This month’s Leftover Tuesdays marks some milestones.  First, it is the 1-year anniversary of Leftover Tuesdays!  Then, and perhaps even bigger, Leftover Tuesdays has now been declared a crusade!  Yup, as Christiane over at 28 Cooks says, Leftover Tuesdays “is on the crusade against throwing away leftovers”.  Judging from the entries this month the crusade is in full swing and global! This month we’ve got entries from Greece, India, the Netherlands, the UK, Canada, and the United States.  This month's creations are just as diverse and appealing.  Don’t just take my word for how great these transformations are see for yourself…

	Melissa from Oh, Mindy! in Kansas City created a soup from a vegetable strata.  The strata, which could also be made from leftover vegetables, generated a wonderful broth that she used to make a Veggie Strata Bisque.
	Srivalli from Cooking 4 all Seasons in India needed something to do with leftover Idlis. Her creation, Leftover Idlis, could easily be called Spicy Idlis as it includes lots of heat and aromatic spices.  For those unfamiliar with Idlis they are a savory cake made from fermented black lentils, rice and fenugreek.
	Drew from How To Cook Like Your Grandmother in Euclid, Ohio started with half a leftover baked potato, some leftover onion, and peppers.  He cleverly added some Polish hot sausage and Voilà! he created Polish hot sausage hash browns.
	Joel and Amy from foodmonkeys in Omaha, Nebraska are back again this month still using up leftovers from Thanksgiving!  They made a quiche from some pie crust that was hanging around in the freezer from Thanksgiving and some more recently acquired leftover ham. Their creation, Ham, Swiss, and Broccoli Quiche sounds great although I don’t think the photo does it justice…
	Deeba from Passionate About Baking…& beyond in India has been transforming leftovers for a long time and loves to use them for appetizers.  Her creation, Savoury Tartlets, uses leftover pastry dough, corn, and mushrooms from a quiche she recently made.  Pretty little leftovers aren’t they?
	Dennis who writes Kookjegek.nl from the Netherlands had one leftover meatball.  He transformed the lonely meatball into a wonderful snack based on the Netherlands Broodje bal which combines meatballs with bread and mustard.  In his variation, based on a recipe by TV chef Ramon Beuk, Dennis filled the bread with the meatball making a visually striking leftover creation that sounds really tasty!
	Windy from Windy’s Food Corner in the UK is back again this month with another wonderful leftover creation.  Windy used Risotto, a classic leftover base, to transform leftover Chicken into a great meal with the addition of some mushrooms and corn.
	Ivy from Kopiaste, to Greek Hospitality in Greece shares two leftover creations using eggplant flesh leftover from making papoutsakia.  The first dish is a wonderful eggplant dip and the second is a salad.  Not sure I’ll be making papoutsakia but come this summer that dip and salad will be great uses for fresh eggplant from my garden…
	Alison from Someone’s In the Kitchen in Hot Springs, Arizona has a thing for goat cheese.  When a recent catering event left her with some goat cheese filling she transformed the leftover filling into Stuffed Chicken Breasts. Or you could use up leftover mushrooms with the delicious filling!
	Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen located in London, Ontario Canada joins us again with a great vegetarian leftover.  Lisa has frozen pumpkin left over from the fall and transformed it into an amazing soup.  Her Toor Dal Pumpkin Soup not only sounds great but looks beautiful with the steam glistening in the sun.  Other leftover squash such as butternut or acorn could also be used instead of the pumpkin.
	Tigerfish who writes teczcape from California always has great leftover creations.  This month we are presented with Rice with Seafood and Egg Gravy.  Tigerfish combined leftover Prawns, calamari, scallops, chicken thigh, vegetables, and mushrooms with Asian risotto – aka wet rice to create this tasty (and photogenic dish!).
	Laurie who writes Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska made a delicious soup from leftover braised chicken, peppers, and greens.  The greens, part of a CSA box from CaliforniaWashington, are perfect braised and even better in soup.  Laurie added in some cannellini beans to round out the dish and make Chicken, Greens and Beans Soup. Yum!
	Next up, we welcome Ginny who writes Just Get Floury from Washington, DC.  Leftover Tuesdays is her first blogging event and she’s doing great!  Her creation, Cilantro Pesto, used leftover cilantro and leftover noodles to create a wonderful meal.  While Ginny didn’t have any leftover meat to add in she suggests adding chicken if you have some handy.
	Christiane from 28 Cooks is back this month with a leftover stir-fry creation.  As Christiane says stir-frys (and soups) are a great way to use up leftover vegetables.  In the Weekend Stirfry, Part II creation Christiane used about 6 cups of assorted leftover vegetables.  The resulting stir-fry sounds great and looks gorgeous.  The mark of a true leftover genius – no way you’d know the stir-fry is from leftovers!
	Last up is my entry.  This month I dug into the fridge and used up the last of my fall garden butternut squash.  The squash wasn’t holding up to well and was on the fast road to vegetable death.  With some help from Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” I turned the butternut squash and some leftover basil pesto from the freezer into a wonderful Penne Pasta with Butternut Squash and Pesto.  So yummy I almost forgot to take the picture and just dug in to start eating!

I think I’m in love, but Husband need not worry, it’s not with another man just another man’s cookbook: Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.  When Foodie Heather raved about this cookbook, I took interest.  I'm very excited with what I found, but the best part was how helpful it is with transforming leftovers.

Case in point: this month’s Leftover Tuesdays creation using leftover butternut squash and pesto.  The squash was a leftover from the fall garden that, sadly, was not holding up too well and needed to be eaten.  I also had some leftover basil pesto sitting in my freezer and had decided I wanted to make some type of pasta dish.  After a brief search in Bittman's book, I found a table listing 39 ways to transform pasta, one of which used butternut squash.  Bingo.  The result? Penne Pasta with Butternut Squash and Pesto based on a Bittman variation called Butternut Squash with Pesto.  While this could be a side-dish, I took Bittman at his word and mixed it with pasta to create a nice little dinner for two.  In my creation, I sautéed about 10 oz of cubed butternut squash with some garlic (also leftover from last year's garden and quickly fading) for a couple minutes, braised it in about ¼ cup of chicken stock that I had in the fridge (ok so it’s not strictly vegetarian) until the squash was tender, and then mixed in a baggie full of frozen pesto (probably ½ cup or so) with the pasta.  Quick, easy and really delicious.  This is definitely on the make again list.

Leftovers got you down? How about converting those leftovers into something new and intriguing?  That’s what the Leftover Tuesdays event is all about. Check it out!

The Challenge

Leftover Tuesdays #11 challenges you to transform your leftovers into tasty temptations and tell us all about it!   

What do we mean by leftovers? 

Well, we're pretty liberal with our definition of leftovers.  They can be the remnants of a previous meal (either home cooked or bought) but they can also be the unused portions of the various components you've used to create recent (or not so recent) meals.  Basically, leftovers are anything in your fridge, pantry or freezer for which you have no intended purpose and need/want to use up!

How to submit your entry

1. Prepare a culinary creation from your leftovers.

2. Email me ( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ) with your entry by midnight on Thursday January 31st, with the subject "Leftover Tuesdays". Be sure to include the following, very important information:This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

• Your name and location. 
• A 150 x 150 jpeg photo of your creation - if you would like it included in the roundup.
• The name of your blog, your blog URL, and the URL for your Leftover Tuesdays post or if you are not a blogger then the recipe and a description of how you came up with the creation.

Want to see previous Leftover Tuesdays?  

Round #1 was at Cooking Chat, Roundup #2  is over at Rachel's Bite, Round #3 is at What's Cooking, Round #4 is at ceres & bacchus, Round #5 is here on Project Foodie, Round #6 is at Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, Round #7 (the Pantry Raid) is on Project Foodie, Round #8 is at Dispensing Happiness, and then on Project Foodie you’ll find Round #9, and Round #10. 

Have fun creating and cooking - I'm looking forward to seeing all of your wonderful creations!