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When I was working, I'd bring it in to work if it was reasonably tasty, just not fabulous. Most of the folks I worked with descended on food as though there was a famine in progress.

Well, lasagna might be tricky, but I usually try to turn leftovers into something else. Leftover stir fry, for example, can quickly turn into miso soup. I also turned some leftover lentil salad into soup just by adding some tomatoes and broth and simmering. I'll stuff leftover roast veggies into tortillas or phyllo or make up a new sauce to dump on top. I'll put leftover pasta on salads, too.

The problem is really in the lasagna sauce. I used off-brand Italian style stewed tomatoes, and didn't realize until it was too late that the cans also contained celery. Let's just say that celery adds a distinct flavor to lasagna that isn't one I want experience again. I'll see if I can pawn it off on some of the BF's roommates -- they'll eat almost anything.

I realize this is an unpopular view, but if no one wants it and it's not worth the calories, better let it go to waste than waist.

Just like a painter needs to throw out some sketches while on the road to becoming an artist, a good cook needs to allow some experiments to make their natural way to the trash heap.

do you have a homeless population where you are? i always take my leftovers downtown to give to people on the street. same things with doggie bags. we can't waste food when people are going hungry.

If something didn't come out as well as I'd intended, I'd transmogrify it. Take the case of your lasagna. Here are a couple of things you could do.

* Take a portion for 2 from the lasagna. Cut each portion into six or eight pieces. Saute off a box of cremini mushrooms (sliced) and some onions, maybe a splash of marsala. Put the leftover lasagna into a mixing bowl with the cooked creminis and fold them together. Spoon the whole mess into a baking dish sprayed with Pam and top with some mozzie. Bake it at 350 for about 20-25 minutes.

* Saute off some more meat or sausage and do the same as above.

* Slit open a couple of really long Italian Frying peppers (sometimes called Cubanelles). Chop up a bit of your lasagna and add whatever spices you felt were missing - and some parmesan or locatelli. Stuff the peppers with the mixture and bake them for about 30 minutes at 350.

If you're feeling really ambitious...

* Chop up a bunch of your lasagna. Add beaten egg and whatever else you think would make it more tasty than during the first run. Using a 4 oz. scoop, make balls out of the mixture and place them on a sheet pan lined with plastic wrap. Chill this mixture in the freezer for about 30 minutes.

One bowl with beaten egg, one bowl with flour, one bowl with bread crumbs and deep oil.

Egg-flour-egg-bread crumbs, then fry in the deep oil like orancini.

BEWARE...Some of these "second life" dishes might become favorites of whomever is eating them. Such is the case with my #$*@^@ frozen chocolate dipped cheesecake pops. Now I get just about as many requests for the pops as I do for the cheesecake.

We have a compost heap. They're not terribly difficult to start. I've heard that you don't want to try to compost meat, though.

Please don't anyone attack me on this;depending on WHAT the food is, leftovers in this house go to the dogs literally. We have a golden retreiver and a shephard mix who are in heaven when food goes in their bowls after our meal. Now, I did clarify this. They don't get anything with tomatoes, at all. Nor do they get anything that others gave me and i don't know what it contains.dd and my other 2 really like this mock chicken pot pie bake I make. I've started making this when the dog food runs low since it is easy,cheap, and really pretty good for you. The dogs crack me up,when you can start to smell it from the oven they go to her respective feeding areas and just wait. Cuuute. Beef stew is another favorite of theirs too!

If something is a little short on flavor, or if a flavor you like is a little too strong, there are ways to re-make almost anything. BUT, if you can detect a flavor you don't like, it's hard mask that flavor enough that you will be happy with the result. No matter if no one else can taste it, you'll always find it.

So, either feed it to people who will like it, or toss it before you waste a lot of ingredients trying to make it better.

I was watching a diet guru on TV and he was talking about people who feel a need to eat their kids leftovers "so the food doesn't go to waste," and he made a good point. That food is already "wasted" from the time you purchased it, or cooked it, or even when the item was harvested. No matter what you do, the wheat in the pasta will never grow into more wheat plants, and the tomatoes on the can were never destined for a food bank. That can of tomatoes would have been on that shelf, whether you bought it or not.

Whether you toss the food in the trash and it goes into a landfill, or you pass it through your system and the processed result goes into the sewer system, it doesn't make much difference to the tomatoes or the wheat plants. No matter what you do with that food now, it doesn't impact starving people in third world countries, but it could add extra pounds on you, if that's your particular problem. Or, you could just be unhappy eating it when you could be eating something you really enjoy.

As for it being wasted money, that's true, but again, it was wasted when the wrong tomatoes went into the sauce because that's the moment it became something you didn't like. As far as I'm concerned, it's a waste of money to buy and eat food you don't like (health reasons aside, of course).

If you're so broke that it's a choice of eating this food or going hungry, that's another story. But if you're not, and you have no reasonable way of feeding someone that hungry, it might be time to give up the food guilt and just get rid of the leftovers.

Yes, there are two ways to "waste" food you don't really want or need: you can throw it away, or you can eat it anyway.

Last time I visited my mother she had inherited four large containers of sour cream. She's on a very fixed income, so was reluctant to throw it out, but she also has heart problems and really did not need to be eating all that sour cream. We ended up eating what was essentially pasta alfredo, with this very heavy sauce, which neither of us needed.

If I don't want/like a food in it's first incarnation, I'm not going to want in it's second. If it's a matter of, say, I overcooked the veggies, I could toss them in a soup or maybe make a puree out of them, but if it's something whose flavor I don't like, or overcooked pasta or whatever, I would toss it.

That said, if it was a matter of finances (and god knows, I've totally been there), I'd just suck it up and eat it as is, probably dumping ketchup on it or something. If I don't like something, I completely lose my ability to be creative with it.

I always freeze those sub-par things for nights when I am feeling sub-par and don't have any energy or taste buds. Aside from that, most any leftover can be made into a frittata or soup of somekind... and yes... lasagna chopped up makes for a great frittata!

I made waaaay to much meatloaf last week...luckily a simple but tasty one. When we got sick of meatloaf and sandwiches, I cubed some and did a rigatoni and tomato sauce bake with meatloaf "meatballs", then the last bit gor chopped up fine and turned into a quick chili with beans.
Sometimes I get lucky with leftovers like that, usually I get sick of it and give up much sooner!

We throw it away or give it to the dog if it's something that's ok for him to eat. He's very picky though--if we don't like it, he probably won't either. And I HAVE thrown away food that made me feel guilty for wasting it, but I don't want to get fat on something that tastes bad! I eat very small servings of food I really like--I lost a LOT of weight that way. I'm NEVER going to eat anything that's not delicious (if I can help it). Cassaendra's right--life IS too short to be tortured over crappy food!

The dogs, the random single friend who stops over, the fridge to be hidden until moldy, or if I'm feeling bold they go in the trash!