Leftover Skillet

Every family has its way of treating/recycling leftovers.

Today we took some leftover meats, some leftover greenbeans from the garden, leftover fresh vegetables, and leftover Kraft macaroni and cheese and cooked it in the skillet in a sauce of leftover white wine, butter, extra virgin olive oil, four color peppercorn and a touch of garlic salt.

Soup and Matzo

My husband came home the other day with a box of Matzo. Today for lunch, I took a can of cheapo vegetable soup and dressed it up. Added a cup or so of soup vegetables, about 1/2 cup peas, 1 cup french cut green beans. Diluted with the requisite can of water AND added about a cup of beef vegetable stock from the roast last week. Yes, I freeze everything.

The original soup came from Aldi.

Pork Citrus Pasta/ Day's Meal Plan

For breakfast we had oatmeal with fresh blueberries.

For dinner I took the leftover chili with cornbread dumplings out of the freezer since I have class until 4, and a career fair after that.

For breakfast tomorrow, I took sticky buns out of the freezer. We have a bunch of errands to do in the a.m. and thought sticky buns would be fun.

For lunch today, there's not enough pork with vegetables from last night for everyone. So, I took the pork, and cut it into bitsize pieces and took another bag of the steam-in-bag spring vegetables in citrus sauce and made some multigrain rotini and served the whole thing over pasta.

Pork and carrots

Since I had three pounds of cooked carrots... I gathered the following:

• the carrots
• one steam-in-bag of "spring vegetables in citrus sauce" from Aldi. (Carrots, snap peas, asparagus, tiny onions and tiny bits of roasted red pepper)
• the last two one-inch thick boneless porkchops I got from Wegmans probably in December
• butter
• extra virgin olive oil

My husband sliced the pork into stir fry strips. I fried them in about 1.5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. When they were just about done, I added about one tablespoon butter and close to 1 pound of steamed baby carrots. Stirred it all thoroughly.

Then I prepared the steam-in-bag vegetables as the directions stated and poured that on top of the whole mixture. Squeezed out every drop of sauce and stirred it all up until it was hot and thoroughly mixed.

The carrots tasted delicious.

Odd little lunch

My husband has his holiday luncheon today at work. So I prepared for my daughter:

Some italian blend mixed vegetables (zucchini, carrots, lima beans and broccoli) and a Boca vegan burger we got at the warehouse club. I heated the burger, added shredded cheddar cheese, swirls of ketchup and ranch dressing, and she loves it (even though we don't have a bun of any kind). Served with chocolate soymilk.

Hot Lunch Again

Okay, choke one up for the doofus category.

I thought I made the spring vegetables with the citrus sauce. I didn't.

I made the steam-in-bag stir-fry vegetables from Giant.

So, I opted to try and make my own citrus sauce. Totally off the cuff.

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon roasted sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon flax seeds
• 1-2 teaspoons garlic powder
  
• 1 tablespoon slivered almonds

Toast seeds and nuts in skillet. In a small bowl, mix:

• 1/2 cup apple juice
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

Stir until corn starch is dissolved. Add to skillet, raise heat, stir, and bring to boil. When sauce is reduced and thickened, add vegetables and reduce heat. Stir well. After about a minute, add rice (about 2 cups cooked brown rice) on top but don't stir. Stir after another minute. Then, serve with chow mein noodles.

It turned out well, some bites were very zesty and citrusy, others salty, others a nice blend.

Italian Potato Casserole?

So I'm experimenting with hot lunch today.

I'm layering some sliced potatoes in the bottom of a hot skillet (with a decent amount of extra virgin olive oil). My plan is to fry them as crispy as possible, then layer Aldi's steam-in-bag Italian blend vegetables in sauce (season choice? I think that's the brand name). I will thaw two Morningstar vegeterian sausage patties and crumple into veggies. Then I will mix some bread crumbs, pasta and pizza seasoning, romano cheese, four color peppercorns and basil with a tablespoon of butter and drop those on top and heat in oven.

Right now, I've got the skillet heating, sliced potatoes in the microwave (we pre-cut potatoes in different shapes and freeze) and the steam-in-bag vegetables cooked. The oven is preheating to 400.

Okay, so for those who like an actual recipe:

• 2 morningstar vegetarian breakfast patties
• 1 bag Italian blend steam-in-bag vegetables (Aldi, Season's Choice, with some sort of tomato/olive oil sauce)
• About 2 cups sliced potatoes
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon basil
• 2 teaspoons pizza and pasta seasoning
• 1 teaspoon four color peppercorn fresh-ground pepper
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
• 3 tablespoons romano cheese, grated
• 1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook vegetables and sausage patties. Also precook potatoes a tad. Mine were frozen and I thawed them in the microwave and drained liquid. Crumble sausage patties in preparation. Pour several tablespoons extra virgin olive oil in large skillet. Heat, on low. Add a nice layer of potatoes, with a second layer to fill in the thin spots. Increase heat to medium. Cook until potatoes start to change color and absorb oil. Should look like starting to brown.

Add vegetables over top, spread with spatula. Reduce heat to low. In bowl, combine spices, romano and breadcrumbs. Add butter and blend with fingers.

Add crumbles of sausage across the vegetables. Then, with a spoon, sprinkle breadcrumb mix across the top of everything. Cook at 400, in entire skillet, 15-20 minutes...

Hopefully this is edible when I'm done...

Broccoli omelettes

For dinner last night, I was starved. I called my husband from the office and said, "Make Food!"

He took the remaining everything bagels from the freezer, buttered them and layered them with frozen vegetables in cheese sauce and real cheddar cheese and baked them and topped them with bits of Morningstar vegetarian chicken nuggets. It was awesome! (And for dessert we had more pineapple tatin.)

For lunch today, I made a huge omelette of broccoli cheese and some cheddar, sprinkled with romano cheese. I served with sliced dates, tea and my 'flea shampoo potatoes' (sliced potatoes from a can cooked in oil, soy sauce and parsley).

Veggie Patch Apple 'Sausages'

For breakfast, we had toast.
Then my daughter had a bowl of Greek yogurt with Count Chocula on it (we ran out of milk.)
For lunch, my husband and daughter had "bug sandwiches," peanut butter on Ritz crackers with raisins surrounding all the edges.
For dinner, we had Veggie Patch vegetarian apple sausage with mixed vegetables and cheese sauce rolled up (i.e. overstuffed) in a tortilla shell.

Chicken Rice Soup

I'm not good at soups. So my attempt to try and make a soup out of the chicken leftovers is a feat. I poured the leftover Thai chicken in broth with brown rice and peas into the crockpot. I added some basil and some garlic powder. Then I tossed in the last of the mixed Italian vegetables with the green beans, lima beans, zucchini and such. I added a glass of water. And the crock pot didn't look very full. I added a can of chicken broth. I really wish I had an apple... I think that would give it a superb flavor... but I don't have an apple...

Last night for dinner we had spaghetti and vegetarian sausage.

Update: 11 a.m. Soup smells incredible and the broth tastes fantastic.

Garlic Bagels

I had no ideas for lunch when I left to take my daughter to her kindergarten class. When I returned, my husband had come home from work and made garlic bagels with cheese and veggies. He had gone to the bagel deli over the weekend and he thought we hadn't had garlic bagels in a while.

So he toasted them in the toaster, then layered with colby jack cheese and sprinkled with mixed vegetables and garlic pepper. The mixed vegetables were carrots, green beans, lima beans and zucchini, odd for a bagel topping but hot and edible.

And to top it all off, he kissed me afterwards! Garlic or no.

Asian tonight

I opened my freezer in shock to find it was mostly empty. No homemade bread, no baked goods, no frozen meals left for me to heat in an instant.

So tonight, I took the last of the frozen chicken egg rolls from the warehouse store and I mixed up some oriental style sauce: about a teaspoon garlic powder, a teaspoon honey, three tablespoons sesame oil, one teaspoon sugar, about three tablespoons water, a 1/2 teaspoon ginger, and a half teaspoon oriental five spice.

I poured the sauce into a skillet with lots of frozen mixed vegetables (the kind normally for soup) and added a couple tablespoons of sesame seeds. I cooked the mix on high for about five minutes to thaw the veggies, then I turned the heat down and let it simmer.

Meanwhile, I started some instant brown rice with some butter. I also thawed the egg rolls in the microwave. When they finished, I tossed the egg rolls in the skillet with the veggies.

Finally, I started the tea pot and made some green tea with honey.

I made iced tea with the green tea. I piled rice into bowls, topped it with vegetables, and added the egg rolls to each bowl. Normally, when I make random stirfries without a formal recipe, they come out bland and I have a boatload leftover which nobody wants to eat. Today, it was incredible. And everybody wanted more. But there wasn't any.