For longer than any of us have been alive, cooks have been finding uses for leftover bread. If you find yourself in this predicament, here are 10 delicious ways to salvage bread before it goes to waste.
A collaboration between Andrew Schloss and Cookthink, the Sunday Dinners project is designed to help busy people cook more at home. Each week, we show you how spin the leftovers from a leisurely weekend meal into a slew of brand new, easy weeknight dinners. (For more on this, read Andy’s introduction to the project.)
A roast beef asks little more than the warmth of an oven to achieve perfection, although fools never stop trying to improve an essentially fool-proof dish with sodden sheaths of puff pastry and starchy shards of Yorkshire pudding.
This week I have devised a Sunday feast that matches the opulence of the roast with an equally majestic sauce made from braised wild and domestic mushrooms — a luxurious pairing that yields leftover sauce to make a sophisticated weekday chicken stew that’s ready in 20 minutes, brimming with rich forest flavors.
The rest of the week, leftover side dishes from Sunday’s meal — roasted potatoes with capers, an eggless Caesar salad and sautéed chipotle tomatoes — provide a pasta sauce, condiments to dress up cold roast beef and a marinade for broiled scampi. (more…)
A collaboration between Andrew Schloss and Cookthink, the Sunday Dinners project is designed to help those of us who love to cook but have trouble finding the time. Each week, we bring you recipes for a leisurely weekend meal — and show you how to spin the leftovers into brand new, easy weeknight dinners. (For more on this, read Andy’s introduction to the project.)
There are chickens in every pot and skillet and oven in this country almost every night. But the ubiquity of chicken has made us hungry for quick, easy, delicious ways to turn our favorite bird into a memorable meal.
Well, have I got a recipe for you.
I came home from Christmas dinner at a friend’s in Saint-Germain-des-Prés with a doggy bag full of foie gras. The controversial overstuffed duck liver is highly perishable, and the next day as I prepared to make the sushi lunch I’d planned to compensate for the previous night’s excesses, I had an idea.
Parisian sushi restaurants are disappointingly lackluster and overpriced on the low end, and impossibly exorbitant on the high end. So I have gotten into the habit of buying fresh fish from the farmers market and Japanese rice in Paris’ Chinatown, and making my own, including a spicy tuna roll I channeled from memories of Little Tokyo lunches during my days in Los Angeles. I ate my share of California rolls in those days, a regional twist on the sushi roll that has become standard on sushi menus around the world.
But I have always felt a bit judgmental about the ubiquitous Franco-Japanese dish that is foie gras sushi. It always seemed to me an awkward and unnecessary cross-cultural meeting of the culinary minds, like the gimmicky Nutella dessert sushi I’ve also seen on Parisian menus and dismissed as a humorless French joke.
We like to make post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches as much as anyone — especially when they’re made with mayo, good cheddar cheese and lettuce on toasted whole grain bread.
But we also like to mix it up.
Shredded leftover turkey tossed with yogurt, diced cucumber, chopped cilantro, curry powder, lime juice and dried cranberries makes a fresh, light Indian-style twist on a turkey salad — good on its own or stuffed into a pita pocket.
Since we’ll be making our Thanksgiving gravy with smoked turkey wings and thighs, we’ll use that reserved meat on top of red beans and saffron rice. (You can also cook the beans with an extra smoked turkey thigh in lieu of a ham hock.)
Do you have favorite ways to use leftover turkey?
Recipe: Curried Cranberry Turkey Salad (Cookthink)
Recipe: Heirloom Beans And Rice With Smoked Turkey (Cookthink)
Recipe: Turkey Spring Rolls (Hogwash)
Recipe: Turkey Mole Poblano With Corn (Andrew Schloss)
Recipe: Turkey Tetrazzini (Karina’s Kitchen)
Recipe: Turkey Enchiladas (Coconut And Lime)
A collaboration between Andrew Schloss and Cookthink, the Sunday Dinners project is designed to help those of us who love to cook but have trouble finding the time. Each Sunday, we bring you recipes for a leisurely meal — and show you how to spin the leftovers into easy weeknight dinners. (For more on this, read Andy’s introduction to the project.)
There’s a reason most of us eat turkeys but once a year: Turkeys are just too damned big.
This buxom bird with the girth of a bursting watermelon tends to lead to leftovers that just won’t quit. Why not start with a bird of more modest proportions? And use the inevitable leftover gravy and stuffing to build a slate of weeknight dinners?
There is nothing homelier nor better than a bread pudding. (And this microwave version is a cinch.) If you have stale bread — which is, like French toast, how this dessert originated — use it. Whatever you do, don’t toast it; melt butter for three minutes at 100% in the microwave, then toss in bread and proceed.
This is one of those recipes with many possible variations. Stir in 1/4 cup chocolate morsels, or add 1/4 cup of 1/4-inch cubes of peeled apple mixed with 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon. Substitute fresh raspberries turned in two tablespoons Poire William for the raisins. As long as you respect the proportions, the pan size and the cooking time, you can give your imagination free rein.
Recipe: Microwaved Bread Pudding (Barbara Kafka Dessert Anthology)
Reference: What is bread pudding? (Cookthink)
On Saturday, it poured down rain here all day long. When it came time for lunch, I was craving something comforting and nourishing, something with Asian flavors, but I didn’t want to walk to the store in the rain. Luckily I had a head of cabbage, some fresh ginger and garlic and a leftover half block of tofu tucked away in the fridge, and some egg noodles in the pantry.
So here’s what I did:
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There are so many ways to use our deeply aromatic, saffron and vanilla-infused pineapples from this week’s Root Source), it’s hard to know where to begin.
I made some headway last night. I wanted to put together a quick dessert for friends, and remembered that I had a few leftover rings of pineapple in the refrigerator, happily swimming in their fragrant steeping liquid.
So I ladled some of the liquid into a small saucepan, and boiled it until it was the consistency of syrup. Meanwhile, I seared a pineapple ring in a nonstick skillet in a little butter until both sides were a deep, rich brown.
I topped the caramelized pineapple with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, then drizzled the saffron syrup all around. The warm, slightly crisp pineapple and cold, smooth ice cream made quite a pair.
Recipe: Saffron Pineapples (Cookthink)
Yesterday, after a relaxing holiday weekend, I decided to try my hand at a batch of dumplings.
First I peeled half a carrot, a section of ginger, a small shallot and a couple of cloves of garlic, trimmed a chile pepper and tossed those straight into my mini food processor.
