Tag: Leftovers

Cooked out!

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My cooking energy was almost non-existent today — this week has wiped me out! — so I was happy to let mom be the boss. She spent the afternoon and early evening going through the turkey left from our Hannukah party to divide it into soupable pieces, cat pieces, and fat. Here she is with her fan club looking on:

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I chopped celery (ewwwww), carrots, and onions for the soup:

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The fridge looks so empty now because most of its contents went into the soup, yayyyy! Here’s the huge soup pot, stuffed to the gills:

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And finally, our 10 pm dinner! I only had a little mug of soup because I had eaten my way through a hefty percentage of the carrots, cauliflower, and cabbage as I chopped. That’s a matzoh ball in front — mom found a few in the freezer and threw them in, mmmmmmmm:

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Mom also found some peach pie in the freezer that she made over the summer. While that was heating in the oven, I set us up with a dessert appetizer: the teeeeeeeeny piece of rice pudding I rescued as we left the party last night. My bite:

rice-pudding

You can’t tell from the picture, but the rice pudding is on a little tea bag-sized saucer and accompanied by my baby spoon. For perspective, here it is next to my tea (decaf Earl Grey and a splash of light eggnog):

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And finally, this delicious peach pie! Mom can’t remember what she put in it (as usual), but it tasted perfect and not at all as if it had been in the freezer for the past six months:

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I’ll be heading back to Brooklyn tomorrow morning armed with loads of food (I may not even have to grocery shop this week!) and a mom-made lunch for the bus. Booooo, end of vacation :-(.

Getting to the bottom of it …

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Almost done with the leftovers! Phew, right? Now you’ll be able to sleep tonight.

Here’s my lunch plate with the last of the roasted veggies and latkes (plus two pineapple rings and some sweet potato custard I swiped as we left the party last night):

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And a teeny bit of fruit salad left over from the party, too:

fruit-salad

Did you notice my itty bitty fork? I always eat on the smallest dishes and smallest utensils I can find. It makes the food look bigger and last longer :-).

Grains fix everything

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The first order of business this morning was a trip to the gym! Dad picked me (and mom) up at 9:30 for our last family gym outing before I go back to Brooklyn tomorrow morning. After last night, my tum was not feeling up to the steady pounding of a run, so I did 50 minutes on the stairmaster with a People instead.

For breakfast, I turned the kitchen reins over to mom so she could get some of her mixed “grainmeal” under way. Just look at the variety in here!

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My bowl, with chopped pear and banana, cinnamon, and yogurt/cottage cheese on the side:

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Pear!

pear

OK, off to take inventory of the fridge to figure out what I can bring back with me tomorrow!

Snowed in (with packaged food!)

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The snow barreling down last night (dad has not yet taken the yardstick out for an accurate reading of inches, but weather.com says it is 8 degrees/feels like -10) was the perfect excuse to spend New Year’s Eve inside in front of the fire with movies, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, and Chinese food! Too bad that I had my heart set on steamed shrimp/veggies and the woman at the Chinese restaurant said they were too busy to steam anything. Rararararr. So I made my own version.

Steaming green beans, carrots, and mushrooms:

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Sauteeing thawed frozen shrimp in olive oil:

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Over whole wheat pasta and topped with pesto from a jar (I know, I’m a slacker) and pre-shredded parm (slacker again):

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Closerrrrrr:

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And dessert:

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The bathroom was the only place with good lighting, so that’s where I took my ice cream cone:

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with dad peeking in the mirror

Dad and Rae Ann did not eat the pint of white rice that came with their Chinese since they also ordered pork fried rice. I couldn’t help myself and did this:

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As midnight loomed closer, dad prepped the TV room with wine and …

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Homemade shortbread cookies (sent from CA by Alice, my dad’s first wife and the mama of my siblings. Hi CA family!):

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Happy New Year!

Mixing, mixing, mixing

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My Christmas shopping budget this year was exactly $0 (you could also say it’s -$28,000 and counting, thank you grad school), so I had to be even more thoughtful (aka homemade) with my gifts than usual. Every year, my dad and stepmom, who run a folk music coffeehouse, host a Pickin’ and Eatin’ New Year’s Day Party. All of their music friends come over, and everyone eats and jams until the wee hours. With this in mind, I presented them with a certificate for my cooking/cleaning services today in preparation for their big party tomorrow.

As soon as I arrived, I turned into a walking food processor.

I made another batch of Rae Ann’s yummy holiday cream cheese spread, the one that tastes like carrot cake frosting. We opted to use regular cream cheese this time, though — wouldn’t want to overwhelm the party-goers with too much health.

Pre-mix, with cream cheese, craisins, orange juice concentrate, orange zest, pecans, cinnamon:

cream cheese, craisins, orange juice concentrate, orange zest, pecans, cinnamon

Post-mix, I had to taste test some on a cracker of course:

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The spread is now in the fridge, chilling into its final ball shape form.

Next, Rae Ann found a can of chickpeas in a cupboard, so I offered to make hummus. Because the house was not stocked with any traditional hummus ingredients, we improvised and added part-skim ricotta, a tomato-bacon cream cheese flavor packet, sauteed asparagus, and other spices. The end result is DELICIOUS (I had to eat a lot of it throughout the whole process to make sure the taste was just right):

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During the cupboard search for hummus ingredients, I also came upon some Belgian dark chocolate-covered poppycock, a piece of which spontaneously jumped into my mouth:

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Finally, I needed to find a use for the remaining 2.5 cups of ricotta since the package was open and had no future commitments. I searched for some pumpkin to no avail, but Rae Ann offered me an even better alternative: sweet potatoes! Can you guess what it is going to be?

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(P.S. I ate all the leftover potato skins since I knew they would not suit what I had in mind.)

Recipes and finished products will come soon!