Crockpot Black Beans

I loves a good bean recipe.  I served this the first night as our main dish with salad and bread (cornbread would have been an excellent accompaniment, but alas was not meant to be that night).  I served the leftovers (and there will be a lot unless you're feeding a small army or a couple of teenage boys) as taco filling the next night.

Even though these beans cook all day in a crockpot, you still need to presoak them.  Depending on what kind of schedule you have, that might mean soaking overnight (to put in the crockpot in the morning), through a whole day (to prep in the evening for the next day's crockpotting) or doing the boil-two-minutes-then-cover-and-soak-one-hour thing.

Crockpots keep food very moist, so be sure not to add too much stock, otherwise you'll have bean soup instead of beans.  Add stock until just before the beans would be totally covered; you should still see little lumpy-bumps of beanage peeking through the surface of the liquid.

Crockpot Black Beans
Makes 8-10 servings

1 lb. black beans, soaked several hours or quick-soaked and drained
2 tbsp oil
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 mild pepper such as anaheim or poblano, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 tsp seasoning salt
1 bay leaf
1 14 oz can crushed tomatoes
2 tbsp lime juice
4-5 cups vegetable or chicken broth

Prepare beans.  Heat oil in a skillet and saute onions, garlic, peppers and seasonings 5-10 minutes until soft.  Stir in remaining ingredients, except for broth.  Fridge or freeze, if desired (as a scheduling note, you could do the sauteing the night before Crockpot Day and start soaking the beans at the same time; the next morning mix it all together in the crockpot).

On Crockpot Day, put the onion-bean-tomato mix in the crockpot (still frozen is OK).  Add stock to barely cover the beans.  Cook on low 8-10 hours.


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Mirepoix: Beef Pot Pie

Here's another way to use the wild rice soup starter from Julie Languille's Meals in Jars.

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Roast Beef Roundup

A collection of roast beef recipes...these recipes let you cook once for two meals by making enough for dinner with leftovers to use in other recipes.

Looed Crockpot Beef

Baltimore Pit Beef

Russian Dressing Beef Pin It

Michigan Dogs

This is adapted from Rachael Ray's recipe.  I don't know why she calls them Michigan Dogs...they're chili cheese hot dogs to me, and I suppose some people call this combination of toppings a Coney Dog?  The folks I know from Michigan certainly don't know what Michigan Dogs are.

I like that the cheese sauce and chili sauce can be made ahead (and even frozen), and the kiddos can opt out of toppings and just have plain dogs if they want.  Leftover chili and cheese sauce make excellent breakfast burritos by the way.

There's a lot of liquid that goes into the chili sauce and it needs to boil down to make a nice, thick, rich chili sauce.  Your choice of pot will significantly affect how long it takes for this to happen.  A tall, narrow pot will take longer whereas a shallow, wide pot will allow water to boil off much more quickly.

I used dehydrated (i.e. sun-dried) tomatoes instead of the tomato paste the OR calls for.  I finely minced them and used the same amount called for in Rachael Ray's recipe.

When it comes to the cheese sauce, I recommend using cornstarch instead of flour.  It makes a smoother sauce, it's gluten-free and thickens more strongly than flour.  I also add the mustard after the milk but before the cheese...once the cheese is in there, it's really difficult to mix in the mustard evenly.  Use whatever cheese you want here...I had a chunk of white cheddar and some parmesan leftover from another recipe that used up here.  Sharp cheddar, colby, even American cheese makes delicious cheese sauce.  I do not recommend using Dijon mustard...did that once and it was just too, too much.  If you really want to use Dijon, I'd use 1/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup.  I just stick to plain ol' French's.

One of my favorite tips from Rachael's recipe is to split the hot dogs down the middle before grilling/frying them.  They lay better in your bun (I prefer hot dog-sized lengths of French bread) and make a better "bed" for all the toppings.

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Beef Roast & Beef Manhattan

Beef Manhattan is one of those looked-down-upon dishes because you typically see it in cafeterias and hospitals.  Really, it shouldn't be overlooked.  It's a great way to repurpose leftover roasted beef.  The first day after we have roasted beef, there's an excited flurry of roast beef sandwiches for lunch, then...it sits.  Beef Manhattan revives and reinterests the dinner-time audience ;)

If you don't want to use Russian dressing (because, really, it is a bizarre form of salad dressing that's far better suited to marinades than dressing salad IMHO), use an equal amount of ketchup with liberal dashes of salt, pepper and garlic powder with a splash of red wine vinegar.  If you do use Russian dressing but wonder what else to do with it, I recommend this freeze-ahead chicken dish.

To make the gravy for Beef Manhattan, I used a red wine reduction to happy up the stock.  If you'd prefer to skip the wine, use 1 tbsp tomato paste and brown it very well (5-ish minutes over medium heat without oil) in the saucepan instead.

If you're planning well in advance, you can make the gravy without the cooking juices from the beef and freeze it.  When you're ready to serve the second-round Beef Manhattan, thaw the gravy, warm it to bubbling, add the reserved juices and chopped beef and simmer until it's a good consistency.

You can serve Beef Manhattan over bread (white or whole wheat) or over mashed potatoes.  If you're looking for a lower-carb version, serve over pureed cauliflower.

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Armadillo Eggs

Another "as seen as Pinterest, sort of" recipes.  Another Pin Win too.

This is one of those make-it-with-whatever-you've-got recipes...hot peppers or sweet peppers, ground meat of nearly any persuasion or combination, whatever cheese appeals to you and whatever sauce/glaze you can rustle up out of the fridge.

I had pork sausage, sharp cheddar, mini sweet peppers and garlic jelly in my fridge so here's what I did (though meatloaf mix, provolone and beer jelly or jalapeno jelly glaze sounds good too).  The original Pin also suggested grilling them...trying to keep 3 kids under the age of 5 supervised and clear of the grill is not my idea of a good time, so I baked mine on a rack placed over a lipped sheet tray.  But I bet grilled is good too.

I really, really, really wish I had made more of these and popped them in the freezer.

Last thought...this reminds me of a recipe from the 1973 Betty Crocker International Cookbook for "Scotch Eggs"...those are peeled hard-boiled eggs wrapped in breakfast sausage, then breaded and deep-fried.  I think the next time I make Scotch Eggs (which are outstanding post-Easter leftovers), I'll glaze them and bake them instead of breading and deep-frying.

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Roast Redux Salad

Leftovers can sometimes be a hard sell.  Not many people like eating exactly the same thing for dinner then lunch, then dinner again.  Which can be a problem if you've made, say, a large roast and a LOT is left in the fridge.  For some reason, leftover roast (be it beef, pork or lamb) lingers at our house.  Maybe because no one wants to deal with slicing it once it's cold, maybe because reheated roast tends to get dry, or maybe because it can be just plain boring to eat the same meat-plus-two-veggies for back-to-back meals.

Interestingly, I couldn't persuade anyone to eat the leftovers of the roast I used to make this dish, but my husband took the leftovers of the repurposed leftovers twice for lunch.  This leftover salad is just that good.

This grain-based salad is inspired by a recipe from Julia Child's The Way to Cook for managing leftover lamb roast.  I did make this with thinly sliced leftover leg of lamb, but I think it would be good with beef or pork roast too.  I made it with bulgur as the grain base (per Julia's directions), but rice, quinoa or couscous would be good too...just be sure to cook the grain according to package directions.

Now the tomato and onion roasting is NOT a fast process and you don't really have to do it (Julia didn't, she just put these ingredients in her salad raw).  But it made the winter hothouse tomatoes de-lish-us and roasting takes that sharp, bitey heat out of the onion that you'll get if you leave it raw.

You can do all of this a day in advance, which is precisely what I did (if you roast the veggies, I'd fridge them for 2 or 3 days even, for as long as you fridge your leftover roast).  I got to walk in the door after work to a fully prepared meal.  And THAT, in addition to how good it tasted, is the real beauty of this meal.

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Creamed Greens

This recipe works for any type of cooked green...kale, chard, spinach, mustard greens, turnip greens, even collards as long as they're fully cooked first.  This is how I get leftover cooked greens eaten at my house...they go like gangbusters the first night, but tend to linger as leftovers so I recreate them as creamed greens.

The best recipe I've ever had for creamed spinach was a Barefoot Contessa colossus of cream, butter, cheese, more cheese and a lot of salt.  I do love creamy goodness, but not like that every day.  Using milk instead of cream, less cheese, less salt and less butter still produces a yummy dish.  If you want to lighten the sauce further, you could substitute some cooking liquid from the greens for some of the milk.

You can make this ahead up to the point of baking (it will probably take a little longer to brown if the dish is coming out of the fridge) or if you make the sauce and greens at dinnertime, you could skip the parmesan and further baking and just serve it out of the saucepan.

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Dim Sum

If you've ever had an appetizer and said "I could make a meal of that", this is the post for you!  We've got names for this concept from a variety of culinary cultures...Spanish tapas, Italian antipasti, Chinese dim sum...making a meal of several small plates of varying foods. 

These recipes are adapted from the Frugal Gourmet's Three Ancient Cuisines.  In spite of being a meal composed of multiple attention-needing dishes (I don't usually plan to give significant attention to more than 1 dish in a meal), it came together pretty quickly and with a lot fewer swear words than I expected.

Steamer basket workaround

One of the beauties of dim sum is how easily the recipes lend themselves to prepping or making ahead.  I prepped all the sauces the night before (chopped/measured/combined ingredients), made the dumpling dough the night before, formed the dumplings right before dinner (but could have prepped them earlier if the dough was ready) and was able to cook everything in 15 inattentive minutes at the last minute.  All these dishes could have been prepped and frozen ahead as well, or fully cooked ahead and reheated in a steamer.

Speaking of steamers, the stacked bamboo steamer is apparently a staple in a Chinese kitchen.  I don't have one.  I do have a variety of metal steaming baskets, cooling racks, and ceramic ramekins that I assembled into a 3-tier arrangement inside of a large stock pot.  Work with what you've got!

The squid/calamari recipe originally calls for plain, cleaned squid to be stirfried with aromatics and sauce.  My grocery store only had pre-breaded calamari, so I decided to oven-bake the calamari and toss it with the sauce which I prepared using the microwave. 

Calamari, dumplings and meatballs

The dumpling filling calls for using leftover Chinese BBQ pork and a bit of napa cabbage, but you could use any combination of cooked meat and vegetable you want (or go totally vegetarian and skip the meat).  If you've got a small serving of leftover steamed veg of any type, I'd use that rather than cooking additional vegetables for the filling.  Also, if you have a premade stirfry sauce, you can use about 3 tbsp of that rather than measuring half-teaspoons of all the ingredients listed below.  Just add a bit of cornstarch if necessary to thicken the mixture.  Again, I made use of the microwave to deal with what is really a small bit of filling.

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Chicken Biscuits

What doesn't taste better in a biscuit, I ask you?  This is a fabulous upcycle recipe for chicken (or turkey) leftovers.  You can tweak it to suit your palate...add Italian seasoning if you want a Mediterranean flavor, taco seasoning for Mexican, Cajun seasoning for a little Creole flavor, or leave it pretty plain with just salt and pepper.  Any type of cheese will do, though I prefer a cheese in the "melting" family...mozzarella, provolone, gruyere, fontina....rather than the "shape-retaining" family...goat, cheddar, jack, swiss.

You don't want the filling to be soupy, so be sure to drain canned tomatoes well or squish the seedy innards out of fresh tomatoes.  I use dry minced onion to help absorb any extra liquid from the tomatoes, though you can choose to use a bit of fresh onion instead. 

I usually use refrigerated "whomp" biscuits (as the Sweet Potato Queen calls them, cuz you "whomp" them on your kitchen counter to open the tube) for this recipe.  Nota bene: you'll want to get "regular" size biscuits, not "jumbo" biscuits (I screw up so you don't have to!)  When I do make homemade biscuits though, I use a recipe from a fundraiser-type cookbook called All Maine Cooking.  It is *the* best biscuit recipe I've made...not too heavy, not too wet, not too salty, not too sweet, and easy to put together and roll out.  I give the recipe halved as you'll only need half to go with the Chicken Biscuit recipe.

Nerd Note of the Day...did you know cream of tartar is a by-product of winemaking?  Tartaric acid (which is what CoT is) comes from the leftover grape bits.  You could use about 3 tsp of baking powder instead of the baking soda and cream of tartar if you don't keep cream of tartar on hand, though there are other uses for it like stabilizing whipped egg whites and making your own playdoh.
 
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Thanksgiving leftovers

I've gotten pretty darn good at handling Thanksgiving leftovers without resorting to five straight days of turkey sandwiches.  The trick is to shop ahead for a few extra ingredients to make the following recipes at the same time you're shopping for your holiday meal.  And it's not just the turkey that needs using up, so I have a couple of leftover side dish recipes as well. 

In giving shop ahead lists, I assume you'll have pantry and refrigerator basics on hand already...spices, onions, garlic, butter, oil, eggs, and basic baking ingredients.

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Grilled Spice-Rubbed Bologna

How retro grill-chic, right?  This is like fried bologna, but classy LOL 

When you go to the deli counter to get a slab o' bologna, ask them to cut you a chunk about 3" or 4" thick.  Adapted from a cookbook I found at our beach rental this summer.  Be sure to build a nice hot, smoky fire in your grill...more smoky flavor is better here.

The spice rub will keep for some time in your spice cabinet.  You could apply the rub to the bologna and wrap it in plastic wrap a couple of days in advance of cooking, or freeze the whole slab.  Leftovers of this recipe make OUTSTANDING lunchbox sandwiches.

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Pantry Puttanesca

This is one for which you can have all the ingredients lounging in your pantry/freezer any time, or at least until the canned goods expire.  The only need-to-shop-now, fresh additions might be a handful of chopped fresh herbs or a couple cups of leftover roasted/grilled/sauteed veggies.  I wouldn't go out of my way to cook anything special for this recipe, but if you've got some leftover zucchini or eggplant, this is a great way to use it up.

A traditional puttanesca sauce uses anchovies, black olives, capers and tomatoes for its base.  If you think you don't like anchovies, think again.  Anchovies are the major flavor ingredient in Worcestershire sauce, giving it the full, rich, salty, umami quality that Worcestershire sauce brings to your favorite marinade (which makes Worcestershire sauce not vegetarian, for anyone who cooks for vegetarian types). 

I choose to use sardines here because I'm currently hot for them, dietarily speaking, for the reasons outlined here.  You can use tuna or the traditional anchovies, if you prefer.  If using tuna or sardines, you can choose to leave them quite chunky (so as to be easily picked around) or flake them up quite a bit before adding to the sauce so they become more of a flavorful ghost in the machine rather than an upfront protein.

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Crockpot Ham and Bean (or Bean and Ham) Soup

Another post-Easter/Christmas perennial.  My husband's grandfather, to whom this blog is dedicated, often made much of the distinction between "beef and vegetable" soup and "vegetable and beef" soup...the former being made when you have more beef than vegetables on hand, and the latter when you have more veggies than beef.  In this case, it depends on how much meat is left on your hambone whether you have "ham and bean" or "bean and ham" soup. 

I can't not have something green in a meal, so I add veggies at the end of cooking.  I add frozen peas right to my kids' plates to help cool them faster.  In just a few minutes, the heat transfer softens the veggies and cools the soup.  If you want to use fresh greens or want more fully cooked veggies, add them when you add the tomatoes.

Believe it or not, you can mess up making bean soup in a crockpot (I screw up so you don't have to).  Because a crockpot cooks more gently than a simmering pot on the stovetop, beans can come out cronchy and undercooked without proper handling.  It is tempting to put every ingredient you'll use in the crockpot at the start of cooking, but acid (as from tomatoes) will interfere with proper bean cooking, so they must be added 30-60 minutes before serving.  And because little liquid is lost in crockpot cooking (as opposed to the reduction process that occurs on the stovetop), there is a risk of coming out with watery, thinly-flavored soup.
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No-cook leftover make-over, and purple cauliflower

It is 86F and HUMID.  I try very hard to avoid creating extra heat in the house when the weather gets like this (so for 3 solid months, I try not to turn on the oven).  So for dinner we had no-cook steak salad, electric kettle-blanched cauliflower and microwaved rice. 

If a salad has chunks of steak in it, it's a manly salad, right?  Leave out the lettuce and only use toothsome veggies, and it's really manly (as well as being as perfect vehicle for no-cook cookery).  Since there's no lettuce to wilt, this salad can be prepared and even dressed well in advance.

Blanching the cauliflower using water boiled in an electric kettle saves energy, heat and anti-oxidants...colored cauliflower (orange, green or purple) should be cooked very lightly, if at all, to preserve the color and nutrients that the unusual color brings to the party.

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"OK, everyone has to take some ham home with them..."

I have a whole section of my recipe clippings dedicated to recipes that use up holiday dinner leftovers.  Ham salad is always on the menu the week following Easter and Christmas (our ham holidays).  You can substitute green onions for the chives, and add more jalapeno if you like.  I like to hand-chop the bell pepper to keep a bit of crunch in the mix. 

Made-up ham salad can be kept in the fridge at least 2 or 3 days, but due to the mayo content, probably doesn't freeze so well.
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Fish Burgers and Veggie Croquettes

The common theme with these two recipes is that if you make them ahead to freeze, they need to spend some time in the freezer firming up before you squash the daylights out of them with a vacusealer.  Vacusealing will keep them both much fresher-tasting, but they're prone to going completely out of round if they don't freeze pretty solid first.

The veggie croquette is one of my faves for its dual vegetarian main/side dish status, its repurposing of leftovers that usually won't get consumed and its general old-fashioned-ness.  In fact, the original recipe came from a WWII-era home economics textbook that belonged to my husband's grandmother.  Reading old cookbooks and trying out vintage recipes is as close as I get to liking history, but I must say that it is such an insightful history lesson to cook as women did in another time and place.  There's a moment of connection across generations when you realize that the face your husband made about Meatless Monday Rice Patties with Flourless Cheese Gravy is the same face somebody's husband made about the exact same dish in 1944.  But I digress...
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Southwestern Egg Rolls

This recipe isn't so much as recipe as it is...guidelines (you have to imagine Captain Barbosa wearing an apron saying that).  It's a "throw together what's hanging around in your fridge and deep fry it" sort of an affair.  It's a really beautiful thing for leftover chicken, especially any dark meat that the Chicken Princess in your household won't eat unless it's buried in a bunch of other stuff.  Just sayin'.

You want to come up with about 2 1/2 to 3 cups of filling for a 1 lb. package of egg roll wrappers.  Meat, beans, fresh vegetables, frozen vegetables and cheese all contribute to that total.  I've made this with pinto beans, black beans, chicken, pork, turkey, corn, spinach, bell peppers, green onions, red onions, broccoli...it's all good. 

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Corned Beef Cheese Ball

And finally, I have a post about the other St. Patty's Day corned beef do-over.  Maybe it's a Midwest thing, but cheeseballs are great pitch-in food.  They can even be frozen ahead and thawed a day before the event. 

If you're going to freeze them for more than a few days, vacusealing is the way to go as the cream cheese is prone to picking up funky odors.  Make the cheeseball, then freeze for at least an hour on a piece of waxed or parchment paper, THEN vacuseal.  Otherwise the vacuum will squish the cheeseball flat.  Once again, I screw up so you don't have to.

I also recommend preparing this cheeseball in a stand mixer rather than a food processor or by hand.  The food processor will just turn the mix-ins to paste and without some electric elbow grease, the cream cheese will stay clumpy and dense instead of mixing into a light, smooth medium for corned beef goodness delivery.

Corned Beef Cheeseball
Makes 2 4" cheeseballs

12 oz. corned beef, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup pickle relish
8 oz. cream cheese
2 cups shredded cheddar
1 1/2 tbsp horseradish
1 1/2 tbsp dijon mustard
1/2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 cups walnut or pecan pieces

Combine first 8 ingredients in a stand mixer.  Mix until well-blended.  Divide mixture in half and shape into balls. 



Please to be ignoring the take-out cup in the background

 Spread half of the nut pieces on a piece of waxed or parchment paper.  Roll one ball in the nuts until well-coated on all sides.  Repeat with remaining cheeseball.  Refrigerate or freeze. Pin It

St. Patty's Day Redux

Who didn't make corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day?  Anyone?  OK, well, you over there on I Don't Do Silly Holidays Island and your friend in Corned Beef Is Gross City, you two can stop reading now.

Unless you made it for a party, I bet there were some leftovers.  I'm putting my corned beef leftovers into a cheese ball (!!) and into a Reuben flavored macaroni and cheese casserole.  The hubbie loves reubens, the kids love mac and cheese, I have leftover corned beef and thousand island dressing...winners all round! 

I especially like this type of M&C recipe because you don't have to make a roux-based cheese sauce to bathe the pasta in.  It winds up being less work on the front end and slightly more work on the back end as you have to cook the finished casserole longer on account of the eggs, but I think having less prepwork is an advantage here.
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