13 Leftovers That Taste Better Cold – Bon Appétit.
Sometimes leftovers just hit the spot when you need a quick snack, lunch or are on a midnight forage through the refrigerator. Bon Appetit has put together 13 items that tastes even better when they are cold so you know what to look for when you really want something fast. Check it out!
Pulled pork is one of those great meals to serve when you know you are having a crowd over for dinner, but it can also be great for a weeknight meal for the family and then give you plenty of leftovers to do something with. You certainly have your options when it comes to making the pulled pork itself. You can make it in the oven, smoke your own on the grill or smoker if you have one or even make it in the slow cooker to save you some time, energy and prevent the kitchen from overheating in the summer months. However you decide to make it, once you have the leftovers you may get a little tired of having pulled pork sandwiches or pulled pork over rice. Sure you can always whip up a batch of pulled pork nachos, but I decided to take some of what I had leftover and make use of this recipe from Kelsey Nixon of the Cooking Channel. While her recipe calls for the use of leftover shredded pork, I liked the way it worked with the pulled pork instead and decided to use it that way.
Pulled Pork and Pineapple Nachos
1 1/2 pounds of cooked pulled pork (in the oven or the slow cooker)
Corn or four tortillas, warmed
2 cups fresh pineapple, cut into a 1/2-inch dice
Fresh cilantro sprigs, for garnish
Shredded red cabbage or coleslaw, for garnish
Pickled red onions, for garnish
Guacamole, for garnish
Sour cream, for garnish
Shredded Mexican cheese, for garnish
In a large saucepan, warm the pulled pork over medium heat until it is re-heated through. Warm the tortillas individually in a medium skillet set over high heat for 30 seconds to 1 minute or take a stack and wrap them in plastic wrap and heat them in the microwave for 1 minute until warmed through. Top the warmed tortillas with some of the pulled pork and the fresh diced pineapple. Add the other garnishes that you like, such as guacamole, sour cream, cilantro, coleslaw or shredded cabbage, shredded cheese or pickled red onions and serve. Let each person make their own tacos as they like it best.
This can’t get much easier and is a great use of your leftovers. The pineapple and pork go together really well and you get such great flavor from the spices of the pulled pork. I even added some of the black bean salad with mango I had made the day before to the dish for some extra freshness and bite and it really worked well. You could try this with any type of pork you may have leftover, such as tenderloin or chops and just cut them into thin strips and re-heat them lightly with some spice and you can have great tacos from that.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
When you are looking for something quick to make on these hot summer days and may even want to stay away from the meat for a dinner or for lunch, beans can be a great alternative for you. They can provide you with plenty of protein, vitamins and fiber and taste great in salads or as a taco or wrap. I decided to do this myself for lunch a few weeks ago and then brought it back as a dinner meal when we were looking for something quick and easy one night. All the ingredients can be things that you might normally have on hand in your pantry or refrigerator so you can have this ready to go in just minutes.
Black Bean and Corn Tacos
1 15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed (or 1 cup of cooked black beans)
5 teaspoons olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 cup onion, sliced thin
2 green onions, sliced thin
Corn or flour tortillas
Spinach leaves, for topping
Thinly sliced radishes, for topping
Sliced avocado or guacamole, for topping
Grated cheese (your choice) for topping
Sour cream, for topping
Diced tomatoes or salsa, for topping
Place the black beans and the cumin together in a small bowl and lightly mash the beans. Add 2 teaspoons of the olive oil along with the lime juice and mix together until well blended. In a saucepan set over medium heat, heat 1 teaspoon of the olive oil until it is shimmering. Add the sliced onion and saute the onion until it is tender, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the corn kernels and the bean mixture to the onions and heat until the corn and beans are completely warmed through and fragrant, about 3 to 4 minutes. In a separate skillet, warm the remaining olive oil over medium heat. Warm the tortillas individually for about 1 minute per side. Remove the tortillas to a separate plate and place the bean and corn mixture in a separate bowl, sprinkling the beans mixture with the sliced green onions. Place any toppings you like on the table as well so people can assemble their own tacos to their specific liking.
You can really add anything you like to this dish to truly make it your own. Personally, I had tomato, avocado and radishes on mine while Sean put cheese on his and Michelle put sour cream and cheese on hers. The spinach was a nice touch as well. I actually have had this for lunch a number of times and they pack pretty well just as wraps if you didn’t want to cook the tortillas and just wanted to pack them up for a lunch on the go. you could certainly used dried beans that you have soaked and cooked beforehand in place of the canned, but the canned were convenient to use for my purposes and you can really make these with any type of beans you like, maybe throw in some chili peppers or hot sauce if you want some heat or any other type of vegetable you might like.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
While the temperature and humidity around here have eased a bit today, it is typical for July around these parts of New York to be very sticky and humid, making it uncomfortable all day long and making you feel like you really do not want to put much effort into dinner. Nights like that for use are usually good for really simple meals that involve little or no cooking at all, which means making things like sandwiches, salads, hot dogs and the like for dinner. Sure you can always get take out or go out if you like, but that gets expensive to do too much and you don’t have control over the ingredients you are eating. You can always compromise somewhere in the middle and buy some pre-cooked items, such as a rotisserie chicken, and make good use of that in a meal for you and your family in a bunch of ways. One thing I recently did was use a rotisserie chicken to make some pulled chicken sandwiches for a meal. You can do this just as easily with leftover chicken and simply shred it yourself and even use your favorite bottled barbecue sauce if you like, but I decided to make my own sauce to get the flavor we really like. The basis of this recipe comes from Ellie Krieger on the Food Network site.
Pulled Chicken Sandwiches
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 (14-ounce) can tomato sauce
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
5 tablespoons molasses
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
1 whole rotisserie chicken, skin removed, meat shredded into thin strips (about 4 to 4 1/2 cups)
6 hamburger rolls
Lettuce leaves, for garnish
Pickle slices, for garnish
Coleslaw, store-bough or homemade, for garnish
Heat the vegetable oil in a large saute pan set over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until they are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more until the garlic is fragrant. Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, water, cider vinegar, molasses, pepper and liquid smoke and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the chopped chicken, return the mixture to a simmer, and cook for an additional 10 minutes.
Split the hamburger rolls. Place a leaf of lettuce on each roll, then pile on 3/4 cup of the chicken mixture onto the roll and top with pickle slices, coleslaw and additional sauce, if desired.
That’s all there is to it and it tastes great. You get a nice barbecue sauce to simmer the chicken in without a lot of work and the liquid smoke adds great aroma and flavor to the sauce. I used the pickleback slaw recipe I have made before as the coleslaw for a topping and we just had the sandwiches with some chips on the side to keep things simple, though they would go well with some potato salad, macaroni salad or even just a simple side salad. You could even make these as sliders if you wanted to use them for a buffet or party and have them done in minutes.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of you day and enjoy your meal!
So after I made the lamb the other night for dinner, we naturally had some leftover. Finding something to do with leftover lamb can seem a little daunting as it is not something that always reheats well without some help. I have found that the best solution for using leftover lamb is to grind it up and use it for shepherd’s pie. Cold, leftover lamb lends itself well to being ground up in the food processor or you could simply dice it up small and use it that way. In either case, it is very easy to make and makes a great one pot meal. I have tried a few different shepherd’s pie recipes over the years, but I came across this one from Alton Brown on the Food Network website that seemed very easy to make and would give you some great flavors.
Alton Brown’s Shepherd’s Pie
For the potatoes:
1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes
1/4 cup half-and-half
2 ounces butter
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 egg yolk
For the meat filling:
2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 carrots, peeled and diced small
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 pounds ground lamb
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons freshly chopped rosemary leaves
1 teaspoon freshly chopped thyme leaves
1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1/2 cup fresh or frozen English peas
Peel the potatoes and cut them into a 1/2-inch dice. Place the potatoes in a medium saucepan and cover them with cold water. Set the saucepan over high heat, cover and bring it to a boil. Once boiling, uncover the pot, decrease the heat to maintain a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender and easily crushed with tongs, approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Place the half-and-half and butter into a microwave-safe container and heat in the microwave until warmed through, about 35 seconds. Drain the potatoes in a colander and then return them to the saucepan. Mash the potatoes and then add the half and half, butter, salt and pepper and continue to mash the potatoes until they are smooth. Stir in the yolk until it is well combined.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the filling. Place the canola or vegetable oil into a 12-inch saute pan and set it over medium high heat. Once the oil shimmers, add the onion and carrots and saute just until they begin to take on color, approximately 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and stir to combine. Add the lamb, salt and pepper and cook until browned and cooked through, approximately 3 minutes. Sprinkle the meat with the flour and toss to coat, continuing to cook for another minute. Add the tomato paste, chicken broth, Worcestershire sauce, rosemary, thyme, and stir to combine. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover the pan and simmer slowly for about 10 to 12 minutes or until the sauce is thickened slightly.
Add the corn and peas to the lamb mixture and spread the mixture evenly into an 11 by 7-inch baking dish. Top the lamb mixture with the mashed potatoes, starting around the edges to create a seal to prevent the mixture from bubbling up and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Place the baking dish on a parchment lined half sheet pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake the pie for 25 minutes or just until the potatoes begin to brown. Remove the pie to a cooling rack for at least 15 minutes before serving.
This is a very simple and tasty way to make use of leftover lamb or to just use some ground lamb that you may have. You get a nice mix of vegetables, meat and sauce with a great mashed potato topping. if you don’t want to use lamb, you could always used ground beef, turkey or chicken, but for me to really call it shepherd’s pie you need the lamb and that particular lamb flavor that you get. All you need to do is cut yourself a slice and enjoy your meal with a simple cleanup after dinner.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
If you are like our home you ended up with at least a dozen brightly colored hard-boiled eggs after Sunday and needed to try to find a way to use them all this week. Sure, you can make the standard egg salad for lunches or even just enjoy a hard-boiled egg for breakfast or as a snack during the day, but you can also make good use of them in an easy meal. Cobb salad has always been one of my favorite and I have ordered it out a number of times for a meal when I want something a little different. It is the perfect combination of vegetables, protein and some nice additions like avocado, egg and blue cheese. First made at the Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles by the owner, Robert Cobb, I got this recipe from Saveur magazine. While this recipe has the traditional dressing recipe along with it, I actually made my own dressing, which I will share following the recipe for the salad.
Classic Cobb Salad
FOR THE DRESSING:
¾ cup vegetable or canola oil
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¾ teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
¼ teaspoon sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
FOR THE SALAD:
½ head iceberg lettuce, cored and shredded
½ head romaine lettuce, chopped
½ bunch watercress, some of the stems trimmed, chopped
2 ounces blue cheese, crumbled
6 strips cooked bacon, roughly chopped
3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and cut into ½ inch cubes
1 boneless skinless chicken breast, cooked and cut into ½ inch cubes
1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and cut into ½ inch cubes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons minced chives
To make the dressing: Combine the vegetable or canola oil, olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, dry mustard, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, and garlic in a blender. Purée the ingredients to make a smooth dressing and season with salt and pepper to taste. Set the dressing aside (or refrigerate, covered, for up to 1 week).
To make the salad: On a large platter, combine the iceberg and romaine lettuces along with the watercress. Arrange the blue cheese, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, chicken, and avocado on top of the greens in neat rows. To serve, drizzle the salad with dressing, season with salt and pepper, and top with the chives. Alternatively, toss everything together in a bowl.
It is very quick and easy and tastes great. I actually added some black olives to the one I made along with some sliced English cucumber and red onion to help round things out. I also used mozzarella and Monterey Jack cheese instead of the blue cheese since we did not have any on hand and Michelle and Sean are not big fans. Instead of using the traditional dressing, I opted to make my own buttermilk ranch dressing using another recipe I got from Saveur magazine. It is a simple way to make your own dressing, tastes better than most of the things you can get in a bottle and costs less for you to make.
Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
1 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon onion salt
1⁄4 teaspoon dried chives
1⁄4 teaspoon dried parsley
1⁄4 teaspoon garlic powder
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
1⁄4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
Pinch ground dried oregano
1 cup buttermilk
Put the mayonnaise, onion salt, chives, parsley, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and oregano into a medium mixing bowl and stir to combine. Beat the mayonnaise mixture with an electric mixer on low-speed for about 5 seconds, then increase the speed to medium and beat until the mixture is smooth, about 20 seconds. Scrape the dressing down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the speed to high and gradually add the buttermilk, beating constantly until all the buttermilk is incorporated and the dressing is very smooth, about 2 minutes more.
Cover the dressing and refrigerate the dressing for at least 12 hours. Stir the dressing well before serving. The dressing will keep, refrigerated in a cover container, for up to 2 weeks.
It has great flavor thanks to the spices and I thickened it up a little bit by adding some plain yogurt to it as well. You could easily use this as a dip as well if you wanted to or as a flavoring for other meals, like a topping for burgers.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Instead of going through the effort to roast a whole chicken sometimes, you can get just as much mileage out of roasting up some bone-in chicken breasts. you can get all the white meat that you want and much better flavor thanks to the skin and bones than just making some boneless chicken breasts. I like to buy the big value packs of bone-in breasts when they are on sale, cut the breasts in half and roast them simply, using this east recipe I got from Williams-Sonoma. This way you can get a great meal out of it for dinner that night and then have plenty leftover for other meals. This one is really simple that you can do any night of the week or on a Sunday night and end up with a week’s worth of meals.
Salt and Pepper Chicken
6 bone-in, skin-on chicken breast halves, about 4 pounds total, cut in half
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme, sage or tarragon
2 tablespoons cold butter, cut into cubes
Preheat an oven to 400°F.
Season the chicken generously with salt and pepper on top of and under the skin. Place the chicken, skin side up, in a large roasting pan. Roast until the chicken is golden brown and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of each breast registers 170°F, about 45 minutes.
Transfer 4 chicken breast halves to a serving platter and reserve the remaining 2 for another use.
Place the roasting pan on a stovetop over high heat. When the roasting pan sizzles, add the broth and thyme (or other herbs) and stir to scrape up the browned bits from the pan bottom. Boil the mixture until the broth is reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat.
Whisk the butter, a couple of pieces at a time, into the reduced liquid. Season the sauce with salt and pepper. Serve the chicken, passing the sauce at the table.
It’s a very simple dish that you can make with just about side dishes that you want and it can come out elegant. These are great with mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, any kind of rice, polenta and any vegetable that you feel like making. The best part is that the leftover chicken is perfect for you to use for other meals. You can make chicken salad sandwiches, shred some chicken for pulled chicken sliders or chicken tacos or use some of the chicken to make some chicken noodle soup or other chicken soups. There are lots of great things that you can do to get several meals out of the leftovers to really stretch your budget.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. I still have lots of different things to share that I have been trying out lately. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
The weather keeps fluctuating around here from unseasonably warm to bitter cold and then back again. It’s amazing that we haven’t all come down with lots of colds yet this winter and the weather really does seem to affect the way I want to cook. On a nice day you feel like having something like ribs or burgers or some chicken and then on the cold days we want soups and stews. Luckily, I try to cook larger meals with the intent that we will get many meals out of the leftovers. Such is the case when I made some turkey recently and then made stock with the leftover carcass and we used the leftover meat to make some nice turkey rice soup. The rice adds a nice heartiness to the dish and you can use all your leftovers or frozen vegetables to help flavor the soup and make the cooking even easier than ever.
Turkey Rice Soup
How to Reheat Leftovers, from Pizza to Pasta to Eggs – Bon Appétit.
We all end up with lots of leftovers in our refrigerator day after day and never seem to know how to re-heat them so people will want to eat them again. I am actually making leftovers tonight, so some of these tips from Bon Appetit about the best way to re-heat leftovers will really come in handy. Check it out!
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful day and evening yesterday and you are ready to start off 2014 in grand style. Granted, this recipe is not one that you can make very often, but since I had some leftover prime rib, this seemed like a great way to make good use of it. Of course you can always make a little prime rib if you want just to make these sandwiches. While I did get the recipe from Saveur, I altered it quite a bit to the point where I think it is mostly mine so I could make use of some items we all like in the sandwiches.
Prime Rib Sandwich
1 medium onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 ounces mushrooms, cleaned, stems removed, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups beef broth
1/2 Roasted Prime Rib recipe or leftover prime rib, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 sandwich rolls
Slices of cheese – Provolone, Colby Jack, Cheddar (whatever you really like), for topping
Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat until it is shimmering. Add the onion and cook until the onion softens and is just starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook just until the mushrooms begin to release some liquid, about 3 to 4 minutes.Whisk in the flour and cook until it is well blended into the vegetables, about 2 minutes. Slowly begin to whisk in the beef broth, a little at a time until so that it absorbs a bit into the vegetables and then just add it slowly, whisking constantly, to avoid lumps from forming in the gravy, about 4 to 5 minutes. Bring the gravy to a boil and reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the gravy is slightly thickened, about 4 to 5 minutes.Stir in the butter and add salt and pepper to taste.
Stir in the prime rib and cover the pan until the meat is heated through, about 5 minutes. Place one roll on each serving plate and place slices of prime rib in gravy, onions and mushrooms in the roll. if you desire top with any cheese that you like and serve as a cheese steak sandwich or simply serve as an open-faced sandwich without the cheese.
For the cheese steak style sandwich, you may want to place the sandwich under the broiler for a minute to get the cheese melted the way you would like it. I preferred mine without the cheese and just as an open-faced sandwich. You can add all kinds of toppings to this if you wish, like peppers, or hot peppers or even other vegetables that you might like to have. You can even serve it with some mashed potatoes or some oven baked french fries and let them get some of the delicious gravy as well. To me, there was no better way to make use of the leftover prime rib. It was super tender and tasted great with the gravy. It made me wish I had leftover prime rib around the house a little more than once a year!
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for some more recipes. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day, Happy New Year and enjoy your meal!
Fun, unusual and forgotten designations on our calendar.
Happily Ever After Lives Here
a little bit naughty a little bit nice
Letting Life Lead
Simple and delicious dinner inspiration
onedadskitchen 