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.