Creativity with Leftovers

As I clean the kitchen on Saturdays, one of my tasks is to check the refrigerator to see what leftovers are still lingering from the week’s meals. This weekend I found three items that looked like they would work well together—meatballs, pizza dough and roasted vegetables.

I’ve been making olive oil pizza dough from the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day for several years. I often add whole wheat flour to dough but other than that, I stick with their recipe. I’ve long wanted to try making my own calzone, so this looked like the perfect opportunity.

My first calzone experience was at the Festival of San Gennaro in New York’s Little Italy when I lived in the city. The calzone is a great walking sandwich for a festival since it’s a substantial, Italian turnover which typically has cheese or meat inside. I remember the turnover dough being so hearty that I wasn’t sure I would be able to finish it.

I wanted to roll my dough thinner than what I had eaten so it wouldn’t be so carb-heavy. I rolled it out to approximately 8” by 10”.

Next, I spread a thin layer of tomato paste on the dough and topped it with thinly sliced garlic and a healthy sprinkling of shredded Swiss cheese. Then I cut the three leftover meatballs in two and placed them in the center of half of the dough. The roasted butternut squash and beets came next. I placed them on both sides of the meatballs. Don’t over stuff the calzone.

 You’re almost finished. Top the meatballs and vegetables with lots more shredded cheese.

The final step is to lightly moisten the edges of the dough. Fold one half over the meatball filling and lightly pinched the edges together. I finished mine with a ravioli roller then brushed on a little olive oil.

At this point, I sprinkled cornmeal onto a pizza peel, put the calzone on top of the cornmeal and put the pizza peel on top of the oven. As the oven and pizza stone inside warmed to 450 degrees, it gave the dough time to rest and rise a little. Note: if you don’t have a pizza peel, try using the bottom side of a cookie sheet.

As the oven was ready, I slid the calzone onto the pizza stone and cooked for 12 minutes. When it was browned, I removed it.

I cut into it and could see it would be delicious. I was right!

How are you being creative with leftovers this week?

Vegetables in winter provide inspiration for pasta variations

The world outside my door has been white all week with a glistening armor of ice protecting its purity. Here and there the ice breaks up as we walk on it, pound it with shovels, throw down de-icer, but the icicles still hang from the garage roof and I continue to walk cautiously when I go out.

My previously green garden is so glaringly white that it’s hard to imagine how it looked just two months ago. But when I pick up the jars of re-hydrated vegetables on my kitchen counter some of that memory returns. I wanted a quick supper to prepare last night so I turned to a long-time favorite—pasta with a mock Alfredo sauce. It’s a 15-minute recipe made with cream cheese, butter and Parmesan (yes, full of fat although you can do as I did and use a lower-fat cream cheese like Neufchatel. I can use this dish to please myself and my husband even when we might have two different cravings.

Last night was no different. I wanted vegetables and found two of them in my jars of dried vegetables. I re-hydrated beets and tomatoes to toss in with the pasta and picked out a bag of locally-grown spinach from the refrigerator for a green addition. I tossed that all together with whole-wheat linguine then added the Alfredo sauce. It looked quite appetizing, but I wasn’t finished.

I knew I needed a little more protein but didn’t want meat so I toasted walnuts to top my dish. My husband, however, is a seafood lover so I unthawed shrimp to add to his, thus giving us each a variation to make us happy.

Pasta is an easy way to please just about anyone in the family. You can even set it up as a pasta bar if you like, allowing each person to choose what they’ll throw into their mix. Re-hydrated or unthawed and warmed vegetables plus whatever might be in season can provide several variations that you can offer with chicken, meatballs or seafood. It’s fun and it tastes good, especially when you need a reminder of those good vegetables you put so much time and energy into growing and preserving this year.

Create a garden gift of beet pasta

I enjoy giving friends gifts from my garden. Whether it’s something I’ve just picked, a jar of sun-dried tomatoes, a butter made special with fresh herbs or something else, it feels good to know I’ve put my care and affection into the gift twice—while raising it and while preparing it.

So I undertook an experiment this weekend. A few years ago I read an article in Martha Stewart Living about making pasta with vegetables. Since I always have more beets than I can use, and because the color of beets is so appealing to me, I decided to make beet pasta to take to our friends who we’ll be visiting in Montana. Keep in mind, I’ve made pasta before but always used it fresh or froze it. To transport it, I had to dry it, a first for me. And I’ve never made pasta with beets.

I read through the recipe and got started. Roast the beets and puree. That proved to be the first point of question when the beets didn’t puree smoothly. I added water and they pureed, sort of, but were a bit lumpy for my liking. Nonetheless, I forged ahead.

Mix in the eggs and salt. Add flour. This is when I discovered I had used all of my all-purpose white flour. I prefer to always use at least some whole-wheat flour, but would not have chosen to use all whole-wheat pastry flour except that it was the best thing I had on hand. Into the food processor it went.

Instead of getting a nice, silky-looking pasta dough, it was barely sticking together. Maybe my eggs weren’t large enough. The recipe had called for two eggs and one egg yolk. I added the extra white in anyway to moisten the mixture. That worked so I a little water then gathered it all into a ball to wrap in plastic and rest for awhile.

Finally, the fun part had arrived. I’ve had a pasta maker for several years—a manual, hand crank pasta maker that I feed the pasta through several times to continue to work the dough, then cut it and make fettuccine or tagliatelle, if I choose those options instead of something I can hand-cut like ravioli or lasagna. When I unwrapped the dough, it felt much more like the silky product it should be. Relief. Next I began to feed it through the machine. It looked beautiful—so reddish, pink just like the beets.

As I said earlier, I had never dried pasta. I also didn’t have a drying rack. I found as many narrow, wooden kitchen tools as I could and propped them between chairs in the dining room to hang the pasta on. (My cat had to stay outside; I’m sure she would have thought it was there for her to play with.) By this morning, it was perfectly dried. I bagged it and looked upon my creation with a smile.

Now if I can just get it into my bag without crushing it to bits.

Timing the garden

Our spring came later than usual this year in central Kentucky. The beginning of the month was as dry as August and filled with encouraging sunshine. But it only takes a day for clouds, rain and cool winds to reappear and remind us it’s not summer yet. That’s what we have this week.

Gardeners pay attention to the weather because it’s important. The vegetables I have in the ground now are thriving because this is when they like to grow. Lettuce, spinach, arugula, onions, potatoes, beets, peas, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage are all happily opening their arms to the drizzle and the cool nights. The weather will make them sweet, crisp and filled with flavor. This is their season.

Just last week the warm weather dangled temptation in front of many gardeners, including my husband. “When are you going to plant your tomatoes?” he asked as he eyed the healthy plants I grew from seed. He encouraged me to go ahead and put a few of them in the ground. I declined. In Kentucky it’s never a good idea to put summer crops in the ground until some time in May.

If you’re new to gardening and unsure about the timing of setting our your plants, check with your local agricultural extension office. When I first started gardening, a friend gave me a gardening guide from the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service that included earliest and latest safe planting dates. Just last year I picked up an updated version. It’s invaluable, especially on those tempting days of spring.

Don’t Give Up on the Kale

As the end of October nears, I feel like every growing thing I still find in my garden is a gift. Last night we feasted on salmon, roasted vegetables (butternut squash, beets, sweet potatoes, white potatoes and onions) and kale. Since I had neglected it, the kale was surely a gift.
I had planted it in the corner of the garden in the spring. I didn’t realize that corner of the garden was prone to takeover by grass and no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to keep it clear enough for the kale to grow uninhibited. So I gave up on it, assuming I wouldn’t get kale this year.

This summer, I broke my ankle and couldn’t get into my garden for about seven weeks. When I returned, I saw the kale had grown into enormous leaves that actually overshadowed the grass! Knowing that kale so large would likely be bitter, I cut it anyway reasoning I could season it to get rid of the bitterness. That’s exactly what I did last night and it worked. I first caramelized onions then added the chopped kale, layering it with salt. I then put in a little sugar, lemon juice and chicken broth, topped it with toasted pumpkin seeds, and there wasn’t a bit of bitterness in that powerful load of vitamins K, A and C. I’ll never give up on my kale again!

For more information about the powerful nutrition you get from kale, go to http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=38.