Here’s a better way to handle that huge holiday credit card bill then calling the Bank Of The World. Three ways to use up those leftovers with what you’ve already got in the fridge, starting with a full 15 toppings to dress up those cool deviled eggs, just don’t use too much — or too little. Can’t manage money so well? You can manage the snack department.

So just when you thought the merriment and the leftovers that come with it are toast, so to speak, there’s the lingering possibility of yet another holiday party, such as maybe even the one for your office, if Covid does not take root — so another fruitcake. Or more Christmas cookies. Both with crust getting way too “crispy.”
Even now, after that latest shindig, you may find yourself with leftover foodstuffs that although favorites do not really combo-up foodwise — except in Joe’s brain. Here’s how to make the most of many of them, again by supplementing with what’s in your fridge already, although its maybe a stretch, moreso than your burning off New Year’s fat with fitness.
We’ll start with those deviled eggs, oh so cool, that just need their tartness rehabbed. Top with just a bit of my favorite, horseradish, and in this case the sauce is better than the straight minced vegetable. Or possibly bacon bits, and maybe for this example try to use the real ones, or thin ham slices. Finely diced red bell peppers, or the same scant texture of their lookalike, pimento anyone? Or just a touch of the green bell variety. And how about onion chopped very small. A tad of curry? Or in the realm of so hot its cool, hot sauce/chipotle. Cauliflower bits also for those bold, and celery, with a dab of ranch dressing gleaned from your favorite buffalo wings dish and then spread?
If cookies are plain and hardened, or you have only vanilla wafers, drizzle with honey or even maple syrup, (only have pancake variety?) or both, top with cinnamon or brown sugar or both, then heat in the microwave 25 seconds so they all mingle, but don’t got lost in your last Christmas carol and heat them so long they get too soft. The same treatment can be given Graham crackers in the morning. And now this in, from Keanu Reeves, add peanut butter that is preferred to be crunchy not creamy, and OK, he is not in my office being interviewed, he’s on TV with Stephen Colbert.
Plain tortilla chips — sans the salsa you used up — can be just that, so in an odd couple indeed, break those and also potato chips into pieces and mix into the same large bowl, flavors such as garlic and onion, sour cream and cheddar, dill pickle (with a bit of actual dill seed or mustard seed sprinkled on if you’ve got it), and a much smaller portion of big-flaked BBQ. Two flavors in your mouth are better than one, and also three if your eyes by now are too bleary to decipher. (Can we call it trail mix?)
All this may not please the youngsters, and you are at wit’s end, unstress through catharsis by taking in the band Them Pesky Kids this Friday, Jan. 14 at Ziggy’s. I’d bet a combo of Beastie Boys and Ugly Kid Joe, and a hefty dose of Kid Rock. Then its Audio Circus the following night, and when staff along with owner were putting up prominent promo posters mid-week, they were folded as to spell out the last three letters and form “Dio.” I doubt there will be that much metal.