October 15, 2011: Leftover Pork Roast Pasta Recipe

How many times do you prepare a meal one night and find yourself with just a little bit of it left over? This happens to me a lot – particularly when I make a pork roast but there are also times when I have a single leftover chicken thigh or smoked sausage.

The question is what can you do with them? If you don’t want to eat leftovers the next day for lunch or dinner, then your task is to repurpose them. Here’s an easy way to do so.

There’s not a hard and fast recipe for using leftovers to make a pasta dish. I’ll share with you what I did with mine the other night (and this concoction used up a whole bunch of other little bits and pieces, too):

Leftover Pork and Pasta

4 ounces penne pasta

1 t. olive oil

¼ red bell pepper, thinly sliced

2 green onions, sliced on the diagonal

3 mushrooms, thinly sliced

3 small slices leftover pork loin roast, cubed

¼ cup chopped tomato (I used a couple cherry tomatoes)

½ jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained

6 - 7 black olives, sliced

1/3 cup heavy cream

2 leaves basil, chiffonade sliced

Freshly ground black pepper

Shaved Parmesan cheese (use a vegetable peeler)

Cook the pasta according to package directions.

Heat the olive oil to medium in a heavy skillet. Add the bell pepper, onions, and mushrooms. Cook just until slightly softened. Add pork, tomato, black olives and artichoke hearts. Heat through (mixture will be moist from tomatoes and artichoke hearts). Turn heat to low and add cream.

Divide pasta between two plates or bowls. Top each with half of vegetable mixture, basil, freshly ground black pepper, and shaved curls of Parmesan cheese.

This is just one example of a leftover pasta dish. Tomorrow I’ll share additional combinations of meat, vegetables, pasta and sauces that will work with just about any leftovers in your fridge.

October 13, 2011: Chicken Tenders Salad Recipe

Back when I lived in the city, I used to love going to Applebee’s for lunch. They had a fried chicken salad on the menu that was my favorite. Now that I no longer live in a city with an Applebee’s restaurant and no longer work in corporate America, I’ve come up with my own version of that salad. This is great as a lunch dish or even a main dish salad for dinner. And it's the perfect way to use up any leftovers from my cornflake crusted chicken tenders recipe.

Chicken Tenders Salad

4 cups mixed baby greens

1 tomato, cut into chunks

2 green onions, sliced on the diagonal

2 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, cut into small cubes

4 hard boiled eggs, peeled and quartered

½ recipe cornflake crusted chicken tenders

Divide all ingredients between two large bowls. Top with Honey Mustard salad dressing and fresh sourdough croutons and cracked black pepper, if desired.

Honey Mustard Salad Dressing

¼ cup prepared yellow mustard

¼ cup Dijon mustard

½ cup honey

¼ cup mayonnaise

2 T. olive oil

1 t. finely minced garlic

Combine all ingredients in a jar. Shake well to mix.

Serves 2 as a main dish.

October 2, 2011: Green Chile Sauce Recipe

If you’re a green chile fan like I am, you know that these hot peppers reach their peak right around Labor Day. In fact, the famous Green Chile Festival in Hatch, NM – the self-proclaimed Green Chile Capital of the World – always occurs on Labor Day weekend. For those of us who didn’t make the festival, grocery stores and certain civic groups are always roasting green chiles around this time. The smell of roasting chiles is better than the finest perfume, to my nose!

So if you stocked up on fresh or roasted green chile when it was available, chances are you’ve got quite a bit of it on hand. If so, this recipe for green chile sauce is perfect. Make a huge batch and then can your leftovers so you can enjoy homemade green enchiladas any time of the year!

A meal worthy of any Mexican restaurant - beef burrito smothered in green chile sauce with a side of Spanish rice.

Green Chile Sauce

2 T. vegetable oil or bacon grease (the bacon grease really adds to the flavor)

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

½ cup finely chopped yellow or white onion

2 T. flour

1 cup coarsely chopped green chiles (about 4 – 5)

½ cup peeled and seeded tomato, chopped

2 ½ cups chicken broth

1 t. dried cilantro (or 1 T. fresh, minced cilantro)

1 t. cumin powder

1 t. garlic salt

½ t. black pepper

Heat the oil or grease to medium in a saucepan. Add the garlic and onions and cook for a couple minutes, until vegetables begin to soften. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute longer. Add the chiles and tomatoes. Slowly stir in the chicken broth and add the spices. Stir frequently until mixture comes to a boil. Boil for one minute to thicken sauce, then reduce heat to low and simmer for at least 10-15 minutes, to heighten flavor.

Tip: Green chile sauce is quite versatile – you can use it to smother a burrito, make enchiladas, heat with Velveeta for a quick chile con queso, or make huevos rancheros for breakfast.

September 25, 2011: Spicy Stuffed Bell Peppers Recipe

I haven’t made stuffed bell peppers in ages but recently a friend of ours brought over some bell peppers picked fresh from his garden. They were just too tempting – and the best way to use up several at once was to make this recipe. Rather than resort to my mother’s recipes, I decided to give stuffed peppers a more modern twist by turning them into a Southwestern style entrée. Hope you like it!

Spicy Stuffed Bell Peppers

1 cup rice

1 cup coarsely chopped peeled and seeded tomatoes

1 green onion, thinly sliced

1 t. Worcestershire sauce

1 t. dried cilantro (or 2 t. fresh cilantro, chopped)

1 t. minced garlic

½ t. garlic salt

Salt and pepper to taste

4 jalapeno cheddar sausages

4 large or 6 small bell peppers

2 ounces Velveeta cheese

4 – 6 T. prepared salsa

2 T. ketchup

1/3 cup water

Cook rice according to package directions.

Meanwhile, set a large of pot of water to boiling. Add the peppers and the tomatoes (about 2 medium). Remove the tomatoes after a minute with a slotted spoon. Immediately run under cold water and then remove the peels. Remove the seeds with your thumb and chop tomatoes into large chunks. After 5 minutes, remove the bell peppers and allow to cool. When cool, slice off the tops and remove the seeds and white membranes inside. If necessary, slice a small bit off the bottom of the peppers so they stand upright. Place the cleaned peppers in a greased baking dish.

When the rice is done, add the chopped tomatoes, green onion, Worcestershire, cilantro, garlic, salt and pepper. If desired, you can also chop up any extra bits of bell pepper from the sliced off sections and add these, too. Thinly slice the sausages and add them to the rice mixture.

Fill the peppers with rice mixture and top with a slice of Velveeta cheese. Top each with a tablespoon of salsa, allowing it to drip over the sides. Mix the ketchup and water and add to bottom of baking dish.

Bake peppers uncovered in 375 degree oven for about half an hour, until the peppers are softened and the cheese is melted.

Serves 4.

Note: If you like more heat, add a couple tablespoons of chopped hot green chile or jalapenos to the rice mixture.

September 24, 2011: Mixed Greens Salad Recipe

If you’ve been reading along with me this year as I’ve been blogging you probably know by now that my husband is a picky eater. And you probably also know that frustrates me because I want to try new recipes with different ingredients but I don’t want to make a dish only I will end up eating… and eating… and eating.

Anyway, we have a guest this week and for dinner tonight I had a special salad in mind that I thought he might enjoy. Yes, I did have to prepare a different salad for my husband…but it was worth it.

This is simply my favorite salad of all time. I first tasted it at Nello’s in Mesa, Arizona and it was love at first bite. This is my recreated version of that restaurant salad.

Salad minus the dressing - which should be drizzled on right before eating.

Mixed Greens With Balsamic Vinaigrette

2 loose, overflowing cups mixed baby greens

1 cup (1 medium-sized) tomato, diced

¼ cup toasted walnuts*

2 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled

1/4 - 1/3 cup Balsamic Vinaigrette (depending on how much dressing you prefer)

Toss all ingredients together and splash with dressing right before serving.

*To toast walnuts, heat a heavy pan to medium-low. Add walnuts to dry skillet and cook until just fragrant and toasty, about 15 minutes. Watch carefully and stir frequently to prevent them from burning.

August 24, 2011: Miscellaneous Kitchen Tips

Every now and then I run across a good idea that isn’t enough to make a recipe out of, yet it’s something I want to share with you. So I’ve compiled this short list of kitchen helps that I hope you’ll find worthwhile. As I come across more, I’ll share them in a future list.

Peeling Tomatoes

How often do you run across a recipe that calls for peeled tomatoes? There’s one I made for my mother-in-law last year that she particularly enjoyed for a corn tomato pie (kind of like a Bisquick impossible pie), yet it would have been much more tasty had the tomatoes been peeled of their tough skin. Usually this is a real chore, but not if you follow this recipe, which will come in handy as you harvest your bounty of garden tomatoes:

Cut an X in the bottom of each tomato. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the tomatoes, X side up, on the paper. Roast in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes, or until the skin starts to peel away from the Xes. Remove from the oven. When cool enough to handle, simply peel off the skin and core, if necessary. Voila! Easy peeling and much more efficient than blanching them in boiling water!

Draining Hamburger Meat

In all my years of cooking hamburger meat, I’ve yet to find an easy to drain the grease, other than using a colander (which doesn’t work too well since the holes are usually too big), until now. Use a splatter screen with a knob in the center. Place it over your pan, tilt the pan and screen, and let the grease pour through the screen holes into a container.

I cook hamburger in my cast iron skillet for the best browning and it’s heavy, especially for my wrists with arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, but this was a breeze as far as draining it!

Creamed Corn

Wish to make a recipe calling for creamed corn (such as my Southwestern Cornbread recipe) but all you’ve got is a regular can of corn? Just pour the can, water and all, into your blender or food processor. Add a half teaspoon of sugar and pulse a few seconds.