Leftover makeover : pasta meat sauce

Meat pasta sauce is great  As a leftover. Just add some water or stock, whatever other leftovers you've got in the fridge and voila, you've got stew, or chili. Today I added frozen corn and leftover lentil rice. Yum. 

Leftover Makeover: Kimchi Edemame Fried Rice

Apologies for the half eaten bowl of rice....I forgot to take the photo first. I've mentioned before how I hate wasting kimchi juice left after eating a tub of the spicy goodness. Well here's another way to use it up. Use it in fried rice! Fried rice is also a great way to use up hard leftover rice. Instead of adding water to reconsitute the rice, I poured in the kimchi juice. I also had leftover buckwheat. And leftover cooked edemame beans. Perfect. For added protein I cut up a medium firm block of tofu into strips...you can't really see them in the photo though.

I let everything simmer under a lid, then stir every now and then until the liquids have dried up and the rice gets a little browned. Yum.

Leftover grains
Kimchi juice
Edemame
Tofu
Salt/Sugar to taste

Leftover Makeover : Indian Sauces

I love a good Indian meal. Their curries and sauces are so rich in flavors. It's also chocked full of so many herbs and spices that makes it hard for me to replicate at home without needing a separate spice cupboard. It's also why Indian food is pricy...those spices add up!

That said, I hate seeing good sauce wasted. Recently I had a butter chicken and goat curry. I had the leftover sauce packed and then I re-used it for a Vegetarian Vednesday meal (I know, it's meat based sauce but still...). Totally yummy!


Top left is butter chicken sauce with firm tofu.
Bottom right is goat curry sauce with peas.
All served with quinoa rice mix.

Kimchi Stew

THIS is perfect for a cold day! The tip of my nose is always a little cold and hot stew is the perfect fix. Hot spicy stew. A couple weeks ago we had bought a tub of kimchi from H-Mart....which we inhaled fairly quickly. There was a lot of kimchi juice left in the container and we were starting to think of ways to use it up as to not waste the tasty goodness. So.....it all went into the stew.

Pork belly
Kimchi and all the leftover Kimchi juice
Onion
Carrot
Potato
Sugar




Serve over rice. So yum!

1000 Year Egg Congee

And this is for the Asian taste buds (which can be developed if you don't already have them)....it's one of my favorite congees as a kid and still is as a comfort food or whenever I'm sick or if I feel I've eaten out too often and need a mild GI cleanse. Congee is basically a rice porridge. In Cantonese you'd pronounce it "jook".

The 1000 year egg, also called the century egg, really isn't that old. It has a nice mild flavor when cooked in the congee. I don't know how to describe it other than "yum".

The best is when the congee is prepared with some pork bones in the broth for a rich sweet flavor...further enhanced by the egg. I didn't have any pork bone handy so I added some chicken broth for flavor. I also topped it with a small spoon of preserved shredded olive. It's saltiness brings the congee flavors up an extra notch.

Leftover rice
Water
Chicken broth
Century Egg
Preserved shredded olives

One bowl of cooked rice (or a quarter cup uncooked rice) and half a pot of water is about the ratio I go with. You can add more water to change the consistency to what you like from there. The rice breaks down and expands greatly so do not start with more rice lest you find yourself transfering everything into a bigger pot along the way. Trust me. I personally like my congee more broken down than what's pictured...but I was impatient to eat so didn't simmer it as long. Oh yeah, do not use high heat or the rice will burn to the bottom of your pot. Enjoy!
 

Leftover Makeover : Mish-Mash

This one my Hubby put together. (yay!) He had the day off and was rummaging through the fridge for whatever leftovers were still lurking about. This delicious fried rice was what he put together from a tub of curried rice, some BBQ pork/char siu, a small container of soggy napa cabbage/siu choi, some kale leaves and some purple cabbage shreds.

The virbrant green and purple of the veggies, cooked separately from the rice, was beautiful...and super tasty:

Kale
Cabbage
Paprika
Dark soy sauce
Butter & coconut oil
Sugar
Salt

As for the fried rice, the possibilities are endless depending on what leftovers you have. In this case:

Curried rice
BBQ Pork/char siu
Coconut oil
Napa Cabbage/siu choi
Sriracha
Hoisin sauce
Soy sauce (light & dark)

And the best part, I got to eat lunch with my Hubby. =)

Pork Rib Stew & Braised Purple Cabbage

It's getting cold out...and as such, my mind is starting to think of hearty soups and stews. And cooked veggies. This recent experiment turned out decently though I think the pork rib stew flavors could be stronger.

Pork stew:
Pork riblets
Onion
Lime juice
Oregano
Sugar
Chili powder
Soy sauce
Ketchup

Braised Purple Cabbage:
Purple cabbage
Apple
Raisins
Honey
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Salt to taste

And the cooked cabbage turned out pretty decently too. My husband had gotten tired of the slaw over the summer so to change the texture I tried this. The apples add a nice sweet/tartness to the mix.

All the above was served with brown basmati rice mixed with red quinoa.

Essential Korean Ingredients

If you've ever wanted to know, and I did, here are the essential Korean cooking ingredients:

http://www.maangchi.com/guide/essential-ingredients