Leftover Tuesday: Stir Fry

I remember having stir fry frequently growing up (is that accurate Mom?). Now that I'm a grown-up, I'm a little like, "Well, duh." Because it can happily incorporate lots of leftovers into its satisfying realm.

This week we have a bunch of chicken, rice, vegetables, and a bunch of peas in the garden (how awesome is that).

If you're using fresh veggies, you'll put them in with the oil and seasonings and give them a few minutes to cook. But you can use not-too-mushy leftover vegetables as well. You'll just cook them until warm and voila--you'll have yourself a 5-minute meal.

Another great thing about a nice Americanized stir fry is that you can use fresh spices if you've got them, but dry spices will work just fine for it too.

I like just about any meat in a stir fry, except ground meats. You can also add nuts. Cashews are my favorite, but I like it with peanuts or almonds too. I like just about any vegetables in my stir-fry. Here are a few of my favorites: carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, asparagus, peas.

What I did:

Cut chicken and let it sit in some soy sauce while you chop your vegetables. This applies if your chicken is raw or cooked (mine was already cooked).

Heat 1-2 Tbsp oil (I use olive) in a skillet. When hot, add a dash of onion powder, garlic powder and a small dash of ginger powder. If using cooked chicken and raw veggies (as I was), throw the vegetables in first and let them cook until tender but still crisp. Douse them with a shake or two of soy sauce or teriyaki sauce or plum sauce. If your chicken is raw, add it first (with the soy sauce) and cook until no longer pink. If everything's already cooked, throw it all in (with soy sauce and another asian-ish sauce if desired) together and heat it up.

When all is cooked, taste for seasonings.

If you'd like your stir fry to be saucy (I always did as a kid), add a bit of water (so that it's just 1/4 inch deep in the skillet), heat to boiling (which will only take a minute) and then add 1 tsp corn starch that has been mixed with 1 Tbsp water. Add to skillet and stir until somewhat thickened.

And you're done.

Leftover Tuesday: Beef, Potato, Cheddar Hash

What exactly is a "hash?" It is some kind of potato--usually cubed and fried. Mixed with some kind of meat. And maybe some vegetables. It is, in short, a mishmash of foods thrown into a hot oiled skillet and cooked together. Sounds like a leftover night gold mine to me.

This week we had a small portion of roast beef--not even enough for one man serving, a few leftover potatoes and carrots from the roast. We also had 2 raw potatoes, some mustard dip, some paprika lemon dip, spaghetti sauce, and ricotta cheese. I decided it could not all be combined, but that many of the meaty, potato-y things could. (If I'd wished, I'm sure I could have gone the Italian route and made something like baked spaghetti with the ricotta and sauce. We'll have to do that another day.)

This is what I did.

1. Peeled and cut the potatoes into small cubes
2. Heated some oil in a skillet.
3. Cooked the potatoes until done and crispy. I actually had to put a lid on the pan for a few minutes to get them done all the way through. I'm pretty sure this is bad potato frying technique and I apologize. Maybe my potatoes should have been smaller or my stove not so hot.
4. When they were done and browned, I threw in my leftover roast (chopped small) and my leftover vegetables. I warmed it through and tasted. I was unimpressed.
5. I added salt and the paprika lemon dip, which I'll get to soon on this blog and which is beyond amazing with potatoes. Even with the most delicious potato dip ever, I was not impressed.
6. I added some sour cream, mixed it all up and topped it with cheddar cheese and let that melt. I figured this couldn't go wrong.

The verdict: I still didn't really like it. I don't know why. I don't know how you can go wrong with potatoes, meat, sour cream, and cheese. Maybe it was my lousy potato frying method. Maybe it was the pineapple I'd eaten just before dinner had thrown my taste buds off (pineapple does that to me sometimes; does this happen to anybody else:). Maybe I should have added some bacon from the freezer. At any rate, this meal was not floating my boat. I had a small portion, a salad, and then some ricotta to fill up. Kip, however, LOVED this. He had a huge serving and then finished off what was left in the pan. The point (which is different sometimes from the verdict): Whether my version was perfect or not, a mash can be a great way to combine meat, potatoes, and vegetables. I'll be trying it again.

Leftover Tuesday: Butternut-Carrot-Coconut Soup

Today's an itchy-to-be-outside kind of a day. Bright, sunny, chilly. That's how this soup sort of strikes me: bright, warm, but not too heavy.

Our players this week were 2 carrots whose ends were getting a little sketchy, some leftover cooked butternut squash (and it wasn't a great squash--a little bland and old tasting), 1/4 of an onion, and about 1/2 can coconut milk (which I forgot to photograph because I'm like that). 

To that I added a bit of butter, curry, cumin, pepper, and a bit of chicken broth. 

Here's what I did:

1. Melt butter in a pot. Add diced onion and diced carrots and cook for about 5 minutes. 

2. Add spices and cook 30 seconds or so until fragrant. 

3. Add butternut, coconut milk. Cook until nice and thick. 

4. Add 1 C chicken broth. If you need more, add it. Cook until all vegetables are tender. 

5. Puree until smooth (If putting in a blender, use a hot pad on top so it doesn't spray out.)

That's it. It was done. It was easy. I did find myself upping the spices at the end and wishing I'd had a bigger chunk of onion. Also, it didn't taste as coconut-y as I thought/hoped it would. Nevertheless, a perfectly decent meal made from things that hadn't been too stunning on their own. One of the many things I love about leftover Tuesday. 

Leftover Tuesday: Taco Pie

This one wasn't quite a beauty queen. Kip confessed while dishing up his second large helping that he had not been, shall we say, very excited about eating it. But eat it he did. And eat more he did. And Kip is not one to eat 2 large helpings unless he darn well wants to eat 2 large helpings. 

I confess that even I had my doubts about it. But first let's meet the players. 

We had 1 1/2 normal tortilla shells, 1 spinach tortilla shell, 1/4 avocado that was looking a little sketchy, some homemade refried beans, about 4 small sweet peppers, and 8 oz or so of sour cream that I'd frozen. When I took the sour cream out of the freezer and dethawed it, it separated (thin skim-milk looking stuff vs chunky ricotta looking stuff) and was just a little, um, odd. These were our leftovers.

We also had some taco seasoning and cheese on hand. I could have stopped there and made a perfectly decent taco pie. But I knew I was up against a tough crowd and we also had a roll of refrigerated crescent roll dough (yeah, not a whole food, but a little weakness I sometimes indulge in), some canned olives and some canned chicken. 

This is what I did:

1. Spread the crescent rolls out on the bottom of a pie pan. Just squeeze and press till they stick together and look crust-ish. I could have used the burrito shells as the crust of my pie and I almost did, but I knew Kip would like the crescent rolls better and I had an experiment in mind for the shells that I wanted to try out. 

2. Combine 2-3 Tbsp taco seasoning with enough beans to spread generously on the crust (I'm guessing 1-1/2 C, but I forgot to measure). Spread this generously on the crust. 

3. Top with meat if you've got any. Again with Kip in mind, I used some canned chicken--only about 1/2 can of it, so it was just a little something there for texture and a bit more flavor. 

4. Put sour cream on top of this. As I said above, my sour cream was wonky from being frozen, but it tasted normal and I figured cooking would help it be normal. It did, though it was still runnier than usual. And I learned that you can freeze sour cream if you plan to cook with it or something like that, but not if you wish to use it to spread or dip things in. 

5. Top with olives or vegetables if you've got them. If they're a firm vegetable like peppers, you may want to saute them in a bit of butter or oil first to soften them.

6. Top with a generous layer of cheese. I used cheddar. 

7. At this point, I could have put my pie in the oven and all would have been well, but I wanted to fry up those tortilla shells in order to make a sort of "homemade" nacho. I'd never actually done this before, though I'd seen it done. Oh my. I'm so glad I tried because those little boogers were super tasty. It took a little willpower to preserve a few for the top of my taco pie. To do it, add a thin layer of oil (like canola) to a pan (like cast iron), but up the tortillas into the size you want and let them cook in the oil until golden on each side. Then let them sit on a paper-towel lined plate. 

8. Throw this in the oven and bake at 350 or 375 for 20-30 minutes or until the cheese is starting to brown and things are starting to bubble.

9. Ideally after you take it out of the oven, you should let it sit for 15 minutes or so to set. But we were starving. We cut right into it and it came out of the pan not like pie, but rather like glop. Big brown spoonfulls of it. I can assure that my kids were absolutely cheering with joy at the prospect of eating such a culinary delight. And at this point, I confess that even I was having some doubts. But then I diced some avocado on top of it and I ate it. And my doubts fled. It was really good. Kip and I ate a bunch and then we ate leftovers the next day. They were really good too. If there's one thing I love, it's getting leftovers from my leftovers. Oh yeah. 

Leftover Tuesday: French Toast Done Right

Leftover night this week wasn't looking too stunning. The odds and ends we had lurking in the refrigerator were mostly ends, meaning they were prepared meals like spaghetti, bowtie salad, etc. Things like this are great for leftover nights in general--you just plop them on the table and let people eat buffet-style. But they're not perfect for a blog post in which I brilliantly throw things together to create something else--oh, look, I made sesame mandarin orange spaghetti marinara beef stroganoff casserole--yum. We did have, however, some a couple of types of bread--one of which had been fairly unpopular on its own, even with me (I messed up my soda bread somehow--it came out flat and weird). Both kind were homemade and free-formed, which meant that the end pieces were too small for sandwiches. But they'd be just right for French toast. I knew that with the proper cooking method, even the un-beloved could have its little day in the sun. And it did.

The proper cooking method is, to me, the one described by Molly Wizenberg. I like to think of it as the sort-of-like-donuts-without-calling-it-donuts method. Because, you see, you don't exactly cook these puppies in a pat of low-fat margarine.

Here's how it goes.

1. First of all, Wizenberg's milk/egg mixture is milkier than mine used to be. This works especially well with thick breads like mine or other artesian-style. Yet no matter what kind of bread you use, it's nice because it keeps our French toast from coming out of the pan with an egg-like casing cooked all around.

Wizenberg recommends 1 C milk to 4 eggs. This is just about perfect. She also adds a bit of vanilla and a Tbsp sugar to the mix. I also like to add a couple shakes of cinnamon. I like this because, as a grown up, it means I can eat these on their own if I want or with just a bit of jam or cream or powdered sugar. I didn't last night, but I could have. Of course your kids will still slather it with syrup, so if you need to feel like a good parent, go ahead and leave out the Tbsp sugar.

2. Get a cast iron skillet or something equally sturdy and awesome. Heat a good layer of oil (I use canola) in that pan. No no no, not a teaspoon. But not 4 cups either. You want it to cover the bottom of the skillet. The oil should not be smoking, but it should be hot enough to make the French toast sizzle a bit--just a bit. If it's too hot, your toast will burn. And that would be tragic.

3. Dunk your odd-ball sized slices into the milk/egg mixture and get them nice and saturated. If you're using sturdy homemade bread, this will take a minute or so. If you're using flimsy sandwich bread, it will take only a few seconds. The bread should not be falling apart when you take it from the milk/egg mixture. Put them in the oil. Cook a couple minutes on each side until they're golden.

4. You can keep these warm in an oven at 200 degrees.

Note: French toast made this way makes for surprisingly good leftovers. I had a couple slices (warmed up in the microwave) this morning with PB for breakfast and it was delicious and satisfying.

The result: This was a great way to use up odds and ends of different breads. It even made my messed up soda bread taste good. It's not necessarily the healthiest meal in the universe, but if you use whole wheat bread (we did) and go light on the sugary toppings (we didn't do as well there), there's really not a lot to feel guilty about. Serve it with a green drink, blueberry soup, or a bunch of sliced fruit.

Leftover Tuesday: Stuffed Mushrooms

The key, I'm discovering to Leftover Tuesday is finding a vehicle for a fair amount of random ingredients. Often it's a grain-based vehicle--a tortilla or bagel or piece of bread. Today it's the humble (yet amazing) mushroom. 

What we had: spaghetti sauce, crushed tomato sauce, a little bit of tuna mixed with Miracle Whip, some apple sauce, hearts of palm, marinated artichoke hearts, mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, 3/4 avocado, 4 deviled egg halves, and some green onions that I forgot to take a picture of. 

When I discovered the mushrooms, I knew I had a win and I separated our food into... 

a) things I thought wouldn't work as well with mushrooms. These things went back in the fridge, except for the applesauce, which I fed to Emma. 

And b) things I thought would be lovely in a stuffed mushroom. (Okay, the eggs wouldn't go in it, but I thought they'd be a nice side for the mushrooms. Also, upon further thought I realized the avocados were a no go as well.

I also had a block of cream cheese and some spinach. I don't feel like I had to add either of those things, but I thought they'd make really nice additions so I did.

What I did:

1. I removed the stems of the mushrooms and chopped those babies up. In fact I chopped everything really tiny.

 2. I threw them into a skillet with a small pat of butter and sauteed them for a few minutes. To this I added the green onions (chopped small) and sauteed. Then I added the artichokes, the hearts of palm, the spinach (1 C--chopped very small), 1 ounce of the cream cheese, and a sprinkle of Parmesan. Oh, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. This was the perfect amount for about 7 mushrooms, which is what we had

3. I stuffed this mixture into the empty mushroom caps (you can see them below). I licked off the spoon. It was a good choice.

4. I placed them on a baking sheet and baked at 375 for 15-20 minutes. 

These were more of a side than a main course. Our main course today was hot dogs roasted over the fire pit. Let's hear a big cheer for spring and for cleaning up the sticks that are all over the yard. With our hot dogs, we had these and the deviled eggs. I also made a salad with the remaining hearts of palm and the avocado, but I was too full for it, so that will be lunch tomorrow.

Other leftovers that might have been good in stuffed mushrooms: a bit of sour cream, vegetables (especially something like broccoli or spinach), onions of many varieties, hash browns, different bits of cheeses, bacon or ham, bread or cracker crumbs, and probably many other things. You want a little bit of something cheesy and creamy and a little bit of something vegetable. And then you can go nuts with the other stuff.

The result:
They were very very good. Yeah, I know I keep saying that about the stuff I make for Leftover Tuesday, but I swear it's true. Don't worry; one of these days I'm going to blow it good.
-Besides the fact that they tasted just awesome, they were also not so over the top unhealthy as some stuffed mushrooms can be. The cream cheese and the Parmesan cheese were mostly there just to hold the veggies (about 2 C when raw and unchopped) together. That means that for each mushroom, you got the equivalent of  what would have been 1/4 C vegetables (if they were raw and not cooked/wilted) stuffed into that tiny one-mushroom space. And then you were eating the mushrooms too.
-The only problem with this leftover meal is that, while it used the leftovers we had, it didn't really use them up. I still had artichokes, hearts of palm, and the avocado (not to mention the leftovers that didn't make the mushroom cut). Also, I ended up opening a bag of spinach and using just a bit of cream cheese. I didn't have to, but I do think those two ingredients took these from being okay to being over the top delicious. I think I'll make spinach artichoke dip this week with the rest of the cream cheese, the spinach and our leftover artichoke hearts. And I just bought some lettuce and so can use the avocado and hearts of palm in very good ways. So it all works out. Still, the stuffed mushrooms weren't as completely efficient as, say, a burrito shell at using up all the stuff we've got. Nevertheless I count this as a total success and wish I had more mushrooms right now. They were delicious.

Leftover Tuesday: Bagel Melts with Curry Roasted Vegetables on the side

This week was tricky. We didn't have much to work with.

Here you see (clockwise starting at left) some green onions that were getting sketchy up top, about 1/2 C spaghetti with sauce, some leftover Ranch chicken (1/4-1/2 C), the rest of that darned head of cauliflower (it can hang on surprisingly long), a bit of hamburger that we'd used in the spaghetti (1/4-1/2 C), half a head of broccoli, 1 Tbsp or so pesto, and some brie cheese, which I was really hoping to use, but that had been hanging around for too long and which ended up in the garbage because it was stanky. We also had some plain spaghetti sauce and a couple of pancakes from breakfast that I forgot in the picture.

Kip looked at our paltry leftover offerings and casually said, "I'm hungry; do you think that's going to be enough?" I told him to have faith in leftover Tuesday. And then, struck with the inspiration that so often besets the believing (forgive the irreverent humor, eh), I remembered we had two lonely bagels hanging out in the freezer. We also had some cheddar to take the place of our stankified brie. And some mushrooms I'd just bought on sale that could fill in any gaps that our paltry meat toppings would leave. And so we had bagel melts (2 with mushrooms for me, one with chicken and one with beef for Kip--yes, it could have all been mixed, but Kip hates mushrooms) with curry roasted vegetables on the side. And in keeping with my irreverent metaphor on faith, let me say that we actually ended up with too much food (a la Jesus and his baskets of bread). But don't worry, just like Jesus told his disciples to gather up that bread, we gathered up our leftover leftovers too. I'm looking forward to a lovely lunch as a result.

What I Did:

-First off, I took advantage of those pancakes. Elizabeth and Savannah each had one (they were 100% whole wheat, okay).

-Secondly, I took advantage of that spaghetti sauce and made a small pot of spaghetti to go with it. Mark, Savannah, and Emma all had some of that.

-For the curried vegetables, I chopped up the cauliflower and broccoli, drizzled them with olive oil and then sprinkled them generously with salt, pepper, and curry. I roasted them at 400 for about 20 minutes (tossing after ten minutes). I do wish I'd chopped them smaller, so they would have had more flavor per bite. If you do chop yours smaller, watch the oven because they can burn quicker.

-For the bagel melts, I got the mushrooms cooking first. I sliced the mushrooms and put them in a skillet with a good Tbsp butter. I let them simmer until they'd released their liquids and were turning golden. I could have stopped there and consumed the whole delicious pan. But I didn't.
-While the mushrooms cooked and the vegetables roasted, I toasted 4 bagels halves. I then put the cheddar on them and put this under the broiler for just a minute or two until the cheese had melted.
-When all this cooking, toasting, and roasting was almost complete, I shredded my cubed chicken and warmed it up. I also warmed the hamburger up. I was tempted to toss them together, but thought Kip would prefer them separate, which he did.
-Once these toppings were ready, I threw them on the melted cheese bagels. I added some chopped green onion to my mushroom melts. And we consumed them, yes we did.

The result: The melts were awesome, especially the chicken and mushroom ones. Kip didn't love the hamburger one (would have been better with the pesto, but Kip doesn't like pesto), but it was certainly edible. Also, we managed to use up all these little bits of leftovers in a fairly cohesive meal, which was nice. (Except the green onions, which we just used a bit of--anybody got great ideas for green onions?) We did have to pimp the meal up with some other food, although the only non-leftovers we used were cheese and half a pint of mushrooms. Not bad. I still have a bagel half and some roast vegetables to be reheated for lunch. And I sent a bit of leftover spaghetti to school with Mark.

Leftover Tuesday: Chicken Pot Mini's

I wasn't sure what I was going to make today. I had this lovely little chicken carcass. Okay it's not exactly lovely to the untrained eye, but you see, chicken carcass is to leftover-loving-home-cook what blank canvas is to artist. Namely a world of possibility.

And then my sister-in-law emailed me about a typo in my original pot pie recipe and then I looked at the 2 pot pie recipes on this site. And then I remembered I had just a bit of frozen dough in the freezer.

And then I knew what I was making for dinner. (Incidentally, if making pie crusts really really isn't your thing yet, you could use refrigerated dough for biscuits or croissants to good effect.)

We also had some leftover crock pot vegetables and leftover broth.

We had an itty bit (1/2 C or so) of rice that had to be thrown out. We had cauliflower that was looking a little dodgy and cilantro that definitely needed some attention.

We had open bags of green onions, spinach, carrots, and potatoes, which I didn't end up using because I was short on time (as it was I ended up eating (while Kip drove) my pot pie in the car--way better than a Big Mac) and thus couldn't add more chopping time to my evening. A few more veggies would have been nice because more veggies are always a good thing, but now they're there for another time.

These pot pies were completely awesome. And using leftovers to assemble them made them a quick meal to put together instead of the somewhat fussy production that pot pie sometimes is.

Here's what I did for 4 mini pot pies:

1. First I pulled off the good chicken off the carcass--there was a surprising amount--probably about 1 1/2 C shredded chicken.
2. Then I melted 2 Tbsp butter.
3. While it was melting, I chopped the dodgy parts off my cauliflower and then chopped it super small (so as to hide its presence--Kip doesn't love cauliflower). I threw it in with the butter to saute.

3. As it sauteed, I chopped up the leftover roast vegetables.
4. Once the cauliflower was tender (which only takes about 3-4 minutes when it's that small), I added 4 Tbsp flour to the mix, which made this very thick and gloppy and scary looking. I also added about 1/2 tsp dried tarragon. I was going to add the cilantro, but wimped out. Kip doesn't really like cilantro, and even I wasn't sure how well it would pair with chicken in a pot pie. (I ended up taking it's good leaves off and freezing them; cilantro freezes quite well.) Tarragon goes really well with chicken, especially creamy chicken.
5. Add 3/4-1 C chicken broth. My broth was homemade and on the sweet side since it was mixed with some white grape juice from Sunday's roast chicken. I added salt and pepper here as well. This thickened up quickly and then I added 2 Tbsp cream and 2 Tbsp milk (4 Tbsp half and half would have worked great).

(Sorry for the imperfect pictures. I was losing light fast.)

6. I put it in the ramekins.
7. I topped it (and yes, I only topped it--these had no crusts on bottom) with the a tiny ramekin sized crust (which is so crazy much easier to work with that I might have found a new way to make my pies in the future) and gave it a few small air vents. Voila.

8. I baked at 375 for about 15 minutes and then upped the temp to 400 because that's what professionals do. Ha ha, just a little joke there. I upped it to 400 because Kip and I were going on a date and I had to leave in, like, 10 minutes, so I cheated and things worked out fine, which just goes to show that cheaters totally win. But only on leftover night, okay.

The result: These were excellent--just really really good. My only complaint about them is that with the slightly sweet broth and the tarragon (which is a mild herb that has an almost sweetness to it), the pot pie could have used some kind of kick to it as a counterpoint. I'm not quite sure what it needed--maybe a dash of cayenne or some white pepper or some chopped peppers or something. Nevertheless some of the best leftovers ever and I can't wait to eat another one of these babies tomorrow.

Leftover Night: Chicken Rice Wraps

This was a real winner of a leftover night. It was soooo good. Granted we had some really good players this week: leftover chicken tikka masala, a bit of avocado, and even some cilantro on hand.

Here's the cast of characters:

We had cilantro, 4-5 canned artichoke hearts, a little bit of brown rice, chicken tikka masala, 1/4 of an avocado, and basmati rice. We also had part of a cauliflower head that I forgot to include in the picture. In all truthfulness, we had some other stuff too, like some leftover spaghetti sauce and some leftover mac and cheese. I didn't take a picture because I knew I wouldn't use them for this meal, but next week I think I'll take a picture of all our leftovers so you can get an idea of what I end up choosing to put together.

I knew these things would be pretty good put together, though I wasn't sure how the artichoke hearts would do. (I ended up not really even noticing they were there--not sure if that's a good thing or not). I was also a little worried because I'd planned to add sour cream to this (we had had a few tablespoons that I knew were nearing expiration), but apparently Kip had eaten them with his chicken the night before. I was worried we'd need some kind of a sauce. In the end, this was just fine with the seasoning from the chicken. However, a little Ranch dressing (a home-mixed kind; we don't usually love the bottled Ranch) drizzled on was pretty dang good too. Finally, I knew I'd need to hide the cauliflower because I knew it wouldn't go over well, but good heavens, you can't just eat rice and chicken for dinner. Okay, you can, but I feel better about myself when I add more vegetables to the mix.

To make the wraps:

1. Heat a small bit of oil in a frying pan.

2. Chop your cilantro (a generous handful), artichoke hearts, and cauliflower (I chopped my cauliflower into tiny tiny pieces because it was my purely evil intention to hide it in that rice--worked like a charm by the way). Shred your chicken.

3. Add cauliflower or any other firm vegetables you're using to the oil. Add a bit of salt. Stir fry until tender. Add cooked rice to the pan. I used all the brown rice and some of the white rice. Let it sort of fry a la fried rice. Add chicken to the pan. Let it heat through. Add any leafy stuff. I added the cilantro here, but you could also add spinach leaves if you've got some of that hanging around looking pitiful.

4. You can serve this as is, or wrap it as we did in a tortilla shell. Serve with avocado slices and perhaps a drizzle of Ranch dressing.

Note: The chicken tikka masala was very flavorful and spicy. If you're working with chicken or meat that is less punchy, you might want to add some appropriate spices to the oil at the beginning.

The verdict:

We liked this better than we'd liked the original meal of chicken tikka masala. The rice toned down the spicy chicken and the vegetables mixed in/hidden in the rice added a nice something something to the meal. Kip wanted more even after it was gone. Awesome.

Leftover Tuesday: Fried Rice

Fried rice is a perfect leftover meal. You need rice, vegetables, soy sauce, and oil. A bit of ginger doesn't hurt (the powdered kind works great). After that you can stop. Or you can add more stuff if you have it. A little meat is nice. Eggs make it good too.

If you have leftover everything, this is a 10-minute meal. If you've got to make your rice or meat, it'll take you 30 minutes, which still isn't bad.

We had a little bit of pork (only about 1/3 C), some eggs, and some random vegetables--some spinach, some broccoli, and a couple carrots.

(Sorry, forgot to take a picture with the pork.)

Here's how you do it. I'm giving these instructions as a leftover meal. If you want an actual recipe, go here. And of course, if you need to cook your rice, do so. 

1. Chop your vegetables (I chop mine really small, but you don't have to).

2. Heat 1 Tbsp oil on medium heat in wok or large skillet. Add ginger powder, garlic powder, onion powder, and pepper. (Of course, you can use actual ginger, garlic, and onions if you wish. And you don't have to use that combo of spices; you can use whatever spices you have, though I really do encourage the ginger.) Let them cook until fragrant (about 30 seconds). 

3. Add chopped vegetables to the oil. Add soy sauce. Be generous, but not crazy (let's say to start with 1/2 tablespoon). Cook until tender, but not soggy. (Note: You can use cooked vegetables if you've got those leftover too. Just heat through.) Add cooked meat if you've got it. Remove veggies and meat to a plate.  

4. If using eggs, add another tablespoon oil. Crack an egg or three into it. Add 1-2 teaspoons soy sauce and then scramble the eggs. Add them to your vegetables on the plate. 

5. Heat more oil (this is fried rice remember)--about 2-3 tablespoons--it should coat the bottom of your wok generously, but it doesn't need to be thick or deep. Add your cooked rice. Add soy sauce and plenty of it--start with a few good shakes and taste. You can add more ginger if you wish. You can add oyster sauce or plum sauce (my favorite) if you've got one or the other. If you don't, you might want to sprinkle a bit of sugar in to balance out the salty acidity of the soy sauce. Taste the rice and adjust seasoning. 

6. Add the reserved vegetables, meat, and eggs to the rice and stir it in. Make sure everything's hot and adjust the seasonings if needed. Serve hot. 

Leftover Tuesday: Baked Spaghetti

If you were with us last Friday, you may have noticed that, in a sad bid for attention, I have taken to criticizing shows I've never actually seen, and proposing what I consider better ideas on this blog. Next thing you know, I'll be showing up on reality TV. Or worse--vicious ads for potential Republican nominees. But for now, we'll just stick to this blog. And we'll begin doing Leftover Tuesdays because, frankly, I think they're a fabulous idea. Leftovers are cheap, easy, practical, environmentally friendly. Oh yeah, and potentially quite tasty too.

For Leftover Tuesday we'll be showcasing some of the less-than-perfectly appetizing leftovers hanging out in my fridge and making something (hopefully) lovely and respectable and delicious out of them. See, it really is like reality TV (minus the backstabbing). Only it's like reality TV meets the food channel and then gets a nip and a tuck. Wow, what more could you ask for? Except some vicious political advertisements of course.

Meet the stars of our show today.

Leftover spaghetti sauce:

Leftover spaghetti:

Which actually came out in a gelatinous mound when removed from its container.

It's spaghetti...It's modern art...It's Leftover Tuesday.

An assortment of cheeses--some from the freezer and one from the fridge (on Sunday when I made this, I used mozzarella and Parmesan, but I forgot to take a picture, so you're seeing what I'd use if I made this tonight, which I might):

Cream:

A few slices of frozen bacon:

I also used a can of olives that I had in the pantry, though you wouldn't have to.

How'd I Make It?

I cooked the bacon good and crispy. Then I drained it and chopped it small. While it was cooking, I mixed the spaghetti sauce with about 1/2 C cream. I added the bacon and some chopped olives to this sauce. Then I mixed the sauce with the spaghetti and spread it out in a 9x13 inch pan (you could easily use a smaller pan if you had less leftovers than we did). I topped it with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese (I had about 1 or 1 1/2 C of mozzarella and a few Tbsp of Parmesan). I baked it until it was good and bubbly at the sides and the cheeses were melted and just beginning to brown.

We served it with a salad made from the rest of the olives, 1 carrot, 1 1/2 head of Romaine lettuce and some spinach. And a friend brought over some bread, which we sliced and spread with butter and garlic for a quick garlic bread. Done and done.

How'd it turn out?

Very well. Which is a good thing. Because--oh boy, here's a confession for you--we fed it to friends. Good friends. Friends I invited to dinner on a whim on Sunday. Friends who have 5 kids. Dinner was set for 1 hour after church ended. I needed speed. I needed volume. And kid-friendly-ness. And good-tasting-ness. This delivered all of that.

What could have been better? 

The spaghetti was a bit overcooked the first time around. Had we kept it al dente as good spaghetti ought to be, it would have been better in our leftovers. As it was, it was a little mushy for my tastes, though Kip said he prefers it that way (proving once and for all that, when it comes to food, he is actually a four-year-old stuck in a man's handsome body).

What else could have been used to good effect in this dish?

A lot of stuff.

You NEED some kind of pasta and some kind of sauce and some kind of cheese.

You could have used a variety of cheeses: ricotta, feta, mozzarella, cheddar, jack, whatever you had really.

You could have used a variety of meats or none at all. I used bacon because it was ALL I had. It worked nicely, but chicken, hamburger, sausage, even pepperoni would have worked well too.

We used olives from the pantry to jazz it up a bit. Other vegetables that would have been good include peppers, onions, carrots, spinach, even capers.

A creamy something is nice in baked spaghetti. We had some open cream and thus used that in the sauce. But you could have used cream cheese mixed into the sauce (I often find myself with a couple random ounces leftover from making something else). You also could have topped the spaghetti (before adding the cheese) with can-of-something-or-other soup or a basic white sauce seasoned with pepper or whatever for added creaminess. Or you could have done without added creaminess all together.

You also could have sprinkled the top with bread crumbs, cracker crumbs, or potato chip crumbs.

It's versatile. It's fun. It's incredibly sexy (maybe) while still being kid-friendly (maybe). It's Leftover Tuesday.