Okay, I know. What is the point in blogging if you never blog!? Its been a while. But here we are at Christmas and Im just catching my breath, preparing for the new year that is just 5 days away! I think Im ready. Heck, at this point, I have no choice!
Ill save pictures of Christmas and things we did for another time. Today I want to talk about something that is near and dear to me.....FOOD!
It was suggested that with all my cooking and recipe developing, that I blog. So I will at least include it, however sporadically.
If you know me, my life pretty much revolves around food. Family and food. Arts and crafts with food. Gift giving of food.... Yeah, I like food :) One of my favorite things about cooking and being a woman of the house is that I can find creative ways to use leftovers. You can call it recycling, repurposing, but I call it yum!
For instance, tonight we are having a breakfast strata (a.k.a. savory bread pudding) for dinner, using leftover Christmas stuffing, potatoes, bacon and eggs. These are all things I have in my fridge and need to be used because everyone is sick of eating them in their original form. This is a sure winner at my house and is a staple for brunch type meals:
Breakfast Strata
3 or 4 cups stuffing (or potatoes, roasted, mashed, biscuits, stale bread, the list goes on....)
Bacon or sausage (or ham, or turkey, pepperoni, you get the idea)
Leftover chopped veggies and onions, 1-2 cups max
8-10 eggs, or 2 pints egg beaters
1/2 milk, cream, etc.
salt and pepper, 1/2 tsp. mustard powder if you want it...
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Spray casserole pan with nonstick spray.
Layer leftovers in pan, starting with the starchy food (i.e. stuffing). Sprinkle meat over the top. Blend eggs and milk, with salt + pepper , pour into pan on top of everything else. Bake 20-35 minutes. Keep an eye on it, but dont worry, its hard to mess this one up! You can change the pan size and ingredient amounts to accomodate whatever you have on hand, little or big, just change the baking time too!
So here are a few more examples of how Christmas dinner (Goose with apricot stuffing, truffled lamb with chantrelle mushroom rice, roasted butternut squash with parsnips, brussel sprouts with pecans, and rye bread stuffing) will be repurposed this weekend (because, you know, Im supposed to start a diet on Monday, so the leftovers have to go!):
Butternut parsnip ravioli, lamb risotto, served alongside zucchini latkes, for the last night of Hanukkah.
It might seem silly to you, but this is how I make dinners stretch and ease the burden of cooking for myself. I freeze leftovers (extra brussel sprouts for St. Patty's Day, leftover cream cheese icing to be used later for pumpkin cheesecake muffins, the goose liver from my Christmas dinner for pate, Halloween candy for Christmas fudge and gingerbread houses!) Why waste it when you can freeze it for later?
My strata's done. Gotta go! Tomorrow breakfast: Eggnog french toast!
