Pasta with Crab and Spring Onions

Spring brought spring onions—aka Mexican onions in the western US. They look like overgrown scallions, with a big bulb and a sweeter flavor than yellow onions. That turned our thoughts to a can of crab sitting in our pantry. In an earlier use, one of the same cans had ruined a pizza. The crab was very strongly flavored and we'd balanced it poorly, leading to a fishy pie that could only be saved by a thorough drenching in hot sauce. (A crude but effective method.) Green onions are a better option for mellowing out crab, especially if you plan on tasting the crab.

Pasta with Crab and Spring Onions

1 can crab
2 large spring onions
1-2 cup milk (1% is fine, but add a small amount of half-and-half; whole milk works too)
1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp or so cream cheese
¼ cup grated parmesan
½ lb spaghetti
Flour

1. Bring salted water to a boil and cook your pasta al dente.
2. Meanwhile, finely chop the white bulbs of the onions, set aside. Then chop the greens and set aside.
3. Add butter to a hot pan, add the white part of the onion.
4. Cook for several minutes, then stir in 1 tbsp flour, adding more butter as necessary. Cook for about 1 minute.
5. Add milk, stirring vigorously to incorporate flour. Bring up almost to a simmer.
6. Add cream cheese and dissolve.
7. Add parmesan cheese and dissolve (to taste).
8. Drain pasta (reserving water to loosen sauce if necessary).
9. Combine pasta in sauce, adding extra water if necessary.
10. Toss in most of the green part of the onions.
11. Serve garnished with cheese and green onions.

Spinach Flatbread

When we finished making our papas rellenas, we found we had a half cup or so of stuffing left. The next day, we decided to turn it into a quick appetizer using some pizza dough we had in the refrigerator. If you've never done it before, it may seem strange to cook dough in a bath of water and oil, but it produces a crispy crust that's hard to beat.

We did have one problem making this: The spinach filling was wet and it made the middle of our dough soggy after cooking. We solved the problem by sliding the flatbread into a non-stick pan and turning up the heat for a few minutes. That made it almost cracker-crisp. We don't really care how we get there, so long as the results are good.

Spinach Flatbread

½ cup spinach stuffing, walnuts reserved (see this recipe)
¼ cup mozzarella or other melting cheese
1 small ball of pizza dough
Olive oil

1. Heat oven to 450.
2. Flatten dough into a small square, either with your fingers or a rolling pin.
3. Transfer to a lightly greased sheet pan.
4. Top with shredded cheese.
1. Mix 1/3 cup oil with1/2 cup water. Then pour into sheet pan around the dough.
2. Place dough in oven and bake for about 12 minutes, until sides are crispy. During the last minute of cooking, add reserved walnuts.
3. Remove to a hot, nonstick frying pan and continue to toast until bottom is crisp (optional).
4. Serve garnished with sea salt.

Papas Rellenas with Spinach and Dill Onion Gravy

The Polish side of our family gets together periodically and puts away several tons of borscht and spiral cut ham and store bought pierogis. At one point, we offered to make homemade pierogis, but ran out of time. Big mistake. We were left with a big bag of potato-cheese stuffing, which we stuffed in the freezer for a better day.

We got sick of looking at the bag just as we were wondering what to do with our big pile of spinach. The result is a play on "papas rellenas," or stuffed potatoes, a South American staple. This recipe is a bit involved, and it takes a little practice. But once you get the hang of it, stuffed mashed potatoes a great platform for getting rid of all kinds of things: leftover chili, pot roast—you name it.

Oh, yes, health foodies: this recipe does not involve enriching your potatoes with lots of butter and cream before frying them. We're not animals, after all.

Papas Rellenas with Spinach and Dill Onion Gravy

The Stuffing

About 2 cups spinach, chopped and divided between stems and leaves
2 tsp chopped garlic
2-3 tbsp chopped walnuts
Salt
1 tsp lemon juice
Olive oil

1. Add oil to a hot frying pan.
2. Add garlic and spinach stems and stir fry for about a minute until stems are tender.
3. Add the leaves and stir until they are partially broken down.
4. Add walnuts (or toast them beforehand)
5. Sprinkle with lemon juice to taste.
6. Finish cooking.
7. Remove from pan to a cutting board.
8. Chop spinach with walnuts together.
9. Add salt to taste.

Papas Rellenas

The stuffing
1 lb potatoes
2 scallions chopped
½ cup cheese (parmesan or cheddar)
Flour
Rice flour (optional)
Salt

If these instructions are difficult to understand, there are plenty of videos on YouTube.

1. Boil potatoes in salted water and remove.
2. Pass through a ricer or food mill.
3. Salt to taste.
4. Allow to cool or spread out on a board to cool.
5. Add cheese and scallions, and pepper if desired.
6. Add about 2 tbsp flour and begin to knead for 1 minute. The "dough" should be slightly sticky and hold together.
7. Spread rice flour out on a board.
8. Using clean, wet hands, flatten out a small disk or potato in your hand. Fill with stuffing, then close the ends over and roll into a small football shape. Roll in the rice flour when done.
9. Repeat for rest of potatoes.
10. Heat oil in a pan and fry on one side. When browned, tip over to the next. If you're gentle (you can use your fingers), the results should be neat and square when finished.
11. When browned on all sides, remove and serve with gravy.

Dill Onion Gravy

1 large onion
2 tbsp chopped dill
Butter
Oil
Flour
Milk

1. In a 3 quart saucepan, begin frying the onions in butter and oil
2. As a fond develops on the bottom of the pan, add water and clean.
3. Continue until onions are slightly browned.
4. Add 1 more tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp flour.
5. Add one cup milk and bring to a simmer, stirring vigorously
6. Add more milk to reach desired thickness. Add salt and pepper as desired.
7. Stir in dill and remove from heat.

Spinach and Pine Nut Crackers

You can find a big bag pine nuts at Trader Joes for $7, but at the local supermarket, a miniature jar of "Pignoli Nuts" goes for the same amount. The reason is that—unlike Americans—not all pine nuts are created equal. The ones in TJ's are likely from China, raised under a thick cloud of industrial smog; while the others are an organic varietal from Italy prized for their nuttiness.

Let's hear it for China. We usually keep a bag of them in the back of our fridge, along with bags of walnuts and almonds. They keep forever so long as they're tightly sealed.

This was an easy appetizer that also got rid of some crackers we had lying around.

Spinach and Pine Nut Crackers

10 flavored crackers
About 2 cups spinach, chopped and divided between stems and leaves
2 tsp chopped garlic
2-3 tbsp pine nuts (3 tbsp if you're going to snack on them while cooking, 2 if you're not)
Sea salt
Balsamic vinegar (or sherry vinegar)
Olive oil (the stuff you hide when people you don't like come over)
Cream cheese

1. Toast pine nuts in a dry pan until lightly browned and remove.
2. Add oil to a hot frying pan.
3. Add garlic and spinach stems and stir fry for about a minute until stems are tender.
4. Add the leaves and stir until they are partially broken down.
5. Sprinkle with balsamic vinegar to taste.
6. Finish cooking.
7. Remove from pan to a cutting board.
8. Chop spinach with pine nuts together.
9. Add sea salt to taste.
10. Spread crackers with cream cheese and top with spinach mixture.

Coming attraction: New Spinach

The first signs of local produce have arrived: a nearby farmer managed to pull together a crop of new spinach and we supported the cause by buying a bag. It was much more delicately flavored that the usual green stuff in the supermarket. So we'll try to make things that are really spinach-forward. If you're redoing them with regular spinach, you may want to reduce it in proportion to other ingredients.

Best way (we know) to heat up leftover pizza

Our method of heating pizza uses low heat and a light tent of aluminum foil to melt the cheese and warm the sauce, while not steaming the pie. The results are so crispy and delicious that we often argue whether the leftovers are better than the original.

The Method

1. Take a nonstick frying pan and heat it over medium-low heat.
2. Place the slices in the pan and lightly crush aluminum foil to cover them, while being careful not to have the foil touch the cheese.
3. Cook until cheese melts and bottom is crispy.

This preparation also be cut up into triangles and dipped cheese or marinara sauce. Makes a great appetizer.

Thai Fried Rice with Maggi Eggs and Baby Bok Choy (leftover takeout)

A visit from the in laws left us with a bag of greasy takeout Chinese: General Tso's chicken, wonton soup, and a quart of rice. It all looked dreadful the next morning. The chicken was terminal. Takeout General Tso's is a delicious heart-attack-in-a-bowl the day it's made, but let's be serious. It consists of balls of coating fried in peanut oil with an occasional Campbell's Chicken Soup-sized piece of meat stuck in the middle. No one should attempt to resurrect that.

The wonton soup was not great to begin with. The wontons were thick and rubbery and they absorbed most of the broth. So we chopped the wontons fine, added ginger, garlic, star anise, vegetables, and some extra water, and stewed the lot for about 20 minutes. It was somewhat edible—but far from transcendent.

The rice was left, and that was admittedly easy.


Fried Rice with Maggi Eggs and Baby Bok Choy

2 cups leftover rice
3 eggs
1 large onion sliced very thin
2 stalks celery, peeled and cubed
2 tsp chopped fresh ginger (ginger keeps forever in your fridge in a ziplock bag)
2 tsp garlic
1 tsp sugar
1-2 tbsp sweet Madras curry powder (found at any Indian grocery for about 1/16th what you'll pay at Whole Foods)
Maggi seasoning (a wheat germ derivative that's usually hiding in the condiment aisle of any supermarket. Delicious with eggs.)
Soy sauce
Cornstarch
oil

The fried rice

1. Pour the rice in a large bowl and break it apart in your hands until no lumps remain
2. Crack the eggs in a bowl and add 2 tbsp Maggi, scramble to combine.
3. Add oil to a hot pan, and then add the eggs.
4. Either scramble the eggs, or make an omelet.
5. When they are done, break them up in the pan and transfer to the bowl you scrambled them in.
6. Clean the pan, and now stir fry the onion, celery and sugar for about 3-4 minutes until just beginning to brown. Cooking times will vary depending on your stove.
7. Add the garlic and ginger, and stir fry for about 1 minute.
8. Add the curry powder and toss to combine.
9. Add a small amount of additional oil.
10. Then add the rice and carefully combine everything. Your rice should be nicely yellow and fragrant.
11. Add Maggi and soy sauce to taste. We prefer about a tbsp of both.
12. Remove to the bowl that you broke up the rice in. Add the eggs and toss to combine.

The Bok Choy (this is optional)

10-15 baby bok choy
Soy sauce
Stock
Cornstarch
2 tsp ginger, chopped
1 tsp garlic, chopped
Water

1. Combine about 2 tbsp of soy sauce with ¼ cup of water or stock. Taste and season.
2. Mix 2 tsp cornstarch with 1 tbsp water, stir to combine.
3. Cut the bok choy in three sections: leaves, stems, and the hard bottom.
4. In a hot pan, stir fry the hard bottoms of the bok choy for 1-2 minutes until they begin to become tender.
5. Add the garlic, ginger, and stems.
6. Stir fry about 30 seconds, then add the leaves, and stir fry for 15 seconds. All pieces should be nearly cooked through.
7. Add soy sauce and stock mixture, bring to a boil
8. Slowly add the cornstarch and water mixture until you reach the desired consistency.
9. Remove to a cool bowl.
10. Serve over fried rice.

Simple Egg and Leftover Pasta

If you're like us, you're not good at the art of pasta/sauce estimation. We always end up with a couple handfuls of orphan pasta that gets bagged and fridged. One of us (we're not saying which) likes to eat it with barbecue sauce and parmesan cheese. The other concocted this simple dish for lunch the other day. It'd be better, of course, if you made the pasta fresh, but that's not the point.

Egg and Leftover Pasta

(serves one, easily scaled)

1 bowl leftover pasta (if you have spaghetti or linguini, consider cutting it up)
1 egg
2 tbsp chopped parsley
Parmesan cheese
Pepper
Butter
Olive oil

1. Put the pasta a tbsp of water in a microwave and heat.
2. Drizzle with oil and toss with a good lump of butter until the butter is melted.
3. Add some of the parsley, a few good grinds of pepper, and about 1 tbsp cheese and combine.
4. Fry the egg over easy.
5. Place egg on pasta, garnish with more parsley and cheese.

Green Bean and Potato Pie

We understand that green beans vastly prefer being called haricots verts, and while we don't blame them, we're going to stick with what we know. There is a classic Genovese recipe that involves mashing them with potatoes, adding some eggs and cheese, and baking them off. It's good, but we wanted to enhance it to make a good vegetarian main dish. The results, this pie, were delicious. And yes, if you want to serve it to foodie friends, it's ok to call this a "tarte de pommes de terre et haricots verts."

Green Bean and Potato Pie

½ lb green beans, preferably a thin varietal
5-6 medium red potatoes, quartered
1 medium red onion, sliced thin
1 carrot, cut into tiny cubes
1 ½ cups milk
1 cup grated Swiss cheese
Brie cheese (3 oz or so, optional))
1 tbsp butter
2 tsp flour
2 eggs
Breadcrumbs or crumbled Ritz crackers
Salted creole seasoning (Tony Chachere's)

1. Bring a stockpot full of salted water to boil. Add the green beans and cook until tender. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain.
2. Preheat your oven to 350.
3. Quarter the potatoes and add them to the stock pot. Cook until tender.
4. Put the green beans through a food mill. If some doesn't go through, don't worry, you just want them nice and mashed.
5. Put the potatoes through the food mill and toss with green beans.
6. Add the carrots to the bowl and toss.
7. Add creole seasoning to taste.
8. In a frying pan, melt the butter, add the flour, then add the milk while whisking to create a loose béchamel sauce.
9. Add the shredded cheese slowly and stir to melt. (French cooks would refer to this a sauce Mornay.)
10. Add the onions and allow them to infuse the sauce-it should be loose , but not watery. (French cooks would not refer to this as a sauce Mornay.)
11. Beat the eggs together in a bowl with a little water. Add a tablespoon of the hot sauce, and mix to combine. Repeat this step until the eggs are warm and well incorporated with cheese sauce. Then add the egg mixture to the rest of the hot sauce and stir to incorporate. This process is known as tempering, and it keeps you from scrambling the eggs.
12. Add creole seasoning to taste.
13. Pour one third of the sauce in with the potatoes and green beans and mix.
14. Grease a casserole dish. Add one half of the potato mixture and spread into an even layer.
15. Place slices of brie over the layer to cover.
16. Pour over one half of the remaining sauce.
17. Add the rest of the potatoes and smooth over to cover.
18. Add the remainder of the cheese sauce. Top with bread crumbs.
19. Bake for 20 minutes in the oven. If the top starts to brown, cover with aluminum foil.
20. Remove and allow to rest five minutes before serving.

Stuffed Bread (more leftover marinara sauce)

What's not to love about stuffed bread, except that you don't have any dough? There's ways around that: Most supermarkets these days have frozen or refrigerated pizza dough for sale.

Or you can be a martyr and learn to make your own. Actually, it's not that hard. These days, the web is your baking school, and in particular, King Arthur Flour's website has plenty of terrific recipes and instructions, including this one for pizza dough. It would work great for stuffed bread.

Stuffed Marinara Bread

½ pound dough
Leftover tomato sauce
1 small handful grated cheese (mozzarella)
Parmesan cheese
1 egg
1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Flatten the dough on your board and roll out to a 10" x 6" piece.
3. Place dough on a sheet pan.
4. Spread sauce over dough, leaving at least 1/2" from the edge.
5. Sprinkle with cheese and grated parmesan.
6. Fold dough over so that one edge now meets the middle of the dough.
7. Fold again to completely enclose the filling.
8. Tightly pinch the seams.
9. Tightly pinch the seams again. You get the picture.
10. Roll dough over so the seam-side is down.
11. Pierce the dough with a sharp paring knife in several places
12. Beat egg together with 1tsp water to create an egg wash. Brush over dough.
13. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
14. Chances are, your dough will explode somewhere and leak cheese on your sheet pan. Don't panic. Just stay the course and be sure to scrape up the slightly charred sauce and cheese. It's quite tasty.
15. Serve with extra heated marinara.

Leftover Pot Roast- Cruets

A reader asked a question about our favorite leftover pot roast recipe. We're not in pot-roast land right now--not sure why, but big hunks of meat haven't been calling us. In any case, pot roast is an easily traveled dish, and there's no reason to heat it up again as is.

That said, there is one leftover preparation that we prefer more than any other. One of our mothers used to make it. She called it "cruets" which has to be wrong, but the taste is right, so we'll hand it to her. No pix, because we haven't made it recently.

Cruets

4 hoagie rolls, the best you can find. The shape is what's important here: they should be about six inches long.
1-2 cups leftover pot roast, shredded
leftover gravy
1 cup cooked potatoes (best if boiled and diced)
1 cup carrots, diced
1 cup onions, diced
1 cup celery, diced and peeled
(obviously proportions will vary based on the size of your rolls and amount of meat you have left over)
olive oil
butter

1. Heat an oven to 275.
2. Cut the top 1/4-1/3 off of each roll, and hollow out to make a boat.
3. Place boats and lids in oven and cook for about 30 minutes or until very hard.
4. Put 2 tbsp oil in hot pan, add a sliver of btter and the potatoes.
5. Don't move the pan until one side is browned, then flip, brown another side, then remove.
6. Add more oil and butter, the onions, carrots and celery to pan and cook over medium low heat until al-dente.
7. Add the leftover meat and potatoes back in and toss. Season with salt and pepper if necessary.
8. Warm the gravy.
9. Remove the rolls from the oven.
10. Place rolls on plates, putthe hash mixture inside, pour in some gravy, and top with a lid.
11. Serve immediately with butter, yesterday if possible.

Roast Brussels Sprouts Pasta (from leftover marinara sauce)

The humble, unloved Brussels sprout often finds its way to our kitchen. The bulk of the latest batch went to a potato gratin that was too blah to post. A few sprouts remained, however, and we used them to spike up some leftover marinara sauce. There's something about the slight bitterness of the spouts and the sweetness of the tomatoes that we really liked.

Our favorite marinaras come from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, a book we and, more importantly, all major food authorities recommend. The tomato sauce with butter and onion is particularly good.

Roast Brussels Sprouts Pasta

2 cups leftover marinara sauce (hopefully sweet)
10 or so Brussels sprouts
Grated fresh mozzarella, or similar cheese
Salt
Olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Quarter the sprouts, place on a sheet pan and toss with olive oil and salt.
3. Roast for about 5-8 minutes, until sprouts are browned. Remove and discard any burnt leaves.
4. Heat leftover marinara sauce to a simmer, add sprouts. Simmer for a minute or so, and leave sprouts to infuse the warm sauce (overcooking sprouts makes them taste like your mom's).
5. Cook the pasta al dente and drain.
6. Combine the two, heat them through, and drizzle with olive oil and stir.
7. Serve garnished with mozzarella.

Chicken Stock and Buffalo Chicken Tenders (mixed recipe)

This recipe involves sectioning off part of one preparation (chicken stock) to make another (fried chicken tenders).

This may sound unnecessary, but the least expensive and still convenient way to get chicken around here is to buy one whole. We don't make the rules, we live by them. You can make stock with the entire bird, but that leaves you with a big pile of well-poached meat. That's good in its way (see: sandwich, club), but you can also remove the chicken breast meat partway through and finish it with another preparation.

Parboiled chicken breast is succulent and ready for anything. We offer this recipe for people who have only one night to eat, mess with the stock, and still catch CSI. Serves two.

Chicken Stock and Chicken Tenders

1 whole chicken, cut into pieces (there are lots of videos for this on cooking sites)
2 stalks celery, roughly chopped (with most American celery, you want to peel the outer edge off using a vegetable peeler; it's bitter and contains a lot of pesticides)
1 large onion, roughly chopped
2 carrots, roughly chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
salt

1. Add oil to the bottom of a stock pot.
2. Add the onions, carrots and celery and cook briskly until browned.
3. Add chicken and fill with water, add some salt
4. Bring to a simmer and cook approximately ten minutes.
5. Remove the breast pieces with tongs to a cutting board.
6. Carefully cut down on the thickest part of the breast (on the outside edge) and peel off the breast meat.
7. If you have a cat or dog, it will really appreciate it if you pull off some of the remaining breast meat and drop it on the kitchen floor.
8. Return the breasts to the pot, and continue simmering for 35 minutes or so (don't let it boil). Skim off any foam or fat that rises to the top.
9. Turn off heat.
10. Remove the chicken, set aside.
11. Strain the stock, and allow to cool.
12. Remove the meat from the bones and save for future use.
13. Place stock in refrigerator overnight. The next morning, you will be able to skim off the fat and freeze it in cup-sized portions.


Crispy Chicken Tenders

Parcooked chicken breast (see above)
Rice flour
Canola oil

1. Take the chicken breast you've removed and cut into thin strips. If they're pink inside, don't worry.
2. Toss with rice flour.
3. Heat frying pan with oil.
4. Fry on both sides until golden.


Sauces

¼ cup blue cheese
½ cup sour cream
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp Worchester sauce
Frank's hot sauce (Our international readers can substitute Tabasco sauce. Our American readers better not.)
Butter

1. Using a microwave, melt butter in the hot sauce to taste. If you're one of those people who never cooks in a microwave, do it in a pot. While washing the pot, ask yourself what you've achieved.
2. Mix cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, and Worchester sauce.
3. Serve both sauces with the chicken.

Leftover Hash Brown Latkes

If you live in an area where hash browns are cooked on a grill, you're probably used to getting a pound of them every time you order a couple of eggs over easy. Unfortunately nothing is worse cold or heated up (except the eggs over easy). Next time, take 'em home and try this recipe for an appetizer. The salmon, etc. in the image are pretentious and unnecessary, but we were having fun. Potato pancakes are just great with sour cream or apple sauce.

Leftover Hash Brown Latkes

1-2 cups leftover hash browns
1 tbsp flour
1 egg
Oil for frying.

1. First step is for health. Spread the hash browns out on a few paper towels placed end to end. Roll them up and squeeze. Your arteries will thank you, and you may never eat hash browns again.
2. Add the hash browns to a bowl.
3. Add flour and egg and toss. You may need a little more flour if the mixure is super wet, but the egg will hold it together in frying, regardless.
4. Heat a nonstick pan and add a thin layer of oil.
5. Scoop out about 1/3 cup of the mixture and add it to the pan. Then flatten the pancake out with a spatula.
6. Cook over medium heat until browned on each side. Transfer to a plate. Add sour cream, apple sauce, etc.
7. If you're making a bunch, simply heat the oven to about 225 before hand, and place a thin sheet ban inside. As the pancakes finish cooking, place them in pan in one layer. They'll stay crispy.

Spain On the Road Again: Beet Puree and Shrimp Pancakes

Anyone seen an episode of Spain On the Road Again? Probably not. In spite of having Mark Bittman, Gweneth Paltrow, and Mario Batali in Spain, it's a snooze fest. Four people eating and talking with very little editing. There may be four people who are witty and intelligent enough to make that work, but those guys should know their limitations.

Still, Mario's a great cook and Bittman a terrific recipe writer, so there's good stuff on the website. So far we've tried two recipes, one for a beetroot and walnut puree and another for chickpea pancakes. Here's our thoughts.

Beet Puree

The recipe is here, and it's good as is. The idea is to take some beets and walnuts and mix 'em with tahini and oil. Our tweaks include the following:

1. Roast the walnuts first and place them in the processor warm.
2. Add more tahini and less oil.
3. Withhold some of the salt and add some parmesan cheese (sounds weird, but it's good).
4. Add or garnish with fresh dill.


Shrimp Pancakes

This recipe is also great. You can find it and a useful video here.

We're old hands at making pancakes with besan, or chickpea flour, which you can find at any Indian grocery. (You can also find it at a Spanish grocery or gourmet store, but you will pay an absurd price for it.) We normally mix it with a lot of water, add cumin seeds, coriander, peppers, onions, or whatever we have lying around. And if you're fat conscious, you can cook them in a dry nonstick pan, believe it or not. They will separate from the pan.

The Spanish version involves cut up shrimp, herbs and lots of pepper. That said, we like ours a little crisper, so we use twice as much besan as white flour (something Bittman mentions). If you want it really crispy, eliminate the white flour and baking powder altogether.

Leftover Grits with Red Beans

Red beans are almost a staple food at our house. They're ridiculously cheap, really easy to prepare and have a huge variety of applications. We typically make them by the bucketful, and either freeze them or can them. Then, if we want breakfast, we heat some up with rice and then fry or scramble an egg (gallo pinto, a traditional breakfast in Costa Rica). For a snack, we combine them with hot sauce, sour cream, and cheese to make a dip. For dinner, we serve them with rice and lots of Tapatio.

But this was probably the best application yet. Using the leftover grits from our Shrimp and Grits, we piled on some red beans.

Red Beans

1 pound red beans, washed and soaked overnight
2 smoked ham hocks
1 large onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne
1 tbsp canola oil
Pepper
Salt
Water

1. Add the oil to a heated pot.
2. Add onion, pepper, and celery and cook, stirring for 5-7 minutes until onions are just beginning to brown.
3. Add spices and allow to bloom.
4. Add all the beans and ham hocks.
5. Cover with water and add some salt.
6. Simmer for several hours adding water as necessary until beans become fully cooked and silky.
7. Remove ham hocks. Mash some beans against the side of the pot, stir, and season to taste.
8. Serve with polenta and Tabasco sauce.

Shrimp and Welsh Grits

We had never heard of shrimp and grits until recently, but there's nothing wrong with spicy sea creatures over cheesy cornmeal. Especially since shrimp's one of our favorite things to have in the freezer. You can get it reasonably cheap in flash frozen bags. Any time you want to make something, just shake a few out of the bag and they're ready to go.

Of course our "grits" aren't really grits. We'd get shot in Georgia for these grits. Real grits should have a grainy texture. Instead, we used cornmeal, which makes them smooth and silky. Cornmeal also has the signal advantage of existing in our kitchen.

Shrimp and Welsh Grits

Grits

1 cup cornmeal
4 cups water
½ pound cheddar cheese
1 tbsp Worchestershire Sauce
2 tsp dried mustard
Milk or cream
2 tbsp butter
Salt

1. Boil the water.
2. Add cornmeal in a small stream while whisking vigorously.
3. Turn heat very low, and allow to bubble slowly, for about 2 ½ hours, stirring every fifteen minutes or so. Add water as necessary.
4. When cornmeal begins to turn white, add salt, mustard, cheese, butter, and Worchesterschire sauce. Stir and add milk until the texture is how you like it.

Spicy Shrimp and Sauce

12 shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tbsp paprika
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp flour
1 tbsp butter
Water or stock
½ tsp salt
Pepper
Canola oil

1. Add spices to a bowl and stir to combine.
2. Toss shrimp in spices. Allow to sit a few minutes.
3. Add 2 tbsp oil to hot frying pan.
4. Add shrimp, toss for about two minutes or cooked through.
5. Remove shrimp.
6. Add butter and flour and combine to make a roux.
7. Add ½ cup water or stock, bring to a boil, and stir. Ad more as needed.
8. Place shrimp over polenta. Pour sauce on top and garnish with parsley.

Quick Char Sui Pork Stir Fry

We felt bad bringing our Char Sui Pork to Romania, so we took the leftovers and turned them into a much more traditional stir fry. This kind of quick lunch is really common at Leftover Grub Towers. Often on a Monday, we cook about 3 cups of rice, and stick it in a bag in the fridge. When we need a bite during the week, we pull out some of it; and then pile whatever leftovers and unused veg we've got into the stir fry. Here we used the leftover Char Sui pork and some of the unused asparagus.

Fair warning: This stir fry is riddled with shortcuts. It makes a tasty lunch, but you won't want to serve it to your foodie friends just back from Beijing.

Quick Pork Stir Fry

Slurry
1 tbsp soy sauce
½ cup chicken stock (or water)
1 tbsp Chinese marinade (or Char sui)
½ tsp rice wine vinegar

Combine the ingredients, then taste and adjust to get the flavor you want. Don't get too crazy mixing ingredients. A few will do and water is your friend.

Stir fry
The slurry
½ cup leftover char sui pork
4 asparagus cut in bite sized pieces
2 clove garlic sliced
½ tsp chopped ginger
1 large onion sliced
1 tbsp corn starch mixed with equal amount of water.

1. In a hot frying pan stir fry the onions and asparagus for about 2-4 minutes, until asparagus is getting cooked.
2. Add ginger and garlic, stir for 30 seconds
3. Add meat, toss
4. Add slurry, wait until it comes to a boil
5. Taste, if it's too strong, add water or stock. If it's too weak, reduce slightly.
6. Turn heat down, add the cornstarch mixture a spoonful at a time. As it reaches boiling temp, it will thicken. Add enough to get the desired texture.
7. Remove from heat.

This recipe involves leftovers from Char Sui Pork Polenta.

Pasta with Red Clam Sauce

The in laws have recently converted to the glycemic index and have banished sugar and refined white flour from their diets (except where pizza is concerned). They even declared war on pasta, which—so the theory goes--turns humans into hippopotami in no time flat. At first, we thought we'd point out that dried pasta is actually made from high-protein durum wheat, but we had two good reasons not to. 1) They wouldn't listen anyway. 2) It allowed us to expropriate their locker of unused pasta. That included many good specimens, including a half kilo of bucatini.

That returned us to more canned clams and one of our favorite dishes. We've been kicking this recipe around for years, making it a bunch of different ways. It wasn't originally ours, but by now, we'll claim it.

Pasta and Red Clam Sauce

1 pound pasta, cooked al dente
2 cans chopped clams
2 anchovy fillets
3/4 head garlic chopped (yeah, that much, it cooks down)
1 tsp cracked red pepper
I small can whole peeled tomatoes. (Italian ones are obviously better here. If you can't get 'em or are too cheap to pony up the funds, add a small amount of sugar).
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp lemon juice (optional)
Lots of grated parmigiana
Olive oil

1. Place oil in medium hot frying pan, and add anchovies.
2. Mash anchovies with wooden spoon until the disintegrate into the oil.
3. Add garlic and pepper and sautee for 30 seconds
4. Open the can of clams—actually, have the can of clams already opened before you start any of this. Press the lid down on the clams and drain all of the clam juice into the sauce.
5. Stir and bring to temperature. Then place tomatoes in a bowl—actually, do this before you start cooking as well. Mash them really good with your hands.
6. Pour the tomatoes into the sauce. Don't add too many, you don't want to have more tomatoes than clam juice.
7. Simmer for fifteen minutes.
8. When everything tastes great, add the clams, most of the parsley, and the lemon juice.
9. Bring back to temperature and remove from heat. Do not cook the clams very much.
10. Toss with pasta.
11. Serve garnished with parsley and lots of parmigiana cheese.