Yesterday's Gone

Yesterday was Easter, and yesterday's gone.

Several years ago I learned from a wonderful doctor that holidays were meant to be enjoyed. She was very strict about nutrition most of the time, but all rules were suspended on holidays. Ham with sweet potatoes? Butter on the rolls and sour cream ambrosia salad? Ice cream with the pie? You bet! and I'll have another glass of wine, please.

But now it's the next day, and the refrigerator is stuffed with fabulous leftovers. There's that ham, which is awfully good cold, with mustard and some cold asparagus. That would be nice and healthy. But there are also mushrooms slick with butter. Potato salad, thick with eggs and mayonnaise. Half of a strawberry pie, two quarts of ice cream and half a dozen hot cross buns. It was all fair game yesterday, but . . . but . . . yesterday's gone.

So the Easter ham has been deconstructed into parcels appropriate labeled "slices," "chunks" and "soup bone." The buns will freeze nicely, to appear on some future Sunday brunch with omelets and a few of the ham slices. But what can I do with those buttery mushrooms, and all the other leftovers that would blow my daily calorie count through the roof?

One solution, I know, is to avoid the leftover problem completely by dining out on holidays. Let's just say that I enjoy cooking too much for that to be an option. So I think I'll offer you a challenge:

Here is the population of my Day-After-the-Holiday refrigerator.  Click on "Comments" and let us all know how you'd use them without having to invest in larger Levis.

Potato Salad - about 2 cups
Hard Cooked Eggs - 8
Candied Yams - about 3 servings
Corn Pudding - 1 1/2 cups
Mushrooms Caps with butter - 1 cup (heaping)
Roasted Asparagus - 9 stalks
7 Soft Dinner Rolls
Ambrosia Salad (mini-marshmallows, coconut, sour cream)
Double Crust Berry Pie - half a pie