The Celebration of Leftovers and a Challenge

As I was packing for our short trip to my in-laws house for Thanksgiving, I turned the TV on for background noise and ended up being sucked into a special on the Food Network called The Big Waste. Of course there was a cooking competition between world-class chefs coupled with impossible deadlines. But, what caught my interest was that they had to create a delicious meal for hundreds with ingredients that were on their way to the trash or compost bin. The chefs went to local farms, grocery stores and meat packers only to find that hundreds of pounds of nutritious and delicious food was being thrown away because it didn't look absolutely perfect.

Knowing that we throw away so much good food but then one in four kids in my home state of Texas is food insecure (meaning they don’t know where their next meal is coming from), is a sinful contradiction. So, this Thanksgiving I’m challenging myself – and you  - to eat leftovers or re-create meals using leftovers more than just once a year when turkey is involved. And, I up the ante by challenging you to re-purpose ingredients from one recipe to another (egg whites left over from baking, how about an egg white omelet for breakfast?), and think creatively about fruits and vegetables that are on the brink of expiration.

With that in mind, I looked at the leftover meat mixture from the empanadas, and with a recommendation from Susana, I reinvented the mixture into another meal.

Pastel de Papas (or as I’m calling it meat & potatoes casserole)

Ingredients:

• 4 russett potatoes
• 1 sweet potato*
• 3 tablespoons butter
• ½ cup half and half or whole milk
• 1//4 cup low-fat sour cream
• Meat mixture from empanadas
• 2 cups baby leaf spinach, chopped*

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Wash potatoes and peel if desired. I only peeled the sweet potato. Cut in large cubes.
3. Put potatoes in salted cold water in a medium sized soup pot.
4. Bring to a boil and cook potatoes until they are soft when pricked with a fork.
5. Drain the potatoes reserving 1 cup of potato water. Place potatoes and water back in the pot.
6. Add butter, half and half, and sour cream and mash potatoes until smooth. You can also use an immersion blender. If the potatoes are too dry, add more water or half and half. However, you want the potatoes the consistency of thick mashed potatoes.
7. In a separate bowl, combine leftover meat mixture with chopped spinach.
8. Take a casserole dish that’s at least 9x11 and put meat mixture at the bottom.
9. Place casserole dish on a cookie sheet to catch any juices and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until golden brown and bubbling.

Casserole prior to baking. You can see
the potato skins which I left on the potatoes.

 * Ingredients that were going to go bad within one or two days sitting on our counter that I decided to throw into the recipe. Added bonus - I was able to hide actual green vegetables in a dish that my kids enjoyed.

Here are a few more ideas of things you can do with fruits and veggies that are too soft for salads or to eat but can still be used. Give me a few of your ideas, too and post them on the comments section! 

A few (almost) bad apples? Make applesauce. Here's a simple recipe although you might need to adjust ingredients based on how many apples you have. 

Some (almost) rotten tomatoes?

If they are larger tomatoes – beefsteak, plum or romas - cut in half but if they are cherry tomatoes, you can leave them whole. Toss tomatoes with 2 to 3 short pours of olive oil (depending on how many tomatoes),  with salt and pepper to taste. If I have fresh herbs, I usually chop a few to add to the tomatoes prior to roasting (rosemary, thyme or oregano are delicious additions). You can also add 2 cloves (or more) of sliced garlic. Place tomatoes on an aluminum foil covered cookie sheet and roast for 6 hours at 200 degrees.

I put them in a container and store in the fridge. They are an amazing addition to tomato sauces, pizza’s, eggs in the morning, or a wonderful topping for a crusty toasted bread.

I’ve even roasted carrots, broccoli and kale to save them from the compost heap. All are roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper. With the broccoli, I sprinkle it with a little Parmesan and lemon juice after coming out of the oven. And, with the kale, I basically make kale chips. If you have curly kale, it’s important you wash it, trim it to get rid of the hard spine and be sure the olive oil covers each leaf.