Clean Out the Fridge Pasta

Well, my friends mutantly ginormous Zucchini yielded 2 dozen muffins and 2 loaves of bread, and there was still more left over (I shredded it all, remember, because I actually DON'T like zucchini). Well, always looking for creative ways to clean out the fridge, I settled on pasta sauce.

So here is my Clean out the Fridge Pasta

I boiled Whole Wheat Penne.

In a pan, heat some EVOO, and saute some minced garlic. Add as much shredded zucchini as you want. Saute that, too. Dump in whatever you have got. I used a can of diced tomatoes, a scoop of trader Joe's sun dried tomato bruschetta, and some artichoke hearts. Then I just let it bubble away for a while. When the pasta was ready, I dumped it on top.

A side note: I heard that Michael Phelps eats 10,000 calories a day to maintain his body weight, including a pound of pasta for lunch and another pound for dinner. In an effort to understand the sheer quantity of food he eats, I decided to boil the entire pound of penne.

I will be eating it all week long. It is no less than SIX ENTIRE MEALS for me.

KombatKween's Chicken Pot Pie

I saw this recipe on a forum somewhere, and thought I'd post it here. It looks yummy and easy, and as I have recently aquired a ginormous turkey that needs to be cooked and eaten, I will have plenty of meat to put in this bad boy.

6 Tbsp butter
6 Tbsp flour
2 c chicken broth
1 c heavy cream or half & half
2 c veggies (corn, peas, carrots), you can use canned with the liquid drained off
2 chicken breasts, cooked and cut up
4 white potatoes, cubed small and cooked
2 pie crusts

Melt butter in a pot and stir in flour to form a thick paste. Add salt and peppers. Stir in cream and chicken broth. Cook on a simmer until thick.
Add veggies, potatoes and chicken. Pour into pie crust, top with the other. Poke holes in the top to vent.
Cook at 375 for 35 to 45 minutes.If you double the ingredients, you can make 3 pies or 2 really full ones.

Leftover Salmon and veggies

Toast two slices dark, hearty bread. Mash up leftover salmon with mayo and pepper, spread on one slice of bread. A dollop of mayo smeared on the other slice of bread, then layer roasted veggies. Add fresh herbage as you like (I went for garlic chives) and eat furtively so that no one else can ask for a bite. This is not a meal I ever want to share. :p

"Ok, so my life doesn't suck, but I am lazy" Leftovers.

Take leftover salmon fillet from last night. Mash with mayo in container you saved it in. If you horribly oversalted it when you cooked it, like I did, don't worry about salt and pepper. If you cooked it to be edible, consider salt and pepper. Toss in a bit of curry powder. Toast some bread, I used sourdough. Make a sandwich, and eat it over the sink, thus negating the need for dishes. Drink wine straight from bottle.

Thank you Allison, for the suggestion.

Remnants pizza

So the fridge is brimming with leftovers, and basic turkey, mashed potatos and cranberries is getting a bit old.

Grab a bag of TJ's 'Almost Whole-Wheat Pizza Dough'. Shred some meat off of the turkey carcass that is taking up most of the bottom half of the fridge. Extricate the almost-empty jar of pasta sauce from behind the shelf-o-condiments. Take several leaves of fresh basil and chop them coarsely. Halve a few handfuls of cherry tomatos (and still wonder what you're going to do with the rest of the econo pack that fills most of the veg drawer).















Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Lightly oil a cookie sheet or pizza stone. Roll the dough in a liberal amount of flour (I'm using whole wheat these days) and knead with knuckles into approx. a 12 inch round. Spread with what will turn out to be too much sauce.















Crumble the barely-a-serving-left chunks of cheese you've accumulated in the back of the cheese drawer. I went with feta and goat cheese, but I don't think there's a cheese that isn't good on pizza.














Top pizza with everything. Feel free to throw together any combination of cheese, sauce, veg and meat you feel is appropriate. While I wanted to clean out more of the fridge, I decided that pate was not likely to be a good choice. Be as artistic as you like with the scattering of your toppings...make your pizza pretty.















Bake pizza in oven for 8-10 minutes - if you use too much sauce like me, leave it in an extra couple minutes to crisp the crust. Remove from oven, cool a little, slice, eat. Go back for seconds.

The First Leftovers Post

So...You are armed with large quantities of leftover turkey. What to do? Here is what I did.

Turkey Tortilla Soup

This started out as Turkey and Potato soup, becauase I had plenty of both. After stripping the bird carcass of most of it's meat, we stuck it in a large pot with some water, and boiled it for a while, effectively removing the rest of the meat, and making an ubertasty turkey stock.

I put some of this stock into a pot with chopped potatoes, onions, turkey meat and a corn. I added salt, pepper, bay leaf, garlic, and cumin. Then, because I didn't know what else to do, I threw in a can of Rotel diced tomato and pepper. After the potatoes were cooked, I scooped them out and threw them in the food processor, pureed them, and dumped it all back into the pot.

To serve, put soup in a bowl, and crumble tortilla chips on top. I prefer to crumble only so much chip at a time, because I like it to have a little crunch left to it when I eat it.