Leftovers, the freezer, and dinner

Here's what we had for dinner this Tuesday. I had gotten a crown put on that afternoon, so my face was numb up into the scalp, and I really didn't want to make any effort to cook whatever. John got home later than usual after a send-off for a departing colleague. And yet we sat down to eat full, satisfying plates filled with four different dishes after maybe twenty minutes total in the kitchen. How? Through the magic of leftovers.

I made the kale salad and baked the cornbread on Monday night. The sweet potatoes were waiting in the freezer. The only things not actively left over were our sausages--chicken and sun-dried tomato for me, vegetarian andouille for John--and mine were in the freezer for long-term consumption nonetheless.

We had an excellent dinner, and you can too.

I made these mashed sweet potatoes mirepoix for Thanksgiving and froze them for an occasion just like this. To warm them up, I popped them out of their container in one big frozen brick, deposited them in a saucepan with a splash of water, added a lid, and put the pan over medium-high heat. After fifteen minutes, everything was entirely hot. I took the lid off the pot, lowered the heat, and let the extra liquid steam off before serving. Zero effort; 100% flavor.

The kale salad was super simple: raw kale massaged with vinaigrette. The dressing was just olive oil, chive blossom vinegar, dijon mustard, and a few grinds of salt and pepper. Since I'd dressed the salad the night before, I didn't need to do anything to the greens but pile them on the plate.

That's right! Raw kale salads do not suffer when kept overnight in their dressing. I don't know about you, but I basically had my jaw on the floor when I realized this. Leftover salad that isn't a mass of sad brown goo! How could this be? We've eaten WAY more winter salad since then, which should come as no surprise.

So I chopped up the almonds for last-minute garnish, and that was it. Beautiful, delicious salad!

The cornbread was actually a double shot of food preservation goodness. It was left over from the night before, yes, but guess where the jalapenos came from? That's right--I used the last of a jar of my pickled garden jalapenos. Hooray! I threw a couple pieces in the toaster oven to warm through before serving, and that was it.

All I actually had to cook were our sausages, which were easy enough. Defrost in hot water, slice, brown on both sides in separate frying pans, and serve. Five minutes on the heat and they were done.

And that's how we were able to finish our dinners and be ready to relax by 7 pm on a weeknight.

Using leftovers: a tiny guide

• It's clearly a good idea to make enough of certain dishes to just eat them again the next day. Baked goods, casseroles, a whole roast: you can just eat these with minimal effort. This is a particularly good plan if you pack a lunch for work.
  
• If you can freeze your leftovers, do it! That way you'll have an emergency backup, but you won't get sick of a particular dish after eating it three days in a row. Soup, tomato sauce, and beans work really well in the freezer.
  
• Simple reheating methods keep food tasting fresh and delicious. Avoid the microwave unless you're heating something like soup, with no texture issue to consider. Stovetop or toaster oven reheats are well worth the minimal effort.
  
• If your leftovers are supposed to be eaten cold, that's all the better. Things like grain salads are a good idea here.
  
• Minor bits of garnish can go a long way toward making leftover dishes seem brand-new. Nuts, ground pepper, snipped herbs, hot sauce, yogurt--anything that sounds good to you can work.
  
• And, although this doesn't apply in this particular story, you can always repurpose leftover components into entirely new dishes. Precooked rice, vegetables, beans, or meat are all super useful when you're trying to assemble a salad, burrito, or omelet in no time flat.

How do you use your leftovers? What other tips and tricks work well for you?

Chole palak

The quest for making good Indian food at home is well and certainly on. This week we made Manjula's chole palak, aka chickpeas and spinach, and it was good.

The recipe itself is fairly simple, and follows a pattern I've started to see as I learn to actually cook Indian food instead of relying on restaurants all the time. (Not that we've stopped frequenting the buffet up the street from our house. NOPE.) The secret appears to be frying the spice mixture in oil, so the flavors all leap out dramatically in the finished dish. Sounds good to me.

My only problem was that I hadn't thought ahead and made a yogurt sauce, so I just spooned some straight plain yogurt over my plate to give it some extra creamy dairy action. This worked well, but some additional cucumber and cilantro would have worked even better.

This was filling enough that John and I couldn't eat it all, even with no supplementary sides. Isn't that always how Indian food works out, though? You go to a restaurant, notice that your entree looks pretty tiny, and then can't eat more than half of it without feeling like you're going to burst. Well, that's what happened here as well. So we had leftovers! Hooray!

For my leftover breakfast, I quickly sauteed my chole palak with basmati rice and yogurt, then slid a fried egg on top. This worked amazingly well. I just broke up the egg and stirred everything together, so the yolk melded in almost invisibly and the bits of white provided a nice texture contrast. Who wouldn't want to boost the richness of a fairly austere bean-and-veg dish with a beautiful runny yolk? I ask you.

What new cuisines are you guys taking on?

I win Thanksgiving leftover breakfast!

For Thanksgiving leftover breakfast, I made an omelet. Okay, really it was a scramble. It consisted of egg, mashed potato, chopped olives, artichoke hearts (not from Thanksgiving but in the fridge) and parsley. I grabbed a handful of lettuce and made myself a little side salad with red wine dijon vinaigrette.

Then I put a lot of hot mushroom gravy on my omelet. (Er, scramble.)

What? It was one of the best breakfasts ever.

Three quinoa lunches

What can you make with leftover quinoa in the refrigerator?

Well, you could make fried not-rice by sautéing green onion, mushrooms, and green beans with quinoa, seasoning with red pepper flake, salt, and pepper, adding a handful of greens, and cracking an egg or two into the pan. Scramble to your liking and eat with a handful of torn parsley.

Or you could mix cold quinoa with quartered cooked beets, salad greens, chunks of goat or cream cheese, and lots of black pepper. Voilà: a tasty and practically instant salad. It's a clear winner in the "looks a mess; is delightful" category.

And of course, you could always use your quinoa for its intended purpose: as a base for a bowl of curry, stir-fry, or thick stew. I sautéed mine with sweet potato and lentil curry and a few leaves of chopped red chard.

Hooray! Quinoa wins!

Transforming leftovers: broccoli meatball soup with greens

The broccoli soup of a few weeks back has officially entered our rotation. I've eaten my way through two entire batches, and upped the ingredients for freezer storage. I'm not sure why broccoli purée is so much more appealing to me than whole florets, but I'm not going to question it. Puréed broccoli it is.

While I was at it, I decided to increase the freezer store with a batch of tiny lamb meatballs, inspired by Choosy Beggars' meatballs 101.

Lamb meatballs

Mix 1/2 pound ground lamb with several cloves of finely minced garlic, a similarly finely minced hot pepper, one piece of bread chopped into small pieces (or a big handful of breadcrumbs), a big spoonful of plain yogurt, and some salt and pepper. Roll into meatballs of your chosen size; mine were about an inch in diameter. Bake at 450F for 5-8 minutes, or until cooked through. You can test doneness by breaking open a meatball to check out the color (right before you eat it).

I ate a few meatballs right away in a simple pasta with marinara, but the rest of the batch--probably something like 50 little meatballs--went right into the freezer.

So. With half a batch of broccoli soup in the freezer, I can eat lunch at a moment's notice. With the soup plus a container of frozen lamb meatballs, I can make said lunch even better. And hey, why not throw in some beet greens for good measure?

Broccoli meatball soup with greens

frozen broccoli soup
frozen precooked lamb meatballs
a splash of water
a handful of beet greens (or whatever green you have on hand)
a little bit of parsley

Warm a splash or two of water in a little pan. Add the chunk of frozen soup, cover, and let melt. Check the pot occasionally to make sure you have enough liquid to avoid scorching. I also like to scrape the block of melting broth to speed up the process a little bit.

When your soup has melted completely, bring it to a simmer and add a handful of frozen meatballs. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, or until both soup and meatballs are hot through. In the last minutes or so of cooking, add a handful of washed chopped beet greens. If you want to use other greens, chard, spinach, arugula, or escarole would all be good here. You may want to add particularly tender greens off the heat after your soup is done cooking.

Serve, add some chopped parsley, and eat. Voila! Lunch in under ten minutes!

Transforming leftovers: pan-fried white beans with spinach and yogurt

The other day we made a minimal variation on Heidi's pan-fried white beans for dinner. Essentially, I just softened some chopped onion, garlic, and jalapeño in olive oil, seasoned with salt, pepper, and dried marjoram, and tossed in a bunch of cooked, drained white beans, shaking the pan occasionally to crisp them up on all sides. We ate them for dinner with sautéed soyrizo and a massive pile of green salad.

Afterward, we had a serving or so of beans left over. Hooray! This meant that the next morning I could transform them into tasty white beans and greens for breakfast.

Pan-fried white beans with spinach and yogurt

leftover crispy white beans
olive oil
spinach or other greens
plain yogurt
parsley and/or other herbs
pepper

Fry beans until hot, stirring or shaking the pan occasionally. (You could, of course, start from scratch here if you have no leftovers, but I did have leftovers, so hey!) While the beans are becoming even tastier than before, wash, destem, and roughly chop as much spinach (or other greens) as you want to eat. I like plenty of greens, so I used two solid handfuls of mature leaf spinach. Tender greens like spinach reduce quite a bit when they hit the heat, so it's definitely a good idea to use a lot.

Add the still-wet spinach to your toasty beans. Stir it all together and continue to cook for a minute or two, or until your spinach is completely wilted. The water on the leaves will help with this. If you're using a slightly hardier green, like chard or escarole, you may need to cook for a few minutes longer. If you're using something like kale, you'll definitely need to add a little water and keep cooking for a good five minutes.

Done! Plate yourself some white beans and spinach. Add a generous spoonful or two of plain yogurt, some chopped parsley or other herbs of your choice, and some cracked black pepper. The yogurt is actually pretty important, because otherwise the beans are apt to be a bit dry. If you hate yogurt, you may want to try a drizzle of olive oil, a scoop of ricotta, or even a marinara sauce instead.

Now eat! This makes a filling, healthy, and delicious breakfast. It's perfect for those of us who like a savory breakfast, but don't want to end up eating leftover takeout every morning. Not that there's anything wrong with leftover takeout for breakfast! I eat it fairly frequently myself. But you have to admit that transforming your leftovers into a freshly made dish is much more satisfying, right?

Leftover pasta? Fry it!

So the other day I had a big bowl of whole wheat spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, red pepper, and chard for dinner. This went about like you'd think: soften garlic in oil, add chard stems and red pepper, season, cook to soften, add chard leaves, mix with cooked pasta, and eat, parmesan optional. Simple.

Then there were leftovers.

Unlike many people, I love leftover pasta. I love it so much that I will eat it cold out of the fridge. Of course, if I feel like it, I will also mix it with beaten egg, put it in a hot frying pan, and come up with this:

Fried leftover pasta eggy pancake! It is super easy, uses up your otherwise sad leftovers, and takes maybe three minutes of cooking per side. You can be eating a tasty breakfast in well under ten minutes.

You also have the option to chop and add whatever odd bits and pieces of vegetable you have lying around to the pasta and egg before cooking; this way you get even more tasty breakfast. It's a win win win win win.

Cooking the freezer: chicken soup (again)

So the roast chicken we made last October (side note: holy crap, October??) has served us well for an astoundingly long time. Witness yesterday, when I dove into the freezer to pull out our remaining two frozen leg-thigh chunks.

We were out of frozen chicken broth, but that's ok. Veg broth is pretty much always kicking around at our house, and it works just fine for our purposes. Maybe the broth was a little thinner and less gelatinous than chicken broth; so what? It's still delicious. Plus there were actual chunks of chicken, which, you know, make up for it pretty well.

The last time I made freezer chicken soup, it turned into a chowder. This time, I went more toward the French-feeling chicken-mushroom bisque area. I mean, it's not really a bisque (or French), but the ambiance fits. I did, however, use my favorite trick for instantly turning brothy soups into cream-of-awesome: cream cheese.

Chicken, mushroom, & cream cheese soup

onion, shallot
butter
a carrot (& stick of celery if you have any)
half a jalapeño if you need to use one up
a big handful of mushrooms
water &/or vermouth to deglaze
cooked chicken
vegetable broth
salt, pepper, paprika, mustard powder
cream cheese
fresh cilantro/parsley/chives for garnish

First, chop up your onion and shallot and sauté them in butter over medium-high heat. I used half an onion and half a shallot, but it would be fine to mess with the proportions a bit. Mince your jalapeño; scrub and dice your carrot; slice your mushrooms. Add each vegetable to the pot as you finish chopping. Throw in a pinch of salt and let everything brown for five minutes or so, stirring occasionally. Then (or earlier, if the pan gets too hot) add a splash of water or dry vermouth and stir/scrape to deglaze any brown bits sticking to the bottom. This will cool down the pan a bit, so you can leave it to bubble for a minute.

If you happen to be using frozen cooked chicken, you can do what I did and put it in a container of hot tap water to quickly defrost. Then prep your chicken by picking it off the bones, discarding skin and fat, and shredding the meat with your hands. Really get in there so you don't miss any bits and pieces stuck in between the joints. I used most of one chicken leg/thigh combination for two servings of soup; you can use as much as you like.

Add the chicken to the pan. Season with salt, pepper, paprika, and a bit of mustard powder; stir to mix. Then add about two cups of vegetable (or hey! maybe you have chicken!) broth. Mine was frozen, so I just threw the whole chunk into the pot and let it defrost in the heat.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and let simmer for about ten or fifteen minutes, or as long as it takes to reduce the soup to your preferred texture. I covered my pan to start, but cracked the lid for the simmer, since I wanted to let some liquid evaporate off. This worked admirably. By the end of cooking, you should be left with a beautiful golden-brown broth full of mushrooms and chicken. Lovely.

Now for the finishing touches. First, turn the heat down to low. Add a chunk of cream cheese to the pot and stir to distribute. The cream cheese may look a bit grainy at first, but as it heats, it'll melt right in. This won't thicken the broth much at all, but it'll definitely make it more creamy and delicious. Taste for seasonings, and you are done.

Serve your soup with cracked black pepper and chopped herbs on top. I had cilantro, which seems a little odd in retrospect, but was very tasty at the time. Parsley or chives would also work well.

Toast is also an excellent plan.

A fine plate of food: fagioli cake and chard gratin

Like many people, John and I have a set of different staple foods we can throw together at a moment's notice. One of the top contenders is pasta fagioli: a pureed tomato/bean/various vegetable sauce mixed with pasta and dusted with parsley, pepper, and/or grated cheese. It takes very little time (especially with precooked or canned beans), costs next to nothing, provides abundant nutrients, and puts you right to warm, blissful sleep.

Leftover fagioli is especially excellent. When you have leftover fagioli, you can put it in a pan and make it into a huge, lovely, crusty-edged, creamy-middled pasta cake. You then win dinner.

Fagioli cake

Warm up a wide frying pan, preferably nonstick or cast iron. If your leftover sauce and pasta are not mixed, mix them together thoroughly. When the pan is nice and hot, add a slug of olive oil. Swirl it around to coat the surface. Add your fagioli mixture to the hot pan. If you have only a little, you may want to make small individual cakes; I had plenty, so I made one gargantuan cake.

Cook until browned on one side, shaking the pan occasionally to deter sticking. Next, flip your cakes over and brown their other sides. With small cakes, this is easy; with a large cake, you may want to follow my lead and just flip about a quarter of the cake at once. This means the finished product won't be a solid cake, but really, who cares? It will still be browned and crispy and delicious. I suppose you could experiment with the Spanish tortilla-flipping technique, but I have to tell you--I don't think that would work very well. Maybe mixing an egg or some other binding agent in with your fagioli/pasta business would help there.

Once the second side of each fagioli cake is browned, you are done!

Ok. We had fagioli, but we wanted some more vegetables. Fortunately, lots of vegetables are pretty easy to come by at our house. I had a big bunch of chard in the crisper, and this baked spinach recipe from Smitten Kitchen in mind. I'm very happy to report that chard can definitely sub for spinach here; the result was excellent, and tasted nothing like any chard I've made before. New ways to eat vegetables! Hooray!

Even with the chard sub, I adapted Deb's method (initially from Julia Child; reputable!) only the slightest amount. I wanted to use the chard stems, so I diced them finely and cooked them for about five minutes before adding the chopped leaves. I didn't bother shocking the cooked chard, as I didn't care about preserving its color. I used vegetable stock instead of beef (who has beef stock lying around? Not me). I used parmesan instead of gruyere, and finely chopped a somewhat fresh piece of bread instead of using the very dry crumbs required.

So that's what "only the slightest amount" of change looks like at our house.

When I was done cooking, the stovetop looked like this:

It was 9:07. We were starving. I shoveled fagioli and chard gratin onto both our plates, and split a cara cara orange in half for pseudo-dessert.

The result was completely excellent, and we ate it all. I mean that literally. We ate all the fagioli. We ate all the chard. We ate every single edible thing on the stove, and then ate half an orange apiece besides.

It was so good, and we were so full.