Innovative Leftovers Part 4–Summer Vegetable Stew

I absolutely love split pea soup, but you know how canned soups are, for the most part, disgusting?

Unfortunately, the same holds true for canned split pea soup. So I decided to jazz mine up a little when I was making dinner for myself. (My brothers weren't gonna feed me, that's for sure.)


Summer Vegetable Stew
Serves 1-2


Ingredients:

1 can split pea soup
1/2 zucchini, cut into quarter-rounds
1/2 carrot, cut into half-rounds
1/2 can black beans

1/4 onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon water (if soup is watery)
Salt and pepper
Spices (garlic powder, oregano, cayanne)
Olive oil


Instructions:

Drain black beans into a bowl, reserving some of the liquid. Rinse. Place zucchini, onion, carrot, and beans into a small pan over medium heat with some olive oil and stir.

Add spices, salt, and pepper to taste. Place pot lid over pan and allow to cook until zucchini is soft.

Pour split pea soup into a medium saucepan over medium heat.

If soup is watery, mix cornstarch in 1 tablespoon water to form a smooth slurry and add to soup.

Add vegetables and stir.

Stir in reserved bean liquid.

Allow to come to a gentle boil and thicken if needed, then remove from heat. Adjust seasonings if necessary.

Serve.

Well, it's not perfect, but it's definitely better than the soup alone. It's also better than whatever my brothers would have made. Just kidding. Maybe. The vegetables give it a nice fresh feeling and the spices make it taste a lot better than the soup normally does. I recommend serving with naan or flatbread. (Trader Joe's makes a great tandoori naan.) Or you can make toast. That works too.
So even though this improved the soup quite a bit, homemade soup trumps canned any day.

Innovative Leftovers Part 3–Pulled Pork Fajitas

When my mom made pulled pork the other night, I think my brother's vow of vegetarianism was sorely tested. It was tested even more the next day when I made fajitas for lunch with the leftovers. We had a couple of ears of barbecued corn left over as well, so I threw those in too.
For the record, fajita is pronounced fa-he-ta. My friend insists on calling them fa-ge-tas. Are you reading this, Gabe?

Pulled Pork Fajitas
Makes 6 fajitas, serves 3

2 bell peppers (or 6-7 small peppers or 5 small peppers and 1 large pepper)
1/2 onion
4 ears cooked corn on the cob (or however many you have; supplement with frozen corn)
3 cups pulled pork
5-10 button mushrooms

1/2 can black beans, drained and rinsed
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

6 small tortillas
6 slices cheese

1/2 pouch red chile enchilada sauce (We love Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday sauces.)
1/2 jar roasted garlic and tomatillo salsa (We love his salsas too.)


Instructions:

Slice onion, bell peppers, and mushrooms.

Cut corn off cob.

Pour olive oil into large pan over medium heat and place onions, peppers, corn, and mushrooms inside. Stir.

Continue cooking and stirring for about 3 minutes, then add beans and pulled pork. (I put the pork in a separate pan so my brother could have veggie fajitas.)

Stir, then cover and cook until onions are nearly translucent. Turn off heat.

Meanwhile, place tortillas with cheese in toaster.

Toast until cheese is melted.

It's melted. Yeah, I know it doesn't look like it is.

While tortillas are toasting, combine enchilada sauce and salsa in a bowl and stir to combine.

Fill each tortilla with sauce and filling. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

You're gonna need a fork and knife for this fajita.

Mmm... Pulled pork is just as good in a tortilla as it is on a bun. While it may sound strange to combine enchilada sauce and salsa, the sauce is very good. It doesn't clash at all with the barbecue sauce on the corn and pork. The cheese adds a nice gooey element, while the vegetables are slightly crunchy. I have to say, I wasn't expecting Mexican-American fusion to be this good!
Enjoy your fa-he-tas!

Simple Sauces Part 3–Mayonnaise

I'm going to stop you right now. Mayonnaise is a sauce, got it? When it's not white fluff out of a jar, that is.
Seriously. Real mayonnaise (NOT Hellman's "Real" Mayonnaise) is a rich, yellow sauce for bread, potato salads, and many other things. It is made with egg yolks; thus it tastes eggy and delicious.
Mayonnaise is simple, too. In the time it takes you to go to the store and buy mayo, you could make a potato salad with homemade mayonnaise. And contrary to popular belief, you don't have to add the oil drip
by
drip
by
drip.


Mayonnaise (adapted from The Best Recipe):
Makes about 3/4 cup


Ingredients:

1 large egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1-1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar (sherry vinegar works too)
3/4 cup corn oil (or any other tasteless oil)

1 teaspoon water


Instructions:


Whisk egg yolk vigorously in medium bowl for 15-30 seconds.

Add salt, mustard, vinegar, and lemon juice and whisk until thickened and brightened in color. There is no such thing as over-whisking in this step.

It should be brighter.

Add water and whisk.

Add 1/4 cup oil in a slow and steady stream.

Whisk vigorously until oil is completely incorporated and mixture is thickened, about 1 minute.

It should be thicker than this.

Add another 1/4 cup of oil the same way. Whisk until incorporated.

Add last 1/4 cup all at once and whisk until completely incorporated, about 30 seconds.

Apparently, I failed to whisk it enough.

While this was definitely the best mayonnaise I've ever had, taste-wise, the texture wasn't quite right. It was more of a liquid than a spread, which I will take the blame for. I probably didn't whisk enough. However, that actually made it better for use in a potato salad that night. It was a lot easier to stir in.

My laziness in whisking paid off!

The only modification I made was adding the water, which I decided to do after reading the New York Times' article on mayonnaise. It apparently keeps it from "breaking," or separating before it's supposed to.

Enjoy your mayo!

Innovative Leftovers Part 2–Coulis Stir-Fry

When you have a severely depleted fridge, what do you make as a vegetable for dinner? Hint: You have a random bag of shredded carrots, some peas from your garden, two paltry scallions, and a blender half-full of tomato coulis.
What do you do with this mish-mosh of produce? Gnaw on raw scallions? Sit in a corner by yourself and eat a bag of raw carrots? Chug the coulis from the blender? Aside from being completely disgusting, where's the fun in that? No, you have to cook something. And that something is stir-fry.

Coulis Stir-Fry


Ingredients:

1 bag shredded carrots
2-3 scallions

3-4 cups sugar snap or snow peas
Meat of choice (optional)
1/2-1 cup tomato coulis
1-2 tablespoons olive oil, depending on pan size


Procedure:

Chop the scallions into small pieces.

Place pan over medium heat. Pour olive oil into pan and use spatula to coat bottom entirely.

Put vegetables and meat into pan and stir with spatula. Stir periodically until cooked, roughly 5 minutes.

Scoop stir-fry into bowl and pour coulis on top.

Though the coulis wasn't great on chicken, it was fantastic on stir-fry! It coated the vegetables nicely and enhanced them with its tomato flavor. The vinegar definitely wasn't as noticeable as it was on the chicken. Also, the stir-fry was so pretty! The colors were so bright and happy-looking.

See? Look at those peas. They're smiling.

This is a perfect summer dish!