Saturday, October 24, 2009
Cook Once, Eat Twice
"Cook once, eat twice" is my mantra; living by this simple principle allows me to make food for my family every night. Even on super-busy "book night and dance recital" sort of nights. Friday night I made a pot roast with oven-roasted veggies and green beans. I served the food and saved all the beef drippings and put them in a small glass bowl. Today I took the leftover roast and cubed it and dusted the cubes with flour. I took a stock pot and sweated some onions and celery, then I added a the beef cubes. After they browned I deglazed the pan with some red wine and added the reserved beef drippings, 1 c. of beef stock and some water (enough to cover the beef). After they came to a boil I added the leftover carrots from last night, then the leftover potatoes and then the green beans in the last 5 minutes. If the flour from the beef does not sufficiently thicken the broth you can add a tsp or so of cornstarch mixed with water to the stew. Salt and pepper to taste.
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This post was supposed to be a larger musing on doing planned-overs, e.g intentionally making ore than you can eat at one meal in order to simplify prep for the following day. However when I sit down to write I can never guarantee 15 uninterrupted minutes of time to think and type. Today I got about 5 minutes. Oh, well. Next time!
ReplyDeleteSounds good! I make everything big enough for leftovers but turning it into something else is not something I had really thought about. I will sometimes roast a chicken and then use the leftovers for chicken and rice, I guess that's as close as I get!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite planned over is three day chicken. You roast a chicken and lots of veggies for dinner. The next day you pick all of the meat off of the chicken and add it to a can or two of rinsed black beans, add a dash of cumin and some garlic powder. Then you have some black bean and chicken tacos, or even served the chicken and beans over rice (whatever you have on hand.) The third day you take your chicken carcass throw it in a stock pot with carrot, celery and onion and make soup!
ReplyDeleteI try and used that principle as often as I can. If I make a bone in pot roast you can make roast, stew or hot open faced beef sandwiches the next day, and then make beef stock the third day. Beef stock is an excellent base for french onion soup, BTW. Its also a way to make sure you are really eating a proper serving size of whatever it is you are cooking. My husband has lost 40 pounds since I started cooking all of our meals at home. I don't weigh myself but I have lost all of the baby weight and I haven't gone up any for sure.
I saw an episode of Paula Deen today where she made a Shepherd's Pie from leftover pot roast and mashed potatoes. She added a bag of frozen peas and carrots. It looked yummy. Of course it was covered in melted butter. I would probably eat gravel if it were coated in melted butter.
ReplyDeleteI just made 6 meatloaves from a Paula Deen recipe. It is sooo not even remotely healthy but it's yummy. I hate making it though so I get 8 or 9 pounds of meat and make a bunch at once time and freeze them. This meatloaf has ritz cracker crumbs, sour cream and cheese in it.
ReplyDeleteI make a bunch of meatloaves at once too! I also make meatballs and taco meat all at the same time, sometimes hamburger patties too. If I hit a sale on ground meat of any kind I stock up, take it home and divvy it up, 4 meatloaves, 2 pans of meat balls, 8 hamburger patties etc. The freezer is the second most important appliance after the stove in my opinion!
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