Xmas 2: Leftover Boogaloo

Dear Boo,

I'm just not ready to give up on Christmas yet, I guess. Though really, the lessons learned from our post-holiday leftover extravaganza do translate into your regular run of the mill overstocked fridge evenings. Repurposing the large quantities of leftovers into something a family would want to eat for oh, four days in a row, was a challenge, but one which the Boyfriend and I met head on. Okay, here's where I have to break it down. To be honest, I was worried about cooking the Christmas feast. Not because I thought the dishes were beyond us, but because really, the Boyfriend and I don't generally cook together. The main reason being our kitchen, which as you know, is the size of an airplane bathroom, making standing next to one another impossible, let alone bearing knives. As I see it, cooking with someone can be as treacherous as traveling together, or perhaps a more appropriate analogy for our line of work, like playing a scene together. Its all in the chemistry, the give and take, the compatibility of styles, and plenty of counter space (dressing room, or kitchen). The stage has got to be big enough for both of you, or someone's going to end up chewing the scenery. In Florida, the three kitchens available to us were spacious, granite countertopped, island-boasting affairs. Plenty of room to stretch out and stay out of each other's way. Too many cooks, you know. While we planned the menu together, we gracefully fell to our separate jobs, checking back on one another to taste, reseason, offer advice, or catch a drip. Overall it was a beautiful birth of a new partnership--or should I say, a new aspect of the current one. The success was evidenced by our a) not stabbing one another with a fork, and b) the fact that we continued to plan, shop, and cook together for the remainder of our stay. Quite tastily, I might add.

Boxing Day, December 26th: Pork sandwiches on leftover mini dinner rolls, topped with the leftover red cabbage and pickles. SO so tasty, it was almost better the second day around. Served of course with a side of...
The Boyfriend's fried yucca. The leftover yucca was sliced into wedges and fried in vegetable oil. I may have mentioned that yucca, like potato, is good for mashing or boiling. No suprise it's also, as our uncle would say, a KILLER when fried. We added a little Mouse/Boyfriend extra spice by serving it with chipotle mayonnaise and lime slices (recipe: buy a can of chipotles in adobo. Mix adobo and some of the chopped pepper with mayo to taste. Squeeze lime if you're crazy).

While the sandwiches and yucca were pretty much the tastiest things EVER, the award for best leftover makeover goes to our rice and beans, barely recognizable in the below pictures.

Here we have the beans, pureed in a food processor with a couple good chunks of onion, two chopped plum tomatoes, two cloves of fresh garlic, and a few jalapeno slices to create a delicious black bean dip. I topped it with a quick salad of deconstructed guacamole (if there'd been any guac left over from our late night xmas snacking I would have just used that): sliced avocado, diced onion and tomato, jalapeno, cilantro, lime juice and salt. SO good.

And here, though I can't say this picture does it justice, is the leftover white rice, gone cold and sticky in the fridge, transformed into a delectable arroz con leche, or rice pudding. I'd had the idea a while back to use leftover chinese/thai takeout rice in this manner, but never tried it. Personally, I love rice pudding, and the Boyfriend has rhapsodized before about the warm arroz con leche his mom used to make. Some experimenting and improvising later, I heard one sister say to another, "You have to taste this, even if you're full, if only because it'll remind you of mom." Am I kind of proud of this one? You could say that.

Needless to say, this meal kicked some post-holiday ass.

Sunday, December 27: Football at the Boyfriend's Brother's house. The Boyfriend's sister had hosted a Christmas Eve party from which there were, naturally, leftovers. One of those leftovers was a whole mess of roast turkey. I had mentioned making chicken salad from the leftover Old Bay chicken, and the Boyfriend suggested we use the turkey instead. As we were driving over to the house with a cooler full of leftovers, we brainstormed. What kind of turkey salad? Should we add craisins? More chipotle? Go traditional? Then it hit me--I'm always a fan of curried chicken salad which often involves grapes. Why not grapes and celery? Traditional enough to not offend the kids, but interesting enough to keep us cooks inspired. (Recipe: chop, slice, or tear up roast turkey. Toss with red seedless grapes, sliced in half, diced celery, and mayonnaise until the consistency is how you like it. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve on--leftover--potato rolls)

And, since no football watching is complete (or at all interesting to me) without chips and dip, we took the leftover-leftover black bean dip, topped it this time with shredded monterey jack and cheddar, and popped it in the microwave for a hot, cheesy, bean dip.

While I can't say there was nothing left idling in the fridge when we departed for New York, I'd say we did a valiant job of waving the waste not, want not flag. And getting creative juices flowing with the Boyfriend as we plotted and executed our spectacular reinventions is my new favorite way to work up an appetite. Well, second favorite. :)

Love,

The Mouse

Leftover Rice Pudding

2 cups cooked white rice (chinese takeout would work perfectly)
3 cups milk (I'd use whole, but a low-fat version would probably work too)
1/2 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 cinnamon stick
1 slice orange peel, minus the pith
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix first 4 ingredients together in a pot over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, lower heat and add cinnamon, orange, and vanilla. Simmer, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes until most of the milk has been absorbed or evaporated and the consistency feels right. Serve hot or cold with cinnamon sprinkled on top.
**this should work with any amount of rice and milk as long as the ratio is about the same. We had 5 cups leftover white rice and the proportions worked just fine.

With Thanks to Squanto, Who Taught Us How to Cut and Peel Fish*

That's me, in the metal hat.

Dear Boo,

I know Thanksgiving is at this point old news, and we're full swing into the Christmas/Solstice/Winter wonderland season (though the weather doesn't quite seem to have gotten the memo), but I have to take a moment to revisit since you and I (for the first time ever?? Is that possible?) didn't partake in the same feast this year and I feel I must catch you up.

It is at this point that I have to hang my head and cower in the corner for a moment to confess that I have no pictures to share. I know, I know! Quel horreur! Let me tell you, in a small attempt at defense, that a) the fact that the Boyfriend and I managed to get out of our apartment, with at least one pair of underwear and an acceptable shirt, on time, without missing our plane or getting into a taxi accident on the FDR (remember that?), after handing in midterms and closing my show and tying up loose work ends and and and, is a minor miracle. Thus, the fact that I realized on our pre-dawn walk to the subway that I had forgotten my camera is a tragedy, but not entirely unexpected. And b) when you're spending the holiday with your Boyfriend's family and meeting some of said family for the first time, constantly aiming your camera at your plate each time a meal is set out, or following your host around snapping pictures whenever the fridge is opened might not be the first impression you want to make. That said, for you, I would have done it gladly had my brain not turned to mush in the packing process.

So, I will be brief and say that my first Thanksgiving away from our family, at the Boyfriend's oldest sister's home in Virginia, was fun, relaxing, and fattening beyond belief. The whole family had warned me multiple times to bring loose waisted pants and resign myself to gaining about 5 lbs over the weekend. Added to the fact that the Oldest Sister and her Husband both love to cook, is the inherent nurturing role that goes with being the oldest and usually translates to comforting, welcoming, and caring behaviors including constantly feeding ones guests and relatives, as well as the Southern influence of the Husband whose cooking often involved a tremendous amount of butter, and let's not forget meat. The Oldest Sister put the kibosh on allowing us to count the pounds of butter consumed over the course of the weekend (about 50% of which was used on Thanksgiving day). A wise move.

(Food) Highlights would have to include:

1) The look of horror on the faces of the Boyfriend's three nephews when told I had never had a breakfast of biscuits and gravy before.

2) Of course, the actual eating of this dish, which, for the uninitiated, consists of a fresh baked buttery biscuit split open and smothered--absolutely annihilated, by a rich white gravy studded with crumbled sausage and chopped bacon. A side of home fries is a given, of course. My stomach literally didn't know what hit it, while my mouth slapped me upside the head for waiting 29 years to indulge.

3) Cocktail/appetizer hour around the island in the gorgeous and enormous kitchen that the Boyfriend warned me I would covet, and which included such tastiness as warm crab and artichoke dip, enormous shrimp grilled with old bay, and pita chips with tzaziki (we snuck in a few carrot sticks under the radar, possibly the lone raw vegetable I had all weekend. why bother, really?)

4) The iron chefesque cookoff replete with silent voting procedures judged impartially by Papa in which the Boyfriend and Oldest Sister represented Team Leftover Turkey Potpie and the Oldest Sister's Husband and I represented Team Leftover Steak Potpie, the latter of which I can proudly say was victorious (there were au gratin potatoes under the top crust. I mean, come ON.).

5) On the morning of our departure at 6am for the airport, we tiptoed downstairs to find individual egg and cheese on biscuits warming in the oven for our homemade breakfast on the road. FYI, If you're planning a trip to Richmond, I've got the perfect little bed and breakfast for you....

6) The O.S.H.'s Thanksgiving teriyaki green beans. In a banquet of the traditional stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with pecan topping, turkey, gravy, and cranberry sauce, the green beans stuck out like a sore, asian-flavored thumb. Or so I thought. In reality they were the perfect addition, their salty/sweetness complementing a forkful of mellow mashed spuds and moist turkey. It perked up the triptophan-laden meat, went surprisingly well with the sourness of the cranberry, matched the garlic in the potatoes and balanced the sweetness of the yams. When I went back for seconds, I surprised even myself by going straight for the beans. And don't worry, there was still plenty of butter in them, so it wasn't just out of virtue.

I asked the O.S.H. for the recipe on I think three different occasions, in three different ways, and emerged each time with a list of ingredients but still really no concept of how to make it. I could attribute this to the plague of the home cook making their traditional holiday dishes which can now only be described as "some of this and some of that and you sort of taste it til it tastes right and then you add some more if it needs it." Or it could have been the gravy-addled fog I am only just emerging from.

Here's what I gathered: Maybe a cup of soy sauce and a cup of teriyaki (or was it less soy?), some sugar, maybe it was also a cup though that doesn't seem possible, boiled and reduced down. At some point corn starch gets added to thicken the sauce, and a couple of cloves of roasted garlic mashed and added in. I THINK softened butter gets added to create a thick sort of paste at some point. The beans are blanched--this I know for sure--and then tossed in a baking dish with the sauce and reheated through. Sorry, I know this isn't very helpful. Sometime soon, when I'm done with finals (will that ever happen??) I will experiment and come up with something more quantifiable for you. Or if you're drooling already (as I am as I write this), try it and let me know what you come up with.

Do YOU have pictures?? I want a recipe for the pomegranate martinis I heard rumor of....

On to figgy pudding!

Love,
The Mouse

*"I am thankful for Squanto, who taught us how to cut and peel fish" --The Youngest Cousin, circa age 8? in a book of thanksgiving made by his school, in which most youngsters mentioned their siblings, parents, puppies, homes, and favorite toys.

On Paper Delivery and Pork Chop Braising

Dear Boo,

yum.

Recently, the Mother did a lovely thing for the Boyfriend and me, by ordering the NY Times to be delivered to our door. Daily. I think she's got this idea that we can help save the printed word, one hard copy at a time. I don't want to burst her bubble, and frankly I do enjoy sitting down with the paper instead of my laptop on a Sunday afternoon. Not to mention what daily consumption of the Times has done for my moral superiority. However, one can only imagine what it's done to my organizational inferiority. I mean, this thing arrives at our doorstep. EVERY DAY. I'm sure you can picture what that much accumulated paper does to a one bedroom apartment, inhabited by one (and maybe a half) die-hard packrat.

The other day, the Boyfriend and I were totally fed up and decided to dig ourselves out from under the piles and toss things with ruthless abandon. Of course, because he's The Boyfriend and by his very title must be kind, sweet, and endlessly in touch with my needs, amidst the purge, he pulled out a dining section and cried, "Wait! Did you see this? Don't you want it? It's got all kinds of recipes..." What a sweetheart. Of course I kept it.

And lucky for him that I did. In it was a recipe by Melissa Clark for a quick braise of pork chops that has all the flavor of a day-long event. It's a simple sauce of tomatoes, garlic, onion and rosemary, with anchovies added for that hard to identify briny/funkiness. After our massive newspaper toss of 09, the Boyfriend and I took a stroll through Chelsea Market where we were lucky to get a grand tour of the newly opened Dickson's Farmstand Meats, the glorious creation by my high school friend, and now go to meat-expert, Jake Dickson. (You may remember him from the days of Hamlet the pig.) The store is amazing, and once the kitchen is fully up and running, I'm sure will be totally overrun with customers. He's already had a visit (and tweet) from Ruth Reichl, and a ton of press, and will soon have an even greater honor bestowed upon him (if accepted), that of A Mouse Bouche's Baker's Dozen interviewee! Lo and behold, Jake had some gorgeous thick pork chops, perfect for my trash-bin rescued recipe. We grabbed the rest of the ingredients (what I could remember of them after a quick glance at the paper) and headed home to cook.

Apologies for the messy plate and the fact that you can't get a good look at Jake's beautiful chops. Trust me, they were beauties.

The result? Quick, simple, comforting, and delicious. I served them with roasted fingerlings from the farmer's market, and a salad of arugula with leftover roast acorn squash, gorgonzola, and caramelized onions. The leftover sauce from the chops turned into a great pasta the next day with wilted arugula, this delicious olive oil, and generous amounts of cheese.

The salad was delicious. I roasted the squash with maple syrup, chili powder, olive oil s&p.

The next day's dinner. Delicious.

If you're planning on cooking for someone (just anyone, no one in particular, not that I have anyone in mind :)), may I recommend this meal. It's very autumnal (love that word), very tasty, manly enough if your guest happens to be of the male persuasion, still elegant, and when you get down to it, you can do like the Boyfriend and eat the last bits with your hands. tres sexy. Well, maybe not, but tres tres tasty.

Melissa Clark's Braised Pork Chops (adapted only slightly by the Mouse)

2 1 1/2-inch-thick bone-in pork loin chops (about 1 1/2 pounds total)

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, more for seasoning pork

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, more for seasoning pork

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 red onion, halved and thinly sliced (the Mouse used 2 large shallots and some leftover caramelized yellow onions)

3 large rosemary sprigs

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 large can of plum tomatoes, reserving some of the juice so the sauce doesn't get too soupy (Clark calls for a mix of yellow and red fresh tomatoes)

6 anchovy fillets

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rinse pork chops and pat dry with a paper towel. Season generously with salt and pepper. In a large, ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat, place 1 tablespoon oil. Sear chops until well browned, 3 to 4 minutes a side. Transfer to a plate.

2. Add remaining tablespoon oil to skillet and sauté onion and rosemary until onions are golden, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for another minute.

3. Add tomatoes, anchovies and remaining salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes begin to break down, about 8 minutes.

4. Add pork chops to skillet, spooning sauce over chops. Cover skillet and transfer to oven to bake until a thermometer inserted into center of meat reads 145 degrees, about 15 minutes. For me it took much longer but that may be because I was raised by our mother and am terrified of undercooking pork. Allow chops to rest for 5 minutes in pan. Serve with some sort of starch. Polenta would be good, or crusty bread. The potatoes were also delicious.

Yield: 2 servings.

Love,
The Mouse

Sounds Bad... Tastes Great... Leftovers!

Dear Mouse,

Is that not the WORST title for any food-related post? It's like saying "Eewwwwwwwwwwwwwwthis food."

Remember in high school a group of valiant parents banded together around an idea to raise money for the school theatre (excuse me, "performing arts program") and came up with the "Angels Cookbook"?

It was a cute little blue-and-yellow spiral-bound book full of recipes solicited from the kitchens of willing parents & faculty. I used to cook from the recipes with titles like "Aunt Ruthie's Ohio-Baked Brownies" and "Pretty Pound Cake". And this one mom, bless her, submitted a recipe titled

"Sounds Bad-Tastes Great-Chicken!"

Um, it starts with the word "bad". Why would anyone read any farther? "Sure", I remember thinking, "sure it tastes great." I think it involved rice krispies... ? that's all I remember.

"Lady", I thought, "if it sounds bad it probably is. No dice. I'm gonna make me some Snickerdoodles."

What an irony then, that in preparing to post the recipe I created this week, I found myself thinking, "well I can tell them that it might sound bad... but it tastes great!"

Even worse, it showcases a certain tiny furled green vegetable, and I can't think of anything worse than "Sounds Bad-Tastes Great-Brussels Sprouts!" Let's go with "Odds and Ends Salad", maybe. Or "Warm & Cold Brussels Sprouts Melange". Or "Things He Left In the Kitchen".

The GC just left town for a month-long gig, leaving me with only a frozen calzone for company. (He made a bunch of them last week and this one is supposed to compensate for distance. If I get lonely, I am allowed to defrost and eat it. That's romance, friends.)

The spectacular calzones (mozzarella/parmesan/turkeysausage/pepperoni) had been made for a dinner with friends (roasted broccoli and Ina Garten lemon cake by Boo) earlier this week.

This was the last in a pre-departure parade of Serious Carb Showstoppers ( homemade challah for a dinner in Williamsburg , homemade pizza for Election Night). I came home today from the Farmer's Market with a $3 box of brussels sprouts, determined to eat a vegetable and too tired to do an actual grocery shop. I cast about in the fridge and came up with:

The Sprouts He Left Behind, by Boo

In serving bowl:

Chopped up end of stick of hard salami or pepperoni (salami is better-the cracked pepper kind)

handful or two of leftover shredded mozzarella (or leftover grated parm)

Chopped apple (ideally granny smith) in large chunks

In a roasting pan:

brussels sprouts, halved, ends sliced off

leftover red sweet pepper, in chunks

small onion in chunks

a garlic clove, peeled

chopped fresh rosemary (or sage or really whatever herb lying around. keep it simple though.)

Pour olive oil over the items in the pan; toss to combine. Salt & pepper and toss again.

Roast in oven on 425, flipping/stirring veggies occasionally, til sprouts begin to blacken/get brown. I'd say 10 min. Mix hot ingredients with cold in bowl and vigorously toss. Cheese will melt and get all over. A good squeeze of lemon (apple cider vinegar would work too) over and toss more. Handful of breadcrumbs. Maybe some more salt & pepper. Taste.

Eat.

Long live leftovers and the Angels cookbook.

Love,

The Boo

P.S. The Mouse did something very similar this week, taking one item from the farmers market, and adding it to a slew of pantry ingredients to create a new and tasty (and questionable sounding) dish. The Boo thought twice about coming over when I described it as "some type of a bean and kale concoction." Note from Boo: Sounded bad, tasted GREAT.

Bean and Kale Pantry Concoction, by Mouse

Sautee one chopped medium onion and two garlic cloves with some olive or vegetable oil in the bottom of a nice sized pot.
Add one minced serrano pepper (or jalapeno) with or without seeds, and one chopped red bell pepper.
Sautee a few minutes over medium heat.
Add 28-oz can of whole tomatoes and their juice, breaking up the tomatoes (sometimes i just fish them out and squeeze them in a fist until they're crushed. Good for anger management.)
Add 1 large can of kidney beans (or whatever beans you have on hand), with a bit of their juice.
Season with salt and pepper, chili powder, and perhaps a bit of blackening seasoning or some of a leftover packet of chili seasoning or something else like that if you have it lying around and feel like a shortcut.
Chop one large bunch of curly kale and add to pot. Stir a bit, salt and pepper, and put lid on pot until wilted a bit and more manageable. Add 1/2 Cup of chicken broth if you have it and a little bit of water.
Simmer uncovered until kale is cooked and liquid reduced a bit.
At this point I decided it needed a bit of a starch to round it out though you could serve it as is as a light chili/soup. I added 3/4 Cup of white rice to the pot, stirred, and covered. Let simmer for 20 minutes over low heat until rice is cooked and some liquid has been absorbed.
Serve with chopped scallions as garnish and a dollop of sour cream.

If you have any leftover meat, you could throw that in too--shredded chicken would make it a poor man's arroz con pollo, shrimp: a poor man's paella, sausage like a chili or gumbo. I think this dish would make a good catch-all for whatever veggies or meat you have lying around. And the nice thing is, unlike boiling or steaming kale, you don't lose any of the vitamins in the discarded liquid. Very healthy. And cheap.