Leftovers: Pork with Garlic Wine Sauce

 

LEFTOVERS!

 

Wondering what to do with leftovers? Here's an idea that will work with

beef, pork or chicken. Cut up the leftovers into chunks and cover it with

a tasty sauce, serve it with rice or noodles, add a salad and you have a meal!

 

This is pork in a Garlic Wine Sauce

 

 Here's the ingredients:

2 cups of leftover cooked meat (beef, pork, or chicken)

1/2 cup wine (red wine for beef, white for pork or chicken)

1/2 cup drippings from meat (or use stock or half a bouillon cube)

2-3 garlic gloves, roughly chopped

1 TBS oil

2 TBS butter

 Heat the oil in a skillet or sauté pan

 

 Add your leftover meat and cook until heated through

 

then remove the meat from the pan

 

 Now add the garlic and sauté until fragrant

 

 Add the wine and drippings (or stock), bring to a boil and cook

it until it's reduced by half.

 

 Add the butter and stir as it melts

 

 And just like magic, it thickens right up!

 

 Add the meat back in and stir to coat, that's it.

 

 

Serve with (or over) pasta, rice, potatoes or your favorite,

add a salad and you've a quick and tasty meal.

Salad: Tomato Pepperoni

 

TOMATO PEPPERONI SALAD

Quick and easy

 INGREDIENTS

1 5oz package of pepperoni bites

1 container small tomatoes

1 bunch green onions

1 small can sliced black olives

3 tomato and basil cheese sticks

salt, pepper, garlic salt and olive oil

 Trim and wash the onions, then slice them up

and throw them in a salad bowl.

Slice the cheese sticks. I used tomato basil but

you should use whatever you have on hand.

 Toss them in the bowl with the onions.

 

 Open the pepperoni

 

 and toss it in the bowl.

 

 Open and drain the olives, dump them in too.

 

 Wash the tomatoes, cut them in half and add

to the bowl. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper

and then don't touch it for 15 minutes. This will

allow the tomatoes to make juice.

 

After twenty minutes, drizzle with olive oil and

sprinkle generously with garlic salt.

 

Toss it all together and refrigerate for at least

one hour to allow flavors to come together. Toss again

before serving. Enjoy!

 



Basics: Sourdough Pancakes

Sourdough pancakes are a staple in my house and here's how I make them.

 

I'm not going to list specific amounts because I don't know how many you want

to make, or how big you want them to be. Generally, I allow almost half a cup

of batter for each man sized pancake. This is sourdough, it's very versatile

and rather forgiving.

 

 

Absolutely have to have some prepared sourdough sponge

Pour 2-3 cups of it into a mixing bowl

For each cup of sponge sprinkle on heaping tablespoon of sugar and half a teaspoon

of salt. Stir it all up.

Now add an egg or two for every two cups of batter. You can beat them separately

or just mix them on in. If your sponge was really thick, thin it with a little milk

or water. Stir this all up til it's well mixed and everything has been incorporated.

 

Now you can use this just like it is and you'll have a pretty dense pancake with a

very pronounced sourdough taste depending on your starter. Here's the magic that's

going to make them scrumptious-dissolve one teaspoon baking soda in one tablespoon

of water and stir it in. Now let the batter rest for 5-10 minutes and you'll be ready

to cook them up. This will soften up the "sour" and cause you batter to bubble.

 

While your batter is resting heat up the pan or griddle. I like my pan to be hot enough

 that a drop of water sprinkled on will dance, not lay there and boil away.

 

Stir that batter up and ladel it onto your hot pan or griddle.

Then when it's colored to your liking, flip it over and do the other side.

Stack them up and chow them down.

 

Feel free to add your favorite fruits (blueberries, chopped strawberries or

apples, mashed bananas), coated with a little sugar. Add some spices (cinnamon,

nutmeg, apple pie spice). Add some finally chopped nuts or mini chocolate chips.

 

Thin your batter way down with milk and eggs and use it like crepe batter.

 

Fill them with cream cheese!

 

Top them with butter and syrup or

fresh fruit and whipped cream or

a buttery caramel sauce and some toasted pecans.

 

There's the method, now go make some pancake magic!

 

 

Cream Cheese Filled Panckes with Berry Topping

It's like a whole plateful of Danish goodness! You can vary the toppings to your own tastes, but my favorites are always berry themed.

Here's what you're going to need:
         1 batch of your favorite pancake batter
         1 8 oz block of cream cheese, slightly frozen works best
         1 jar of your favorite jam, jelly or preserves
             Optional: butter, whipped cream;
   Highly recommended: A non-stick skillet or griddle, flexible spatula
       (because nothing on earth will glue a pancake to a pan better than cream cheese!)

I'm going to include my recipe for sourdough pancakes, but please feel free to use your own favorite even if it's instant out of a box. How much do you need? I don't know, how many pancakes do you want? I allow about a half cup batter for each pancake.

For the sourdough pancakes you will need:
         2 cups sponge
         1/3 cup sugar
         1 teaspoon salt
         1 egg
         1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
         ( milk or water)

If you've got your own batter, skip down to the part where we cook them.

Here's my sponge. It's my sourdough starter that I fed the night before.

As you can see, it's really thick.

 

Here's the starter in my mixing bowl with the sugar and salt sprinkled

on top. Then I stirred it up.

Now I've added the egg and some milk (because it really was too thick).

You can add more eggs if you want. Stir it up until thoroughly mixed. The last

step is to stir in the baking soda/water. Stir it in and let the batter sit as you

heat your pan and prepare your cream cheese. The batter will bubble, it's normal.

 

Start heating your pan. The absolute easiest way to do this is to grate the cream

cheese while it's frozen. But if you are impatient like me, you can cut off slices as

thin as you can get them. And if that doesn't work you can even use globs. Keep

reading, I'll show you!

 

Now pour a half cup of batter onto your hot pan. And by hot, I mean that

water spinkled on it will dance, not lay there and boil away.

Sprinkle the top of the pancake with the shredded cream cheese...

 

...or dollop on some cream cheese blobs

Then cover the cream cheese with additional batter. It doesn't have

to be perfect, do it as best you can.

 

When it's cooked on one side, flip it over and cook the other side.

And when you totally glue it to the pan and tear it all up, just keep

cooking it until it's done. (Let me add a word of wisdom, it's way easier

to scrape out a cooked mess than a half raw mess)

 

Stack it on a plate, add some butter (or not)

 

Prepare your topping. This is some home made berry jam, I warmed

it in the microwave and thinned it with a little water stirred in (a teaspoon of water

in a quarter cup of jam, this is salmonberry, but raspberry, blueberry and

strawberry are all really good)

Pour melted jam over the stack

and garnish as desired.

 

ENJOY!

 

If you serve these hot, right off the griddle (rather than stopping to take pics)

the melted cream cheese will just ooze out. Either way, they are yummy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Egg Rolls: Turtle (Pecans, Caramel, Chocolate)

Who says that you can't have egg rolls for dessert?? These little jewels are filled with all the same goodness as turtle candy - pecans, caramel, and chocolate. And what could be better than candy? DEEP FRIED CANDY!! I'm pretty sure that I'm in love with egg roll and won ton wrappers. I can now wrap up all kinds of unhealthy goodness and make it even worse by saturating it in hot oil!

I'm not going to even try convincing you that this is in any way healthy, but it is really good!

Here's what you need to make 'em:

          1/4 cup pecans, toasted and chopped into small pieces
          1/4 cup caramel pieces
          1/4 cup chocolate chips
          1/4 cup brown sugar
          1 package won ton wrappers
          Oil for deep frying

1/4 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

1/4 cup caramel pieces

 

1/4 cup chocolate chips

 

Mix them all together

 

1/4 cup brown sugar

 

Open up the package of won ton wrappers.

 

Place a little bit of the nut mix on the wrapper and spinkle a little brown sugar over it. Moisten all the edges of the wrapper with water.

 

Roll it up and pinch the ends shut. I tried several different folds but liked this one the best. As you can see, the rolls are only about the size of a finger. Let them rest and dry a bit before you fry them.

 

 

Deep fry in hot oil (350-375 degrees) until golden brown. Flip over as necessary and follow the instructions for your fryer. Drain and cool on a rack or paper towels.



 

Enjoy!