Category: Food

How To Revive Leftovers

Do you sometimes look in your refrigerator at meal time and all you find are bits of things left from other meals?

Maybe you find a cup of spinach, four mushrooms, and the end of a block of cheese. What would you do with these?

This is the point where my creative juices begin flowing. I love to take random ingredients, even actual leftovers and turn these into a meal.

A few nights ago, I did find those ingredients listed above languishing in the bottom drawer of our refrigerator while I was trying to decide what to fix for supper. (Yes, it’s supper in this part of Illinois.) My synapses began to fire.

I typically keep homemade pie crust in the freezer portioned in single pie crust size. It will thaw in one minute on 40% power in the microwave. Eggs and milk are staples in this house so I had all the ingredients for a quiche.

Here’s the basic quiche recipe, including pie crust from my book “Simply Delicious”. For even more recipes like this, get your copy here.

For a 9 inch quiche

  • 1 pie crust (can either be home made or store bought)
  • 5 large eggs
  • 1-1/2 cups half and half
  • 1 to 2 cups of vegetables, meat and/or cheese, finely diced
  • salt and pepper to taste

Pie crust is simply made by mixing 1 cup flour and 1/2 tsp salt. Cut in 1/3 cup shortening. Add water one tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together into a ball cleaning the sides of the bowl. Handle as little as possible, kneading only 2 or 3 times to make a smooth ball. Roll into a circle larger than the pie pan and transfer the crust into the pan. Prick the crust or use pie weights to keep the crust from puffing and pre-bake for 10 minutes in 375º oven.

Evenly distribute vegetables, meat and cheese over bottom of crust using a maximum of 2 cups of filling. Mix eggs, half and half, salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the fillings being careful not to overflow the crust. Bake at 375º for 30 to 40 minutes until the eggs are set. Let cool slightly and slice into wedges for serving.

What’s in your fridge?

If you have random bits of leftovers in your refrigerator or pantry and would like to know what I would create, just email, message or tweet and I’ll give you some ideas.

Until next time…

A Quick and Easy Bread

Yeast breads are delicious but unless you have a 5 Minute a Day bread dough stored away in the refrigerator, planning ahead is required. Most of the time, I want something on the table in under an hour. There are several quick bread options, but lately I’ve been making Popovers.

Rich and eggy, with an open center just right for butter and a dollop of jam, popovers may be the easiest possible bread to make. Here’s how I do it:

Popovers

2 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

Preheat oven to 425º. Lightly grease a six cup popover pan or use a nonstick pan.

Add eggs, salt and milk to blender. Mix briefly. Add flour, mix for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the blender, mix again for 15-20 seconds or until all flour is incorporated. Distribute batter evenly in popover pan, filling each about 1/2 full. Bake for 40-45 minutes until puffed and browned. Remove from oven and immediately insert knife blade into side of popover near the top to vent steam. Serve with butter and jam.

The popover pan is essential. It is similar to a muffin tin, but has much deeper cups to allow the batter to climb up the sides of the cups and “pop over”.

Try some for yourself.

 

Longing for Summer

We escaped the clutches of the January 2019 Polar Vortex and were blessed within days to experience over 50º weather. No, we didn’t fly to a southern state, it all happened right here in the Midwest. Those couple of days of sunshine and warmth had me longing for fresh food. Perhaps something from the garden: freshly pulled carrots or a warm ripe tomato. Or maybe a few fresh morels gathered from just beyond the edge of the yard.

But it is still February in Central Illinois. Gathering any of those things fresh fom the earth is still a few months away. We do what we can in the meantime. There is a container of fresh alfalfa sprouts growing on the counter, ready to add to a sandwich or salad. That crisp, fresh crunch is a welcome blast of nutrients.

A basement grow station is providing fresh basil, rosemary and cilantro in addition to the starts of tomatoes, peppers and onions that will populate the garden in a few short months. On days when it warms up just enough, say to 30º or so, it’s ok to open the cold frame and pick a salad of baby lettuces and spinach.

The next best thing is to forage in the freezer or pantry for preserved items. The freezer is full of tomato sauce, carrots, peppers, onions, garlic bulbils, strawberries and peaches. We even have some Elderberries waiting to be processed into syrup. The pantry holds rows of home canned tomato juice, pickles, jellies, jams, pie fillings, hot pepper sauce, relishes and our special Bloody Mary Mix.

So until the sun warms the soil enough to garden, we will feast on these things and dream of summer to come.

What summer food do you miss most?

Instapot Peasant Stew

Last Sunday, I was hungry for Boeuf Bourguignon.

What is this fancy French sounding dish? It is a beef stew in red wine made somewhat famous by Julia Child. The stew is simmered for 3-4 hours in the oven, developing deep rich flavor.

Before I go further, I must make a disclaimer. For those of you following our adventures at Five Feline Farm, you know we have significantly reduced our consumption of red meat. However, when we do choose to eat beef, we go all out on something high quality, delicious and special.

Back to the Boeuf Bourguignon.

It was already 4:30 PM and not wanting to wait until 8:00PM to eat, there were two choices: make something different or find a short cut.

I made up an Instapot shortcut.

Since I wasn’t following a recipe, I also decided call my version Peasant Stew.

Peasant Stew

1 pound beef, cut into 1 inch cubes (use any cut that has some fat marbled throughout, I happened to have a couple of strip steaks in the freezer)

1 cup dry red wine

1/4 cup minced onion

2 cloves garlic, finely diced

2 cups beef stock

1 bay leaf

2 Tbsp tomato paste

3 large carrots, peeled and cut in 1/2 inch slices

2 Tbsp flour

salt and pepper to taste

1 pound buttom mushrooms, quartered

6 Tbsp butter, divided

2 tsp neutral oil such as canola or grapeseed

Heat oil in Instapot using the brown/saute setting. Add beef in single layer and brown all sides. Work in batches if necessary to avoid crowding the pot. Remove beef and set aside. Add onion and garlic, saute for 2 minutes or until fragrant and beginning to turn transluscent. Add flour, stirring for about 1 minute until browned. Add red wine and continue cooking for 3 minutes to release alcohol. Add tomato paste, carrots and browned beef to pot and then beef stock. Make sure the stock just covers the beef and carrots, using more or less than 2 cups as necessary. Add bay leaf.

Attach cover and set steam vent to closed. Use stew setting or manual with high pressure for 35 minutes.

While stew is cooking, melt 2 Tblsp butter in skillet and saute mushrooms until browned. Work in batches to avoid crowding if needed.

After pressure has released, remove and discard bay leaf. Remove beef and carrots, then set pot to brown/saute to boil broth. Once reduced by half, add remaining butter by tablespoons until sauce is silky. Stir in beef, carrots and mushrooms and stir to coat.

This is best served with a crusty bread and green salad.

Bon Appetit!

For more recipes like this, check out Simply Delicious, a memoir of cooking.