Growing up, I ate a lot of leftovers. My parents both worked two jobs so it was much more efficient to make a few big meals and then eat leftovers on off nights–especially since I could heat them up myself. Since you can’t always eke out a full meal from a single leftover, you often have to combine things or eat separate dishes. My mom referred to this as “Grab ‘n’ Growl”, a term passed down through the generations in my family’s unique (read: very bizarre) lexicon, which posits a family as a bunch of Neanderthals scavenging the fridge for food, battling over the best bits. Closer to the truth, perhaps, than we’d like to admit.

With Amy in Budapest, it’s officially grab ‘n growl week. This is sort of weird, since it’s just me, but I feel less lonely if I growl. Since I tend to do most of the cooking, the swingin’ bachelor life doesn’t necessitate eating cold beans out of cans, scratching my crotch, and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. I may prowl the house growling, but I can still drink whiskey from a glass. What the bachelor life does invoke, however, is my occasional need to purge the refrigerator of leftovers and about-to-go-bad food. On a small scale, this is best accomplished in a single meal. But with Amy gone–taking her need for delicious, inventive cuisine with her–I’m free to do a major purge, using up everything in strange and sometimes wonderful/sometimes not combinations.  In other words, this isn’t generally the kind of food I’d foist on other people.

But from the ashes doth arise the phoenix! Behold these Curried Potato Everything Cakes aka Poor Man’s Pakora:

These puppies used up mashed potatoes, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, kale, and a scosh of raw sushi filling, as well as some leftover Chik’n Almond Bake and crushed crackers for the breading. For combining so many different–and somewhat disparate–ingredients, these were actually pretty awesome. The cracker/Chik’n Almond Bake combo was the key.

I enjoyed this with leftover Avocado Wasabi Salad ala Vegan Yum Yum:

Remember that Roasted Poblano Chili? The leftover beans (I still haven’t mastered the exact yield of dry beans when you cook them) were a perfect base (along with rice, obviously) for beans and rice.

On Saturday, I made a green Thai curry out of a small smattering of frozen veggies (ack! I know), tofu, and the leftover raw Siamese Dream Soup.

And finally, last night I made a version of Zuppa Toscana, using up the rest of the mashed potatoes; some dilapidated turnips that didn’t make it into the Potato, Turnip, & Rosemary Soup; and the unused tempeh (we get it in bulk) from the Smoky Tempeh Hummus Wraps.

That’s a lot of food! As I’ve chiseled away at out leftovers (and this post), it’s become clear to me that we both cook and shop for our palettes, not from our resources. Forgive me if I’m stretching here, but this, in a general sense, is one the key problems with the American food industry. You can get as much of anything, from anywhere, at any time, as you want.  The variety comes from the store, not from your kitchen and brain.

Equally problematic is the amount of time between trips to the grocery store. Like most Americans, we tend to go once a week, if that. We task ourselves with predicting what our future selves will want to eat–based on what? How can we know what we’ll want to eat 3 days from now? This means that as the week wears on, we become less satisfied with our choices and less likely to cook with what we bought. Scanning our half-full fridge, nothing looks good. So we either (a) settle on something merely “acceptable” or (b) give up completely and go out for dinner. I’m not against going out to eat, but I think it should be a deliberate choice–because you want to, not because you need to. But (a) is a bit of a crapshoot; on nights when I’m feeling creative, it’s a fun challenge and usually turns out pretty tasty. On off nights, it’s a burden and “edible” suffices.

One solution to this is to shop more frequently and buy less. This also helps ensure the freshness of your food. The other solution, I’m afraid to say, may be getting comfortable with “pretty good” some of the time. Maybe it’s been a good week for culinary creativity, but I feel like I’ve eaten pretty well with nary a thought of hitting up the grocery store (okay…that’s not entirely true…when I ran out of soy sauce, I felt a ripple of panic). This may owe, in part, to the very fact that I’ve used up almost everything in the fridge; my choices have dwindled as the week wore on. While some choice is certainly good, a lot of choice, it turns out, is actually rather bad (think about your occasional trip to an all-vegan restaurant–it’s almost paralyzing; you’re not accustomed to so many choices). The problem with too many choices is our tendency to weigh any single choice against the combined best parts of all the other choices. While this doesn’t actually change how good any single choice is, it does change how satisfied we feel.

So my final thought, in this lazy cognitive meandering, is that our enjoyment of our food is often based on our frame of reference. Given my limited options, what I came up with seemed really good–as soon as I’d eliminated the other possibilities. This is the fulcrum on which “leftovers” become “leftover surprise”.

Rrrrrooaawww!

After making chili last weekend, we had some leftover black beans to use up–but my traditional black bean soup is much too close to a chili to seriously entertain as a post-chili-black-bean-use-em-up ™. So I says to myself, “Self, let’s shake things up! Let’s make this more soupy…and tangy! Like a cilantro lime black bean rice, but a soup?!”

While it was pretty tasty, it was still too close to the chili we’d just had, and Amy wouldn’t deign to eat it, so last night, I combined it with some refried beans, cooked the liquid down, and used it like rice & beans for !taco salad!

This taco salad was amazing.

This is probably because all taco salads are amazing, and this taco salad is a subset of all taco salads. Q.E.D.

But first, you have to make the soup:

Phase 1: Tangy Black Bean Barley Soup

• 1 large white onion, diced
• 2 small or 1 large stalk of celery, chopped
• 2 medium-sized carrots, peeled and cut into disks or half-disks
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
• 4 cups (2 cans) cooked black beans (with liquid, if possible–always keep this when pressure cooking!)
• 1 tomato, diced (I used leftover tomato juice from canning)
• 6 cups (or more, to desired consistency) veggie stock
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 2 tsp toasted, ground cumin (or just ground, if you don’t have seeds on hand)
• 2 tsp smoked chili powder
• salt & pepper, to taste

In a large pot, begin the Traditional Ceremonial Soup Dance (i.e sautee the onions, carrots, celery, and garlic in oil over medium heat until soft). If using cumin seeds, toast them over medium high heat until fragrant, then grind into a powder using a mortar and pestle. Add the cumin, chili, and some salt and mix well. Add in the black beans, tomatoes (if using), and liquid(s). Continue Traditional Ceremonial Soup Dance by bringing to a boil and then lowering heat and simmering, covered, for 30 – 60 minutes. About 5 minutes before serving, add in the chopped cilantro, and complete the Traditional Ceremonial Soup Dance by salting and peppering to taste.

With Phase 1 complete, move in to Phase 2.

Phase2: Eat the soup.

Now let’s move to Phase 3.

Phase3: Taco Salad

We’ve already made you privy to the taco salad particulars, so the only crucial piece of information is this: In a medium-sized saucepan, combine the remaining soup with 2 cups of refried beans (i’m assuming that 2 people each ate one bowl of soup–adjust accordingly) and cook down the liquid until everything’s “all beany”.

Use in place of normal refried beans in a delicious and nutritious taco salad!

So you’ve probably noticed by now–recipes/menus often come in waves here at IV. This is largely because we rarely deign to countenance leftovers twice, except as lunch. Instead, we try to rethink stuff we’ve already made and pair it with something else we’ve already made and/or with something fresh.

We made taco salad a few nights ago and had leftover refried beans and taco tempeh. For leftovers numero uno, we made quesadillas with the taco tempeh, Follow Your Heart ™ cheddar, and diced jalapenos. We served it with the refried beans and sliced avocados.

Okay. So the taco leftovers were successfully eliminated. But wait. Now we had leftover cheese. This stuff goes bad within a month, so you have to use it up once you’ve opened it.

So leftovers numero dos was quesadillas again, this time made with just tortilla and cheese. We served it in typical conflated culture fashion with Spanish rice w/beans and guacamole.

Making a quesadilla is simple: lighlty oil a frying pan, and place it on a burner at medium heat. Toss in a flour tortilla. Sprinkle on a generous layer of your favorite faux-cheese; top with taco tempeh, soyrizo, mexican-style chik’n strips; sprinkle in some onions and/or bell/jalapeno peppers; sprinkle on another layer of faux cheese; top with another tortilla. When the cheese is mostly melted, flip quesadilla and cook until browned and crispy.

Alternatively, you can make this with just faux cheese and two tortillas.

Cut in half to serve. Delicious!

Last year for Amy’s birthday, we went out to a local bar that we’d been meaning to eat at–and they served the most amazing taco salad we’d ever eaten, made vegan just for us. They never seemed to have served it again, though, much to our dismay. So we’ve had this year-long hankerin’ for taco salad which, I’m happy to say, we laid to rest on Sunday.

The secret, friends, is making your own refried beans. We’d been using canned refried beans for years and no combination of spices, veggies, shortening, unicorn tears, etc. ever made them even half as delicious as the kind you get in a good Mexican restaurant. So, having just gotten a pressure cooker, what better time than now to try to make these suckers from scratch–and holy hell does it make a difference! I don’t know if we can ever go back to canned refried beans again. Maybe in a pinch, I’d use canned pinto beans to make refried beans.

We also experimented for the first time in making our own taco bowls. This was really easy; we just soaked two soft taco shells in a very shallow layer of oil, placed them in oven safe bowls (to shape them), and cooked them for 10 – 15 minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit. We did we never think of this before?

The rest of the taco salad is pretty easy–in the baked shell, layer the beans, taco tempeh (follow the recipe for the tempeh), chopped lettuce/onions/tomatoes, guacamole, and salsa.

Here’s how to make the beans:

Refried Beans

• 2 cups dried pinto beans pressure cooked in 10 cups of water for 30 – 35 minutes
• OR ~ 3 – 4 cups cooked pinto beans (using your preferred method)
• 3 cups veggie stock
• 1/2 white or yellow onion, diced
• 3 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup shortening (we used Earth Balance)
• 2 – 3 tbsps chili powder
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• salt, to taste
• 1 cup (2 small cans) mild green chilis (optional)

In a large (ideally big enough to hold the beans and stock) frying pan, sautee the onions and garlic in shortening over medium heat, until tender. Add in the beans and 2 cups of the stock and cook for about 20 minutes. Mash the beans to the consistency you like (some people like some whole beans left, some don’t). Add the final cup of veggie stock, stir well, and add in spices. Cook for about another 20 minutes, until the excess liquid has boiled off. Adjust spices to taste. This will put any canned refried beans to shame. I’m for serious.

I adapted this recipe for TVP & Tofu soyrizo to use tempeh. I don’t really like working with TVP and it’s awesome with tempeh. So.

• 1 package of tempeh, minced into minuscule crumblins
• 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 1/8 cup red wine vinegar (or mix of cooking sherry & red wine)
• 1/8 cup soy sauce/tamari/shoyu/Bragg’s(tm)
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin

In a small-medium-sized bowl, mix all of the ingredients except the tempeh. Pour the tempeh in to a large bowl, then stir in the mixture, coating all of the tempeh evenly. Let this sit for for about 15 minutes before using–it lets everything soak in and allows the vinegar to mellow a little bit.

Tempeh Tostadas

Fixins

• 1 package tempeh, diced into very small bits
• ~ 1/2 cup water
• cooking oil
• several large lettuce leaves, chopped
• 1 medium tomato, diced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 4 flour tortillas or whole wheat pitas
• 1 cup (1/2 can) pinto/black beans OR 1 cup refried black/pinto beans
• vegan cheese (Follow Your Heart ™ or Scrumpdilly’s recipe)

Seasoning

• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1.5 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1 dash cayenne
• 1 dash crushed red pepper
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 3/4 tsp salt
• pepper, to taste

In a medium frying pan, sautee the tempeh and half of the onion in oil over medium heat. Meanwhile, mix up the seasoning. Once the tempeh is browned stir in the seasoning and add water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer.

Once the water has boiled off, start preparing the tortillas/pitas. Spread beans on them (mash up with a fork if using whole beans). Garnish with chives, if handy.

Add the taco-fied tempeh and spread it around.

Add a layer of cheese.

Now bake/toast them for about 5 minutes. If you’re using shredded cheese, turn the broiler on for a couple minutes.

Top with lettuce

then salsa.  Alternatively, you could top with diced onions and tomatoes and guacamole.

Muy Bien!

But wait! Isn’t salsa generally vegan? You’d think so, but you’d be amazed how often I get asked “Oh, can you eat X”, when X is something like a potato. So rest assured. Vegans can eat this. I promise.

• 6 – 8 good-sized heirloom tomatoes (I like a variety–at least one darker and one sweeter orange or yellow)
• 3 jalapeno peppers, diced (remove some/all seeds for a milder salsa–use more and/or stronger peppers [habaneros are really hot, fresnos and serranos are also pretty hot])
• 1/2 a medium onion
• 1/4 – 1/2 lime (I like more lime in a mild salsa, less lime in a hot salsa)
• 1 bunch of cilantro
• salt, to taste

While the above ingredients are more or less indisputable (except by cheaters), what to do with them is the subject of some debate. Do you blend them? Or hand dice? Thick salsa? Or thin?

Personally, I like a thinner, hot salsa. If it’s too thick and it’s not hot, then it’s really a pico de gallo.  But a person could make a cause for a chunkier salsa. I, however, am not that person.

The bigger question is whether you want to use a food processor/blender or whether you wan to hand dice. I’ve heard tell that using a blender will bruise your tomatoes and will produce a lower quality salsa. Thus, hand dicing will produce a better flavor. I’ve tried this both ways, and I can’t tell a huge difference. If you are using a blender/food processor, take care not to over-process–this will result in a very water salsa. Also, I’m a firm believer in surgically removing any/all tomato guts in almost all recipes. It’ll just make your salsa more watery.

So. You can choose either path here. Either (a) throw everything in the blender/food processor and blend, or (b) dice live you’ve never diced before. Or (c) try both and get back to me.

Either way, this takes very little time and is better than most anything you can get at the store (which, admittedly, isn’t saying a whole lot). If you’re feeling really ambitious, this would make an excellent foray into canning. Even if you’re not feeling ambitious, this would make an excellent foray in to canning.

Huzzah!