How to Make the Most of Leftovers

I don't know about anyone else, but I really do love leftovers.  I usually only cook for me (sometimes for friends and roommates) so I always wind up with leftovers because I cook in bulk all the time.  I always have a lot of leftovers for several different reasons...

1. I'm not used to cooking for only 1 person.  In college I used to cook all the time for my roommates, friends or family. If I ever wound up preparing something just for me, it was ramen... or a dish using the leftovers from other dinners.
2. I love cooking but I don't want to cook for myself every single night.  I would wind up eating out a lot more if I had to depend on my own ingenuity constantly.
3. I really dislike making single portions of food.  You waste time portioning out everything exactly to make a meal for a single night, but what happens if you're more hungry that evening, or you've made something AMAZING that you would like to eat again. You would than have to cook again which would utterly defeat the purpose. You lose time and well, inevitably the dish will not be exactly the same as the first time you prepared it. 
4. I really, really like sharing food. If I were to cook only just enough for myself, I wouldn't be able to offer some to the roommate who passes through the kitchen. There wouldn't be enough to offer an exchange, "Here try some of this." "And you try some of this!"  It's a lot of fun  when you get to exchange bits and pieces of meals and to try different things.
5. I find that a lot of food tastes better the day after. Some spices become richer after a day or so. Making enough for leftovers is a great way to see which flavors will deepen and stregthen and which stay relatively the same. The flavors blend and mesh, individual spices become less individual. They become one unique flavor (as opposed to 6 unique flavors fighting for superiority).

But leftovers do present an interesting challenge for me. I make enough food in one evening for 4-6 people. I am one person, meaning it takes me 3-5 days to finish all of the leftovers!  That can get really boring, really quickly. A dish is wonderful the first time eaten. It's a novelty and special. It's often something new that you've never eaten before. The second day you eat the dish, it's better. The flavors aren't so crisp.  They have blended and in a way become more potent in their combinations. By the third day the flavors have settled. The dish is still good, but your palate is looking for something new. You pick at the food while wishing for something else. The fourth day, the dish is okay, but let's face it, you've had enough. The fifth day, well either the dish has gone bad, or you just don't want anything to do with it. You either wind up throwing it away or avoiding it; meaning you gaze at the container for a moment, shake your head and grab something else... This means that in a week or so, you'll find a very disgusting container in your refrigerator... All in all something will be wasted which is a shame (especially if it was really, really good lol).

Soo how do you deal with this leftover madness?
Well, the easiest solution is to invite someone to come eat with you. Hahahaha It's a wonderful solution. You get rid of your leftovers and generally you get lots of compliments, which is always a lot of fun.
But let's face it, guests aren't always a possibility. Sometimes you live in the middle of nowhere and it's hard for guests to get to you (welcome to my life here in Sesto Fiorentino! lol). So what do you do then?

How do you avoid throwing out perfectly good food just because you're sick of eating it?

I've found a solution that is actually kind of fun. Get creative. Turn you're leftovers into something else entirely.

For example I made curried turkey last Tuesday.
Day 1: Curried turkey with mini puff pastries (That night I also ate a half portion of pasta carbonara made by my roommate but that got finished by all of us.)
Day 2 lunch: Curried turkey with a simple risotto and mini puff pastries
Day 2 dinner: Curried turkey with risotto, salad dressed with lemon juice, oregano and salt
Day 3 lunch: Cold Curried turkey and peas sandwich on fresh Italian bread
Day 4 dinner: Curried turkey reheated with peas with plain white rice, salad with tomatoes, mozarella and balsamic vinegar
Day 5 lunch: Curried turkey with peas and plain white risotto, salad with balsamic vinegar and baked onion rings with mayonnaise or balsamic vinegar.

Mind you, the curried turkey is kind of heavy in its cream sauce and also has a lot of strong flavor components making it difficult to pair with a lot of ingredients (if I had made an excess of grilled or roasted turkeyI would probably maked a grilled chicken and turkey sandwich with tomato soup on the side). My goal was to lighten the meal and finish up the leftovers. I still have quite a bit left though... Soo I'll just keep updating this until it's all gone. Luckily I'm very, very good at creative.

~Raspberry Truffle