UnRecipe: Deck the Halls with Leftover (Meat)Balls

One of the best thing about the holidays, from Thanksgiving through New Years is the food, food, FOOD! It's everywhere. The roasted turkey, the whole ham, crown roasts of pork or lamb, prime rib, feasts of several fishes -- it's no wonder we promise ourselves diet resolutions in the new year from the ample feasting that goes for a steady two months. But even when our well-intentioned resolutions fade, we're all left with the same thing: leftovers. Don't roll your eyes and groan -- leftovers are a wonderful, beautiful thing. They are brand-spankin' new meals waiting to happen!

Christmas dinner, all rolled up into a bite-sized piece! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

When I say "leftovers," I'm not talking about the good leftovers, the marvelous whole pieces of ham and turkey that can get layered into Dagwood Bumstead-sized sandwiches, I'm talking about the dribs and drabs of this and that, stuff that most would probably just throw out. Miscellany that fits the smallest of your tupperware containers. Barely a full meal, just a buffet of small bites. It's the most maddening of leftovers -- you hate to waste food, but what do you do with such a shotgun blast of random crap?? I can credit my father for being a compulsive food/leftover hoarder -- he never lets a thing go to waste, even to my mother's irritation for finding a container with barely a bite of food being kept for some rainy day. Thanks to him, I was introduced to croquettes -- traditionally a French fritter made with potato and other chopped vegetables and meats, but it's been co-opted by many cultures who all face the universal quandry of leftover food and refuse to give in to waste. After only scraps of a holiday meal remained, my dad would refuse to throw it all out and my mom would make what could only be described as Leftover Spam -- chopped up bits of everything mixed together, bound with egg, battered and fried. Croquettes are just a prettier, Frenchier way of saying: crap we don't know what to do with, so we make a fritter out of it. See, everything sounds better in French.

Holiday ham and the many secondhand meals it provides - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I took a cue from Wasabi Dad's post-holiday meal game plan and made a couple of batches of croquettes from our sizeable supply of leftovers. We had a banner season of festive meals: Christmas Eve I cooked a whole ham, basting this hoggy mountain of meat with a whiskey honey glaze, serving it alongside a creamy cauliflower gratin. Don't ask why, but the ham wound up looking like a meaty rosebud when it cooked. Christmas Dinner, I cooked my first duck (I know, weird that I'd never cooked waterfowl before, but there's a first time for everything). Served alongside the duck were potatoes that were roasted in the fat that came off the duck as it cooked, and a dressing made with quinoa, walnuts and dried fruit. The Mister loves cranberry sauce, so even though it wasn't Thanksgiving, I made another batch of  it to go with the ham and duck. Leftover ham is good for every meal -- it got whittled down with several breakfasts, and I was inspired by a friend's "French" toast stamp and made ham and cheese paninis in our waffle iron for several mornings. I don't have a sandwich press, but I have to say, a waffle iron makes for a great ghetto panini press, as long as you have thick slices of bread.

Falafel that inspired Christmas duck croquettes with jam a week later. - Photos by Wasabi Prime

But back to the B-Team Leftovers, as in, a few handfuls of quinoa dressing, scraps of duck meat and mostly duck skin... and more quinoa. I know -- what's with the quinoa? It's been my new favorite side dish and it ends up being a great component for croquettes or, in an earlier meal of spherical leftovers, falafel. I mashed drained/rinsed chickpeas into a paste, added finely minced garlic and parsley, and leftover plain quinoa. One egg was mixed in to help bind, and I throw in a little cornmeal, just to help soak up any excess moisture. They're formed into little balls and pan-fried. I made a batch of these that stretched scraps into a couple of meals. They were such a nice treat, that idea stuck with me through Christmas when I made croquettes with finely minced duck, the dried fruit/quinoa mix, and gave each little leftover ball a cheesy center of melty havarti.

A feast of beasts... and yes, Indy got to sample some of the duck and ham - Photos by Wasabi Prime

The duck croquettes truly made leftovers magical. These little spheres were like something a wizard made, they were so good. The duck meat was from random scraps and the little wings, which is more skin than meat, really. I removed the bone and minced everything super-fine. I put the bits into a hot skillet to further render the fat and make crispy whatever was there, skin and all -- I wanted crunch, not rubbery, overly fatty bits. I put that crisped duck into the leftover quinoa dressing, which had an egg added to help bind. I formed balls around small bite sized pieces of havarti cheese. The croquettes were still sticky, so I rolled them in some breadcrumbs before frying them up in the same skillet that had the duck fat because... well why wouldn't you? The cheesy center got melty from the heat, the outer crumb coating made a strong enough shell to keep the center from oozing out. The croquettes were perfectly browned, savory bites, but with a little sweetness from the dried fruit. Eating them with a berry jam or the cranberry sauce was a perfect pairing -- duck goes nicely with fruit. It was one of those things where you create the dish in your mind, it comes together well during execution phase, and it tastes exactly as how you anticipated. In that sense, leftovers are perfection.

Never throw out leftovers - there's still good meals to be had! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Literally nothing went to waste over the holidays, which is great -- I hate when food goes to waste. Christmas Eve's ham bone was made into Portuguese bean soup for New Year's Eve and the duck croquettes went well with salads, which were a welcome change from all the super-rich food. It was nice to skip going to the grocery store and fret about what to cook. And the benefit of playing with one's food yields new meals and keeps the boredom away at the thought of having dreaded leftovers again. So cheers to recycled holiday food!

UnRecipe: Puttin' on the Ritz With Franken-Leftovers

What a kooky post title, right? But I just didn't know how else to describe these bizarro creations composed of bits of leftovers from different meals. I really did feel like Gene Wilder's Dr. Franken-SCHTEEN, piecing together Peter Boyle for an off-the-cuff performance of Puttin' on the Ritz. (if you didn't get all those Young Frankenstein references, shame on you!)

Thai Fried Rice anyone? I literally made it up on the spot - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Have you ever heard of Pad Thai Fried Rice? Me neither. And it should probably just be Thai Fried Rice, as I think "pad" means rice noodle, and there was no noodly appendages to be found in this dish. As this is my typical UnRecipe post, where I maddeningly leave no exact measurements to be found, this funky dinner basically came out of me having just enough leftover Pad Thai sauce to make a big wok-ful of the stuff, and a mish-mash of ingredients that excluded the main component, which is to say rice noodles, so I had to sub them out with brown rice. I had a container of extra-firm tofu, one red bell pepper, unsalted peanuts and fresh pineapple. Behold, the randomness of my refrigerator and pantry. I always have eggs and fresh garlic around, which was also added to the dish. I made this the way you'd make any fried rice -- chop up everything small, toss it about with oil in a hot wok, pour in the sauce and mix until combined before mixing in the cooked rice. Because I had fresh pineapple, I threw that in last, as I didn't want it to cook down into mush and it added a nice acidic bite to the dish. Crunchy, spicy, sweet, savory and sour -- all the flavor of Pad Thai, but in a pineapple fried rice setting. Weirdly delicious.

What a fridge/pantry raid yielded - Photos by Wasabi Prime

An older Franken-leftover I made back around the holidays was sort of like a Thanksgiving Pizza. It was neither Thanksgiving, nor was it all that pizza-like, but it's the best way to describe it. We had many servings of our New Year's Eve Thanksgiving-themed dinner lingering in the fridge for the month of January and I still had some unusual holiday ingredients that needed to be repurposed, namely a sheet of puff pastry dough. I had bought a package for a holiday dish and you always wind up with the spare puff pastry sheet, as these buttery bro's come in two. I cut up the sheet into little Pop Tart-sized pieces and would bake them off individually, topped with some of the Thanksgiving leftovers. This also included a few slices of Brie. Why? Because I had it. Open-faced Thanksgiving sandwich? Thanksgiving tart? I have no idea how you'd want to spin a fancier name for this, but it was tasty enough to make me happy for several lunches. I enjoyed the savory, rich topping sitting on a buttery, flaky crust -- who wouldn't? I discovered our pantry had some yams that were starting to go bad, so I lopped off the soft parts (yes, Mom, it's fine to do that), sliced them super-narrow and oil/salt/peppered them up and made baked fries to go along as a side dish.

High-falutin' dining this ain't, not that I ever claimed it was. I just think it's kind of interesting to see what can get thrown together when little to no organized meal planning is involved and ingredients are starting to go past their prime. No leftovers left behind!

The holiday meal that came, went and sort of came back again - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Mixed Plate: Disorganized Kitchen Chaos - I Ain't Lazy, Just Crazy

Meals sometimes get a little crazy at Casa de Wasabi, so I apologize for the lack of ooh-la-lah foods. You know what I'm talking about -- there are weeks where meals get planned out on time, groceries purchased, and everything runs like clockwork. And then there are some weeks where you just have leftover stuff from previous meals and you just want to clean everything out before you buy anything new. The solution for those weeks look like this: Kitchen Sink Frittata, Bag o' Broccoli Soup, and for dessert, Beefcake 4000 Oatmeal Cookies.

Everything but the kitchen sink... wait, is that a spigot over there? Photo by Wasabi Prime

I get zero credit on the name, Kitchen Sink Frittata -- gotta give it up to my homeskillet, Radish and Rose, who would tell me about her Kitchen Sink Omelettes, wherein the refrigerator would be scoured of all random scraps of leftover vegetables and made into a large, hearty omelette. I made something similar with the frittata, throwing in spinach, leftover chicken and random bits of cheese, placed in a baking pan with a custard of eggs and milk, and then baked. Slices served up on a bed of greens for dinner and packed away for lunches at the office, it takes care of several meals for part of the week.

Soup is the answer, because no one knows what went in it - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Paired with the frittata or fine on its own was literally the Bag o' Broccoli soup. As in, I found a random bag of broccoli sitting in our box freezer from some forlorn Costco trip where I thought a frozen bag of broccoli would be a nifty idea. This logic is flawed! Don't ever buy frozen broccoli thinking it won't defrost into a giant pile of mush. Ain't. Gonna. Happen. Plus it was a giant bag that's so intimidating, you never want to open it in fear of trying to somehow wrestle it into a meal. It spent a night defrosting in the fridge and then I spread the entire contents of the bag across two baking sheets and roasted them with a bit of oil to help remove some of the water and concentrate the flavor down. The broccoli was transferred to a pot of simmering chicken stock and the stick blender made quick work of the florets, turning it into a murky, green stew that looked like I cooked Oscar the Grouch. However, with the help of a bit of seasoning and milk to both loosen and make the texture more creamy, the broccoli soup came together nicely. Garnished with crumbled feta and extra pepper, it would be totally fine to serve guests, and they probably wouldn't think to assume the ingredients came frozen, out of a bag. From Costco, no less. Broccoli de Ghetto Soup, anyone?

Spring Cleaning the fridge and freezer - Photos by Wasabi Prime

As for the Beefcake 4000 Oatmeal Cookie, yep, you guessed it, by the power of Eric Cartman, I used protein powder in a cookie recipe. Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!! This was less of a pantry-clearing exercise and more of a "what would happen if I did this..." experiment. I took a chewy oatmeal cookie recipe and substituted half the flour for whey-based protein powder. This is a good idea: Y/N? Well... it wasn't awful, and they actually were a pleasant enough treat to have around with the lie hanging in the back of my brain saying, "it's protein powder, so it's healthy, right??" How does it feel be going down the River of Denial, Wasabi?

Beefcake 4000 Oatmeal Cookies, better than Cheezy-Poofs. Photo by Wasabi Prime

The protein powder we use has a flavoring added to it, so it made the cookies a little on the malty side, which I think is mostly to tone down the fact that it's protein powder. Any hopes of making it healthy were quickly dashed when I added some white chocolate chips to it, plus the original recipe called for quite a bit of sugar. If I were to remake it with energy bar intentions, I would probably nix the sugar and use just a little honey as the sweetener, and add more nuts and dried unsweetened fruit. The protein powder seemed to hold up in the baking process, so I could probably replace the flour completely with it, were I to attempt this bizarre baked good again. I know it sounds like a weird thing to make, since protein bars are never something wonderful to eat. Chalk this one up to too much time and too much weird crap in the pantry.
Fine, so meal options aren't always pretty when you're home-cookin' it most of the time. But it can't be all champagne wishes and caviar dreams -- life happens, you can't always go out for meals, and sometimes you just have to get a little crazy.

No whey?  Whey. Photos by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: Dinnertime Weeknight Boogie

We all have those weeks. The ones where we bury our heads in a computer or a stack of documents and after what feels like a nuclear half-life, we raise our eyes to the horizon, see that the evening dusk has fallen and realize: Holy Craptown, it's dinnertime; what am I going to cook? OK, so not everyone says that, nor do they always make most of their meals at home, but seeing as how my day is split up into half-professional/half-Suzy Homemaker, I forget to clock out from the business end of the day and segway properly into the process of preparing something to banish the day's hunger. This is not a unique problem and I'm willing to bet everyone runs into this on a daily basis, so here are some examples of fast MacGyver Meals I've had to throw together over the recent months.

The thrill of the grill - Photo by Wasabi Prime

During the intermittent heatwave days of summer, I definitely take advantage of the grill. I know some people grill in the dead of winter, when it's pouring outside, taking on the Post Office "Neither rain, sleet, nor snow" attitude for cooking outdoors. I should adopt this attitude, given the BA-Barracus-grill that Mr. Wasabi chose for our household, but most times, I'm lazy and don't feel like rousting the family of spiders who have inevitably taken residence around the grill, nor do I relish trying to wrestle the awkwardly large cover back onto the grill when it's time to put it away. It's not a lot of effort, I realize, but in a post-dinner food coma, even the slightest bit of chores makes me cringe. But laziness be damned, I'll fire up the grill now and then, however instead of cooking one meal at a time, I choose to load up every square inch of those cast-iron grill plates and make something that will last the week.

The easiest, minimal-prep item is, of course, the ubiquitous chicken breast. Light on taste, low on fat and somewhat boring, the grill brings out flavors from the lowly chicken breast unseen in most cooking methods. A bit of salt, pepper, a light toss in oil, and the char of the direct flame helps produce some much needed flavor out of the paltry poultry. Plus it's the only way I've been able to really keep the meat juicy, since the quick and intense heat locks in both flavor and moisture. The rest of the grill is taken up by vegetables like zucchini sliced lengthwise, seasoned similarly, and this simple supply of meat and vegetables carries us through several meals, from eating it as-is or sliced up and tossed in salads.

Pseudo saltimbocca, done casserole style - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Another last-minute prep meal is anything that doesn't require a lot of messy prep. Who loves doing dishes? I don't see many hands going up. A recent night of frantic meal prep found the Prime throwing open the refrigerator and having an Iron Chef moment. Except that it wasn't so much what Chairman Kaga presented, it was more like, this is what's sitting on the shelves. Without the flourish of a man dressed like Liberace or even a dramatic unveil, I had before me: several defrosted chicken breasts, leftover slices of prosciutto, sweet potatoes, the last bits of pesto, and plain yogurt. Sounds unappetizing at first, but I made a saltimbocca-inspired dinner, using seasoned, lightly seared chicken breasts wrapped in prosciutto, layered with some fresh sage plucked from the garden, laid upon a bed of oven-baked diced sweet potatoes, with a sauce of pesto and yogurt, watered down with a little milk. Sounds a bit crazy, I know, but it turned out fine. The fatty cured pork kept the chicken moist as the oven did its work, cooking the chicken all the way through. Juices from the cooking meat mixed with the yogurt sauce and helped further flavor and cook the bed of sweet potatoes which had a head-start, roasting in the oven while I seared the chicken breasts in a pan.

Pork tenderloin and lots of colorful veggies - Photos by Wasabi Prime

My third MacGyver/Pan-to-Oven quick dinner is with the Other White Meat, using pork tenderloin. It's a good thing to make on a cool night, especially now that we're starting to see the evenings chill down a bit more. I toss some root vegetables in oil with some salt and pepper and let them roast in the oven for a bit. Then I'll season up a pork tenderloin with whatever favorite seasonings I have on hand and sear it on all sides in a pan. I'm not looking to get it fully cooked, just get a nice crust, and then move it into the oven, sitting atop the vegetables that have already started roasting. I deglaze the pan with a bit of beer and then toss in some thinly sliced red cabbage, which is one of my favorite inexpensive go-to side dish veggies. It holds up nicely to the cooking process, just wilting but not totally falling apart, plus the color remains incredibly vibrant. If I have shallots, a bit of onion or even apples, I throw those in as well. A bit of cider vinegar and either sugar or honey to balance the sweet to sour, and the remainder of the beer helps cook everything down. Pork tenderloin, roasted vegetables, and a side of bright purple-red braised cabbage -- again, not fancy, but it can be done as a weeknight meal with plenty of leftovers for the next day's lunch and dinner.

I always talk about the magic of leftovers, and maybe it's too gauche a thing for the art of fine cuisine, but most of our meals are basic out of necessity and the lack of time. I end up spending more time figuring out ways to take shortcuts, but also not rely on a lot of processed things for those shortcuts. And yes, it results in a lot of UnRecipes where exact amounts and increments don't exist, but I think like most home cooks, we get inspired by seeing what others do, and just make up the recipes on our own while we tinker in the kitchen on our own last-minute meal prep -- wouldn't you agree?

UnRecipe: Fried Rice is Nice

Like most grand schemes, this one came together late one night after a couple of vodkas on the rocks while staring blankly into my parents' refrigerator. What, you think Steve Jobs doesn't do this, pondering the mysteries of the refrigerator light? My mother always cooks a couple of dishes for the week and gets a take-out lunch once or twice, so the refrigerator is always filled with leftovers of varying portions and provenance. My dad is hell-bent on never letting a single bite of food go to waste, so there are plates with little bits of things on every shelf of the fridge. Granted, the concept of Hawaii-style fried rice isn't new, but it was a direct result of a long stare into their refrigerator abyss.

Hawaii-style Fried Rice, as Conceptualized via Vodka Goggles - Photo by Wasabi Prime

A single slice of Spam, one kalbi rib, a few slices of char-siu, random bits from a take-out bento, and cold rice. The brain cells not yet euthanized from the night's cocktails managed to fire off the notion to make fried rice out of all the random stuff. Staying at my parents' house, I hadn't cooked in a few days, was feeling antsy, so I set my mind to get cookin'. I love cold rice for no other reason that this is the only useful way to take advantage of it. It will never be resurrected to the perfect, gluten-sticky consistency of it being freshly scooped from the rice cooker, and the benefit of the fridge-stale chill is that it gives the fried rice a good toothy bite. The next time you have that lone take-out box of white rice from the Chinese restaurant the night before, chop up whatever leftovers you have in the fridge, add a scrambled egg, some soy sauce, and mix with the rice -- you'll never want to order fried rice from a restaurant again because you'll realize how ridiculously simple (and cheap) it is.

Leftovers get all Voltron and form a single robo-meal of deliciousness - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I don't often get to cook for my parents, much less my mom. When I stay with family, she always insists on doing everything because, well, it's Mom. That's what they do and that's why Moms are the best. Plus, it was a nice thing to not only cook something for my dad, but to see that he enjoyed it. He has particular tastes, he likes what he likes, and while he knows I do this "cooking internet thing," I don't think he fully realized that I can indeed put a meal together without setting the house on fire or causing global nuclear meltdown. Way to go, Wasabi! Or who knows, maybe he was just being kind and thought the fried rice sucked. But again, it's our parents -- we can never truly disappoint them when they see we've made an effort. Even if it meant getting drunk and rummaging through the fridge.

Making fried rice, plus pink fish cakes that clearly live in a Barbie World - Photos by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: The Lord of the Leftovers - Thanksgiving Trilogy

Humorist Calvin Trillin had this to say about leftovers: The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. While I can say with certainty the origin of our triple-header leftover saga was the gut-busting feast of Thanksgiving, it's not an unknown occurrence in the Wasabi household to have leftovers stretched to near-infinite meals. For better or worse, my parents never liked to throw out food, and that mentality of "waste not" was forever drilled into my Wasabi brain. Our current surplus of ham, turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce led to this Episode I, II and III of meals: Thanksgiving Skillet Hash, Thanks-for-Giving Savory Bread Pudding, and a Truly Leftover Turkey Ramen.

Seattle Skillet Sensation Club - chances are, you've been a member since college. - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Skillet hash is probably one of the most leftover-friendly meals to make. It's UnRecipe to the tenth power, as no measuring or ingredient-fretting is needed. Depending on how many hungry people are needing to be fed, you just take a bit of protein like a handful of finely chopped ham and turkey, add something starchy, which in our case was the leftover roasted sweet potatoes, and throw it all in a heated skillet. The fat from the ham and the turkey skin melts down a bit in the pan, creating a nice sizzle for the sweet potatoes. I also scattered a bit of cranberry sauce over the hash to give it a little tartness. Once everything is fully incorporated and heated through, make a shallow little well in the hash and crack an egg right in. Depending on how many people it's being made for, one egg per person will do. Turn the heat down to medium and cover the top of the skillet with a bit of tin foil to trap the heat and cook the top of the egg to whatever doneness you prefer. I like the consistency of a poached egg, so I let the top of the egg get a bit opaque but the yolk is still liquid inside. Depending on how large a skillet and how many eggs are being used, this final step should only take a few minutes.

Everything was already well-seasoned from their past life as a dinner, so no salt or pepper required. I do like Tabasco with my eggs, so I added a splash or two right before the omming and nomming. The Thanksgiving Skillet Hash was made across several breakfasts, and more than a couple of times, I made this for a party of one because we have a couple of small pans. Yes, I did eat it right out of the skillet, furthering solidifying my membership with the Seattle Skillet Sensation Club, a secret society of plateless skillet-eaters created by foodie blogger and future chef, Eric Rivera. As Rachel of Laptops and Stovetops fame noted, if eating out of a skillet is wrong, I don't want to be right. Amen to that.

Savory bread pudding -- just throw everything in and bake it! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Thanksgiving Leftovers, the Sequel turned into a savory bread pudding. We wound up with a refugee band of dinner rolls and despite our tendency to leave out breads and pastas in our meals, the voice of my parents' Waste Not wisdom was in back of my mind like Obi-Wan. Or perhaps it was Lord Vader of the Carbohydrate Dark Side. Either way, I wanted to use up as much of the Thanksgiving leftovers as possible. Cubing the rolls and letting them toast in the oven to dry out, I took all the rest of the ham and turkey and chopped it into bite-sized pieces. There wasn't really any measuring involved in this UnRecipe because it was one of those "stone soup" meals that just uses everything available. Savory bread puddings, much like a skillet hash, have that lovely flexibility when it comes to ingredients. If they paired well as a meal of main courses and sides, there's no reason they can't be mashed together as a leftover delight.

I used the remaining half-and-half from the coffee and dessert portion of Thanksgiving to make a loose custard for the oven-dried cubed rolls. It was maybe a half a cup's worth. Mixed with a couple of eggs, the creamy, viscous liquid soaked into the now-crispy breadcubes. I probably could have skipped the oven-drying of the bread, but I like taking all the moisture out of bread first, so that it soaks up whatever new liquid and flavor that's being reintroduced to it. The ham, turkey, stuffing, and remainder of the cranberry sauce was already cooked, so once the bread was fully soaked with the custard, the savory bits were tossed with the bread, and a few slices of remaining cheese from the appetizer course of Thanksgiving was laid over the top to create a melty topping in the oven. Again, because everything had been pre-seasoned, I added maybe a few cracks of pepper and that's it. The oven set up the pudding, leaving the bottom part creamy and fused together, while the top crisped in the dry heat. Sliced into wedges, this made for easy lunches for the week.

Thanksgiving dinner -- good to the last drop. Photo by Wasabi Prime

The final meal that furthered Thanksgiving leftovers into the realm of, "Holy Hell, aren't you sick of this yet??" used the most basic, but flavorful part -- the turkey broth. I still had several cups' worth of a concentrated turkey stock made from the whole bird. Some of it was originally used for gravy, but the rest was reserved knowing it could be used for a number of things. I had seen a number of soups and stew recipes flying around on blogs and Tweets, but at this point, I had been sick with a cold and a craving for ramen won out in the end. Feeling too sick to hit the store and the fact that most of the Thanksgiving remnants were spoken for, it became a resourceful ramen that came together with pantry items and basic ingredients.

When the sniffles hit, some people crave chicken soup or grilled cheese sandwiches -- mine is either miso soup or ramen. More to the point, I crave a Hawaii-style saimin, which uses a thinner shoyu broth and yes, Spam is involved. Be it ever so humble, there's nothing that eases my sickly aches and pains like a savory, salty broth with chewy noodles, shredded fried egg, and slices of fried Spam on top. The ramen dashi came together with all the remaining turkey stock, water to thin it out, a splash of vinegar, several splashes of soy sauce, and a stalk of lemongrass (I keep them in the freezer; you'll be thankful if you do the same). The resulting flavor was a salty, sour broth that isn't necessarily traditional, it was just what my flu-riddled palate needed. I had the fortune of finding a few packets of fresh noodles stashed in the freezer. They weren't the firm, wrinkly Hilo-style saimin noodles I love best, but given my state of health, I wasn't about to complain.

Maybe waving the banner of Team Leftovers makes the Prime seem extra provincial, but I don't think it's too shabby a thing to think fast in the kitchen and cook by the seat of one's pantry. Given my newly-minted status as a Lady of Leisure, I anticipate many more at-home meals of UnRecipe inspiration.

UnRecipe: Secondhand Sandwiches

One word: Leftovers. One more word: Awesome. Some people reserve a tall glass of hatorade for having a twice-eaten meal, or in our case, several times-eaten meal. My father never liked any scrap of food to go to waste, so we got used to making do before making new in the Wasabi household of my youth. From a recent barbecue at a friend's house, we wound up with an excess of sausage and vegetable kebabs, along with miscellaneous things like hamburger buns and slices of cheese. What some would call leftovers, I would call a Roasted Sausage and Vegetable Secondhand Sandwich.

We love our buns n' weiners - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I think if you add "roasted" in front of anything, it just sounds better, but in reality, the kebabs could have been eaten without touching a grill. I had bought pre-cooked herbed chicken and andouille sausage and cut them up to thread between chunks of vegetables for the barbecue. I don't usually like mixing veggies with meat on sticks, since they all have different cooking times, but since the sausages were already cooked, they would just brown up while the veggies got a quick char without getting overdone. I chopped everything down to a smaller bite sizes and piled the goods on a soft roll with a slice of Swiss on top. I hollowed-out the top dome of the roll to jettison the extra bread and leave more room for the precious meaty-cheesy payload. A few minutes under the broiler to get the cheese melted and toast up the bread, and by the Power of Greyskull, this sandwich was complete!

It was a MacGyver Meal of delicious proportions. Simple, maybe boring to some, but delicious. I don't have sandwiches often, so it was an extra treat to have the lovely, crusty bread. I also had a bit of extra chile mayonnaise which tasted quite nice on the sandwich. I had pulsed a couple of adobo chiles with mayonnaise to make a spicy spread for hamburgers and inevitably wound up with more mayo than burger. Just another flavor piece to add to the secondhand sandwich. As a side note, grilled zucchini is marvelous. We had several monster-sized ones from the Redmond Farmer's Market, and they grilled up just beautifully on the kebabs and held up just dandy as leftovers for the sandwiches.

From Farmer's Market to Fabulous - Photos by Wasabi Prime

* Post-Script: Thanks to Serious Eats' Photograzing for posting its photo and making this secondhand sandwich feel like top honors!