Things to Do with Leftover Cheese

Wow. You have an incredible party celebrating a significant event with all your loved family members in attendance. You send invitations, plan for the location, order food, decorate the venue, set up the music, and the attendees come. In addition to a meeting and greeting of the guests, there is a toast, photo time, and good cheer held by all. The food, the food is awesome. Meatballs, cheese balls and crackers, bruschetta with sliced french bread, a veggie tray and yes, you guessed it, a cheese tray. Havarti, jalapeno jack cheese, a smoky cheddar and an herbed white cheese fill the tray adorned with grapes. For dessert, there's a delicious white cake with cream cheese in the middle and a delightful, fluffy frosting. Since the party begins after meal time, about 30 guests nibble and munch, but come nowhere close to devouring the entire spread. What to do with all the leftovers?

The good news is that all of the foods above can be and were re-created in new forms to offer a delicious solution to the no food waste concept. Yes, new items will be purchased to invent additional treats, but it works very well. Here's what was left over:

A 3/4 full crock pot with meatballs in a delicious sauce.
At least 16 oz. of 3 types of olive, artichoke and tomato bruschetta spread
2+ pounds of veggies - carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes + dip
At least 400 cubes of cheese
Lots of crackers
Cake

Two days post party, we had another smaller gathering with 14 people in attendance, and here's what we did with it:

Meatball Sandwiches - We first reheated the meatballs on the stove and cut up the Havarti cheese cubes into small pieces. We purchased bolillo rolls - submarine sandwich rolls - split them in the middle, toasted them in the oven with butter and garlic salt, then laid cheese in them, meatballs second and cheese on top. They were toasted in the broiler, cut in half and served. All of the meatballs were consumed, along with probably 40 chunks of cheese.

Broiled Bruschetta - The bolillo rolls were split lengthwise and spread with the olive, tomato and artichoke mixtures and topped with the cheese, sliced into smaller pieces. All of the spreads and about 10-15 cubes of cheese were consumed. Yum-eee.

Fresh veggies and Dip - all of the leftover veggies were set out with the dip and at least half were eaten and the dip finished off.

Cheese and crackers - at least 25 cubes of cheese were taken and the majority of the crackers were eaten.

Cake - The pretty top of the cake was sliced and served with other holiday goodies.

After the second gathering of the food, leftovers of cake, veggies, crackers and cheese, cheese and cheese remained! Here is how they were incorporated into daily use:

When the hosting party left on an airplane back home, a bag with 20+ cubes of cheese and the remaining crackers went with them. For dinner one night, the veggies were incorporated into a salad, and three days later, chopped and cooked in with Lentil soup. Almost daily, a piece of cake was had. And the cheese ... put on a grilled cheese sandwich, used as a topping for black-eyed peas (jalapeno cheese made it so tasty!), the smoky cheese was placed on lentil soup and random cubes were used as food fuel. But there is still cheese left!

Down to fifty cube split evenly between smoky cheddar, jalepeno and herb cheese - this next week will see it slowly wane down. Used as food fuel, in the remaining lentil soup and possibly a quiche, the cheese should be gone by the end of the week. The lesson I hope to impart here is that leftovers, especially cheese, which lasts a long time in the refrigerator, should be consumed, and not tossed out.

Thank you to my sister Jenny and brother-in-law Matt, for having the 25th anniversary party in Austin and leaving us with all the cheese!