Reworking Leftovers with Pita Pizza!

Because I only cook for two people, I often find myself with a lot of leftovers.  I actually love leftovers because I'd rather bring leftovers in for lunch than buy an over-priced or unhealthy lunch at work.  On Tuesday night, I had a decent amount of leftover roasted cauliflower and pesto-marinated chicken from Monday night's dinner.  Bret brought some into work for lunch on Tuesday so I wanted to find a way to re-work these leftovers in a creative way.

My immediate thought was to make a pizza with these ingredients but I didn't have enough leftovers to make a whole pizza.  So I decided to make individual-sized pita pizzas that were super easy and really flavorful.

To start, I placed two flax, oat bran and whole wheat pitas right on the rack in the oven at 350 degrees.  While the pitas were crisping up, I sliced both the roasted cauliflower and the pesto-marinated chicken into bite size pizzas.  By the time I was done chopping, I was ready to put my pizzas together.

I took the pitas out of the oven and spread some leftover pizza sauce on them.  I then added dollops of mascarpone cheese, which I thought would go well with the fig and gorgonzola pesto.  I then topped it with the leftover roasted cauliflower and pesto-marinated chicken slices.  I finished the pizza off with one more dollop of mascarpone cheese in the middle.

I placed the pizzas on an aluminum foil-lined tray in the oven for about eight minutes and the pita pizzas were done.  I absolutely loved this slightly sweet pizza and it turned our leftover ingredients into a fun little meal!

You'll have to forgive the photos.  I was even too lazy to use anything more than my point and shoot!

Tell me, what are some dishes you've made to turn leftovers into a whole new meal?

Spicy Pork Lettuce Wraps

As I blogged before, on Wednesday night, we made a spicy pork stir-fry to warm us up during the cold winter blizzard. 

Bret brought some of the leftovers for lunch the next day but we still had a little leftover for dinner on Thursday night.  Although I love eating leftovers, I don't like feeling bored with my food and wanted to use the leftover stir-fry ingredients for something new.  I wanted to make Asian-inspired tacos with them but then I thought of a carb-free solution - lettuce wraps!

After our respective sessions at the gym after work, spicy pork lettuce wraps were such a simple and fun dinner.  Bret purchased a head of iceberg lettuce on the way home from the gym.  He washed and dried a bunch of leaves for our wraps.

I warmed up our leftover stir-fry and found that this was a perfect filling for our wraps!  The only thing missing were some toasted peanuts but we sadly were out of them in our pantry.

This easy dinner gave us plenty of time to get packing for my birthday weekend in Portland, Maine.  In fact, by the time you are reading this, we are probably enjoying our last moments in Portland and heading back to Boston.  I'm sure I'll be sharing some of the highlights of our trip on my blog later this week.  In the meantime, we both really want to get home in time to watch the Pats game and I promised Bret that I'd whip him up a healthier version of buffalo wings for the game!

Tell me, what are some creative ways you've re-worked leftover dishes in your kitchen?