Earl Cooks Two Lunches From Leftovers

The first 'Lunch from Leftovers' starts with cooked broccolini. Broccolini is basically small, tender broccoli which I steamed for dinner earlier in the week, but since it is pricey, I kept the leftovers, not knowing how might use them but not wanting to waste them. I simply reheated them, added some cheese and quartered colorful tomatoes, and topped it all with capers. If you haven't discovered capers, you should! They give a nice tang to everything from steaks to sauces and are relatively inexpensive. This turned into one of the healthiest lunches I have fixed myself in quite awhile, and it was fresh and tasty!

My Second starts with my spicy 'creole' mac and cheese. I made this as a test for my friends food truck, and ended up with extra because it was too spicey for my wife. This was more simple than the first since all that was involved was heating the mac & cheese and adding some extra cheese sauce to the top. The extra sauce cut through the  creole spices nicely, and my friend now uses this as part of his food truck menu.

The reason I like to reconfigure leftovers is threefold. First, I hate waste! Second, I have watched the Food Networks "Chopped" quite a bit and am amazed what chefs can do with odd ingredients. And Third, I like to eat!

Earl Gets a Leg (and Thigh) Up on Lunch

My wife brought home a lovely rotisserie chicken so I could make a homemade chicken noodle soup. One of the best deals in most supermarkets and warehouse stores are their rotisserie chickens. Whether you use them for soup or one of the myriad of other dishes, or even just sit down and eat them caveman style, you cant go wrong. For my soup, I need the meat to place in my vegetable broth for a quasi-homemade chicken soup. Just one thing...my wife doesn't care for dark meat!  This is a win for me because I do! I set the chickens hind quarters aside for me for lunch later and this post is the result.

I don't care much for proteins heated in a microwave — especially if the are bone-in, and chicken NEVER! A microwave changes their flavor and textures to something I consider inedible. So I have these hind quarters from the rotisserie chicken and I have decisions to make. My first thought is chicken salad, always a great lunch, but no, I want to eat them as I did in my youth, when we would all scream for the legs, so I decided to heat them up whole. Not in the microwave, on my stove top grill! I heat the grill up, place them on it and use a bacon press to give it some nice crispiness and lovely grill marks.

It takes a bit longer to get them warm, but the flavor is worth it. If you don't have a grill pan, you can place them on a wire rack in the oven or even a skillet. 

I ate them caveman style and enjoyed every bite. 

Earl Cooks Smoked Brisket & Veggies for Sunday Dinner

Roast Beef was one of my mom's favorite Sunday dinners to cook, because it was a one-pot meals that could cook while we were at Sunday Services. On the TV series "Big Bang Theory Howard Wolowitz's mother makes a nice brisket, and of course for St. Patrick's Day corned beef brisket becomes corned beef & cabbage. We never had brisket growing up, just whatever roast was on sale. This last summer I was introduced to Capt. Len's Smoked brisket, and fell in love!

In years past when I had brisket in other BBQ places it was okay, but often dry and not real flavorful.

But the Captain's is Special. Shown Right is a whole smoked brisket after the Captain's rub, developed over years, and then smoked for many hours. Below is the piece I was working with for our dinner.

I placed the brisket in my favorite slow cooker, to bring it up to temp. I don't need to add additional seasonings and it is fully cooked, so I line the slow cooker with onion slices to provide moisture and protect the brisket. Quartered Yukon Gold potatoes are placed on top of the onions and the juices from the brisket will run down and make them brown and luscious. A few carrots are placed around the crock-pot. I made a simple Au Jus to drizzle over all and leftover brisket becomes an awesome Sunday dinner.

I always want to have extra brisket on hand for this and many other meals. It goes great in Ramen, stew, sandwiches and I made some Jerky that was a real hit and I will share in an upcoming post.

Earl Cooks Turkey and Mushroom Noodles

I knew I had some leftover roast turkey breast from Easter and I was deciding how to use it. At first, soup came to mind, but I decided to use mushroom soup as a base for the turkey with some small diced celery for crunch and shredded carrots for a bit of flavor and sweetness.To this I added some seasonings which included pepper, celery salt, onion powder, and seasoned pepper. This dish needed enough seasoning to punch-up the flavors of the turkey, which can be quite bland without it.

As I mentioned, I had decided to use mushroom soup as a base. I like Progresso™ Creamy Mushroom. It is not condensed so it makes a great base for this dish. Trader Joe's also makes a nice one. I find the condensed mushroom soups to be a bit on the tinny side, and don't use them often. I made a strange choice for the noodles however. "Turkey" (a.k.a. my wife), doesn't much care for pasta, and I needed some bulk. I thought of using rice, then a light-bulb💡 moment happened. I remembered I had some Home-Style Japanese Noodles (Yakisoba), basically ramen noodles, that I could use. I par cooked them in the microwave and finished them in my sauce pan. I DID NOT add the flavoring packets, just the par-cooked noodles. They absorbed my seasonings and the mushroom flavor great.

These flavors and textures all came together well. I just added some butter and fresh cracked pepper and we had a lovely dish and a NEW way to use turkey leftovers. There is so much packed in here that it can't be called soup, so "Turkey Mushroom Noodles" with carrots and celery will have to do.

Results & Conclusion:
My wife was impressed with how the mushroom soup didn't taste like canned mushroom soup and the mushroom chunks blended with the other ingredients so there was no obvious traces of canned soup. This is a nice way to use ingredients that would almost never come together, together!

Earl Cooks Pork Rib Chunks & Gravy Over Potatoes with Asparagus

More often than not, I don't plan meals in advance. I think that having ingredients on hand inspire my day-to-day cooking. I had two applewood rubbed and roasted ribs (see my) post Jurassic Pork - Ribs 
and an idea was forming for the meal. I also had some sous vide asparagus which would make a great side dish. Since it was a weeknight and time was precious, I grabbed an envelope of pork gravy I had hiding in the back of the cupboard, and one of my favorite quick sides—Idahoan Potatoes.
 —Using the previously roasted ribs, I trimmed all of the fat and diced the ribs into ¾" inch pieces. 
—I made the gravy in a deep frying pan and added the pork to the gravy and heated it through.
—Next, I made the potatoes per package instructions, and added a tablespoon of REAL butter. My asparagus is cooked so I just need to heat it in the microwave and dinner is served!

Results & Conclusions
This was really good! I was fortunate to have prepared the asparagus sous vide earlier, and roasted the pork beforehand. You could say this was leftovers elevated. I don't know if I will make this again because I don't have any packaged pork gravy left!😃

Earl Cooks Hoagie Roll Pizzas

I don't recall ever meeting anyone who didn't like pizza. With just the two of us eating, we don't often do pizza. But I had 2 hoagie rolls leftover from our game day grub and I thought "wow, this would be good for French bread pizza". I had all the ingredients I needed on hand which are:
2 Hoagie rolls, chunky pasta sauce, pepperoni, bacon, and several kinds of cheese.
—Simply slice 2 rolls and cover with sauce, 2 to 3 tbls per halved roll. Add any of your favorite seasonings (garlic, basil, etc).
—Then for ours I topped with 4 slices of pepperoni, which I microwaved very briefly between paper towels to remove the extra fat. About 15 seconds is all it takes.
—I topped that with a blend of Italian cheese (pre-shredded).
—I topped that with crumbled bacon and topped the bacon layer with shredded mozzarella.
—I cooked it for 10 minutes at 400℉, then turned the broiling element on and cooked it another 5.
The Results:
I thought it was very good but but my better half, "Turkey", wanted more pepperoni, which would have been good, and she felt I over cooked it a bit (the cheese was somewhat crusty and overly brown for her taste). However, she said her leftovers for lunch the next day were softer after reheating.

Earl Cooks Chicken Noodle Soup from Leftovers

Growing up, soup always came from the iconic Campbell's can. Chicken Noodle and Tomato were the only two flavors we had on hand with regularity. There were other flavors on the store shelf, but these two were in our cabinet. This was before chunky, stars, and even before Progresso made it to my local store. I had always heard about other flavors, but I don't remember eating them until my teens. Soup wasn't considered a meal, just something that accompanied the REAL food. I now know how little I knew then!

Over the years, I have had many good, homemade soups. But I had a nice chicken carcass leftover from my salt roasted chicken earlier" see Salt Roasted Chicken ", and I just knew it would make a good chicken noodle soup, so I put it in a big stock pot and brought it to a boil. Then I added a variety of veggies such as carrots, onions, celery, beet greens, and some ribs from lettuce. I was going to steep the chicken and veggies for a good long while, to make a great stock and infuse the chicken flavor. I seasoned it all and let it cook! After cooking for a couple of hours, I removed the chicken from the bones, and added rotini noodles and let them cook thoroughly. I had  SOUP!

My bowl was just what I needed. My wife felt it was a bit under-seasoned, and I must admit, I went light on the salt because I had used so much in the original roasted chicken. Too light. This little bird gave us 2 meals. Thanks!

Earl Cooks Chicken Fried Chicken & Country Gravy with Mashed Potatoes

Chicken Fried Chicken with
Mashed Potatoes & Gravy

BREADING STATION: Panko Bread Crumbs, Egg
Whites with Milk & Seasoned Flour

I believe you can tell how good a restaurant is by how good their Chicken Fried Steak is. It is not easy to do well, but it is easy to ruin. As a child, I don't remember having, or even knowing, what  chicken fried steak was. Yes, I am calling it CHICKEN fried steak, because that is the one thing I do remember. It was a steak FRIED like one would fry chicken. A tenderized piece of beef, usually cube steak, breaded and fried. Served with creamy mashed potatoes and both covered with a great,  peppery pan gravy. Later restaurants began calling it "country"  fried steak. My guess is that was because so many mistook it for actual chicken! It doesn't matter what you call it, it is tender and crunchy at the same time, or tough and soggy when done wrong.

Skillet with canola oil  heat on medium high
until wisps of smoke appear

For lunch today I didn't have a cube steak, but I did have a chicken cutlet. I have never made Chicken Fried Steak, heck, I have never even made a whole fried chicken, but my wife "a.k.a."Turkey" left me some egg whites she couldn't use from a baking project so I thought they would be the beginnings of my breading process. Since I was breading just the one cutlet, I used some rather deep plates; one with my homemade Panko bread crumbs, one with about 2 egg whites, and the last had seasoned flour. Season this as you would any fried chicken, 11 herbs and spices or whatever. Make sure to mix the seasoning into the flour well. Also add salt and fresh-cracked black pepper to the breast cutlet itself. You can easily make a cutlet by butterflying a chicken breast or pounding it with a mallet between 2 sheets of plastic or storage bags. You can also find cutlets at some stores in the frozen meat section.

Floured Cutlet in hot oil

Dry the cutlet off, then lay it in the the flour making certain both sides get covered.

Chicken Cutlet Nice & Brown

Now dip the floured cutlet in the egg wash, and place in the panko crumbs, covering well. Gently place the coated cutlet into the HOT oil laying it away from you to avoid hot oil back-splash and burning yourself. If the cutlet is thin, as mine was, it won't take long to crisp and brown the first side. You will be able to see the brownness climbing up the side of the cutlet. Grab your tongs and turn it gently over and proceed as you did on the first side. When it its browned on both sides, it's done! I had some leftover creamy gravy so I whipped up some instant mashed potatoes (Idahoan is my preferred brand), and boy this lunch exceeded my expectations! I might try making fried chicken or "Country" fried steak next!
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Earl Cooks Open-Faced Roast Beef Sandwich - Lunch from Leftovers

Open-Faced Roast Beef Sandwich from leftovers

It is marvelous how just a few steps can make a very good meal from a meal you already made! This open-faced roast beef sandwich is lunch from leftovers in it's simplest form.

First things first. I was hungry for something more than a simple PB&J. Remembering I had saved some roast beef from our dinner a couple of days ago (see the post by clicking the link) Perfect Portion Pot Roast I had saved a few slice and the au jus from that, made a crunchy piece of toast from "Turkey's" Homemade Bread and I had a great open faced roast beef sandwich. Leftovers made great!

Earl Cooks Grilled Ham & Eggs -- Breakfast from Leftovers

I am not Sam. Neither my Eggs nor my ham are green but still:

"I WOULD EAT THEM IN A BOAT. AND I WOULD EAT THEM WITH A GOAT...AND I WILL EAT THEM, IN THE RAIN. AND IN THE DARK. AND ON A TRAIN. AND IN A CAR. AND IN A TREE. THEY ARE SO GOOD, SO GOOD, YOU SEE!"

Just as Dr. Seuss was a part of my childhood, my kids childhood and my grandkids childhood, EGGS were also a big part of my childhood thanks to my mom, and I have tried to make it part of my family's childhoods too. My Grandboys call them Dippin' Eggs and they are simply large eggs with the yolks RUNNY and the whites SET. I like them with any type of breakfast meat—bacon, sausage or ham, but today I had a breakfast-sized piece of grilled ham steak from earlier in the week which I knew was perfect. A slice of "Turkey's" homemade bread now turned into toast and slathered with butter. A dash of freshly ground pepper and I have a meal fit for an EARL. I posted my directions when I first started my blog so here is the link:

Dippin' Eggs

Thanks to Dr. Seuss for his green eggs and ham, but thanks to my mom for steamed eggs and ham!

"SO I WILL EAT THEM IN A BOX. AND I WILL EAT THEM WITH A FOX. AND I WILL EAT THEM IN A HOUSE. AND I WILL EAT THEM WITH A MOUSE. AND I WILL EAT THEM HERE AND THERE. SAY! I WILL EAT THEM ANYWHERE! I DO SO LIKE STEAMED EGGS AND HAM!"

Earl Cooks A Ham Scram—an EGG-Speriment

I tried something somewhat new for me today. I diced up some of the last Thanksgiving glazed ham and added eggs to create what I am calling a 'Ham Scram'. It is basically a crust-less frittata with only 2 ingredients and it was just right for lunch.
Since it was an EGG-Speriment, I learned a couple of things NOT to do as well as what was good, which I will share...the good the bad and the ugly. Let me start with the ugly. This is not a great looking dish as I prepared it for the first time. It is uneven and dark in places because I let it sit too long on 1 side. I needed to turn the heat down and let it cook more slowly, but I was HUNGRY!
INGREDIENTS:
—Glazed Ham, 1Cup diced
—Eggs, large, 4 ea.
(Click below for instructions)

Earl Cooks Eggs Over Sweet Potatoes & Green Beans...WHAT?

There are just some things I never thought I would cook. As a child, if you had told me I would one day like green beans, I would have said "never", but I do. If you had told me I would have sweet potatoes more than once a year and without marshmallows most of the time, I would have said "no way"! Today I am going to tell you about what may be the best use of Thanksgiving leftovers I have tried this year, AND THAT INCLUDES A GRILLED HAM & CHEESE SANDWICH!
I may seem like I have lost my mind or run out of ideas, (but I have plenty of ideas). But if you read my blog to any extent, you will know I love breakfast. I made breakfast for my grandboys for many years before school. But I would make it for them...I didn't eat my own breakfasts. I wanted them to be more than fuel, I wanted them to be SPECIAL. So I would wait until I could eat breakfast out and enjoy having someone make it for ME! I am not a breakfast snob. It need not be exotic or hard to prepare it just needs to be 1)Tasty and B)Satisfying. No cereal, no pop-tarts, no pastry (okay, I like pastry, but only as PART of a better meal). I don't know who thought up a continental breakfast but there is a reason they are FREE!

Onward to breakfast...I had some leftovers from Thanksgiving, Sweet Potatoes "Turkey" made and green beans that I, yes I, made! The green beans had bacon & cheese, two breakfast stars and the Sweet Potatoes are sweet and potatoes are another breakfast star, so I thought "put them together and top them with steamed eggs and see what we have"! I started with a non-stick, heavy aluminum pan and let it heat up. I then placed a good helping of beans on one side of the pan and sweet potatoes on the other and let them heat through. The brown sugar from the potatoes should caramelize nicely. I didn't use any of the marshmallows. When heated through and caramelized, add 2 eggs, (making little divots in the potatoes and beans with a spoon). I had to add 3 eggs because I broke one. The moisture from the veggies will generate steam if you place a lid on top, and the eggs turn out GREAT! I always add pepper to my eggs, but no salt was needed.The yolks were runny and perfect and added a creaminess that brought the whole dish together. The caramelized sweet potatoes reminded me of syrup when you have pancakes and eggs or French toast Try it! If I liked it you will!

Earl Cooks Turkey for "Turkey" Alone with Many

I never find Thanksgiving leftovers to be a problem...until this year. We brought home our turkey leftovers and it was mostly DARK meat, which is fine for me...but not for "Turkey", my wife. She will eat only white meat on poultry. You can't cover it with enough cranberry jelly or gravy to get her to eat it. More for me right? Right and wrong. I can't be eating leftovers and have her starve to death now, can I? So when she suggested I buy a turkey breast and suggest she would like to have them regularly, I was thrilled. Turkey and Thanksgiving has special meaning for me because of my mom's love for both. She would buy a  breast and cook it up for herself and eat for a week. So when my "Turkey" wanted turkey, I thought I would do it a bit like my mom did and in commemoration of her, use the same roasting pan she used and make it a bit better, if not in spirit maybe in taste.

Earl Cooks Lentil and Leftover Ham Soup

The late fall weather just hit us today after letting us think we lived in a more mild clime. It was in the mid to high 60℉ range for the last few days but last night got down to the high 20s. The resorts are happy but we are a bit cold...which brings me to the quick soup I threw together when my wife got home and turned on the space heater. Soup is a great quick meal especially when you cheat by using a canned product. I don't buy a lot of different kinds of soup, but I do keep them on hand for occasions such as this. I also have some leftover ham from Thanksgiving which will make the soup even better. I start by removing any fat from the ham and cut it into bite-size pieces.

 Then I sauté the ham in the pot I am going to use for the sou to both warm and to give the roasted ham aroma to the house. I then take 1 can of Progresso lentil soup and add it to the heated through ham. I use Progresso because it is not condensed. Depending on my mood, I may add chopped onion, carrot, or celery to the pot when using a prepared product like this. When I do, I add those to the pot with the ham (or bacon or smoked sausage) to sauté until tender, adding the soup later. Finally, I add about a tablespoon of REAL butter for richness. This was a trick for soups and stews passed down from my dear mother to us. (Sour cream also works well). I then choose a great cracker...Keebler's Club Crackers are my favorite for soup and then I welcome the late autumn! This was good enough that my wife wanted the leftovers for lunch the next day!

One more note: Progresso is quite expensive compared with other brands, so watch for it on sale. I think you will find that for recipes like this, it beats condensed soups.-Earl

Earl Cooks Leftover Grilled Ham & Gruyère & Cheese

Leftovers can be a problem post-turkey day, but I glazed the ham to go along with our turkey, and there was a bit of it left, and "Turkey" made bread and there was some Gruyère cheese from the green bean casserole I made, perfect for a grilled Ham & Gruyère cheese sandwich. I simply fired-up the stove and using my cast iron pan had a special leftover sandwich by using cheese, ham, and a big chunk of European butter. Yes it was as good as it sounds and looks. Now I have to find a way to keep Gruyère around even though it is expensive!

Earl Cooks Gnocchi for Breakfast!

What has sausage, potato, cheese and egg? Breakfast of course! So I took my 4 cheese gnocchi leftovers and made a great breakfast dish! Thanks "Turkey"!

Egg cooking in skillet—almost done, placed on top of warmed leftovers and
with the yolk broken and the running all over the gnocchi

Earl Cooks Leftover Turkey Chili with Black Beans & Sweet Potatoes for Breakfast?

If you're like me, chili doesn't often find it's way to my breakfast table. But my eldest daughter had some delicious leftovers given to her and wanted to share the last of them with me because she's sweet that way. There wasn't enough for my wife and I to both have some, so I thought BREAKFAST! I'll have it for breakfast...It is my favorite meal, but I wondered if the blogosphere had eaten chili for breakfast and boy do they.

Since I was using leftovers, I didn't need a recipe, but made some great modifications that worked to perfection! After reheating the chili and placing it in a bowl, I topped it with some shredded cheddar cheese and a dollop of sour cream. I then placed a perfectly steamed egg on top (runny yolk of course) and added fresh cracked rainbow pepper to the top. I dipped into it with a fresh slice of my wife's homemade broke the golden goodness of the yolk all over it! I couldn't believe how smoothly and fast it went down.

There were several firsts here for me.

• I had never had chili for breakfast,  
• never had chili with sweet potatoes and 
• never had chili topped with an egg

...but I will do all of these things again!
 As I said, I didn't make the chili but here are several links for similar recipes Google found:
Turkey Chili with Sweet Potatoes & Black Beans

Earl Cooks Smoked Pulled Pork & Beans with thanks to Capt. Len

As a kid, I didn't much care for pork and beans...they were mostly Van Camp's from the can, and the only pork seemed to be some pork fat in the can that seemed uncooked. That was in the sixties. Fast forward to eighties where I ate some BAKED beans at a BBQ restaurant near me, Joe Morley's. No Pork but he had shredded brisket and were they ever meaty! That inspired me to develop my own recipe. I started with a Crockpot. A friend of mine tried with a pressure cooker and covered her kitchen in bean goo...I had time and wanted a meaty rendition. My ingredients usually included almost a pound of bacon and at least 2 kinds of beans, along with veggies, brown sugar and molasses or maple syrup. THEY BECAME A HIT, but they were different every time because I used no recipe. I was often asked to bring them to parties and dinners and enjoyed doing it. I would make a  big pot full and have leftovers galore.

This recipe pays homage to the days when I didn't care for the pork and beans and to the discovery of real flavorful baked beans, with a twist. My good friend since high school, Captain Len makes some great BBQ and I have some of his pulled pork, which I will use as the meat base. He makes a great BBQ sauce which I am using as part of the sauce. In memory of my childhood and as a nod to where I first tried these beans I am using Van Camps Pork & Beans as well as canned garbanzo beans. This is not so much a recipe as a compilation in a Crockpot. 

print recipe

Earl Cooks Smoked Pulled Pork & Beans with thanks to Capt. Len

by EarlCooks November-4-2017

Pork & Beans on steroids

Ingredients

• 1-1½ cup Smoked Pulled Pork
• 1 can (15 oz.) Garbanzo Beans AKA chickpeas (canned)
• 2 TBLS BBQ Sauce (your favorite)
• 1 small stalk Celery (chopped)
• ½ small Onion, yellow

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a small slow-cooker , draining the liquid from the garbanzo beans first, but keeping the liquid from the pork and beansstir all together thoroughly in the crock and heat on HIGH for 1 hour.After cooking on high for the first hour, add the onion and celery, stirring everything together then reduce to low for the next hour.When the vegetables are cooked al dente, serve it up with rolls or biscuits and embrace the smokiness!

Details

Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 2 hour Total time: 2 hour 10 mins Yield: 2 servings