Dinner from the Doggie Bag

They used to be called "Doggie Bags," those little brown sacks that restaurants provided so you could take leftovers home for the dog. But food portions have become enormous and the little brown sacks are now the size of grocery bags.

What do you do with all that leftover restaurant food? Eat it the next morning for breakfast? Let it slowly age in the dark recesses of the refrigerator? Or do you actually feed it to your dog?

Because Lent is the season of penitence I'll confess that leftover pizza is one of my favorite breakfast foods. Thai noodles are perfectly delicious when warmed over for lunch, and there is nothing better than tiramisu that has been chilled an extra day or two. But admit it, you're not going to want the remainder of that 1/2 pound hamburger you ordered with extra mustard and sauerkraut. Day old French fries? No thanks!

On the other hand, I really, really cannot throw away food. So when confronted with a heap of stale sweet potato fries, I surprised myself by stirring up with something not only edible but really tasty.  Instructions follow the jump.

How about you? What restaurant leftovers haunt your fridge? Do you have any secret transformational magic of your own? We all want to know!

Another Delicious Failure

We'll have yet another delicious failure for dessert this evening. I tend to accumulate more than my share of culinary failures, because I'm constantly experimenting with methods and ingredients. If the recipe calls for flour, I want to find out if it will work with whole grain flour. If it calls for sugar, I want to try raw sugar or honey or maybe molasses. My experiments don't always work, but I always learn something.

Unfortunately, I had a mother who insisted wasting food was a cardinal sin. Consequently, I was quite the chubby little girl and as an adult, I am not able to throw away any food that might be marginally edible.

Yesterday's experimental cake was marginally edible, full of flavor but overly moist and unpleasantly dense. In December I might have soaked it with brandy and set it aflame as a Christmas pudding, but there's not much call for that sort of dessert in mid-February. If the thing were chocolate, I could mush it up with liquor, roll it in little balls and pass it off as some sort of Truffle; but it's an orange cake and who ever heard of orange truffles?

So  looking back to examples of thrifty cooks through the ages, I found the perfect solution: Trifle.

A Trifle is made up of layers of cake, pudding and fruit, often served with whipped cream. Traditional Trifle is made with sponge cake, but any sort of cake will do along with whatever fruit is in season. Stale leftover cake can be soaked with fruit syrup, or with liquor, in which case the Trifle becomes a Tipsy Parson.

The best pudding to layer in a Trifle is a Blanc Mange, which is a lovely term for old fashioned cornstarch pudding.  Please don't reach for a boxed pudding mix. Cornstarch pudding is ridiculously simple (and inexpensive) and nearly foolproof when made in a microwave. Recipes for both Trifle and Blanc Mange follow the jump.

After Fat Tuesday: Fat Pretzels for Lent

 

I'll bet you didn't know that the soft fat pretzels you enjoy with beer or while strolling the mall were originally baked as penitential bread for Lent!

The basic pretzel recipe includes no sugars, oils, dairy, eggs or animal products; just flour and water. The twisted shape is said to represent hands crossed over the heart in prayer.

That may or may not be historically accurate, but however pretzels came to be, they're pretty tasty and fun to bake. The following recipe would not pass muster (or mustard) with the medieval Church, since it includes a touch of forbidden honey and a spritz of oil. My fat pretzel was inspired by Pete Well's Rye Pretzels, which he adapted from a pretzel found in  "Good to the Grain."

Soft Pretzels are cooked in two steps: very briefly boiled in water, then baked. Read the instructions carefully before you start, and you'll find the process surprisingly easy and satisfying.

An unexpected discovery: the same dough makes absolutely knock-out hot dog buns!

Quick and Easy Pancake Supper

Today is Pancake Day, a.k.a. Mardi Gras, so it seems fitting to think about quick and easy pancake suppers.

In Europe of past centuries, Christians fasted for the forty days of Lent, going without any meat or animal products, sometimes including lard, eggs and dairy. So the day before Ash Wednesday came to be knowr n as Carni-val" literally "goodbye to meat" in Latin, or Fat Tuesday which in French is Mardi Gras.

Even if we don't indulge in the Lenten season of penitential self-denial, we can enjoy our own Pancake Day supper, and draw from the centuries-old tradition of meatless meals through the weeks of early spring. After all, one of the best lessons of Lent is the realization that we can do rather well on much less than we habitually consume.

Maple syrup, if you can get the real thing, is a perfectly wonderful natural sugar - but use sparingly, because it is still a sugar, with all the calories and high glycemic levels of any other sugar. Applesauce makes a fine pancake topping, especially when spiked with cinnamon or nutmeg.

Cook. You Can Do It.

You can cook. It's important, it's possible, it's worth the effort.

But don't just take my word for it. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Michael Pollan:

Look, if you want to take back control of your diet from this nutritional-industrial complex, from the corporations who want to cook for you and don’t cook very well, because they use cheap raw ingredients, too much salt, sugar and fat to cover that up, you’re going to have to cook yourself. I mean, food you cook yourself is healthier food. People who cook eat healthier diets. We know this. So the challenge is finding the time in the day to do it.

Pollan also admits that cooking can be very hard for a lot of people. Moms and Dads are pressed for time, and by the time the get out of the office, fight the rush hour and pick up the kids, they're tired and ready to relax with a quick meal. Spending an hour or more cooking supper from scratch every evening just isn't going to happen.

But small changes can make a difference. There are tricks and tips and techniques to improve weekday meals. There are ways to shop, methods of preparation, and principles that are simple to apply that can break the bonds that convenience and fast-foods wrap around us.

What are your biggest frustrations when it comes to feeding your family? What would you most like to change in your eating habits? I've got ideas and answers. I can help.

For now, here's one of my old favorites that originated in the Moosewood cookbook. On first glance, it looks complicated, but it's actually quick & easy. There are no limits to variations on this basic dish, and it can be partially or completely prepared in advance. And if the natives are clambering to be fed, you can sit them down with a salad while the quiche is baking.

Test and Test Again

Test the pie crust then test the filling then test the sauce then test the pie crust again.

When I noticed there hasn't been a new recipe on this site, I sat back wondering what I'd been doing all this time. Then I realized I'd been cooking. Pie Crusts, Scrapple, more Pie Crusts, Olive Oil Cake, Olive Oil Cookies, more Pie Crust and then Pie Crust again.

My motto: Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong until you get it right.

So I'm still working on the lardy Pie Crust. I've got tasty down pat. Tender, check. Flaky? Still working on getting that just right.

The Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake is yummy. But it's a bit too dense, and so moist that it almost feels dough-y in the mouth. So I bought oranges at today's farmers market, and will try the cake again with another half teaspoon of baking soda to balance the acid in the oranges.

Then there were the Olive Oil Cookies.(I'm not just making this stuff up, these are adaptations of traditional Mediterranean recipes.) Much as I hate to admit it, I don't think the American palate is ready for Olive Oil Cookies. They might be offered as "nibbles," with less sugar and more salt, on trays for a wine tasting party. Or as finger food paired with a  wine-laced goat cheese. Still in Research and Development.

The Fried Plantains with Peanut Sauce are fabulous. But getting a decent photo of the beasts was impossible.

Yesterday we baked Soft Pretzels. Finally, success! I say "we" because my husband had to lift the stockpot of water onto the stove. Who knew pretzels were boiled like bagels before baking? One more batch, and I think I'll have a photo-worthy plate of big fat twists.

The take home lesson in this article is to never get discouraged. Remember Julia Child's declaration about her experience at the Cordon Bleu. "I am fearless!" When you find a recipe worth mastering, try and keep on trying until it is mastered. When you want to create a dish of your own, test and test again; perfection might be just a half teaspoon of baking soda away.