Mystery meals

My dad was a Depression-era kid, which no doubt contributed to his reluctance to ever throw anything out. His mother was, to put it charitably, not the best cook. And she was never willing to throw anything away either. If my dad didn't drink his orange juice with raw egg in it for breakfast, it would be waiting for him after school (I'm amazed that he never got salmonella!). To this day, I can make him shudder just by murmuring "oatmeal." And then there were the mystery meals. To save money during the Depression, my grandmother, who could never resist a bargain, but that's another story, would buy unlabeled cans from the grocery store. My dad and his brother never knew what they were having for dinner on any given night: Soup? Canned peas or beans? Legend has it she once opened a can to find it contained dog food--and served it up.

Now, there's nothing that scary in my freezer (though my daughter might beg to differ). I know that everything I've tucked away in there is something that I was happy to eat, at least at one point. So I wasn't too worried when I pulled out a few tupperware containers to thaw and waited to see what dinner would consist of. Ah, Indian food, plus a little bit of homemade beef stir fry. Not too shabby, though this wasn't leftover takeout from our usual place, so I had a bit of a hard time identifying the dishes. There were some sort of vegetable fritters in a sauce, all well and good, and a blazingly hot chicken dish that I think my son had ordered and not eaten. That called for some raita and I had some thawing on the counter. But, as I'm guessing you all know, raita is something that does not freeze well. No problem: I had some plain Greek yogurt that would do in a pinch. I just had to pick up some fresh rice and tamarind sauce and I was good to go.

I got two dinners out of that batch of leftovers and am still working on the leftover spaghetti and meat sauce--man that stuff seems to be lasting forever! But after a week of non-stop leftovers, I am going to make something fresh tonight! My only concession to Mother Hubbard will be a side dish of black beans that I've pulled out of the pantry.

And tomorrow I am going out for dinner!! I have a coupon for the Irish Inn at Glen Echo: live Irish music and Guiness-battered onion rings, here I come!

Have your cake...

I have been wondering how I'll ever use up all the flour and sugar in the pantry without gorging on baked goods, so when I was invited to a party to celebrate my dance teacher's wedding and asked to bring something to eat I thought, "Here's my chance! I'll make a cake!" Of course, I didn't think at that moment of the challenge of making a cake without much in the way of equipment: the nine-inch cake pans and most of the bowls and measuring cups and spoons are in Vienna already. But never mind, I was determined to meet the challenge. In my zeal to embrace that challenge I forgot that I actually do still have my Kitchen Aid mixer, so somehow I wound up using a hand mixer--with mismatched beaters.

But I did find exactly the three ounces--and not an ounce more--of baking chocolate in the cupboard. Also two unopened boxes of semi-sweet baking chocolate and a container of Hershey's cocoa, all of which I was able to return to the store. And I was able to use of most of one of the two half-used boxes of cake flour in the pantry, plus most of an open bag of dark brown sugar, and an entire bag of powdered sugar. A few well-timed holiday parties and I may be able to use up all or most of the remaining bags of flour and sugar.

Lacking those nine-inch pans, I baked the cake in a single fourteen-inch pan. I didn't feel up to trying to split that single layer (and the cake had bit of a San Andreas fault running across the bottom), so I just frosted the top and sides, creating, in effect, a giant cupcake.

Get to the party--much oohing and aahing over the cake--only to discover that my dance teacher and her new wife are Vegans. Oh well!

Leftovers make strange bedfellows

I decide to start the challenge of emptying out my food storage by clearing the fridge of the leftovers generated by my daughter's recent visit. I know there is leftover Indian food and take-out from Moby Dick's House of Kabob. (And no, I don't know why a restaurant serving cuisine from a landlocked, primarily Muslim country is named after that great Puritan seafaring tale of cetology and revenge. I don't think they have any fish kebabs on offer, even.)

I pull out the ziploc of rice and the various tupperware containers, anticipating a hearty meal, only to discover that the mice, two legged or four legged, have already had at them. There's about a quarter, maybe a third of a cup of rice and about two tablespoons each of dal, chicken tikka makhani, and saag makai, plus some raita. So I add the grilled onions and tomatoes that are all that's left of the kubidah platter (those same mice have made off with the rice and kebab), some leftover grilled asparagus, and the last little corner of flatbread. Tasty, if eclectic. And not quite as filling as I had hoped. Good thing there is also half a Milky Way milkshake from Good Stuff Eatery. The perfect dessert, it just fills in the corners nicely.

Bon Appetit!