peanut sauce. Made tacos last night? Taco pizza. Leftover steak and mushrooms? Philly cheesesteak pizza. Got a lot of bits left over from last night's hostessing cheese plate? Super-extra cheese pizza. There are as many possibilities as your imagine and your refrigerator can hold.

Yesterday a friend of mine brought by a jarful of lovely, snowy heavy cream from the local dairy, spoils from his job at a coffee shop. I used some of it to make my favorite fleur de sel caramels, but I've still got a cup or so sitting in the fridge. And I can't figure out what to do with the darn stuff! This is the same problem I have whenever I buy cream to cook or bake with and don't use the whole carton - the rest inevitably ends up souring, unused, next to the jar of capers. I am determined to find a better solution. So I've turned, of course, to the trusty interwebs.

Love Food, Hate Waste has a few ideas - creamy tomato soup, quickie pasta carbonara, apple crisp. The Chowhound message board has some good thoughts - cream scones, mashed potatoes, bread pudding, Alfredo sauce, herbed sauce for fish. I especially like the idea of make-and-freeze soups and pasta sauces, as baking scones with the leftover cream seems like it might just result in wasted cream and wasted flour and sugar. Cooks.com has some of my favorite ideas, with suggestions for recipes utilizing slightly soured cream and milk, like Boston brown bread and sour-cream cake filling.

What are your favorite ways for using up leftover cream?

Leftover mashed potatoes? Please allow me to direct your attention to Not Made of Money's article on what to do with your starchy surplus. Their 10 creative ideas include shepherd's pie, Thanksgiving casserole, mashed potato soup (!), mashed potato dumplings, mashed potato patties, mashed potato and egg hash, mashed potato rolls, and mashed potato and salmon croquetes. Or you could just eat them cold with a spoon in front or the fridge at 2 a.m.. Not that I do that or anything.

What in the world can you do with all those leftovers? The feast is done, the dishes are clean, but there's a huge pile of turkey, veggies, and savory treats to store and eat.

But before the leftovers, there's the whole idea of basting. You could do it with your regular ol' baster, but that's boring. Why not try one that is turkey-themed? It'll get you gobbling all day.

There are certain meals that just taste like mom's home cookin'. Oh wait! This was my mom's cooking. Stopping home for a quick dinner after voting, my mom presented me with this dish: beef braised with bacon and served over a bed of egg noodles. I couldn't resist myself, I had to have seconds. The aroma of the beef and bacon permeated the house, which created an instant sense of comfort and nostalgia.

While I know this isn't the type of dish you want to start making when you come home from a hard day at work, it's perfect for a Saturday or Sunday meal- there will be plenty leftover. Reheat mid-week, boil up a new batch of egg noodles and relax.