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Please sir, can I have some more?

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, my goal for the week was to use some of the random food I've had hanging around my pantry and freezer for the last few months. So far, I've had two surprisingly good meals doing just that.

Meal # 1: Orphaned Ingredients

  • 1 teriyaki marinated chicken breast
  • 1 package Ramen noodles

End results? A fabulous stirfry/lomein with onions, peapods and kikomans. It was just enough chicken and just enough noodles. Any more and it would have been too much. I kept wondering to myself, why do I not do stirfry more often?

Meal # 2: Orphaned Ingredients

  • 6 frozen meatballs
  • a package of "tortelloni" slated for expiration in a couple days
  • leftover fresh mozarella (from sandwiches I made this week)
  • jar of pesto

End result: Tortelloni a la Sassy Pants

Special thanks to Friendster Guy for the lomein picture and for being a guinea pig. Please note his plug for Long Trail beer in the above picture.

Coming this evening - Vegetable couscous and roast chicken using my box of couscous that expires this month (who knew it expired?) and a can of pumpkin (I'm trying something new from the Rachel Ray cookbook I took out of the library).

Other orphaned ingredients still to be used:

  • 2 cups of whole milk I froze awhile back
  • a can of cream of mushroom soup
  • fajita mix (2 packages)
  • a jar of mango chutney
  • another can of pumpkin
  • a can of evaporated milk

There's also leftover chili, sloppy joes, whoopie pie filling, cornbread and several partial bags of probably freezer burned mixed vegetables in the freezer. Most of which will probably end up in the trash. Even so, this project may take me a couple of weeks.

You know what's funny? I don't really like to cook. But when I'm doing it as a way to organize and use things up, I have a grand old time. Like I'm on some sort of Reality TV show and have been given a challenge to complete. It also helps that FG has been keeping me company and helping when I let him.

I tag anyone reading this post to go to their pantry and freezer, find some orphans, and tell me how the meals turned out - either via blogpost and comment, or email if you know me. Happy cooking!

Comments

Josh Shear said…
I tend to cook meat in cream of mushroom soup, especially steak, but occasionally chicken if it's what I have in the house and I'm feeling cream-of-mushroomy.

I also envision roasted chicken covered in that pumpkin and topped with the mango chutney.

Here was my soup for the week (think pineapple salsa with chicken):

- 1 can pineapple chunks in juice
- 3 beefsteak tomatoes
- half bulb garlic
- an onion
- red bell pepper
- 1 can black beans, rinsed
- 1 can corn

I sauteed the tomatoes in garlic and olive oil before adding them to the mix; given the chance to do it over, I would have just thrown them in the blender.

The broth was the juice from the pineapples, the olive oil and juice from the tomatoes, some salt, some cayenne, and water to fill.

Cooked in crock pot.

Serves: 1 unlucky guy with a cold for the whole week that the winter weather finally showed up.
9:40 AM
Sassy Pants said…
That soup sounds great Josh. I, unfortunately, have an aversion to soup involving leftovers. It stems from my childhood experiences with what my mother called "Garbage Soup". Blech. It tended to have ground beef and peas and such in it and it turned me off to soups of that general variety. However, this may be the week to move past my "issues."
2:46 PM
Page H. said…
Frozen milk?
who freezes milk?

With the pumpkin you could try making a pumpkin cheese cake! DIVINE!

as for the long trail, have y'all been to their brew pub near killington, VT? great deck, awesome wings of the non-buffalo variety and lots of yummy long trail, which we can't get down here in virginny (now you know where the "y'all" came from!)
5:01 PM
Sassy Pants said…
Actually, my mother started to freeze milk when my stepfather went away on a contracted job and she found herself alone. She's kind of frugal and can't see spending more for less so she buys a gallon and freezes what she won't use. I thought it was supremely wierd at first until I bought whole milk for a recipe and wanted to save 2 cups of it for another recipe (that I never got around to making). I stuck it in a tupperware and froze it. Don't know if it's held up. I'll find out tonight.
8:07 AM
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