Posted on 1 Comment

Leftover Rice

White rice is one of those things that’s just never quite the same leftover. I love white rice and we generally eat it at least once a week, often more frequently than that. We have a rice cooker, and it’s a fuss free,  inexpensive, and gluten free starch. It also goes with just about anything.

But what to do with the leftovers? Of course, you can just have “leftover night” and pull all the leftovers out of the fridge for everyone to pick something to microwave. I do my fair share of that.

But if you want to take it up a notch, or if you just don’t like microwaved leftover rice, here’s a few ideas you might not have thought of.

Fried rice

Fried rice is a staple at Chinese restaurants, but it’s not too hard to make something similar at home. You just need to saute some carrots and onions, maybe some peas, in oil until they are well cooked. Add the right seasonings–I like pepper, garlic, and ginger– lots of soy sauce and a little sugar, and some finely chopped meat. Then you throw your leftover rice in, stir till it’s warm, and voila! A quick one-dish meal.

Rice pudding

Rice pudding is a surprisingly delicious dessert that uses basic staples and is pretty hard to mess up. And it’s a fantastic way to use leftover rice. If you turn your leftover rice into rice pudding, you can serve it in wine glasses at a nice dinner party and no one will ever guess that it’s Wednesday night’s supper leftovers. (Yes, I have done this.)

Here’s the recipe I generally use.

Rice casserole

There’s a lot of nice rice casserole recipes, but the general idea behind them is that you take some meat, some veggies, some sauce and some leftover rice, mix it together or layer it into a baking pan, sprinkle cheese over it, and bake it till it’s hot and the cheese is getting golden. It’s a great way to use leftover meat and vegetables too.

Chicken salsa rice casserole is one of my favorites.

(incidentally, this makes a fabulous freezer meal.)

For this, you chop up some cooked chicken meat and layer it in a pan lasagna-style with leftover rice, cheese, and a sauce made of half salsa and half sour cream. Top with more cheese and bake. It is fast and easy and very satisfying. Don’t skimp on the sauce if you want it to be moist and delicious.

Eat it with bananas

I know, it probably sounds weird. The first time I ever heard of this was when my eighth grade teacher said it was good. My classmates and I, being typical middle schoolers, mostly looked at her like she’d suggested we all grow extra heads. But about fifteen years later, I suddenly decided to try it. And it was as good as she said.

Here’s what you do. Put some leftover rice in a bowl. Peel a banana and mash it up in there with a fork. Now you have a banana rice mixture. Sprinkle cinnamon over it, pour some milk in, and eat it like a cheaper, healthier version of cold cereal. I enjoy it occasionally as a bedtime snack.

I am sure I have only scratched the surface of what can be done with leftover rice. Do you have any favorite ideas?

Posted on Leave a comment

Invisible Storage

I’m a big fan of minimalism and decluttering. I love empty floor space and blank walls, and I agonize over gift choices because I don’t want to give a friend anything that will just become clutter. I even have trouble buying things that I actually want, just because they are things… And things take up space.

But as it turns out, life, and especially family life, requires stuff. Lots of stuff. Things you really do need to keep around, like winter blankets during the summer, clothes that your kids will grow into, the supplies for your hobby (for me that means lots and lots of fabric and thread and ribbon), your kid’s toys and books, and the books your kid will want to read when he’s older….
Maybe your house comes equipped with plenty of closets, attics, and cabinets for all your storage needs. If it does, then lucky you!
If not, here’s a few ideas for hiding storage around your home so that you can keep the things you need without having piles of stuff laying around your living room, or piles of cardboard boxes permanently stacked in your bedroom.

Storage beds

There’s a few different ways of using your bed to hide storage. The most basic (and ugly) method is just to tuck those cardboard boxes or plastic totes under the bed. If you have a bed skirt, no one ever needs to know that under it you have sizes 3 months to 3 years boys’ clothes, three totes of fabric, and your entire set of oil painting supplies.
If you want to take it up a notch (and not have to slither around on your stomach next time your kid outgrows a size of clothes) there are under-bed drawers on wheels that work well on hard floors. When you want something, you just roll the drawer out and get it. It’s like a Captain’s bed, but not built in. Though built in storage beds are pretty cool too!

If you have a thick carpet in your bedroom, or a very small space so that your bed has to be against the wall, pull out drawers are not your best option. Then what you really need is a set up where instead of a box spring, you have a hinged box under your mattress. You can buy them ready made, or it can be a fun DIY project too. My husband and I made one for a twin bed and it’s been really nice. It gives you quite a bit of storage space, and it’s pretty easy to access.

Living room storage

Marie Kondo says that everything should have a place. And that place should be as near to where it will be used as possible. And some things get used in the living room. I like having a few extra blankets, some toys, and some books hiding in my living room. (Sadly, they are more likely to end up all over the floor than neatly tucked away, but knowing that there is actually a place for them to live at least makes me feel better.)
Bookshelves full of books are fine in almost any room, but it can be harder to find places for things like blankets, toys and games–things that will be used in the living room.

Here’s a couple of ideas for hiding your storage in plain sight.

Under the sofa

Sofas often have a few inches of concealed space underneath which has a habit of swallowing your kid’s shoes and toys and the book you were reading a moment ago. A way you can take advantage of that space would be to get some shallow plastic totes and put toys or games in them. Then all you have to do is shove them underneath and the sofa’s skirt covers it up.
Of course, not all sofas have skirts, so sometimes you have to get more creative.

Multi-purpose furniture

One of my all time favorite pieces of furniture is the storage ottoman. It looks just like any other footstool or ottoman, but you can store things inside it. Some of the really cool ones double as a coffee or end table as well.
I did once hear someone suggest string stacks of emergency canned food in your living room with a board on top instead of a coffee table, but I wouldn’t recommend it. If you must prep for an apocalypse, I suggest the basement. Dead storage–storage of things that are accessed only rarely–has no place in your living room.
Other concealed storage options for the living room include end tables with cabinets or drawers in them. But try to only keep living room things in the living room.

Storage spaces

When looking for more storage space, though, the first place to look is in the places that are designed for storing things: closets, pantries, attics, cabinets, etc.
So before deciding that you need to get a bed with drawers, or replace a favorite piece of furniture with a more versatile one, why not first see if you’re storing things that have outlived their usefulness, and then, once you’ve decided what needs to stay, examine your closets and cabinets to see if the storage space you already have is actually used efficiently?

Often closets have a lot of wasted space near the ceiling. It’s a pain to get to, but if you’re storing something you don’t need to get at very often, but will most likely need again–for me, that would be newborn size baby clothes–that’s okay. Installing an extra shelf up high in a closet will often make the closet much more useful.
Cabinets are sometimes the same way. Adding a shelf will increase the surface area on which you can set things.
You can make drawers much more efficient by putting in dividers, or just changing the way you stack things.
I adopted something similar to the Marie Kondo method of folding shirts, and discovered that I could fit twice as many shirts in a drawer if I stored them vertically instead of stacking them on top of each other. An added benefit of this is that you can see at a glance what you have, instead of having to look under things. (It is also a fantastic way of packing a suitcase. I packed this way for a week-long summer camp and kept my suitcase in perfect order the whole week with almost no effort.)

Even if your house has very little official storage space, you can usually find ways to store the things you really need to keep around–if you use a little creativity.

Do you have a favorite method?

Some amazing storage methods:

These are affiliate links and I get a commission for qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.

Captain’s bed: Pricey, but so wonderful

 

A lift bed. Also a great idea. It’s amazing how much you can fit under a bed.

 

Storage ottomans are a great place to put extra throw pillows and blankets, not to mention kid’s toys.