Posts tagged ‘leftovers’
Recipe of the Week – Frugal Entertaining – Try Small Plates
(From the Appetizers Category at www.emealsforyou.com)
Tomato Crostini
Coming off an extended period of cooking for company I thought it would be the ideal time to suggest scaling back on the food and saving money at the same time. In our house the term “small plates” refers to any number of small, colorful dishes (think tapas) that provide an interesting alternative to dinners, both large and small. My wife prefers several small options to one big meal, usually on Friday night.
Small plates are ideal for using up all the small containers of leftovers you find after a week of meals. Usually too little to provide a meal but when taken as a group will provide “ahs” from the crowd. For the cost of a baguette ($2.79 at Panara Bread) you can feed a large group when pairing the toasted bread with the leftovers in your frig. A basic salad, cut into smaller pieces, provides a wonderful and surprising addition. Yesterday I took the leftover pork chops from a dinner party and shredded them, added chopped onions, celery and garlic and wrapped them in flour tortillas. Cut them on the diagonal and you have another quick and “cheap” small plate. Plus you get the added smile of using those annoying plastic baggies and containers in the frig.
The bottom line here is to use your imagination. Leftover frozen ham becomes wonderful finger food when placed on refrigerator biscuits with a little pepper jelly added for zing. A container of olives become a great tapenade to spread on toasted slices of the baguette. The secret here is put a few on a serving platter, add a few more of another, bring out small dessert plates or even paper plates and you have an instant party or maybe an intimate dinner.
Fresh Tomato Crostini
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 6 |
| Category: | Appetizer |
| Meal: | Other (General) |
| 1 | medium | baguette |
| 24 | spritz | PAM |
| 1 | large | tomatoes, fresh |
| 2 | cloves | garlic, minced |
| 2 | Tb | onion, red |
| 3 | Tb | roasted red peppers |
| 2 | Tb | peppers, pickled rings |
| 1 | Tb | vinegar, red wine |
| 1 | Tb | parsley, flat leaf, chopped |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
Slice baguette diagonally in ½ inch slices. Spray both sides with Pam and place on a cookie sheet. Place in a 400 degree oven for 6 -8 minutes until lightly golden. Mince the garlic and place in a medium bowl; cut tomato, onion, red pepper, pepper rings and parsley into a small dice. Add to the bowl. Add vinegar, stir and add salt and pepper to taste. Spoon onto the toasted baguette and serve.
Recipe of the Week – Warm Chicken Salad
(From The Salad Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Julia's Chicken
Warm Chicken Salad
The final chapter in the Julia Child’s weekend was played out on Monday. Returning from taking Jeannie to the airport we decided we wanted a light but good lunch to put the ribbon around our food-a-thon. This involved putting two words that I thought I would never use in the same sentence: Julia Child and leftovers. We still had some of the wonderful chicken left from Sunday’s dinner so why not combine the chicken with a salad and have the best of both worlds while keeping it light.
I re-heated the leftover chicken including the pan juices in the microwave, and cut the chicken into 6 pieces. Placing 3 pieces on each salad I finished the dish by spooning the pan juices onto the top of the salad. This added a wonderful new dimension to the simple salad, slightly warming the lettuce and adding those tasty pan juices to both the chicken and the lettuce.
So don’t be so quick to pitch those pan juices when saving the leftover chicken. You may find yourself in a quandary as to what to make for a quick lunch, and this warm salad may just hit the spot.
Leftovers – Trash or Treasure
(From The Salad Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Spring Salad
Learning to plan your meals requires you to re-learn a skill our grandmothers had; understanding how to use all the various food products before they went “bad”. Leftovers became the next meal, tops of vegetables were put in water with a piece of meat to make a soup. Bread too dry to eat was made into stuffing or a bread pudding for dessert.
The first step is to plan your meals so that you count on there being leftovers. Cooking half a chicken for dinner makes little sense when you could cook the whole bird with the same effort and build a second meal with the leftovers; think chicken salad, chicken pot pies, chicken soup. A pot roast becomes hot roast beef sandwiches a couple of nights latter.
We are all mesmerized by the cooking shows that, with great fanfare, reveal the surprise ingredient to be included in the meal. We think this is great fun but shy away from this thinking when it is us who are looking into the frig and trying to come up with something appealing from what we see there. The salad pictured above came about when I realized the tomatoes were just about to lose their crunch, the leftover asparagus was to the use now or pitch stage and I had an abundance of feta cheese.
The bottom line is if we plan our meals we will save money; if we use all the food we buy we will get bonus meals, again saving money. The secret is to think about a meal, then think about an associated meal made using similar products. Don’t think about it as a chore, think about it as a game show, one you can win.
Spring Salad
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Salad |
| Meal: | Easy, pizy |
| 1 | pt | tomatoes, cherry |
| 0.5 | small | cucumbers, English, peeled |
| 0.33 | lb | asparagus, peeled, cooked |
| 3 | cloves | garlic, chopped |
| 1 | Tb | cilantro, chopped |
| 0.25 | cup | cheese, feta, crumbled |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 0.5 | medium | lemon, juice of |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
Cut cherry tomatoes in half, place in a large bowl. Dice cucumber and asparagus into ½ inch dice; add to bowl. Add garlic, cilantro, feta, lemon juice and oil, toss to coat. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
This salad filled out our Philly cheesesteak sandwiches nicely, see this meal and more on emealsforyou.com.
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