When the Temperature Goes Down...

After being debilitated last weekend and melting away in the crazy humid heat, I am so happy to announce that I cooked this week! And thank god I did, because I had leftovers in my fridge that were getting impatient with me. Some stuff did go bad but some stuff survived. Here is what I made this week trying to use up all the leftovers...

Monday



It's still hot on Monday. Bugger. I picked up a few slices of prosciutto, marinated some leftover roasted pepper with sherry vinegar, capers, golden raisans, and olive oil, toasted leftover baguette that had been sitting in my fridge drawer, sliced up some manchego. And a simple dinner it became as Manchego Prosciutto Crostini with Roasted Pepper Relish. The crostinis could have been thinner but I was in a hurry to stop being hot!

Tuesday


No cooking! Ate spicy tuna roll and hwaedupbap (sashimi rice) takeout from Yanusa.

Wednesday
My mom told me to eat the rest of the turnip beef soup for dinner that she had made a few days before. But little did she know that I've been eating this for breakfast. It makes a perfect breakfast though with a little mound of rice. Soupy, soothing, something nice to gently wake me up in the morning.



But there were only dregs left in the pot by Wednesday. I had eaten the last good bit in the morning and was planning to clean the pot when I got home from work. But then when I got home, I suddenly got an idea to use up the scraps. Donburi! Now I've never made donburi before but had been checking out oyako donburi recipes when I crave comfort food.





I took the meat, flank I believe, out of the pot and shredded by hand. Marinated it in equal portions of mirin and soy sauce. I wisked up a few eggs with scallion, mirin and soy sauce. I brought the tidbit of broth up to a boil, added the meat, then added the egg. Although the eggs didn't coddle wholesomely as I would have liked, the dish was delicious. I ended up mashing the beef and egg into the rice anyways, so who needs perfect coddling? (Next time I will try better though). My mom was surprised at how good it was and also impressed with my use of trash-destined scraps.



I also had leftover carmelized onion and sauteed cremini mushrooms begging to be used. Sorry but it's just been way to hot to cook. Until Wednesday that is. I defrosted a sheet of puff pastry, rolled it out, laid some carmelized onion and cremini on top, sprinkled some thyme leaves, grated a bit of pecorino, and baked it off. Puff pastry is never bad is it? The Carmelized Onion & Cremini Tart made for a delicious and satisfying lunch the next day.



I had made plans to make Apple Coffee Cake last week. Instead the heat got me lazy the apple I had bought for this recipe were sitting in my fridge. Poor things, they were a little bit dried up and bruised lightly in some spots. I used Emeril's recipe and they came out perfect. I reduced the amount of sugar by a third though, which is perfect for my taste.

Oh yeah, the reason I searched out this recipe was because I had leftover sour cream and had nothing to use it in. Although the sour cream expiration date was 7/15, it stayed good until the 26th. It stayed good for 11 more days than it said it would! Miracle I tell ya. The container stamped with 7/14 went bad. Good thing I finally used the sour cream up. I think it was waiting for me to make the coffee cake.

Thursday


By now you're probably thinking damn this girl's got so much leftovers! Yes, yes I do. I had some leftover chocolate sauce from making profiterols two weeks ago. I searched and searched for a recipe to use this up in. And Chocolate Mousse was the winner.
I had stored the chocolate sauce in a 2-cup glass measuring cup. I popped that in the microwave with a few tablespoons of butter. Whisked in 3 yolks into the chocolate mixture. Then whipped up 3 egg whites in the mixer with cream of tartar and sugar. Whipped up some cream by hand and added vanilla extract. Folded the egg white into the chocolate. Then folded the whipped cream into the chocolate egg mixture. Then finally spooned into little ramekins and chilled. Topped it off with some whipped cream and grated chocolate.

It was so airy and light! It almost give you the impression you're not eating that much chocolate, but more like chocolate air. A happy success for my first chocolate mousse.

*pic to be inserted here*

More leftovers or stored food... Long time ago I made chicken stock from scratch. It's been sitting in my freezer for a while now. Not so long that I couldn't use it but long enough that I better find something good to put it in. With plans to make brown curry I defrosted the two containers full of my first homemade chicken stock ever. I also had turkey meatloaf sitting in my freezer too. It's more like emergency food, if I don't have time to make lunch or get lazy or something. I defrosted two balls of those.

I threw in some potato, onion, carrots, zucchini, summer squash, and button mushroom into the broth. Added the cubed up tender pieces of turkey meatloaf. Added the curry mix. And the deed was done - delicious Brown Curry with Veges and Turkey Meatloaf.

Friday
Ahh, I feel clean and purged of my leftovers and freezer-stored foods. I still have bits of leftovers here and there but mostly I've cleaned out my fridge. And my conscience at that. I crown myself Master of Leftovers. :)

And here is today. Well I happened to get hooked up to a catering gig tomorrow for 70 people so I'll be cooking it up tonight with a few friends. Hopefully I won't have too much leftover ingredients from the gig or else I will have to rack my brain for more recipes!