Leftover Grub

Carrot Soup with Herbs de Provence (leftover carrots)

2009-10-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

It never ceases to surprise us how you can make great food by using a small amount of the least interesting ingredients. Though this couldn't sound more boring, the texture and flavor of this soup—a version of which can be found in a thousand cookbooks—are great. Herbed foccacia helps too.

Carrot Soup with Herbs de Provence

1-2 lbs carrots (whatever is left over in your bag), peeled, chopped roughly
2 potatoes, peeled and diced, and placed in a bowl of water. Type does not matter, though russet is preferable.
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
1 tbsp butter
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp herbs de Provence
Parsley, chopped (optional)
Salt to taste

1. Heat a large saucepan and add the olive oil and butter.
2. Add carrots, and cook over medium high heat for about 15 minutes, or until slightly browned. If you burn them, order pizza.
3. Add the onions, lower the heat, and stir until onions are slightly yellowed.
4. Add potatoes and the water they came in. Fill the rest of the pot with water until the vegetables are covered.
5. Cook for about 1 hour, until everything is happily mushy. Add water if necessary.
6. Using an immersion blender, turn everything into a smooth, silky texture (add water if it's too thick). Add some salt and continue until well seasoned.
7. Add some of the herbs de provence, cook for a minute or so, and taste.
8. Continue adding herbs de provence until the flavor is perfect. (Since we don't know how many carrots you had, or how big your potatoes were, we'll have to trust your judgment).
9. Add water or salt as necessary to adjust seasoning.
10. Serve garnished with parsley and sea salt.

Sliced Apples and Satay Sauce

2009-10-15T09:07:00.001-07:00

A handy little appetizer that makes the most of fall apples and pantry items.

One apple, cored, halved and then sliced into "chips"
1½ tbsp peanut butter
Soy sauce
Lemon juice
Sugar
Water
Sriracha sauce (optional)

1. Add the peanut butter to a bowl.
2. Add about 2 tsp of soy sauce, 1 of lemon juice, 1 of water, and a pinch of sugar.
3. Using a fork, mash the liquid into the peanut butter. This takes time, and it's tedious.
4. Depending on your texture, continue adding water and soy sauce until you mash into a smooth sauce.
5. Taste and adjust, adding either lemon juice, sugar, Sriracha, or water.
6. Serve as a dipping sauce for sliced apples.

Roast Butternut Squash and Chipotle Soup

2009-09-29T05:18:00.000-07:00

Fall is here and winter squash has appeared in the farm markets. Our favorite is a big rural stand that works on the honor system. You select, bag, and weigh your own produce, calculate your total using a pad and golf pencil, and then place your money in a rusty iron box. A sign asks you not to peel the corn before buying it (this is a very stupid thing to do, btw.). If you get a bad ear, take a free one next time.

Butternut squash and sweet potatoes both love chipotles, so here's an easy, tasty soup that goes terrific with cornbread.

Roast Butternut Squash and Chipotle Soup

1 large butternut squash, cored, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
½ chipotle pepper and extra adobo sauce
Stock (chicken/vegetable)
Parsley for garnish
Olive oil

1. Heat oven to 400. Put butternut squash on a sheet pan and toss with enough olive oil to coat
2. Bake about 20 minutes, flipping occasionally. Do not burn. It's done when it's soft.
3. Fry onions in oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring often for about two minutes or so.
4. Turn down the heat and add a pinch of sugar, continuing to stir until lightly carmelized.
5. Add the roast squash, chipotles and adobo, some salt, and cover with stock and water (about half and half. For a more delicate soup, you could just use water).
6. Cook about 20 minutes.
7. Puree and adjust seasoning (that means to add more salt if it needs it).
8. Serve garnished with parsley. If you're looking to make friends and impress people, you could puree your parsley with sour cream and water, and drizzle their initials on the soup. But a nice hunk of coarsely chopped parsley tastes good too.

Tortilla de Papas (leftover baked potatoes)

2009-09-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

Our sister decided to have an extremely quiet wedding this weekend—and invited us to be witnesses. We were surprised when she also requested one of our simplest leftover dishes for the after-ceremony brunch: a humble tortilla de papas (potato frittata).

You can find many recipes for tortillas de papas; ours is based on a simple contrast: we love crispy potatoes but usually dislike browned eggs. Most recipes call for cooking the frittata halfway on the stovetop, and finishing it in the oven. If you do this, the frittata does have a nice puffy texture, but the bottom of the eggs is browned and rubbery, and you lose a lot of the delicate flavors.

Our version is a bit of a high wire act. We make the potatoes like homefries, separate the eggs from the pan like an omelet, and then flip them using a dinner plate. For the brunch, it happily worked and matched excellently with a Moet et Chandon Blanc de Blancs (what doesn't?).

Tortilla de Papas

4 eggs
1 leftover baked potato (you can also microwave one), cut in half and then sliced into 1/3 inch slices.
½ medium onion, sliced thin (optional)
Salt
Chives (or parsley)
Olive oil

1. Heat a good nonstick frying pan (10 inches or less). Add oil, then spread out the potatoes in a single layer.
2. Cook over high heat for several minutes. Try not to move the potatoes at all. That way, they'll brown nicely.
3. Once they are brown flip them over, and sprinkle the onions in. Lower the heat.
4. Allow the onions to wilt, by this point, the potatoes should also be a little brown on the other side.
5. Did we mention not to salt anything. It's very important not to salt for two reasons: salt will make the potatoes less crispy and it will turn the eggs gray.
6. Whip eggs with ¼ cup water until combined.
7. Pull the pan off the stove, toss the potatoes and onion and allow to cool slightly.
8. Add eggs. Reduce heat to low and return pan to burner.
9. Now, shake the pan nearly continually (this will help the eggs separate from the bottom). Meanwhile, scrape and lift the edge of the eggs from a pan with a spatula. Then tilt the pan, allowing liquid egg to swirl around the edge of the pan again, and repeat the scraping and lifting with the spatula.
10. When the eggs are mostly set, add salt. Then, when the eggs are sliding free from the bottom of the pan, you're ready to flip.
11. Take a dinner plate and place it over the frying pan like a cover. Hold it tight and flip the pan over so that the eggs fall on the plate.
12. Now, slide them back into the pan, wet side down.
13. Finish cooking for 2-3 minutes and remove. Garnish with herbs and serve with ketchup or barbecue sauce.

Tortilla de Papas with Sausage and Cheese.

To create this, simply add crumbled cooked sausage one minute after the onion. When the onions are nearly cooked, add grated cheddar or other semisoft cheese and allow it to melt around the potatoes before adding the egg.

Teriyaki Chicken Wraps with Miso Dressing

2009-08-31T08:24:00.000-07:00

When it comes to food, the three most important things are decidedly not location, location, location. Our favorite local Japanese restaurant sits in a depressing strip mall between a Latin-fusion dive (rapidly going out of business) and a More Than Just Nuts store.

Our favorite things about it are the fresh scallop sashimi and the miso salad dressing. The owner regards these two as, respectively, the most and least impressive things on his menu. And so, we left the beautiful scallop alone and flat out stole the salad dressing recipe. Here, we applied it to a wrap with a simple teriyaki chicken.

Miso Salad Dressing

1 tsp red miso
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp mirin
1 tsp brown sugar
Water

1. Whisk the first four ingredients together.
2. Taste, adjust, then add water to thin to desired consistency.

Teriyaki Chicken

(By the way, this is likely not the best teriyaki you'll ever have—so if you've got your own recipe, go for it.)

Two chicken breast halves (or boneless thighs), cut into 1 inch strips
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup mirin
2 tbsp Dry Sack (or saki, if you have it)
1 tbsp brown sugar, unpacked
2 tsp ginger, slivered
Water

1. Combine the soy sauce, mirin, saki, sugar, and ginger. Mix, then marinate chicken for 30-45 minutes.
2. Drain chicken, reserve marinade.
3. Grill chicken
4. Once done, heat a saucepan. Add chicken, reserved marinade and about 2tbsp water.
5. Reduce until a tasty glaze forms and remove.

To make wrap

1 recipe of PJ Hamel/King Arthur flour gorditas (or any flatbread)
1 recipe miso dressing
1 recipe chicken
Baby spinach
Scallions, slivered.

1. Lightly dress spinach with dressing.
2. Assemble how you like and add more dressing on top.

Pasta with Celery Sauce

2009-08-26T08:34:00.001-07:00

Throughout pregnancy, she had only two cravings. One was celery. The other was French fries topped with canned gravy and American cheese. No comment.

Back to the celery. It's really out of favor among the food elite. A few years ago, an article appeared in Ars Culinaire or one of those high-end food magazines, opining that over the years celery must have become more bitter. It explained this by saying that more and more chefs were using less and less of it, even for the classic French mirapoix. We'll leave that discussion to the experts.

Of course, celery flavor is not going out of style. Celery root has made such a lightning ascent that celeriac salad is now on the menu of every Food Network star. (Why is the Food Network the only place outside of the porn industry where everyone is a star? We must stop digressing.)

So let's embrace it. This celery pasta is cheap, dead simple like all good Italian food, and, if you've got good, minty basil to go along with it, really tasty.

Pasta with Celery Sauce

1 large can tomatoes
2 stalks celery plus some celery heart, cut in very large pieces (you're going to remove them)
1 medium onion, quartered
Basil
Salt
2 tbsp butter
3tbsp cream cheese
Parmesan (lots)
Pasta

1. Place tomatoes, celery, 1 tsp salt, and onion in a pot.
2. Simmer for 40 minutes, adding H20 as necessary.
3. Allow to cool. Pull out the celery and onions and squeeze them over the pot to get out all the juice.
4. Add butter and bring back to a simmer.
5. Add cream cheese and stir until it dissolves
6. Add grated parmesan slowly while stirring until it tastes great. (a good handful or so)
7. Cook pasta, toss with sauce and basil to taste.

Summer Bread and Grilled Chicken Breast

2009-08-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

Every summer, we abandon our oven and seek out a flatbread—usually something that can be made in a frying pan or on a grill. This year we've settled on an odd one. PJ Hamel, the always amusing baker at King Arthur, apparently fell in love with the Taco Bell Gordita, and decided to figure out how to emulate the bread. The result is an amazingly simple, soft, and durable little wrap that loves grilled veggies, chicken breast, sausage, and whatever else you have lying around. Her trick is to "cook" the flour with boiling water. We really can't say enough about it.

You can find the recipe here—and we also highly recommend her quick Caesar dressing.

She didn't offer a grilled chicken recipe, so we'll share ours. It's a little involved but quite tasty and helps keep you in Speedo shape. By the way, the pictured wrap is one with grilled veggies. We were entertaining and somehow forgot to photograph the chicken. A couple of gin and tonics may have played a role there—but it's also true that having a cute baby to photograph somehow saps your desire to set up a creative shot of a chicken Caesar wrap.

Grilled Chicken Breast

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 tbsp each: smoked paprika, garlic powder
½ tbsp each: creole seasoning with salt, pepper, mixed Italian seasoning (or oregano)

1. Heat your grill to high.
2. Take each breast, place it flat on your board. With a sharp knife, slice it as you would a bagel, making two thinner pieces—not two gargantuan chicken tenders.
3. Take two pieces of plastic wrap and spray with cooking spray (water works too, if you have a spray bottle of that around).
4. Place a chicken breast between them.
5. Use a heavy saucepan to pound the breast until it's ¼ inch think. (This works much better than a silly meat mallet. Chicken breasts aren't tender like veal. You have to really whack 'em to get 'em flat).
6. Repeat for the rest.
7. Combine the spices and liberally dust each breast with them.
8. Allow to stand for a few minutes.
9. Brush or spray each breast with cooking oil.
10. Grill quickly—it should take 1-2 minutes on each side.
11. Slice and serve on flatbread with tomatoes, lettuce, and Caesar dressing.

Stuffed Clams

2009-08-01T07:11:00.000-07:00

Our summer cottage lies on the coast near a rich store of shellfish, which can be extracted relatively easily. The problem is that the sea floor is mucky, and while the mussels are always good, the clams often end up dirty. To defeat this, we allow them to feast for a week on cornmeal and water in our refrigerator drawer. They expel the dirt and live quite happily until we're ready.

If you've never done stuffed clams before, they're really worth a shot. This recipe is the standard one in our area, although traditionally, they are cooked with a slice of bacon over the top. We put the bacon inside instead.

Cheapness note: Although we used all fresh clams, you can buy enough fresh ones for the shells and then fill out the recipe using canned clams.

Stuffed Clams

20-25 large clams, shucked, chopped with juice reserved
8-10 clam shells
4 thick slices bacon
2 small onions, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 lemon
Breadcrumbs
Butter

1. Preheat your oven to 425.
2. Cut the bacon into small pieces, and fry with a little olive oil until done. Set aside.
3. Sautee the onions, celery, and carrots in butter over low heat.
4. Just before the onion is translucent, add garlic and sautee for several minutes.
5. In a large bowl, add clams, garlic, vegetables, a small amount of lemon juice, and some of the reserved clam juice.
6. Don't be shy with the breadcrumbs. Add a lot and more clam juice and mix. The consistency should be thick and easily stick to your hands.
7. It's a good idea to fry a bit of the mixture to ensure that it will taste good.
8. Butter the inside of the clam shells.
9. Spray your hands with nonstick spray and go to work. First form meatball like pieces. Compress them a little, and then press them into the shells so they crest over the edge.
10. If you aren't planning on living forever, lay a slice of bacon over each one.
11. Bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly browned.
12. Enjoy with lemon juice.

Meatballs and Quick Sauce (Leftovers from 4th of July cookout)

2009-07-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

As new parents, we took the 4th of July easy. We had family over and fed them hamburgers, hotdogs, cole slaw, and beans. Of course, they (the family, not the hotdogs) were very relieved when we announced this unexciting menu over the phone. They claim to love all food, but there's a catch: They do not consider the vast majority of things that are edible to be "food." To qualify as food, an item must be served at a diner or a pizzeria. Everything else is a dangerous and unnecessary innovation.

In any case there's nothing wrong with hamburgers and hotdogs, particularly if there's plenty of Heinz ketchup to go around. The leftovers don't need to be repetitive. In one photo, you can see how baked beans and tomatoes can turn into a yummy English breakfast (beans and fried tomatoes, mmn) . Turning preformed hamburgers and leftover buns into a quick spaghetti and meatball dinner is only slightly more of a trick.

Meatballs and Quick Sauce (Leftovers from 4th of July cookout)

3-4 leftover hamburgers (uncooked)
1 hamburger roll
2/3 head garlic, chopped fine.
¼ cup parsley chopped fine
Milk
1 egg (optional)
1 large can tomatoes
Wine or sweet vermouth
Salt
Olive Oil
Pasta

1. Pull the hamburgers apart (this is a bit more of a pain than you might think).
2. Tear the roll in small pieces and place it in a bowl and drizzle milk over it.
3. Mix meat, ½ the garlic, parsley.
4. Squeeze out the roll.
5. Toss through the meat. Add breadcrumbs if the mixture is too wet; add an egg if you prefer tighter meatballs.
6. Add salt. Heat a frying pan and fry a small amount of mixture to test. Adjust seasoning.
7. Roll out a dozen or so small meatballs.
8. Heat a frying pan, add a small amount of oil, and fry meatballs until brown on all sides. Remove, pour off fat, deglaze with a little wine or sweet vermouth.
9. Heat a saucepan, add olive oil. Place the rest of the garlic in; allow to cook for 30 seconds or so.
10. Add tomatoes, salt, and the deglazed drippings from the meatball pan. Bring to a simmer.
11. Add the meatballs.
12. Allow to cook for about 30-40 minutes until tomatoes are soft and everything is tasty.
13. Serve with pasta. (No we're not going to tell you how to cook pasta.)

Zucchini Bruchetta with Poached Eggs

2009-07-05T06:36:00.000-07:00

(apologies for the photo, it's a new lens that we apparently don't have the hang of)

Sorry for the absence. There's no point in going for grace under pressure with a constantly crying baby. Of course, it might have made an excellent story if we had offered "gourmet solutions" for parents of colicky children. Somebody might even have read our ideas—perhaps we'd have won another award (Top 25 Food Blogs for Exhausted Parents of Miserable Babies).

Instead, we survived largely on bologna sandwiches—which are quite good in their way. First we had them with mustard, then with mayonnaise, and finally, when our creativity reached its crying-baby apex, we had them with mustard and mayonnaise at the same time.

At last, our child began sleeping and we could again think of food. This was a riff on a piperade, a Basque dish we first encountered in Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking. We mention her because An Omelette and a Glass of Wine is really a fun book. (To ruin one of the best essays, she advises learning to cook with whiskey instead of brandy. The reason is that most people drink the cooking cognac and forget to replace it, while no one ever forgets to replenish their vital stock of whiskey.)

Zucchini Bruchetta with Poached Eggs

One bit of advice. When poaching eggs for this, it's a good idea to leave them slightly underdone. Then, when plating, do not attempt the silly, aesthetic effect shown in the wretched photograph above. Put the egg down first, and pour the hot sauce over, letting it finish the cooking.

3 zucchinis, sliced in thin rounds
1 large onion, sliced
1 ½ cup tomato sauce
4 eggs
1 loaf Italian bread
One clove garlic, skin on, cut in half
1 tbsp cider vinegar
Olive oil

1. Place the onions and zukes, with a generous amount of olive oil, in a large frying pan. Sprinkle with salt, and cook over very low heat, stirring occasionally for about an hour, until the mixture is browned and reduced.
2. Heat oven to 425. Fill large saucepan halfway with water, place over high heat.
3. Add tomato sauce to the zuke mixture, cook again over low heat for 20 minutes, adding water as necessary.
4. To make the bruchetta. Slice the bread, brush one side with olive oil. Place in oven. When browned, remove and scrape with the cut side of the garlic.
5. To poach the eggs: When water is boiling, add vinegar. Shut heat off or down, until the water temp drops below boiling. Crack eggs one at a time into a cup, slowly submerge in water. Cook each egg approximately 3 minutes: do not allow them to boil. Remove with a slotted spoon and dry using an extra slice of bread.
6. Place egg in bowl. Spoon over sauce. Enjoy with the bread.

Fast Food: Insalata Caprese and English Muffins

2009-06-03T06:58:00.000-07:00

In spite of our desire—nay, preference—to whip up something to feed the hoards of relatives visiting our new daughter, our visitors continually insist:

"Don't go to any trouble for us. Just get some antipasto at the store."

Sure, spending 20 active minutes throwing together pasta is "going to trouble." But going out to a store and selecting a pile of cheese, salamis, breads, crackers, olives, vegetables, and marinated stuff, not to mention bringing it home, slicing it up, washing the veg, and finding forks, knives, spoons, napkins, miniplates, bread baskets, and little cups for olive pits—that's nothing.

Then we were left with piles of leftover antipasto, an overstimulated baby, and dishes strewn across our apartment. We were exhausted and rebellious. Not sure why, but we soothed ourselves some quick plays on that old college favorite, English muffin pizza. And it was really good.

Insalata Caprese

Sliced mozzarella
Quartered grape tomatoes
Shredded basil leaves
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Salt
Sea Salt
Pepper

1. Place tomatoes in a colander and lightly salt.
2. Allow to drain for at least ten minutes (this brightens the tomatoes and concentrates the flavor)
3. Toss with basil and mozzarella (we do splurge a bit and get a delicious local variety)
4. Add sea salt, pepper, a small amount of lemon juice and a good amount of the very best olive oil you have.
5. Serve with toasted English muffins drizzled with more olive oil.

Quick Sopressata Pizza

2 tbsp sopressata, slivered
More quartered and drained tomatoes
More mozzarella
Oregano or pasta sprinkle
2 English muffins

1. In a toaster oven, pretoast the English muffins until just slightly browned.
2. Top with other ingredients to taste
3. Return to toaster oven (or regular oven) and cook until cheese is melted.
4. Drizzle with olive oil and serve.

Leftover Roast Chicken Fritters (for lack of a better name)

2009-05-31T09:37:00.000-07:00

Our next, delicious, and completely uncreative application for our leftover chicken was club sandwiches. Chicken, toasted Italian bread, lettuce, mayonnaise, and some bacon. It's very hard to start out with those ingredients and end up with something that's not good. Of course, we once would have said the same about bagels, cream cheese, and butter. Then the creative cook at an unnamed English restaurant toasted our bagels in the same oil he was using to make fish and chips. It was an ingenious—if entirely unsuccessful—example of cross-product usage.

But you don't need us to tell you how to make a club sandwich. Instead, we'll take the leftover roast chicken in a slightly different direction. This tasty little appetizer is very hard to write a recipe for, since we don't know the state of your roast chicken (done to a turn, underdone in some places, or massacred). We also don't know your spice rub (though we're betting you didn't slather it in Thai spices, like our sister's boyfriend). And we don't know how much you have. But the principles are what counts.

Chicken Fritters

1 ½ cup leftover roast chicken, shredded, chopped, and shredded again
2 stalk celery, peeled and diced
1 tsp lemon juice
Bread, several slices, soaked in milk
Bread crumbs or crumbled crackers
1 tbsp sweet paprika
½ tbsp garlic powder
½ tbsp sumac
½ tbsp oregano or Italian seasoning
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 large egg
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

1. Combine the chicken, celery, lemon juice, parsley, and spices, along with a pinch of salt and several grindings of pepper.
2. Squeeze the bread to remove most of the milk, and add to mixture.
3. Add one egg and mash together with your hands.
4. See where you're at. You want the mixture to have the consistency of a meatball. Likely it will be too wet at this stage, so you'll want to add bread crumbs or crumbled crackers. Eventually, it should hold together well enough to make a small ball that doesn't stick to your hands.
5. Heat a pan and make a tiny patty. Fry it quickly and taste. Then make adjustments to mix for seasoning.
6. Make patties by first rolling into a ball slightly larger than a walnut, and then flattening.
7. Fry in olive oil until golden on both sides.
8. Serve with a sauce of your choosing (our favorite simple sauce these days is equal parts water and sour cream, with a nice bit of chopped dill, some sumac, and a little lemon juice).

An Unusual Chicken Salad (Leftover barbecued chicken)

2009-05-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

We tried to leave early from a barbecue, and got a hunk of roasted chicken breast for our trouble. The next day, we found it rather dry and tough, and decided a wet application would be best. Surprisingly enough, the east-meets-west-meets-American-condiment-rack combination worked really well.

Please note, the ingredients are really for starting out. We normally adjust some/all of them to suit the chicken best.

1 ½ cup leftover roast chicken, shredded
3 tbsp cashews, chopped
1-2 tbsp mayonnaise (homemade is nice)
1 tbsp Madras curry powder
1 ½ tbsp sweet pickle relish
Maggi seasoning
Sriracha sauce

1. Combine the first five ingredients.
2. Add small amounts of the last two.
3. Mix.
4. Adjust, using the Maggi as you would salt.

Egg and Pea Curry (Imperial Palace, Macao)

2009-05-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

(apologies for the dark photo. Newborns sap photographic energy)

A friend of ours has recently fallen under the spell of a famous doctor who counsels on diet. This poor man used to feast nightly on lamb shanks, pork ribs, and steak, but he now faces a small number of acceptable foods and an encyclopedic list of unacceptable ones. He asked us for something tasty and easy to prepare that fit his narrow requirements.

We offered up our adaptation of a great dish we had at a casino in Macao. The use of hard boiled eggs (somehow eggs escaped his hit list) in curry is very very good. You can use any compatible vegetables. Cauliflower and asparagus are especially nice, as are mushrooms.

Good variants of this dish involve lowering the heat at the end and stirring in yogurt (not permitted by the doctor), tempering in an egg (adds too much complexity), using coconut milk instead of flour and stock (absolutely forbidden), or serving it over spicy potatoes (these too are evil).

Curry with Eggs and Peas

4 hardboiled eggs
1 large onion, diced
1 cup frozen peas
1-2 tbsp Madras Curry Powder
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp flour
¾ cup chicken broth
2 tsp Garam Masala
Water
Salt
Canola oil

1. Place 1 tbsp canola oil (or some evil ghee) in a hot frying pan
2. Add onions and fry vigorously, stirring often, for about 8 minutes until they begin to brown. Do not allow to blacken.
3. Reduce heat. Add flour, curry powder and cayenne. Stir and cook for about 1-2 minutes until flour smell disappears.
4. Add stock and stir vigorously until roux is dissolved.
5. Add water until desired thickness is reached.
6. Cook for about five minutes until flavors are incorporated. Add more water, as necessary.
7. Salt to taste.
8. Add peas and eggs, and cook for several minutes, ensuring that the egg yolk is well-penetrated by the sauce.
9. Finish with garam masala to taste.
10. Serve with rice.

Rarebit to the Rescue (Welsh Rarebit)

2009-05-19T05:58:00.000-07:00

Last night, in the middle of baking a loaf of all-wheat bread, our baby daughter decided to interrupt. We remembered the bread 20 minutes too late.

What to do with dry, overcooked bread? If it was white bread, it would have joined our pile of bread crumbs. But all wheat's a different problem.

Our thoughts soon turned to something forbidden during pregnancy: a beer and cheese sauce. By toasting the bread crisp and drenching it in yummy Welsh rarebit, we saved our loaf. This recipe, by the way, is no different from any other you'll find. If you're looking for a way to save cash, don't go crazy on the beer. You can make a perfectly acceptable rarebit with a can of Budweiser.

Welsh Rarebit

2 tbsp butter
2 cups cheddar cheese
½ bottle dark beer
½ cup milk or cream
1 tsp dry mustard (more to taste)
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp flour
Four slices thick wheat bread
Parsley and chives to garnish

1. Heat broiler. (this step is optional)
2. Melt 1 ½ tbsp butter in saucepan, stir in flour, mustard, and cayenne.
3. Allow to cook about 1 minute, or until the flour smell is gone.
4. Whisk in milk and continue whisking until lumps are gone and sauce is thick.
5. Whisk in beer, and allow to cook for a few minutes to remove excess alcohol.
6. Stir in most of the cheese to make a thick sauce.
7. Add Worcestershire sauce to taste.
8. Stir in remaining butter.
9. Toast bread until fairly hard.
10. Top bread with some sauce.
11. Optional: Take this sauced bread, top with cheese and place under broiler.
12. Check at 30 second intervals until the cheese is browned.
13. Serve garnished with herbs, sprinkled with Worcestershire sauce, accompanied by a bowl of the remaining sauce.

Fattoush (Leftover Pita Bread Salad)

2009-05-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

One of the most photogenic of all foods, fattoush is a classic leftover dish: a Lebanese grandma's way to get rid of stale pita and uneaten veg. The idea is to toast (or fry) the pita, and toss it with herbs, a vinaigrette, and whatever you've got lying around. It sounded simple—until we consulted Chef Google.

From him, we learned that authentic fattoush is a very daunting undertaking. It requires barrel-aged feta, salt-cured olives, Arabic bread, pomegranate seeds, purslane, sumac, brined pickles, vine-ripened cherry tomatoes (is there another kind?), seedless English cucumbers, and French breakfast radishes (as opposed to French dinner radishes, which are equally common in our supermarket).

Then we stopped. It can't be authentic to turn a simple leftover dish into a $20/plate rare vegetable treasure hunt. Our advice is to concentrate on the pita, and empty out your produce drawer.

Fattoush

2 stale pitas, cut into triangles (Making your own works best, and it's really not hard.)
¼ cup olive oil (the yummy stuff)
1 tbsp chopped garlic
2-cups vegetables (in our case, hot cooked corn tossed with raw spinach)
Herbs (we used 2 tbsp of chopped parsley and mint)
10 or so kalamata olives, pitted
10 grape tomatoes
10 bite sized hunks of goat cheese
1-2 cups cucumber cubed

1. Heat oven to 350.
2. Heat oil and garlic together.
3. Toss pitas through the garlic oil, then spread on a sheet pan.
4. Bake until almost hard through.
5. Mix vegetables, herbs, olives, cucumbers and tomatoes.
6. Toss together with pita toasts.
7. Top with dressing (see below)

Sumac-buttermilk dressing

Before your head explodes, remember that cultured buttermilk is not leftover churned butter; it's similar to yogurt.

¼ cup buttermilk
1 tbsp olive oil
2tsp lemon juice
dash salt
1 tsp pureed garlic
1 tbsp sumac (ok, so we broke down, it is really nice)
1 tbsp of dill and parsley chopped.

1. Add lemon juice, garlic and salt to a small bowl.
2. Whisk vigorously while pouring in oil in a thin stream.
3. Add buttermilk and whisk.
4. Add sumac, dill, and parsley.
5. Taste and adjust.

Slight Hiatus

2009-05-05T14:15:00.003-07:00

Taking a short break, but we have a very good excuse. See you soon.

Pasta with Crab and Spring Onions

2009-04-30T06:58:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-29T03:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-27T04:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-25T07:34:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

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)

2009-04-22T04:37:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-20T04:09:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-18T11:06:00.001-07:00

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)

2009-04-17T04:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-17T04:26:00.001-07:00

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)

2009-04-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

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)

2009-04-14T04:26:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-12T04:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-06T03:27:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-04T04:19:00.001-07:00

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.

Clam Pizza

2009-03-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

(images are clam pizza and baguettes made with the same dough)

Ever wonder what to do with those cans of clams that are always on sale? They may not be better than fresh ones, but they're a heck of a lot cheaper. When combined with tons of garlic and mozzerella cheese, they're terrific too.

Lately we've been making pizza with Peter Reinhart's versatile pain a l'ancienne dough recipe. It somehow gets around the problem that home ovens are a lot cooler than professional ones. But we're not going to share that recipe, because a) we don't plagiarize, and b) you'd be better off buying The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It is a fantastic book.

However, we're aware that others on the Internets don't share our scruples. So if you just must cut and paste those words in the Google—have at it. If you do, please feel poorly about yourself—not to mention sorry for Mr. Reinhart, whose fabulous breadmaking skills cannot have contributed positively to his long term cardiovascular health. In any case, we owe this pizza to him.

Clam Pizza
(serves 1/4 of a true gourmet)

1 serving pain a l'ancienne dough
½ can chopped clams (drained, with liquid reserved)
¼ cup chopped garlic
Shredded mozzarella
Olive oil

1. Place pizza stone in oven.
2. Preheat your oven as hot as it will go, keep heated for at least 20 minutes
3. Place cornmeal on pizza peel or back of cookie sheet.
4. Stretch and toss dough to desired shape.
5. Place on pizza peel.
6. Add clams and garlic.
7. Top with mozzarella.
8. Add a small amount of reserved clam juice.
9. Place on hot stone.
10. After eight minutes or sides of pizza are brown, remove.
11. Drizzle with olive oil
12. Serve and eat ravenously.

Char-Sui Pork Polenta

2009-03-24T15:01:00.000-07:00

Even if you don't get polenta, this recipe should turn your mind around. The concept comes from Romania and Moldova, where "mamaliga," a thick polenta, is the national bread. It's served, in flush times, with a strongly-flavored meat or fish, some sour cream and grated sheep's cheese. The idea is to take a bite sized piece of polenta (in your hands), dip it in sour cream, dip it in cheese, and then use it to grab a piece of meat. Try it, it's yummy.

The traditional meat for this is an artery-clogging piece of pork or chicken stewed in fat. This has strong points in its favor. But we hope to reach 50. So, we found some inexpensive pork tenderloin and subjected it to a Chinese marinade. The side of asparagus offers a contrast to the richness of the rest of the dish. When we're being lazy, which is often, we substitute pickles or pickled tomatoes for the asparagus.

Polenta
(try to cook it this way if you have the time, otherwise cut the cooking time to 30 minutes)

1 cup coarse ground cornmeal (you can use regular cornmeal, and we often do)
Salt
Butter

1. Bring four cups of water to a boil.
2. Whisk the cornmeal in, pouring it in a thin stream from your fist.
3. Bring back to a boil and turn heat as low as it will go.
4. Cook slowly for about three hours, stirring every 20 minutes or so to ensure that it doesn't burn. Reincorporate any crispy bits on the side.
5. Add water (boiling if possible) as necessary.
6. When polenta turns a pale shade of white, add salt and butter to taste.
7. Make sure it's reasonably thick.
8. Pour into a small bowl, and allow to sit while you cook the pork and asparagus.
9. Reverse the bowl on to a plate to make a cake.

Asparagus

20 sprigs (or so) asparagus
Salt
Sherry vinegar

1. Heat oven to 400.
2. Place asparagus in a roasting pan and lightly toss with oil.
3. Roast for about 5-7 minutes or until cooked through and lightly browned.
4. Remove and sprinkle with salt and vinegar.
5. Allow to sit until ready

Pork and Serving Instructions

1 pork tenderloin
Char Sui sauce (a popular Chinese marinade)
Cooked Polenta cake
Asparagus
Sour Cream
Pecorino cheese (or something like that, parm is ok, so is Kasseri, if you feel you must go native)
Water
Sriracha sauce

1. Mix Char Sui and water to form a marinade. Add Sriracha to taste.
2. Place tenderloin and marinade in a ziplock bag.
3. Allow to sit for 2-3 hours minimum.
4. Remove and dry.
5. Cut thin disks of pork.
6. Heat a grill or grill pan as hot as it will go.
7. Brush disks with oil, then grill for about 2-3 minutes per side, more if pork scares you
8. Allow to rest while you assemble the plates.
9. Cut polenta cake in wedges. Put wedge or two on each plate. Add a dollop of sour cream, a mound of grated cheese, and asparagus.
10. Arrange the pork over the polenta in an artsy, nonfunctional way (see image), so that your guests must rearrange their food before eating.
11. Enjoy (see intro for eating instructions.

Found Meal: Pasta Bits and Simple Sauce

2009-03-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

This one goes out to all of the true skinflints in the world (Let's unite for a beer. You pay.). We'd saved leftover pasta from a couple of meals. The rest is kitchen detritus. The results were lunch.

2 cups cooked, leftover plain pasta
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 tbsp tomato paste (When opening a can of tomato paste, don't use the whole can. Freeze the rest wrapped in plastic sprayed with oil. When you need it, cut off a piece with a serrated knife and defrost in the microwave.)
¼ cup Neufchatel cheese (or cream cheese)
1 tbsp half & half
Dried oregano & dried basil
Crushed red pepper flakes
¼ cup pine nuts
1 tbsp chopped parsley
Olive oil (unimpressive)
Sugar

1. If you have two or more types of pasta, chop it until everything is roughly the same size.
2. Toast the pine nuts in a skillet, remove and chop roughly.
3. Put a bit of olive oil in the same skillet, and cook the garlic gently over low heat.
4. When it is fragrant, but before it is golden, add the tomato paste.
5. Fry for a few moments, then add about half a cup of water. Stir to incorporate the tomato paste, and let simmer for a few minutes.
6. Season with a small bit of kosher salt.
7. Add the Neufchatel cheese and half & half, stirring to combine. Keep the sauce simmering.
8. When the cheese has been completely incorporated, add the oregano, basil, and red pepper flakes.
9. Let the sauce simmer for a few moments more before adding the parsley and about half the chopped nuts.
10. The sauce might need a pinch of sugar here. Taste and adjust the seasonings.
11. Toss pasta through. Serve garnished with more chopped nuts.

Black Truffle Pasta with Lemon Green Beans

2009-03-22T08:46:00.001-07:00

All leftovers and no luxury make a very dull food blog.

Smoky Mac-n-Cheese

2009-03-21T12:30:00.001-07:00

After crisscrossing the world looking for cephalopod recipes, it's nice to come back to a good old mac-n-cheese. There's nothing like it for providing comfort if you need it, and tasting great if you don't. It also helps use up all of the scraps in your cheese drawer.

Every mac and cheese recipe has to fit in your roasting pan nicely. That makes writing a recipe a little bit of an exercise in guess work. We usually test the amount of pasta we'llneed by filling up the pan we're going to use. The amount of cooked pasta should be about ¾ to the top of the pot. Then we remove that to a bowl, make a little extra sauce, and combine the right amount to cover it.

Smoky Mac-n-Cheese

1 pound pasta, cooked to a hard al dente
2-3 cups grated scrap cheese, cheddar, monterrey jack, etc.
3 oz Velveeta (yes, that stuff, it adds a nice texture)
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 tbsp flour
1 ½ cups milk (or so)
2 tbsp butter
½ cup frozen peas
Salt
½ cup bread crumbs or crumbled Ritz crackers

1. Heat oven to 400
2. Fry the onions briskly over medium high heat until yellow
3. Lower heat, add butter, and flour and stir to combine.
4. Add spices and cook briefly
5. Add milk, stirring vigorously. Bring temp up.
6. Add butter, and melt
7. Add Velveeta and dissolve
8. Slowly add cheese a little at a time, making sure it dissolves. Sauce should be thickened but still a little watery (the pasta will thicken it further)
9. Add peas to thaw
10. Taste and season
11. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, mix, then pour into baking dish.
12. Cover with bread crumbs, dab with butter, put in oven
13. Bake about 20 minutes. If the top starts to brown too much, cover with foil
14. Allow to rest five minutes before serving.

Octopus Ceviche

2009-03-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

Our last hurrah with our octopus was a simple ceviche served with popcorn. Why popcorn? Ask the Ecuadorans, we're merely following orders.

When it comes to ceviche, many people are hung up on the fact that South American limes are different from North American limes. This is entirely true. And it would have a big impact on you if you wanted your ceviche exactly how mom made it—provided that mom happened to come from South America. Luckily, our remaining mom wouldn't eat octopus ceviche if it could restore her 401K to its former glory. So, we gave it a whirl with lemon juice and liked it quite a bit.

Octopus Ceviche

½ cup cooked octopus
½ jalapeno, sliced very thin
½ medium onion, sliced
1 tbsp cilantro
1 tbsp oil (neutral)
Lemon juice
Salt

1. Toss the first four ingredients together, cover with the fifth and sixth, and add the seventh to taste.
2. Wait 20 minutes and serve with popcorn.

Pasta and Spanish-Flavored Meatballs

2009-03-17T08:30:00.001-07:00

We think there's no greater testimony to the commitment of a vegetarian than the meatball. We could with regret forgo lamb chops and pork roasts, but giving up meatballs is like giving up French fries, sex, or peanut butter. It takes character.

Whenever ground beef goes on sale, we usually grab a bunch of it, some of which inevitably ends its days as flavored meatballs. Normally, we make at least two kinds at once. This involves getting a couple of bowls, divvying up the flesh, and adding different seasonings and thickeners. Then we fry them and freeze them.

Many of them, of course, disappear in the process. There is something about a freshly fried meatball, a hunk of crusty bread, and a dab of mayonnaise that could tempt a devout Hindu, we're sure. But the surviving meatballs make an interesting ingredient for those times when you just don't have time to cook something special.

Pasta and Spanish-Flavored Meatballs

Meatballs

1-2 pounds ground beef
½ head garlic, minced
1/3 cup bread crumbs
2 tbsp parsley
1 tbsp Spanish paprika
½ tsp sumac (optional)
½ tsp cayenne (optional)
1 egg
Salt
Pepper

1. Mix, form into small balls, and fry in olive oil over medium heat until cooked through. (it's a good idea to check your seasoning by frying a small patty first, before forming the lot into balls)
2. Freeze on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper
3. Place in a zipper bag and store for future use.

The Pasta

½ pound pasta
8 small Spanish-flavored meatballs
1 medium onion, sliced
5 cloves garlic
Pinch saffron
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp chopped parsley
Olive oil
Salt
Cheese for garnish

1. Cook pasta until al dente, reserving ½ cup pasta water.
2. Sliver one clove garlic and fry in 1 tbsp oil until lightly browned. Remove and set aside.
3. Fry onion in medium hot oil until yellow.
4. Add garlic, paprika and saffron. Wait until your kitchen starts smelling great, then:
5. Add meatballs and heat through.
6. Add cooked pasta and enough water to create a thick sauce. Add salt, if necessary.
7. Add parsley and remove from heat.
8. Garnish with garlic chips and cheese.

Yellow Curry Octopus (leftover ingredients)

2009-03-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

Thai curry is one of those things that can either be simple and quick, or absolutely backbreaking. We learned it the backbreaking way, pounding it out in heavy granite mortars at one of Thailand's ubiquitous cooking schools. My memories of the lessons include walking home, bleary eyed and dehydrated, with aching shoulders. The truth is that making your own curry paste is better, but it's something we do only once in a while.

For weeknight meals, we recommend a simpler route, and one taken by nearly every Thai family: Get it premade. You can find a tub of curry paste for a couple of bucks at any Thai market (we tend towards the Mae Ploy brand, which is a little salty, but otherwise ok). It will keep in your refrigerator forever, and be ready to kick out a cheap, quick, and delicious meal in no time.

This recipe is made by combining leftover ingredients from the Lomo Saltado and the Pasta with Octopus.

Final note: Somewhere on the internet, we found (and subsequently can't find again) a recipe where someone braised the octopus from scratch in a Thai coconut curry. This strikes us as capable of producing an infinitely better result, and we're going to try it some time.

Yellow Curry Octopus

2/3 cup octopus, cooked and skin removed
2/3 cup onions, sliced
½ cup potatoes, cut into small pieces
½ cup grape tomatoes
2 tbsp yellow curry paste (though you may need to add more)
1 can coconut milk
Sugar (start with 1-2 tsp)
Fish sauce
2 kaffir lime leaves, sliced (optional)
1 tbsp basil, chopped (Thai holy, if you can get it)

Jasmine rice, cooked

1. Heat a frying pan and oil and tomatoes and sear until skins start to break. Remove
2. Clean out pan again, heat. Then add coconut milk and heat until it starts boiling around the edges.
3. Add curry paste and stir until incorporated.
4. Add onions and potatoes, and cook until tender.
5. Taste. If necessary add sugar, fish sauce and adjust.
6. Add tomatoes, octopus, and kaffir lime leaves, and heat through.
7. Remove from heat and add the basil.
8. Serve over rice.

Pasta with Octopus

2009-03-14T06:49:00.001-07:00

The best octopus dish we've ever had was the deceptively simple Pasta con Pulpo at the Hotel Terrasol in Grenada, Nicaragua. No, it's not Nicaraguan. The chef, Victor Chamorro, is from California, where he was executive chef at uber-ritzy supermarket Drager's in the Bay Area. He and his wife, Katya, had long dreamed of moving back to her hometown and opening a small hotel and restaurant. We're glad they didn't stop at dreaming. The hotel is cozy and the food is fantastic, a mix of local ingredients and California culinary sensibility. It's worth a long stop if you ever visit Grenada, which you should do.

This is our attempt to recreate the dish. It's a fair approximation, delicious, but not as good as the original. Don't overdo the basil; it really brings out the flavor of the octopus.

Pasta with Octopus

3/4 pound thin spaghetti(cooked normally)
1cup cooked octopus, skin removed
¾ head garlic, chopped fine
¾ cup fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp basil
Salt
Oil
Cheese for garnish

1. In a large, hot frying pan, add about 3-4 tbsp oil
2. Add garlic and cook briskly for about 15 seconds
3. Add tomatoes and a sprinkle of salt
4. Cook two minutes or so, stirring
5. Add octopus, heat through
6. Add the basil and toss through
7. Add the pasta and combine
8. Serve with cheese

Lomo Saltado (not really)

2009-03-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

Lomo Saltado is Peru's most enthusiastic contribution to culinary performance art. To make it, a chef flambées four different ingredients four separate times over a 40,000 BTU burner. Beef, tomatoes, onions and aji amarillo peppers go into a pan one by one, where they receive a shot of Pisco and then explode in a burst of fire. The taste is smoky, but except in the hands of a very experienced chef, the results are disappointing.

Enter us. Minus the 40,000 BTUs, the aji amarillo peppers, the necessary experience, and the Pisco. We also have low ceilings. On the plus side, we did find a rather nice piece of steak and some grape tomatoes—the only ripe tomatoes at this time of year in the Northeast. The rest of it we knew how to do. In the end, you don't end up with Lomo Saltado, but you do get something rather nice.

Lomo Saltado (not really)

½ pound beef, cubed in ½ inch pieces
1 medium onion
1 jalapeno pepper, diced
2/3 cup grape tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 medium red potatoes (or any potatoes)
Cooked white rice (leftover)
Soy sauce
Cider vinegar
Worchestershire sauce
Sriracha sauce (optional)
Toasted sesame oil
Scallions

To make the fries (easy way)

Cut your potatoes into 1 cm slices or sticks. Cover in cold neutral oil in a pan. Turn the heat on high. After five minutes, turn the potatoes gently to avoid sticking. In roughly 15-20 minutes, potatoes will turn golden brown and crispy. Remove from heat and drain. Do not salt until serving.

Meanwhile…

1. Mix ½ cup soy sauce, 1 tbsp vinegar, ½ tbsp Worchestershire sauce, 1 tsp toasted sesame oil in a bowl, and Sriracha sauce. Taste and adjust, adding water or sugar as necessary.
2. Heat a frying pan or wok. Add oil and put down meat. Allow to brown on one side, turn, allow to brown on a second side. Then toss until no longer pink. Set aside in a bowl.
3. In the same pan, add the onions. Stir fry for 2 minutes until brown at edges.
4. Add peppers and garlic. Stir fry an additional minute or so.
5. Add tomatoes and pinch of salt. Fry, tossing occasionally until skins start to slip from tomatoes.
6. Add liquids, turn down heat. Add beef, and heat through. Remove from heat to a bowl.
7. Serve with rice, fries, and a garnish of scallions.

How to Prep Octopus

2009-03-11T05:30:00.001-07:00

Isn't that beautiful? A three pound octopus recently defrosted. Why this beast isn't more popular we don't know. It tastes great and it's one of the healthiest things in the world. It's extremely low in fat, high in protein, low in mercury, and has no cholesterol. It is better frozen than fresh, and it's not usually very expensive.

It also swims. It swims to nearly every great food culture in the world: Japan, China, Italy, Spain, Greece, Peru, South East Asia—need we add West Africa? There are great octopus recipes as far as your imagination can reach.

One thing. Octopus usually must be pre-cooked before using. For some reason, there are as many old wives tales about how to do this as there are about how to tell if you're carrying a boy or a girl. It's all silly. Octopus is not remotely hard to cook. You don't need to boil it with a cork, beat it with a rolling pin, or slam it into your sink. The Spanish even advise you to dunk the octopus three times in boiling water—before boiling it in water.

All you need to do is simmer it (try for around 190-200 F) until the thickest part of the tentacles are tender and you can pierce them easily with a knife. This may take a few hours, depending on its size. Think of it as a big slimy potato with eight arms.

Then you've got a great ingredient ready for anything.

Leftover aioli: Artichokes

2009-03-11T05:27:00.000-07:00

We know that this isn't the season for artichokes, and we were expecting to do something else with our leftover aioli. But at a local farm store, we were surprised to find a pile of them, absolutely fresh and not terrible expensive.

We snatched up two and a fresh lemon. Back at home we steamed the artichokes for 20 minutes. Meanwhile we added fresh lemon zest to our old aioli and let it sit for a bit. The results? Short lived.

Steamed Artichokes

1. Cut off the top ¼ of the artichoke
2. Cut off the stem and peel
3. Peel off the outer leaves.
4. Cut in half.
5. Sprinkle cut side with lemon juice or it will discolor. (Or don't bother. Brown artichokes taste just as good as green ones)
6. Remove the fibrous choke with a spoon.
7. Steam for 20 minutes or until ready (20 mins works for a medium-sized choke. To test your choke, peel off a leaf with a tongs, bite off the edible part, and see if it's ready.)
8. Dip in mayonnaise and enjoy.
9. Go work out. You'll need it after eating all that mayonnaise .

Chorizo Fideo with Garlic Aioli

2009-03-08T08:31:00.000-07:00

Paella puzzles us. We've never had it except when it contained expensive, overcooked shellfish. We've never seen a recipe for it that didn't involve overcooking expensive shellfish. This all seems to be in the service of creating a crust on the $6 per pound Valencia rice that's also utterly essential for the dish. We're sure somebody makes great paella. But the list doesn't include us.

There's another Spanish (or Catalan) technique that we've always preferred to paella. We call it "fideo," which is really just Spanish for pasta. It's a kind of stew that involves building a spicy broth and then cooking inch-long sticks of vermicelli in it. They give off their starch and create a spicy goop that you mix with a fresh mayonnaise spiked with raw garlic. The combination is unctuous and delicious.

If a Catalan grandmother read this recipe, she'd probably dive straight for her rosary. But it reflects what we had lying around: a link of Spanish sausage, a half of a bell pepper, and some leftover roast cauliflower. It would have been greatly improved by a handful of bay scallops, or mussels, or calamari rings tossed in at the end, but when you don't have them, well you don't.

Garlic Aioli

Make this first, as you need time for the garlic to infuse the mayonnaise. You can substitute store bought mayonnaise mixed with garlic, water, and parsley, but it won't react in quite the same amazing way when it hits the fideo.

1 egg yolk
1 tsp lemon juice
1 cup canola oil
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1-2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
Salt

1. Place egg yolk, salt and lemon juice in the bottom of a small mixing bowl.
2. Put the oil in a cup next to the bowl.
3. Take a spoon in one hand and a whisk in the other.
4. Whisk the egg yolk mixture briskly and unceasingly, while dribbling oil drop by drop from the spoon. It should start to form a semi solid.
5. After half the oil is incorporated, you can pour the rest into the mixture in a thin stream.
6. When finished, stir in garlic and parsley and set aside for at least 15 minutes.
7. Loosen with water until it's just pourable.

Sausage Fideo

1 large sausage (uncooked Spanish chorizo—not Mexican chorizo. We've also made it with breakfast sausage, and simply increased the spicing)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2/3 bell pepper chopped (all three of the above ingredients should be roughly equivalent)
2 tbsp or more chopped garlic
2 tsp each of bittersweet, sweet, and smoked paprika (or what you have)
½ tbsp oregano
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 big tbsp tomato paste
1 cup canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, etc. Puree them if you can
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 tsp sugar (these two ingredients are optional, but if you leave out one, leave out the other)
½ cup roasted cauliflower (optional, or substitute scallops, shellfish, etc.)

1/2 -1 pound fideo (or take the same amount of vermicelli and break it into small pieces)

Olive oil
Parsley to garnish

1. Cut sausage in slices and put oil in 10 inch frying pan. Cook over low heat to release oil, then at the end turn up the heat to brown.
2. Remove sausage and pour out most of the oil. Wipe to remove about half of what's left. (Yes, we know we're throwing out flavor, but you don't want that much flavor.)
3. Add more oil and sautee onions, bell peppers, and carrots over medium heat until onions are translucent.
4. Add paprikas and tomato paste and sautee for 2 minutes or so to bloom.
5. Add sherry vinegar and cook for 15 seconds.
6. Add tomatoes, oregano, and about one cup water.
7. Add salt and sugar, and a few pieces of sausage (again, don't add all or they'll totally take over)
8. Simmer for approximately 15 minutes, adding water as necessary.
9. Taste and adjust.
10. Add about 1/2 cup water and the fideo. Be careful with the fideo. It's going to release a lot of starch and puff up.
11. Cook until pasta is done. Add water to maintain a thick but viscous consistency.
12. Add the rest of the sausage and cauliflower and heat through.
13. Fold in parsley.
14. Remove from heat. Serve in a bowl with a good dollop of aioli. Diners should mix the two together before eating.

Leftover Stuff : Lentil Falafel and Spicy Tabouleh

2009-03-07T07:37:00.000-08:00

This looks kind of like a combo appetizer plate at a Greek diner: falafel, tabouleh, pitas, and hummus. But it's mostly leftovers from the last few nights tossed together. One of us made everything you see (including the bread) in about 40 not-terribly-rushed minutes. Rachel Ray would be proud. Or perhaps jealous. Though she makes $6 million per year, so it's unlikely.

We drew our inspiration (if you want to call it that) from the old couscous from the Moroccan stew, which had a great texture, even though it tasted like cardboard. And we found a bag of lentils that we've had since the Clinton administration.

For the pitas, we had reserved half the dough from the other night, rolled it into balls, put them into plastic wrap (oiled) and stuck them in the fridge. Dough keeps for days that way. You merely have to take them out an hour before you need them.

For the hummus, we had plenty left from the other night. It dried out a bit, but sprang back with a little water and oil.

Now for the new stuff.

Spicy Tabouleh

1 cup leftover couscous (bland and tasting like sawdust, if you can find it. Trader Joe's whole wheat couscous really fits that bill.)
½ - ¾ cup chopped parsley
¼ tbsp pureed garlic
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp harissa
Splash of kalamata olive oil (or any olive oil)
Salt and Pepper

1. Mix.
2. Taste.
3. Adjust.
4. Repeat.

Lentil "Falafel"

1 cup old lentils you need to get rid of
3 tbsp parsley
1 tbsp pureed garlic
1 medium onion, grated
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
4-5 cardamom seeds (optional)
Flour
Rice flour (optional, but cheap and available at any Asian or Indian grocery)
Salt and pepper

1. Rinse the lentils thoroughly and soak for several hours.
2. Put them in a pan with ample water, bring to a boil and cook five minutes or until they are al dente
3. Meanwhile, heat a dry pan, add the cumin and coriander. When they begin to smell nice, remove them.
4. Grind cumin, coriander, and cardamom in a mortar and pestle.
5. Drain the lentils, transfer to a bowl and mash with a potato masher until pasty (some can still be whole).
6. Add the onion, garlic, parsley, and spices. Toss to combine.
7. Now's the best time to taste and make adjustments.
8. When you're happy with the flavor, add 1 tbsp flour and knead slightly. Continue adding flour until the lentils are able to be formed into balls.
9. Pour rice flour out on to a sheet pan or cutting board. You can leave the rice flour out, but it makes a nice and completely unauthentic crust.
10. Roll the mash into golf ball sized pieces. You may need to wash your hands from time to time to remove the excess. Don't worry about waste, you're working with about $ .10 of ingredients here.
11. When each one is finished, flatten it into a disk, and toss it in the rice flour and set aside. (If deep frying, leave them round.)
12. Heat ¼ inch of oil in a frying pan. Cook until brown.

This recipe can also be used to make a veggie burger.

Date Nut Bread

2009-03-06T07:18:00.000-08:00

There are date plantations in Death Valley, and a trip there brought us in close contact with one of the rarest things in the entire United States: a reasonably priced date. We bought a few pounds and devoured most of them. But when we got home, they went uneaten for several months. The reason is not that we don't like dates. It's that we had stored them behind the chocolate. In our house, nothing behind the chocolate ever gets eaten.

The recipe we used was from the King Arthur Flour Baking Companion. It is low fat and surprisingly healthy. Here you see it served with cream cheese and a happy cat. The cat recipe follows.

Happy Black Cat

1 stray, neglected cat (black)
Tons of affection
Parmesan cheese (Reggiano, of course)

1. Find cat, or let it find you
2. Shower it with the affection
3. Give it the parmesan
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3

Real Hummus and Homemade Pita

2009-03-05T09:43:00.000-08:00

In the past few years, hummus has become an industry. Factories now crank out more flavors of hydrogenated chickpea fluff than you can count. Confession: we haven't found any we like. If we have come over to your house and raved about the one you served us, we were simply showing our good breeding.

Real hummus is a simple and delicious thing that asks for almost no adornment. To make it is easy but it takes a while. The key is to flavor it exactly how you like.

Hummus

2 cups dried Indian chickpeas (accept no substitute)
Garlic cloves (we use one)
Tahini (we start with about 3 tbsp)
Olive oil (no more than half the amount of tahini)
Lemon juice
Salt

1. Soak the chickpeas overnight or for 24 hours.
2. Place them in a large sauce pan with two quarts of water.
3. Cook for about 45 minutes, until chickpeas are coming apart. Drain.
4. Chop the garlic and put into a food processor.
5. Put the chickpeas into food processor and process until smooth. (Hold off on the rest of the ingredients. Otherwise it won't be as smooth).
6. Add tahini, oil, salt, and lemon juice. Pulse and taste until you like the flavor.
7. Then blitz the processor on, and drizzle water in until you get the fluffiness you desire.
8. Serve with a nice splash of your most pretentious olive oil.

Pitas

Homemade pitas are also delicious and easy to make—the recipe we use comes from King Arthur Flour. One note on that: they suggest dough improver, which makes the dough easier to roll out. You don't need that. Follow these steps instead.

1. Simply roll it out the best you can.
2. If it's not thin enough and keep snapping back, don't fight it. The dough will win every time.
3. Instead, use guile.
4. Cover the partially flattened disk with plastic wrap.
5. Walk away.
6. Enjoy half of a glass of wine.
7. Return to your dough. You will now find it cooperative.
8. Roll it out to the desired size.

You'll see we also enjoyed ours with some of the extra harissa and cooked cauliflower from the other night.

Leftover Grub is One of the Top 100 Food Blogs for the Frugal Gourmet

2009-03-05T08:28:00.000-08:00

So says the apparently brilliant folks at Culinary School Guide. Their list has lots of other good blogs too. Check it out.

Split Pea Pancakes

2009-03-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

We're continuing to attack our legume drawer. Yes, you read the title right. These are pancakes (dosas) made almost entirely from split yellow peas. The idea comes from South India, where people have been turning nothing into tasty food for eons. We found the recipe at Manjula's Kitchen. She also has a video, so visit her to find out how to do it (fair warning, it's informative but not gripping television.)

Here's some thoughts. If you balk at the high oil content, you can make the pancake with less oil than she does, but it will be a little less crunchy and not spread as easily in the pan.

Don't be a slave to the recipe. You may use any spicing you like. We put in salt, cumin seeds, cayenne, and some finely diced green pepper we happened to have lying around.

To serve it, we used some leftover Indian food. One thing to note is that you do not need much leftovers for this. Typically, Americans like to eat a big bowl of curry with a small amount of rice and bread. Indians do the reverse: the bread is the centerpiece, the rest of the food is a condiment. If you strongly flavor your dosa, you don't need a lot of (or any) curry.

Secret: For breakfast, Nicole likes plain salted dosas with maple syrup.

March (Legume) Madness: Chickpea Stew with Cauliflower and Harissa

2009-03-05T07:42:00.000-08:00

May have to rethink that title. The New York Times had a recipe for something that involved whole wheat couscous and Moroccan-spiced chick peas. Which got us to thinking. In our pantry we have a drawer filled with many different kinds of legumes that we never use. Not to mention a box of whole wheat couscous that has followed us around for five years, traveling more than 4000 miles in the process. We don't know where it came from, and we think it's been secretly mocking us.

We didn't care for the recipe (the instructions were all backwards), so we set out on our own. This was beyond good, by the way. A good harissa with some preserved lemon really makes this, but don't despair. You can substitute Tabasco or Sriracha, or even Frank's hot sauce.

Chickpea Stew with Cauliflower and Harissa

1 cup dried chickpeas (Don't do this with canned chick peas. In fact, don't do anything with canned chick peas except exercises.)
1 large onion, sliced thin
1/4 cauliflower
1 ½ tbsp cumin whole
2 tbsp coriander whole
½ tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp tomato paste
Salt to taste
3 tbsp chopped Italian parsley
1 cup couscous
Butter
Harissa
Sour cream
Canola or other neutral oil

1. Rinse the chickpeas until the water runs clear. Then soak them for 8 hours, or overnight.
2. Prepare the couscous by adding one cup boiling water, 2 tsp butter, and salt. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Then fluff and rub through your hands.
3. Cut the cauliflower into florets and chop the stems. Put oil in a very hot pan. Brown the cauliflower, then add a half cup of water, lower the heat, and cover. Steam until al dente.
4. Heat a dry pan, add the cumin and coriander. When they begin to smell nice, remove and grind in a mortar and pestle. Or spare yourself the bother and use pre-ground.
5. Heat a large saucepan over medium high heat. Add the onions.
6. Cook, stirring until they are just ready to brown.
7. Lower the heat. Make a well in the center of the onions and add the tomato paste. Flatten it out and let fry for a minute or so. Then mix with the onions.
8. Add most of the cumin and coriander (reserve a little to add later, if needed). Fry for a few minutes.
9. Add the chickpeas, 1 tbsp of harissa, some salt, and about a quart or so of water. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until the chickpeas are soft and tasty.
10. Add cauliflower and season to taste. You may need to add additional water, or cook it down to enrich the flavor. Remove from heat and stir in parsley.
11. Combine the sour cream with equal parts water.
12. Make a small layer of couscous in a bowl. Pour the stew over it, garnish with sour cream and a dollop of harissa.

Leftover Pork Goulash, Take 2: Pork Lasagna

2008-02-13T12:53:00.000-08:00

That one measly pork shoulder turns out to be the gift that keeps on giving. Combining it with some leftover lasagna noodles we had lying around proved a pretty good use. Of course, we didn't have tomato sauce or ricotta lying around, so we had to improvise a bit.

Pork Lasagna

This is enough to make a mini-plate (about 9 inches by 4 inches). It would serve 2 or 3 light eaters, or ½ a heavy eater.

1 cup shredded leftover pork shoulder
½ cup of the accompanying sauce
3 tbsp cream cheese
3 tbsp goat cheese
¼ cup buttermilk
1 tbsp chopped parsley
6 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tbsp lemon juice
6 sheets lasagna
parmigiano reggiano

1. Cook the lasagna sheets according to package directions. Remove when they are still undercooked in the center, and rinse in cold water. Pat dry between towels and set aside.

2. Chop shredded pork finely and combine with sauce. Heat quickly in the microwave.

3. Warm the cream cheese and goat cheese briefly (10 seconds) in the microwave. Add garlic, parsley, buttermilk, lemon juice, lemon zest, and many grindings of black pepper, and whisk vigorously. Add more buttermilk and/or lemon juice to taste, and to make the consistency of the mixture slightly thicker than heavy cream.

4. Spritz the baking pan lightly with cooking spray. Spread a tablespoon of the cheese mixture on the bottom. Place two pieces of lasagna on this, cutting them so they fit snugly and do not overlap. Spread one third of the pork mixture on the lasagna, top this with one third of the cheese sauce, and two more pieces of lasagna. Top this layer of lasagna with another third of the pork and cheese sauce, and put the remaining two pieces of lasagna on top. Finish with the last of the pork covered by the last of the cheese. Sprinkle freshly-grated parmigiano reggiano on top of this last layer of cheese sauce. Note: as with all lasagnas, it can be assembled to this point and refrigerated for a day or two, or frozen for several months.

5. If the lasagna has been in the refrigerator, let it come to room temperature before baking at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, or until the top is bubbling and golden. Let it sit for 10 minutes before cutting.

Leftover Pork Goulash: Pasta with Pork Ragu

2008-02-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

Occasionally we see a recipe on a cooking show that makes us drop everything, head straight to the supermarket, buy all the ingredients, and get to work. This recipe for goulash made with pork shoulder and bell peppers from Jamie Oliver was a good example. It's a pork pot roast that creates a delicious sweet sauce, and lots of it.

We made this easy one-skillet pasta from the leftovers.

Pasta with Leftover Pork Ragu

1 cup shredded leftover pork shoulder
½ cup of the sauce it cooked in (reduced bell peppers, paprika, caraway seeds, etc.)
½ lb brown rotini pasta
3 tbsp goat cheese, plus extra for garnish
2 tbsp chopped thyme leaves
2 tbsp chopped parsley leaves
parmigiano reggiano

1. Cook and drain the pasta, reserving a cup of the cooking water.

2. In a large skillet heat the pork and its sauce together until warm. Add the goat cheese and about half the cooking water, and stir until the goat cheese has melted. Add the thyme and parsley.

3. Add the cooked pasta to the skillet and combine. Keep the heat at medium-low, and add more cooking water as necessary to coat the pasta with the sauce. Season with black pepper and kosher salt, if needed.

4. Top pasta with extra goat cheese and grated parmigiano.

Leftover Meatloaf and Garlic Bread Panzanella

2008-02-08T11:33:00.000-08:00

The stars really must align perfectly for us to have panzanella. To make it, we must have old crusty bread, leftover tomato or meat sauce, and some sort of vegetables lying around. But it is a wonderful treat whenever we do make it. This panzanella made from our leftover meatloaf and garlic bread seemed to be in the stars for us that day.

Leftover Meatloaf and Garlic Bread Panzanella

one cup chilled tomato sauce

(Combine in a saucepan 5-6 cloves of sliced garlic with one 28-ounce can of whole plum tomatoes, ¼ cup sweet vermouth, 2 tsp dried oregano, 1 tbsp olive oil, and a pinch of kosher salt. Simmer for 45 minutes.)

½ cup crumbled meatloaf
Half a loaf leftover garlic bread, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 packed cups baby spinach
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, mashed in a garlic press

1. Gently toast garlic bread pieces in a 250 degree oven until they are dry and very hard.
2. Whisk vinegar into olive oil to make a vinaigrette. Season with mashed garlic, kosher salt, and black pepper.
3. Dress spinach with vinaigrette, and season the salad with kosher salt and black pepper to taste.
4. Combine cold tomato sauce and meatloaf. Add garlic bread croutons and toss to cover them with the sauce.
5. To serve, first lay down a bed of spinach leaves on the plate, pour on the vinagrette, then top with some of the sauce-covered croutons.

Coming attractions: leftover meatloaf and garlic bread

2008-01-31T09:06:00.000-08:00

(with recipe for Simple Asian Meatloaf Glaze)

A fire sale on ground beef sold in a cylinder has given us a very tasty meatloaf. This and the leftover garlic bread will certainly be appearing in whatever we cobble together over the next few days….stay tuned!

By the way, we really liked this simple glaze on our meatloaf:

Simple Asian Meatloaf Glaze

½ cup chili sauce
½ cup Chinese marinade (we used the Lee Kum Kee brand)
2 heaping tablespoons brown sugar

1. Mix two sauces and sugar together.
2. When there's ten minutes of cooking left, take the meatloaf out and smooth over the surface with a pastry brush.
3. Return it to the oven to finish cooking.

Broccoli Cream Soup to Broccoli Ranch Dip

2008-01-29T16:09:00.000-08:00

(With Crispy Flour Tortillas)

We have been using the contents of the refrigerator so efficiently that we were forced to dig deep for our evening chip & dip. Last week we had knocked up the base for a cream of broccoli soup (broccoli, onions, milk). We made half of it into soup by adding milk and blue cheese. That left us some broccoli "starter" in the fridge. It was to this container that we turned our attention.

The broccoli mixture was almost thick enough to be a dip, but it didn't hurt when we added some mayonnaise, ranch dip powder, cayenne, and scraps of cheese. We also discovered we didn't have any sort of cracker or chip in the house. But we did have flour tortillas – which toasted up with nonstick cooking spray and kosher salt to make fluffy and crunchy dipping chips.

This type of dip could be made with any leftover soup, even thin ones. In that case, you'd want to add a bit more mayonnaise or even some sour cream (which we also didn't have) to get something that would stick to a chip.

Broccoli Ranch Dip

½ cup thick broccoli soup
3 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tsp powdered ranch-flavored dip mix
½ tsp cayenne pepper (or more, to taste)
1 tbsp mozzarella cheese, torn into tiny bits
3 tbsp goat cheese (or about 1 inch of the log they they are often shaped in)

1. Combine the soup, mayonnaise, ranch powder, and cayenne pepper. Stir well.

2. Add the mozzarella and goat cheeses. Stir vigorously, then microwave on high for thirty seconds. Stir vigorously again, incorporating the melting cheese into the dip. Repeat the microwaving and stirring one more time, or until the cheese has melted and the dip is smooth.

3. Microwave the dip one more time for 30 seconds, and stir. Serve with the tortilla chips.

Crispy Flour Tortilla Chips

2 flour tortillas
non-stick cooking spray
kosher salt

1. Spray both sides of each tortilla with nonstick cooking spray. Cut each into eighths, then cut each eighth into triangles by cutting from one corner on the curved side to the opposite straight side.

2. Spread the triangles over a foil-lined baking sheet and sprinkle with kosher salt.

3. Bake at 400 degrees until golden brown. Note: watch them closely as they can burn very quickly.

Leftover Shrimp: Bisque

2008-01-28T13:03:00.001-08:00

We live in a rural area, and usually can't find specialty ingredients to play with. This means that when the craving for seared foie gras with cherry compote hits, the only course of action is to take a cold shower. The raw and windy weather recently put us in the mood for some seafood stew. We looked longingly at the 823-step Julia Child recipe for lobster bisque, but went in a different direction using some of the only reliable seafood we can get here – bags of flash-frozen shrimp.

Shrimp Bisque

½ pound shrimp, cleaned, deveined, and shells on
15-20 extra shrimp shells (when using shrimp for stir-fries, we toss the shells into a bag in the freezer)
¼ cup brandy (E&J is fine)
¼ cup dry sherry
2 tbl tomato paste
1 cup half and half
½ cup whole milk
4 tbl flour
4 tbl plus ½ tbl butter
2 medium shallots, chopped finely
1 tbl olive oil
½ tsp cayenne pepper

1. Slowly sauté shallots with the olive oil and ½ tablespoon butter. Add a tiny sprinkle of kosher salt. Cook until they appear light purple and are soft. Add cayenne pepper.
2. Turn heat up and add tomato paste. Fry tomato paste for a minute or so, until the smell coming from the pot is very tomato-ey.
3. Add the shrimp. Cook until they curl up and are turning pink. Add the brandy and cook until it evaporates, then add the sherry and cook until it evaporates. Take the pot off the heat and cool.
4. Take the shells off the shrimp. Return the shrimp meat to the tomato mixture, and put the shells plus the extra shells from the freezer into another saucepan. Cover with 2 cups of water and simmer for 20-25 minutes. Drain the shrimp stock, discard the shells, and add the stock to the shrimp mixture. Put this mixture in batches into the food processor. Process until smooth, with only a little bit of chunkiness from the shrimp.
5. In another pot, cook the 4 tablespoons of butter with the flour until the floury smell is gone. Add the half and half and milk, and bring to the boil, or until it has thickened.
6. Add the shrimp mixture, stirring vigorously, and bring the bisque almost to a boil. Taste for seasoning.

We slurped with chopped scallions and croutons baked with garlic and thyme. The next day it made a great dip for crackers.

Onion and Zuke Lavash Pie

2008-01-25T11:20:00.000-08:00

In Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Ted Allen once used lavash as a quick pizza crust. We've been doing it ever since. Lavash pizzas are particularly good for using up little bits of this and that languishing in the fridge. Over time, we've discovered that using two pieces of it ensures crispiness. Lavash also freezes well, and can be defrosted as needed.

For this one, we slowly cooked a chopped onion in a little bit of olive oil for about an hour, then added shredded zucchini and plenty of salt. After almost another hour, the onion and zucchini had cooked down into a salty, gloppy, perfect mixture that was oozing olive oil.

We had cooked a strip of bacon to use as a topping, and couldn't resist spreading the bacon grease in between and on top of the pieces of lavash. The onion and zucchini went down first, and we reserved the extra cooking oil. It was followed by some raw garlic, bacon, chopped thyme, and slices of roasted red pepper. We topped the pizza with hunks of goat cheese and a layer of shredded mozzarella.

The pizza baked in the over at 450 degrees for five minutes, until the cheese was bubbling. We then dribbled the abovementioned oozing onion-and-zucchini-scented olive oil over the pizza when it came out of the oven. We really liked it.

Peruvian Tequeños

2008-01-23T10:57:00.000-08:00

Peruvian tequeños are one of those things that you eat for the first time and then scratch your head wondering why you've never thought of doing that yourself. They're simplified version of a Venezuelan delicacy that we first tried at the El Truco restaurant in Cusco.

They are also stupidly easy to make. All you do is take a wonton wrapper and put some cheese in the middle. Then wet the outer edge of the wrapper, and fold it in half to make a sealed pocket. Fry the result in oil on each side until brown.

The Peruvians do this with a semi-soft queso Andino and then serve it with a smash of avocado. Last time I checked, no one has bothered to import queso Andino (probably because it tastes kind of like Munster). We like to use something with a little more bite, but you don't want to go nuts. For the avocado, try a simple guacamole. Still, it's hard to imagine anything, with the exception of mint jelly and raspberry coulis, that wouldn't go well with them. I'd even put peanut butter on them, if no one was looking.

The more celebrated Venezuelan version involves frying bread dough with cheese instead of wontons. We'll get to that someday.

Peruvian Tequeños

10 wonton wrappers
2/3 cup cheese (cheddar or gruyere)

Set up a cutting board with a cup of water, the cheese, and the wrappers. Place a wrapper flat, put a small amount (1tsp or so) of cheese in the center. Wet your finger and trace it along the outer edge of the wrapper. Fold it over, removing as much air as possible, and press to seal.

Fill a heavy frying pan with about ½ inch of oil. Heat on high until it reaches 350 degrees. Fry the tequeños quickly on each side until lightly brown. Note: you may need to lower the heat if the oil starts smoking. Serve with a sauce or topping of your choice.

Tortilla Pizzas

2008-01-22T11:25:00.001-08:00

Never think you're an expert, unless you are. For years, we took far too much stock in our tortilla pizzas. When friends came over, we knocked out a bunch--whether they were wanted or not. They were easy, crispy, and infinitely malleable: hamburger and blue cheese, salsa and fried eggs, leftover bean dip and pepper jack. Whatever we had on hand could be instantly converted into crunchy goodness.

Then we received a Splendid Table newsletter that featured the tortilla pizza recipe of Jacques Pepin, that notorious bastard. He dredged the tortillas in olive oil and baked them in a 500 degree oven with parmesan, mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil. Finding similar ingredients, we tried it out and instantly realized that our tortilla pizza method was inferior in every respect. His had a delicious crust and stayed together better when crunched.

We swallowed our pride, along with dozens of his pizzas. Now we use his method anytime we have a few extra tortillas and some good stuff lying around. These featured leftover chicken made with Arabic spices, some salsa, sour cream, cilantro, lettuce, and cheese. Muy bueno.

You can find a full version of Jacques' recipe in Chez Jacques: Traditions and Rituals of a Cook

Eggy Arroz con Pollo

2008-01-21T15:32:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Penelope Casas, author of The Foods & Wines of Spain, we just had an egg crust arroz con pollo to expire for.

We started with about 1½ cups of plain, cooked brown rice, a poblano pepper, and cilantro. We roasted the pepper and removed the skin and seeds, and then processed it with about ¼ cup of cilantro leaves, a couple cloves of garlic, and ½ cup of reduced sodium chicken bouillon. We put about ½ cup of chopped onions in some olive oil in a sauté pan, and cooked this over lowish heat for several minutes. In went the pepper/cilantro liquid, the rice, another ½ cup of bouillon. We cranked up the heat and let it cook until there was just a little bit of liquid left.

For a cheese sauce, we started with about 1½ tablespoons of butter, one tablespoon of flour, and a cup of the reduced sodium bouillon. To this we added ¼ cup each of mozzarella and pepper jack.

We spread half the rice onto the bottom of a pie dish, and covered the rice with a layer of chopped leftover chicken breast. On top of this we poured the cheese sauce, and let that sit there for a few more minutes to set. We finished with another layer of rice. After baking at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, the rice looked crispy on top and the cheese sauce was bubbling up around the sides.

Now it was time for the egg crust. That involved beating three eggs with three tablespoons of milk. W poured this on the top and cranked the heat up to 500 degrees. We let it cook until the crust was browning nicely (it puffed up and then deflated when it came out of the oven.)

Once we got it out of the oven, we restrained ourselves for about five minutes while it cooled, then topped it with salsa and Mexican table cream. Oddly enough, we both agreed it tasted kind of like coconut. Go figure.

Cheese Steak Crackers with Sriracha

2008-01-20T17:29:00.000-08:00

Between five and six every night, we stop work, pour ourselves a drink, and make a "chip-and-dip." (Fine old New England word, "appetizer" to the rest of the planet.) The idea is that whatever we have been doing needs to stop getting done, and we need to live a little.

Chips-and-dips recycle a vast quantity of food odds and ends. Today, we had a piece of steak. It was sulking in the fridge because it had been perfectly cooked, but Nicole had lavished her attention and a good deal of chipotle hot sauce on a baked potato instead.

No matter, it was gloriously resurrected in mini-cheese-steak-on-crackers appetizers. To make them, we cut up some onions rather fine and threw them in some olive oil. When they were presentable, we added the finely chopped steak, salt, a hundred grindings of black pepper, some mozzarella, and some sour cream. When the mass was good and gloppy, we put it on crackers and added a dash of Sriracha. Might have been nice in a shell of lettuce too.