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!

Of all the soups on this Earth, the Thai Tom Kha is among my favorites.

We were introduced to it at the Thai Pavilion in DeKalb, IL–where I was introduced to Thai food in general. There seem to be lots of varieties of this tofu & coconut soup–some sweet and rich, others more savory–and the Thai Pavilion’s was sweet. Perhaps because that’s the Tom Kha I first loved, it’s the one I love best, and the one I’ve been striving for years to reproduce at home–with mixed levels of success. I had half an acorn squash and shloads of tofu on hand from the Indigenous Scramble, and a hankerin’ for soup, so this seemed like the perfect time to once again attempt a Tom Kha. This version is only slightly modified from Nancie McDermott’s Real Vegetarian Thai, a book I’ve been faithfully neglecting for years. Also, this version was pretty awesome.

Tom Kha w/Acorn Squash

• 2 cans of coconut milk
• 1.5 cups of veggie stock
• fresh ginger, cut into about 20 quarter-sized disks (the recipe calls for galanga, but we never seem to have that on hand)
• 10 peppercorns
• zest from an entire lime (in theory, kaffir lime leaves are more authentic, but also harder to come by)
• 1/2 lb extra firm tofu, drained and cubed
• 1/2 acorn squash, skinned and cubed
• 6 mushrooms, cut into fourths (or slightly smaller if they’re large mushrooms)
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 4 stalk of lemon grass (we left these out and it was still delicious; you can also use lemon grass powder)
• 1 tbsp brown sugar (optional)
• green onions, chopped
• salt, to taste

In a medium to large pot, bring coconut milk and veggie stock to a boil. Add in the ginger/galanga, lime leaves/zest, peppercorns, and prepped lemongrass (if using) and reduce heat to simmer. We had leftover baked acorn squash, I just removed to skin and cubed it. For firmer squash, you’ll want it uncooked–which means that you’ll need to pare off the skin, then cube. Add the squash and mushrooms and bring back to a boil, cooking for 10 minutes. Add in the remaining ingredients, cooking until the tofu is heated through and has acquired some of the soup’s deliciosity.

This is best served (and we think traditionally) with rice on the side. Take a spoonful of rice and dunk it in the soup, occasionally grabbing some tofu, squash, or a mushroom. Place contents in your mouth. Rejoice.

We had this with a “Thai” salad–essentially a Western salad, but with a Peanut Sesame Ginger dressing, peanuts, sliced clementine, and a bit of wakame on the salad.

Thai Peanut Sesame Ginger Dressing

• 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp peanut oil
• 3 tbsp water
• 6 tbsp safflower oil
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
• 1 tbsp natural peanut butter
• 1 large carrot, peeled
• 1 tbsp red thai curry paste
• 1 tbsp chopped onion

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Until the last 6 months or so, I’d never had much luck with Thai food. Recently, though, I’ve begun to penetrate into the lurid mind of Thai food.

Red Thai Curry w/Tofu

• 1/2 lb tofu, cubed
• 1 medium-sized white onion, petaled
• 1 green or red bell pepper, cut into large pieces
• 2 medium-sized carrots, peeled cut into 1″ pieces and quartered
• 2 small red or purple potatoes, cubed
• 2 cups (1 can) coconut milk
• 1 tbsp red thai curry paste (we used store-bought this time, but making your own isn’t too difficult)
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 – 2 tsp lemon grass powder (to taste–this will depend on your curry paste)
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, diced
• ~ 1/8 cup cornstarch
• safflower oil
• peanut oil
• salt, to taste

Start by sauteeing the onion and potatoes in safflower (or other high heat) oil over medium heat in a frying pan. Start heating some peanut oil in another frying pan, also over medium heat. Meanwhile, peel and cut the carrots and toss them in with the onions. Similarly, chop the pepper and toss that in.

Press the tofu and cut it into 1/2 – 1″ cubes, whichever is your preference. Toss lightly in corn starch and fry it up in the peanut oil. We generally keep it shallow and flip it, but if you like your entire house/apt/flat to smell like peanut oil for days, you can fry it in 3 feet of oil. Your call.

When the tofu is nice and firm, drain the oil (we keep a jar of oil for frying–you can reuse this a few times) and add in the vegetables. Pour in the coconut milk. Mix in the curry paste and all of the remaining ingredients, except the cilantro–put that in a few minutes before serving. Simmer for 5 – 10 minutes.

Serve over rice.

Usually, we love broccoli in Thai food, but something about a red curry dislikes broccoli. To make this meal a little healthier, we had it with steamed kale, lightly sauteed (you can just toss it, if you prefer) in sesame oil and soy sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds or gomashio.

It’s like a Yoga Noogie for your taste buds!

Okay.  I’ll share my secret fambly recipe for Spicy Peanut Thai Tempeh.
My Irish fambly.  After centuries of secrecy, I’ll finally divulge the
sacred ingredients.

Which is to say of course, that I didn’t just make this up on the spot.

Spicy Peanut Thai Tempeh

• 1 large onion (or 2 small), petaled
• 1/2 red pepper, petaled
• 1/2 cup edamame
• 1 big ol’ stalk of broccoli
• 1 package tempeh, cut into strips
• 1/2 – 3/4 cup natural chunky peanut butter
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (to taste)
• 1 tbsp red thai paste (I’m a poser and used store bought)
• 1 tbsp terriyaki
• sesame oil
• salt (distilled from the tears of unicorns, if handy)

In a large skillet or wok (with your perm in a headband…do people have woks still?) sautee the tempeh and about 1/4 of the onion over medium heat in equal parts soy sauce and sesame oil until each side of the tempeh begins to brown. Add in the remaining ingredients, minus the broccoli. Once everything is well coated in the delicious peanut butter goodness (give it a good ten minutes), toss in the broccoli and cover.  Cook for about 3 minutes then remove from heat–unless you like soggy veggies, in which case you should leave everything cooking until it’s sufficiently flaccid.

Oh, did I mention that you’ll want to have started cooking some brown rice long before you started any of this? It takes forever.

Eat!