Breakfast Burritos

1/4 lb. leftover sausage (uncooked)
6 eggs
2 tbsp. sour cream
1/4 c. diced onion
1 cl. garlic, pressed, minced
1/2 c. salsa
1/2 c. shredded cheese
salt, cr. bl. pepper
1/2 tbsp. butter
4 large tortillas

Beat into the eggs the salt, pepper, and sour cream (if you're used to milk or half-n-half in your scrambled eggs, you need to give sour cream a try, it is better than both and with no watery eggs, like with milk). Melt butter in skillet over med. heat. Brown sausage with onions and garlic. Add eggs and cook until almost done. Add the salsa and cook until liquid is mostly evaporated. Add half of the cheese, stir and put the egg mixture in a warm skillet. Meanwhile, warm the tortillas in the skillet. About 30 seconds per side. You want them flexible and almost translucent. Spoon about 1 cup of egg mixture into each burrito and roll up. Very filling.
Serves 4.

Leftover Sausage

Gonna pull up an old advertising word to describe using small amounts of sausage to boost the flavor of dishes: "flavorize". I put in a few years with Old Dutch Foods in St. Paul, MN. On their original potato chip tins (they are collector's items, if you ever see any at an antique store) they claim that Old Dutch Potato Chips are "flavorized". So, I'm going to teach you how to flavorize your meals.

A technique for adding flavor to many recipes that require a sauteed sofrito or battuto (a starting base, usually carrots, onions, and celery; different for every culture) is to add a little bit of minced bacon or about 1/4 lb. of fresh sausage to the sofrito. You'd be surprised how a small amount of breakfast sausage will go a long way towards boosting the final amalgamation of flavors in your dish.

Today's tip is to reserve about 1/4 of a 1 lb. roll of breakfast or Italian sausage each time. Save this for up to a week in a Zip-loc bag. Add it to a sauteed base on a whim. I made breakfast burritos this morning with 1/4 lb. of leftover italian sausage. Delicious. I'll start combing (see the desert scene in Spaceballs) my recipes for other uses. About a million, I think.

Matambre

See slide show (click on the title to view the recipe with the slide show)

The dish that "kills hunger". An Argentine classic. We tried it Thursday night. Delicious. Filling. Amazing and unusual combination of ingredients. Germans call a similar dish rouladen. A rolled roast or steak. I've done a bit of Americanization/Hosch improvisation to improve the recipe. I would recommend this recipe for a family get-together, when you have a few hours to prepare.

Traditionally made with pounded flank steak, which is from the side/belly (flank) of the cow. (Incidentally, flank steak is the best meat for fajitas: seasoned with salt, cr. bl. pepper, chipotle powder/cayenne pepper, and cumin; grilled to medium over charcoal and mesquite chips/chunks; sliced against the grain into thin strips; that is "fajitas".) Unfortunately, the growing popularity of flank steak in the U.S. has driven up prices (economics 101: Obama should pay attention to grocery prices instead of reading Karl Marx and FDR), and I had this venison backstrap in the freezer (tenderloin is also perfect for this; you could even use a pork loin or tenderloin). If you're into organic, it doesn't get any better than wild-killed venison. Sustainably managed by the state, fed by God from wild grains, nuts, berries, and bugs, and hunted and killed in a humane way by private citizens.

Opening a tenderloin is a trick. Takes practice. That is the only way. If you've ever eaten a flattened, breaded pork tenderloin sandwich, you've probably eaten an opened tenderloin. Start with a 1/4 cut to the side, but not all the way through, lay that out. Then a 1/4 cut to the bottom, lay open. Then 2 more cuts, and the tenderloin is opened like a book with 3 binders. Place it between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and pound the heck out of it until it is of even thickness. Brush it with apple cider vinegar and let it marinate for 4-6 hours.

1 flank steak or opened tenderloin, pounded

1 lg. carrot, quartered, cut into 3-4" sticks

1/2 med. onion, sliced thick

3 eggs, fried well done/over hard in butter/salt/pepper

1 c. leftover cooked spinach

1/2 c. feta cheese, crumbled

salt, cr. bl. pepper, hot paprika/chipotle powder/cayenne pepper, dried

thyme

1/2 c. red wine vinegar

1 c. beef broth (chicken broth o.k.)

About 3 tbsp. butter

About 3 feet kitchen twine

Preheat oven to 400. Saute carrot sticks in 1/2 tbsp. butter over med. until tender and slightly browned. Unroll marinated steak/loin, sprinkle salt and pepper, paprika. Spoon on spinach, then feta cheese. Lay out carrots, in 3-4 rows along the steak. Cut hard fried eggs into large pieces and lay out evenly over carrots, covering the whole steak. Add sliced onion. Top it all off with a little salt, pepper, and paprika. Starting with the edge closest to you, carefully roll up the matambre and tie it with the twine at 2" intervals. Cover all sides with salt, pepper, paprika, and dust generously with twine. If it looks like a mess and it's starting to fall apart, don't worry, my first experience with a rouladen was the same. If you can make it to the pan with it, it will turn out o.k.

Now, brown 2 tbsp. butter on med. in a dutch oven with an oven-proof lid (you can make this in a deep skillet with a lid or foil, or transfer it to a glass oven dish and cover with foil). When the butter begins to brown, add matambre and brown on all sides (about 1" per side). Pour in broth with any leftover vinegar, cover, and roast in the oven for 30". Uncover and reduce heat to 375, roast for 20-25" until matambre is darkened nicely on top. Let it rest on a cutting board for 15" before slicing. If you can't get it out of the pan without it falling apart, just let it rest and slice it in the pan. Serve with pan gravy spooned over the top.

Serves 6

what to do with leftover soup

Tonight, fiesta! The matambre is cooking. Matambre is traditionally a pounded flank steak layered with vegetables, rolled and tied, and roasted in a dutch oven. I'm using a venison backstrap that a friend from church, Bill Durrmann, gave to me ('cause he's the great white hunter, and I'm not).

Anyway, I was thinking of a way to use up leftover soup. I've got some posole from the other day. I decided to drain the meat and hominy and use the 3 cups or so of broth to make a nice sauce.

Leftover soup sauce for meat, etc.:

2 tbsp. butter or evoo
2 tbsp. flour (I used whole wheat for this one)
2-3 c. leftover soup broth (broth only)
salt, cracked black pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a saucepan over med. heat until it starts to brown. Add flour and whisk quickly to mix. When roux (butter/flour mixture is called a roux) begins to brown, add broth and spices, if using. Whisk slowly until sauce begins to boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring until sauce thickens. Delicious over any meat.

Tomorrow night...a big fiesta meal. Matambre, an Argentinan steak dish with an adobo sauce made from leftover posole. My friend and the guy that originally made the posole (a pork and hominy soup in pepper broth), Arturro Lopez told me tonight that matambre means "kill hunger". Sounds promising. Recipe is an adaptation of one in this month's Saveur magazine. Will update tomorrow.

Leftovers

I've been a dirt poor preacher for a while. Following your passion doesn't always pay as well as you might hope. You should follow your passion, though. It's really the only choice. Anyway, a few years ago, I began to develop an interest in la cucina povera, an Italian phrase meaning, "the cooking of the poor". Probably because I was one of the "povera" throughout time immemorial. One who found that necessity was indeed the mother of invention. Ever since I first ate at Po Folks in Jackson, TN, as a kid, I knew that the real food of this world wasn't found in palaces, but in cabins and shacks.

A paesano approach to cooking is one that considers multiple end results before you even shop for the food you will cook. A recipe beginning with the understanding that this meal will ultimately become more: two or even three meals.

I don't mean reheated lasagna. Although my wife's lasagna is delicious reheated (and you can't make lasagna into anything else...wait a minute, you could...). I mean recycling leftovers into completely new meals. Really good meals. No...delicious, inventive, exciting meals.

This blog is about leftovers. Sometimes cooking a little bit too much for supper and planning on making something else out of the surplus. Nothing new, really. Just what mammas, mommies, nonnas, yayas, nannies, and grandmas have been doing for thousands of years.

A surefire way to save a ton of money. A way to unlock that hidden spendthrift within and let him or her loose in the kitchen. A way to turn a $300.00 grocery bill into a $150.00 grocery bill and laugh about it all the way to the pantry.