Carrot Soup with Herbs de Provence (leftover carrots)

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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)

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

(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

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)

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)

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)

(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)

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)

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

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

Pasta with Crab and Spring Onions

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

Pasta with Crab and Spring Onions

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

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

Spinach Flatbread

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

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

Spinach Flatbread

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

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

Papas Rellenas with Spinach and Dill Onion Gravy

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

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

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

Papas Rellenas with Spinach and Dill Onion Gravy

The Stuffing

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

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

Papas Rellenas

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

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

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

Dill Onion Gravy

1 large onion
2 tbsp chopped dill
Butter
Oil
Flour
Milk

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

Spinach and Pine Nut Crackers

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

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

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

Spinach and Pine Nut Crackers

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

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

Coming attraction: New Spinach

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

Best way (we know) to heat up leftover pizza

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

The Method

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

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

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

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

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

The rice was left, and that was admittedly easy.


Fried Rice with Maggi Eggs and Baby Bok Choy

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

The fried rice

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

The Bok Choy (this is optional)

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

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

Simple Egg and Leftover Pasta

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

Egg and Leftover Pasta

(serves one, easily scaled)

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

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

Green Bean and Potato Pie

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

Green Bean and Potato Pie

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

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

Stuffed Bread (more leftover marinara sauce)

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

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

Stuffed Marinara Bread

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

Leftover Pot Roast- Cruets

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

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

Cruets

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

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

Roast Brussels Sprouts Pasta (from leftover marinara sauce)

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

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

Roast Brussels Sprouts Pasta

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

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

Chicken Stock and Buffalo Chicken Tenders (mixed recipe)

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

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

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

Chicken Stock and Chicken Tenders

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

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


Crispy Chicken Tenders

Parcooked chicken breast (see above)
Rice flour
Canola oil

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


Sauces

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

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

Leftover Hash Brown Latkes

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

Leftover Hash Brown Latkes

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

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

Spain On the Road Again: Beet Puree and Shrimp Pancakes

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

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

Beet Puree

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

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


Shrimp Pancakes

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

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

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

Leftover Grits with Red Beans

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

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

Red Beans

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

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

Shrimp and Welsh Grits

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

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

Shrimp and Welsh Grits

Grits

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

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

Spicy Shrimp and Sauce

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

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

Quick Char Sui Pork Stir Fry

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

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

Quick Pork Stir Fry

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

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

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

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

This recipe involves leftovers from Char Sui Pork Polenta.

Pasta with Red Clam Sauce

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

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

Pasta and Red Clam Sauce

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

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

Clam Pizza

(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

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.