A taste of summer

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When 5:30 pm came around and the key dinner ingredient still had not arrived from the grocery store, I broke into the pile of freshly baked muffins to tide me over.

warm mini muffin with a dab of melty almond butter, mmmm

warm mini muffin with a dab of melty almond butter, mmmm

At around 7pm, stepdad made his triumphant arrival with three of these beauties:

LOBSTER!!!!

LOBSTER!!!!

I felt a little bit guilty watching their quivering antennae poking out of the boiling water — as soon as this picture was done, I ducked my head and closed my eyes and sort of dove under the table so I wouldn’t have to watch — but clearly not guilty enough. My plate (with appropriate tools in the background):

dinner-plate-overview

Did you know that lobster is not very photogenic? I suppose you do now. I just could not figure out how to get a good, eye-free photo. So I focused on the veggies instead. Cauliflower and kale, first steamed and then sauteed with garlic and olive oil:

-)

vegetables make everything look better 🙂

For dessert, we each had another square of the leftover apple-cranberry pie with a couple spoonfuls of a part-skim ricotta/nonfat plain yogurt/cinnamon mixture and three plump and juicy cherries!

dessert1

Have you ever seen anything more perfect??

Good night!

The oven needs a break

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Between my cooking, my mom’s cooking, and the mountain of leftovers, I don’t think the oven has been off for more than 10 minutes all day! At one point, I went into the freezer to retrieve some frozen turkey carcasses for mom’s turkey soup, and I happened upon these little treats:

candy2lavender-candies

When I was visiting over the summer, I found a bottle of lavender syrup left over from a family trip to Canada when I was about 16 (over 10 years ago!). Thinking the syrup might be stale, I simmered it a bit and then spooned quarter-sized drops onto wax paper to make little lavender candies. Apparently, they’ve been sitting in the freezer for the past six months, layered in their wax paper. I snacked on three today, and they taste as good as new!

While waiting for lunch to cook, I also snacked on quite a bit of the batter and ingredients for these muffins while mom was hard at work on them.

For lunch, I scanned the fridge for anything nearing the end of its lifespan, as usual. I came up with these:

wrinkly peppers, eggplant, carrots

wrinkly peppers, eggplant, carrots

Which became this:

raw-cut-veg

Roasted at 450 for 40 minutes with olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper:

cooked-cut-veg

Steaming, on top of lettuce (the very very last of it!), and sprinkled with feta and toasted walnuts:

lunch-salad

With three more “latkes” on the side:

lunch-latkes

PHEW! The oven and I are going to take a little rest now. Check back later for a very exciting dinner!!

Not gone yet!

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For breakfast this morning, the leftover pineapple-ricotta-pie-turned-pumpkin-pie-pudding made yet another appearance! Mom and I decided that it might work well in oatmeal pancake form, so I added 1/2 cup rolled oats, 1/4 cup fat free cottage cheese, the rest of the candied ginger, a bit of baking powder, and an egg white. Lest you worry that the yolk went to waste, I fed it to the cats (my mom has 5!) for their breakfast dessert: 

egg-yolk

I used two cookie sheets with canola-sprayed foil and baked the pancakes at 400 for 30ish minutes. Here they are just out of the oven:

pancakes

Set up on our plates with half an orange each and a ramekin of eggnog sauce (plain yogurt + splash of light eggnog + sprinkle of nutmeg) for topping:

2-breakfast-plates

My plate, sauced:

plate-with-sauce

It was just too pretty, and I couldn’t stop taking pictures:

sauce

This food photography is addictive! There were about 6 pancakes left, so I bagged them (eating lots of “crumbs” along the way) and put them in the freezer to take back to Brooklyn with me this weekend. Expect to see these guys again sometime soon!

Repurposing leftovers, part 3 (and finally caught up!)

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It is Monday night, and I am actually posting my Monday night food … finally on schedule!

Before I get around to my dinner concoction, I present to you the most re-gifted item from my family’s 2008 holiday season. This little guy started off as a present from my stepmom’s brother to his mother. Mere hours later, step-grandma had it rewrapped and waiting in my present pile. The trend continued when he reappeared at the Hannukah swap yesterday as my contribution. Unfortunately, the lucky recipient left him behind, so we seem to be stuck with him. Here’s my mom demonstrating his impressive jellybean-pooping skills:

sheep1

sheep3sheep41

I ate the jellybean :-).

For dinner, I attacked the leftovers once more. Yesterday, we had crudites: veggies1

 

 

 

And tonight, I roasted all the leftover raw veggies (carrots, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, and radishes) along with half a turnip I found in the bin, olive oil, red wine vinegar, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Here’s the result: 

veggies-roasted

Leftover lettuce topped with the roasted veggies, feta, and a sprinkling of chopped chestnuts I also found lurking in the fridge.

 Seconds (roasted veggies + feta):

seconds2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For dessert, we had more pumpkin pie pudding from this morning’s project and a square of the apple-cranberry pie, also left over from yesterday:

dessert-close

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With decaf Earl Grey on the side:

dessert

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grand total of eliminated containers of leftovers for the day: 10!!!

Repurposing leftovers, part 2!

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Lunchtime rolled around, so I started rummaging through the fridge again to rescue as many leftovers as possible (and to create some more fridge space by eliminating some of the 10,000 storage containers hogging the shelves!). I uncovered some cabbage salad with apples and pomegranate from who knows when, but it was dressed with vinegar and seemed sufficiently preserved, so I added it to the leftover turkey from yesterday and heated it in the microwave. I also found half an avocado, so I mixed that with some Dijon mustard and a couple Tbsp of Greek yogurt that was taking up another dish. I finished off the plate with two of my leftover curried carrot and zucchini latkes.

lunch

For dessert, mom and I split the little bit of pumpkin/applesauce/banana mixture that did not make it into the oven with this morning’s project.

lunch-dessert

A perfect, well-balanced meal that had the added benefit of eliminating five containers from the fridge. What a relief!