Summer = salad.

Leftover salad = not so great.

But what if there was a way to turn your leftover salad into Gazpacho?

This one take a bit of balance and a bit of care, but you can successfully turn your leftover salad into a delicious chilled soup. The trick? It needs to be the right type of salad. A chopped tomato-cucumber-salad with a plain vinaigrette left overnight is perfect. Once you’ve got that, you almost instantly have wilted vegetables ready to turn into a cold sweet/vinegary soup.

It also helps to make sure you use the correct ratio of tomato – cucumber – onion. Meaning – more tomato, a bit of cucumber and some onion to elevate the taste

Red Onions. So delicious. So mild. The bright purple adds color as well as some bite to salads and other recipes.

The truth is that often times, a little bit of red onion will do – especially since there are so many other, sweeter onions out there (vidalia, anyone? maui?) and a whole onion means a whole lot of waste. 

My answer to this dilemma lately has been substituting shallots (or, if you’re in Australia, eschallots) for red onions in some recipes. Shallots are milder, sweeter, and come in cute little bulbs – just the right portion to add some pep to a salad, some bite to a guacamole and some deliciousness to risotto. I live with an avowed onion hater, so the fact that fresh shallots are even milder than onion does not go without some appreciation.

Shallots will often keep for a few weeks in a cool, dry place. Today, I cut some up for a delicious, summery, feta and watermelon salad.

I admit it: I keep the soft packets that come with delivery. I do it for a number of reasons.

1) I am a condiment FIEND. If there is something to be eaten that isn’t saucy enough, it makes me sad.

2) Having little emergency packets of soy sauce or ketchup on-hand can save an emergency trip to the grocery store

3) I make bbq sauce with them.

What?

They may be full of high fructose corn syrup, but that’s what you’re getting in any standard bbq sauce using a ketchup base (even though I use Heinz Organic Ketchup at home – it tastes exactly like the ketchup I grew up with). I’m also not a huge fan of the really pronounced, distinct hickory flavor in some commercial sauces (must be because I’m foreign) so actually, I prefer to make my own bbq sauce . (if you do want that smokey flavor with this recipe, you can always add some liquid smoke.)

Read on to see what I did with the BBQ sauce (pulled pork!) after the jump.

Brunch. Not only is it a great way to get something in your stomach to…ahem…replenish your system from the night before, but if you’re making it at home for yourself and loved ones, it’s a great time to take stock of what’s in the fridge and pull together something brilliant.

The scenario: in my fridge I had almost-stale-bread, eggs and assorted cheese (Mozzarella, Cheddar and Parmigiano Reggiano). All of these things are great breakfast staples, but what I really wanted was to pull them all together and make something that required less fuss and more nutrition than french toast or an omelette: some kind of breakfast casserole.

Behold: the loaded savory french toast casserole! (Inspired by a classic strata, but without all the layers and less bread)

The bread at the bottom of the pan, soaked in the beaten egg mixture, forms a lovely crunch and french-toast-like texture. The mixture on top becomes an omelette/quiche topping of sorts. All of it takes 20 mins to prepare, and another 35 minutes of baking: brunch in under an hour. Less time than standing in line at your favorite busy brunch spot, and a great way to use up some stuff in the fridge.

I used frozen spinach, tomato and onion here since those are staples I already – and almost always – have on hand. The reality is that any of your favorite omelette fillings/leftovers would work just as well: mushroom, corn, squash, pepper  or even the meats if you so desire. Go crazy.

Recipe: Loaded Savory French Toast Casserole

Summary: Half french-toast, half omelette = most delicious

Ingredients

1. 4 slices bread (dutch potato bread offers a light sweetness, but really you should just use whatever’s in the kitchen. Challah would be most awesome too.)
2. 4 eggs
3. 1/4 cup water or milk
4. 1 10oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
5. 2 small tomatoes, chopped
6. 1 small onion, chopped
7. 1 1/2 cup grated cheese – whatever you have – cheddar, mozarella, parmesan, divided.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. Grease a 9″ casserole dish with olive oil spray.
3. Arrange bread slices on bottom to cover entire dish
4. In a pan, sautee onions. Add to thawed spinach and mix thoroughly (disclaimer: I was so lazy making this recipe that I ended up just adding the raw chopped onion to the frozen spinach in a bowl and I and let it cook in the microwave to thaw. My defense is that it’s a weekend morning and I’m allowed to be lazy, right?)
5. In another bowl, beat eggs and milk or water until really frothy. Add to veggie mixture.
6. Season with salt, pepper and mix in 1/2 cup of cheese
7. Pour over bread in casserole dish.
8. Top with cheese and bake in oven for 30-40 minutes or until top is golden brown and baked through.

Cooking time (duration): 20 mins

Diet type: Vegetarian

Number of servings (yield): 4

Meal type: brunch

Culinary tradition: USA (General)

[Show as slideshow]

I use Olive Oil spray in my kitchen a lot – on everything from conditioning filo to getting a light layer of spray on the bottom of my cast iron without overdoing it. I was buying the stuff from the grocery store until I discovered The Misto.

Basically, it offers a refillable way to enjoy olive oil spray. It uses a pumping action to create the spray, so you’re getting pure olive oil. And since it uses the olive oil you already have, you can save money by refilling it as you need it.

You can buy the Misto M100S Gourmet Brushed Aluminum Olive Oil Sprayer from Amazon.com.

(Disclaimer about product endorsements: from time-to-time, I will endorse a product I like and use on a regular basis. THESE ARE NOT PAID ENDORSEMENTS -these are simply products that I love. Links to amazon to go to my affiliate account, so if you do think the product is useful and buy it on amazon, a small percentage will go to the maintenance of this site.)

This one’s quick and easy: If you’re making pasta and a sauce, soup or gravy, take the drained water from the pasta or peeled potatoes once they’re boiled and add it to your stock, sauce or gravy instead. This works particularly well for pasta if you use less water than the pasta package direction calls for (just remember to stir well or add some olive oil). Also, if you salt your water, leave the salt out of your final product.

Apparently, in sauces, the starch from the pasta water helps the sauce stick to the pasta. And in stocks, you’ll get a nice starchy addition that will add heartiness and a bit of thickness and – in the case of potato water – some taste, too.

Update: Last night’s chowder involved the addition of the water leftover after boiling up some garlic herb papardelle. The chowder was thick and hearty and only needed the addition of a little bit of cream. Highly recommended.

This take on a traditional spinach dip is a great way to use up leftover cooked kale, but be warned – the texture of kale is much more dense and chewy than spinach, so be sure to chop your kale very well before mixing with the other ingredients. Since this recipe really works on the foundation of replacing one leafy green for another, I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t use swiss chard or mustard greens in this. Naturally, sauteed spinach prepared in a similar way would work well too.

The method of preparing braised kale I used here was taken straight from this recipe by Emeril Lagasse – but feel free to substitute the chicken stock for veggie stock to make it vegetarian. Because the recipe uses lots of flavor from garlic and onions and soup, it replaces the powedered dry soup in a more traditional spinach dip. To supplement that fake onion-y flavor we all know and love, I still added a bit of onion powder to the mix. Also, this version makes use of greek yoghurt rather than the traditional cream cheese/sour cream/mayo mix, with less mayo and a bit of lemon juice for tang – so you can feel better about the resultant reduction in fat. Hooray! Hooray for dips! Party time, excellent!

Recipe: Chopped Kale Dip

Summary: A low-fat spin on traditional spinach dip using kale.

Ingredients

1. 1 cup braised kale (using this or your fave braised kale recipe)
2. 4 or 5 whole canned water chestnuts
3. 1 cup greek yogurt
4. 3 tbsp whole egg mayo
5. 2 tbsp roasted pepper (optional)
6. 1-2 tsp onion powder
7. 2 tbsp lemon juice
8. salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Chop the kale, water chestnuts and roasted pepper finely.
2. Mix in the other ingredients and serve with your favorite chips or crudites.

Cooking time (duration): 15

Diet type: Vegetarian

Diet (other): Reduced fat

Number of servings (yield): 6

Meal type: hors d’oerves

Culinary tradition: USA (Traditional)

 

[Show as slideshow]

 

Let’s face it. Even the most organized cook/homemaker/human being will put something in the fridge to eat the next day, only to forget about it 2 weeks later. In that kind of emergency, it helps to have some kind of guide to find out if the food is still edible. Still Tasty is just that. It offers a “keep it or toss it” search, as well as indexes of ingredients, tips on storing your items correctly, fridge and freezer life and more. It’s a handy reference that I check almost daily.

Check out Still Tasty Now →

Anyone who’s ever moved before will tell you this: moving is painful. This time around, the move was particularly last-minute and very disorganized as a result. And as usually happens, we spent the weeks leading to and after the move getting to know the takeout joints and restaurants in our new neighborhood. I transported all my freezer’s contents in a cooler and as soon as I was ready, a serious purge was in order – starting with some bags of vegetable scraps which had been accumulating for a few weeks.

The bits and pieces that you chop off when you make your vegetables may look unappealing, but can still be tasty if used the right way. Onions and garlic peel give your soup great flavor, and their ends – along with yam, potatoes, fennel, asparagus and cucumber ends, carrot and beet tops, celery leaves and more – make up a delicious, tasty, hearty stock that can be used as a base for your next recipe or eaten right there as a healthy, tasty treat. If you’re lucky enough to have compost, you can send them off to do their work after every last part of their flavor has been squeezed out.

A few important things to note:

1. WASH YOUR SCRAPS THOROUGHLY! Nobody wants bits of dirt in the bottom of their bowl. I put all the bits in the freezer as they are, and give them a nice long wash once I take them out to make this soup.
2. Don’t use stuff that’s gone rotten. Stick to the fresh bits of your fresh veggies.
3. Don’t use anything that has a bitter/thick skin. Eggplant, for instance, will give your soup a bitterness that cannot be overcome. I learned this one the hard way.
4. Avoid roots. Or, if you’re going to use them,  wash them really, really, really well.
5. This one is really important: DO NOT COOK THE STOCK FOR TOO LONG. You’ll find that you get a rich stock from all the vegetable skins in a lot less time than, say, chicken stock. If you cook it too long, all you’ll get is bitterness.
6. Red and Brown onion skills WILL make your soup dirt-colored, but will also provide an amazing, complex flavor. The choice is yours.

But enough of the don’ts. There are the do’s.

One of my favourite chefs to follow in cooking, blogging, on television and everything cuisine-related in between, Marcus Samuelsson, has begun a weekly “second day meal of leftovers” column. In the column he lists creative ways not only to use your leftovers, but also some great ideas on how to prepare for a weekday of meals with a few key ingredients.

Be sure to subscribe to his blog and make sure you follow the weekly recipes – no doubt they’ll be a spectacular base for creativity when it comes to using leftovers.