Making Your Holiday Meals Last

Holiday leftovers need be anything but, and many families will battle over who gets to take home the sandwich makings, stuffing and desserts. With the good food, you also share the festive spirit, keeping it alive even after family members have flown back across the country. But to get the most of your meal both during and after, as well as cut down a bit on the heaviest foods, try some of these tips.

Portion Size

Reorganize your dinner plate: Relegate the meat to a supporting role and prepare an extra vegetable dish or two, and let them become the main attraction. You can still enjoy a traditional meal using the meat as a garnish, a tasty morsel to savor and not the focal point.

Don't just bulk up on the vegetables; highlight them. When entertaining guests, we often pull out all the stops, spending extravagantly on expensive meats and gourmet treats and then we microwave some broccoli and toss it on the table alongside those mouth-watering pleasures. No wonder it gets left behind. Make sure that your vegetable dishes are special and delicious and your guests will clamor for more.

Adding extra vegetable dishes takes some of the stress off your wallet as well. We all suffer the fear of having too little food for the hordes of holiday diners that fill our tables, and far too often, the solution is to buy a bigger turkey. Don't throw your money away. Buy the smaller turkey or order a few pounds less brisket than you think you need and serve a mountain of healthy and filling vegetables instead.

And finally, adding low calorie vegetable dishes to your menu will take stress off your pant seams! We all worry about gaining weight over the holidays, but you don't have to when you switch saturated fat- and calorie-laden meat dishes with vitamin and fiber rich vegetables. (Just make sure that the vegetable recipes you choose aren't dripping with butter, melted cheese and heavy cream.)

Use Those Leftovers

Don't throw away turkey and ham bones from holiday meals. Bones are packed with great flavor. Simmered in water with a few vegetables, herbs and spices, they will create a stock that can be used as the base for mouthwatering soups and stews. As for your leftover turkey breast and drumsticks, even small amounts of meat can be tossed with grains and vegetables to make a satisfying meal.

So do your wallet, your waistline and the environment a favor by eating a little less and getting a lot more out of what you cook.

Trish Lobenfeld, an Instructor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Public Health at New York University has contributed the following recipes to get you started.