How to get your kids to actually EAT leftovers

This sounds silly.

Well, let’s start at the beginning. I don’t know how to cook small. I just don’t. So we always end up with lots of leftovers. Which everyone loves, especially for school lunches, since sandwiches get old after a while.

But here was my problem. Open the fridge. A sea of Tupperware, filled with lots of different things. Amazing things. But sometimes even the yummiest things doesn’t look very appealing all mushed up in a container. In fact, sometimes it looks nothing like when it was freshly made. So here was our family’s dilemma. Kids would go to heat up something, and be at a loss of what was in each container. Which then lead to.. ” There’s nothing to eat”. Which then led to.. leftovers gone bad because they sat around too long and money down the drain. Literally.

 

Until one day.. bright idea 💡 !

Post it notes and tape.

When I make something, as we package up the leftovers, we write what it is and the date.

No more guessing for them of what’s in the container. Now they can see what it is and want to eat it!

No more guessing for me when cleaning out the fridge of..” hmmm, when did I make this spaghetti?” and dumping it out of fear that it’s more than a week old and we’ll all get food poisoning, when it turns out it was totally eatable.

I now keep a Scotch tape dispenser labeled “Kitchen” (so a kid doesn’t take off with it) in the kitchen, with a Sharpie and Post It Notes, ready to go for labeling. Everyone in the house knows the rule and if they’re packaging.. label it.

Super easy to peel it off, throw it away and pop the container in the dishwasher.

 

Do we go through tape? Yup

Post It Notes? Yup

But that’s a drop in the bucket when thinking of the money we’ve saved by eating the leftovers and not tossing them.

 

Has someone thought of this before? Probably.

 

But in my head, I just invented this (toot toot) and thought it might be helpful to you too, so let me have my moment 😁