This week, we have been all about using up the the last bits of foods that aren’t getting any fresher.
The leftover mapo dofu was too spicy straight up, but reinvented in a stir fry, it was perfect. As the milk danced dangerously close to its “Sell By” date, we turned it, along with the eclectic tail ends of four open bags of shredded cheese, into mac and cheese.
We even managed to put away some in the freezer for an undisclosed date in the future (of course, in a container that has seen so many iterations that three dishes ago I Sharpied in some vague labeling to give myself room to maneuver.)
Given some fresh onion buns (always, Ben with the onion buns) we enjoyed the Sloppy Joe meat we somehow had the wherewithal to freeze in June. Arugula’s final act played out in a spunky salad.We whipped some languishing cottage cheese with lemon and olive oil into a spread for ciabatta bread. On what we hope was our last blustery day, we pulled pork stew from the freezer to warm our bellies. That’s very aged Dubliner cheddar blanketing the top.When our already teetering relationship with buttermilk threatened to head south, we turned it into ranch dressing. Grape tomatoes giving you attitude? Roast them and turn them into a dressing.
Finally, when there is no more scrimping and saving to do, when you just need a meal befitting the “glorious” weather (literally, Ben’s word that he apparently picked up from the movie Black Beauty) you get some fresh produce and make a “Big Salad.” Fresh, fresh, fresh!
We’re big fans of the striped salad around here. Top to bottom, we had sugar snap peas, baby cucumbers, radishes, lettuce, blanched green beans, baby red potatoes dressed in roasted tomato vinaigrette, and grilled chicken. Ben puts pickled red onions on everything……along with a bucket of ranch dressing!These days we cling to little things… the satisfaction of reinventing ingredients that need a fresh start, the snap of pickled red onions, the joy of eating in the glorious great outdoors, the promise of little purple flowers that blanket the yard before coming in to shine for a few days in the world’s tiniest vases.
