I Couldn't Live Without....Pasta! (weekly line-up)

It's been quite a while since I've posted, but I saw this new weekly line-up hosted by a friend of mine at Pursuit of Pink and thought I'd give it a shot!

Every week, at least once, my family has pasta in some way, shape or form. Not only is it sometimes the main feature of a meal, I also use it to reinvent leftovers all the time! Here are a few ideas for pasta that I've made over the past few weeks:

• Spaghetti w/ Tomato Sauce and Leftover Pot Roast (essentially a ragu)
• Shrimp Scampi w/ linguini (white wine, lemon, butter, basil, YUM!)
• Baked Leftover Pasta (add extra cheese and some milk or cream)
• Mac & Cheese (homemade or boxed) w/ broccoli or butternut squash or spiced up with pickled jalapenos
• Spaghetti al Melone from Giada De Laurentiis
• Linguini Shrimp Fra Diavolo w/ Rao's brand Fra Diavolo Sauce

No surprise that my one year old daughter loves pasta. But what IS a surprise is that she'll eat it almost no matter what sauce is on it. The biggest surprise was that she scarfed down the scampi!!!

What are some ways you like to incorporate pasta into your meal?

Recipe Reinvention: "Leftover" Pasta, Carbonara Style

This past week we had some leftovers, and when I say some, I mean VERY LITTLE, but I was determined to make lunch for my husband and me out of it on Friday. I realized we had eggs, grated cheese, and bacon grease, and I could make a carbonara-like meal!

Here's what we had:

Leftover Ingredients:

• 1 chicken thigh, cooked and diced
• about 10 cubes of roasted potatoes
• 1 serving of rotini pasta, cooked

New Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 1 Tbs Bacon grease (technically I guess it's a leftover....)
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 carrot, cut up (I julienned it)
• 1 rib of celery, diced
• 1/2 cup wine
• 2 eggs, beaten
• A bit of parsley, chopped
• A few leaves of basil, chopped
• Salt to taste
• Grated cheese to taste

Directions:

1. In a saute pan, heat up the olive oil and bacon grease. Add onions, carrots and celery and a bit of salt. Once softened a bit, add the garlic and stir for 1-2 minutes to cook the garlic without burning.
2. Add in the wine and let it sizzle. Once the wine is warm, push the veggies to one side and whisk the egg into the liquid. Pour slowly. Whisk quickly!
3. Add in the pasta, chicken and potato cubes and stir till warmed through. Throw in the basil and parsley.
4. Take off the stove and add the cheese.

Voila!!! "Leftover" Pasta Carbonara.

Recipe Reinvention: Turkey Tetrazzini

After Thanksgiving, everyone always has tons of leftovers. My favorite after-Thanksgiving meal is a Thanksgiving sandwich, where you pile all the various leftovers onto a yummy roll (ciabatta or French bread), add some mayo and cranberry sauce, and this year some horshradish, and the sandwich is amazing!

However, we had just a bit of turkey leftover after the sandwiches; not enough to actually have another meal for both my husband and me. I had heard about Turkey Tetrazzini, but it wasn't something I had ever made or tried.

I found a recipe from Rachael Ray here, and thought I'd give it a shot, but with a few twists of my own of course...partially because we didn't have all the ingredients she used!

Turkey Tetrazzini
Modified version of Rachael Ray's
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• Salt
• 1/3-1/2 pound pasta
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 oz mushrooms, diced
• Salt & Pepper
• 2 teas poultry seasoning (or a mix of Thyme, Rosemary, Sage)
• Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
• 1 Tbs butter
• 1 1/2 Tbs flour
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 cup chicken or turkey stock
• 1/2 c plain yogurt (greek or regular)
• 1/2 lb leftover turkey, diced
• 1/4 c grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (a generous handful)
• 1/4 c flat leaf parsley leaves, chopped

Directions:

1. Boil water and cook the pasta according to package directions.
2. While pasta is boiling, in a large sauté pan with oil, heat the onions until translucent over medium to medium-high heat. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute until fragrant.
3. Add in mushrooms and sauté until they're browned.
4. Add seasonings (salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, sage, nutmeg).
5. Add in butter until melted, and then flour to make a roux. Cook for at least 1 minute.
6. Add in wine and cook down for at least 1 minute so that it thickens. Then add in stock and yogurt.
7. Once you stir the sauce together, add in turkey and drained pasta.
8. Serve with cheese and parsley.

I actually made this for dinner and then ate the leftovers for lunch the next day. Turns out that it tasted better as leftovers because the pasta absorbed more flavor and the sauce thickened. I also added about 1 oz of cream cheese to add creamy-ness since we used fat-free yogurt instead of sour cream as called for in Rachael Ray's recipe.

What do you do with your Thanksgiving leftovers?

Reinvention Recipe: Cornbread

Also leftover from this weekend, about a half sheet tray (you know the REALLY big one's) of delicious cornbread from Willard's BBQ. There is no way two people could eat that much cornbread so I did some research and found two great recipes which I of course am making my own way: cornbread stuffing and cornbread pudding (the dessert kind, not corn pudding, which is a sweet/savory side dish).

(Side note: do you ever read a blog looking for a recipe and you have to scroll through a MILLION pictures? I'm just going to post the end result so you don't think the same thing I always do..."just get to it already!")

Today's Recipe Reinvention: Cornbread Stuffing

Ingredients:

• About an 8" x 8" square of already made cornbread, cubed
• Olive oil
• 1/2 an onion, diced
• 1 rib of celery, diced (I used celery seeds because I had no celery)
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 cup of chicken broth
• 1 egg, beaten
• To taste: sage, thyme, rosemary, garlic powder, salt & pepper

Directions:

1. Place the cubed cornbread on a sheet tray and toast in the oven at about 300 degrees for 10 minutes (this probably could have been done longer). The goal is to dry out the bread so it soaks in the flavor.
2. On the stove in a medium sauce pot, sauté the onions, celery and carrots in olive oil until soft over medium heat.
3. Sprinkle in the herbs you like along with salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes until you start to smell the herbs
4. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a boil.
5. Crumble in your cubes of cornbread and take off the heat. Stir to combine.
6. Add in the beaten egg being sure to stir well and quickly so that you don't have scrambled eggs
7. Pour the mixture into an 8" x 8" pan (I greased mine just in case) and cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. I cooked 15 covered and 15 uncovered because I like my stuffing with crispy edges. If you like yours fluffier you should leave it covered.

And here's the end result!

Hope this inspires you to reinvent some leftovers so they don't go to waste.

Reinvention Recipe: BBQ Chicken

Over the weekend we had a lot of friends over and got DELICIOUS catering from Willard's BBQ. Somehow, even though I underestimated, we ended up with leftovers galore. I froze a small amount of beef brisket and pulled pork for once baby Chickpea arrives, and we had my in-law's for lunch Sunday, but there is still so much chicken I had to get a little creative.

Today at work I asked my colleagues what to do with the leftover BBQ chicken. Luckily it has BBQ dry rub seasonings but no sauce. One colleague mentioned enchiladas, so that's what we're doing! Except I'm going with crunchy taco shells because they sounded yummy.

Here's a picture of the ingredients:

Pictured above:

• Leftover BBQ Chicken (will get shredded)
• Enchilada sauce
• Taco Shells
• Lettuce
• Plain yogurt (instead of sour cream)
• Cilantro
• Refried beans
• Other options: salsa, tomatoes, shredded cheese

All I did was heat the shredded chicken in a skillet with some enchilada sauce and heat up the beans and taco shells. Voila...dinner!