Deja Food
Posted by Midwest Mom | Filed under Midwest Mom
I’m too good for leftovers. To get excited about yesterday’s fresh, it had to be OUTSTANDING the first time. I guess I’ve bought into today’s pretentious food and cooking. Eating local and less processed oughta be simple and humble. So why is it all so snobby? You wanna impress me? Resurrect the leftovers.
A food that doesn’t seem fresh anymore is that way because it’s water content has changed. You know the tomato part is still there…the oil part is still there…it’s just water that has come or gone. A dry food sucks moisture from the air as it ages. A moist food suffers from evaporation. Go figure.
You want bread to be soft and moist but now it’s hard and dry. You want crackers to be thin and crispy but now they are bloated and chewy. You can reheat a lot of food—and quite passably, too—in the microwave. But what about bread? Only if you plan to feed it to a goat. Pizza? No chance.
To get a stale food moist again, add water somehow. Mist it with water from a spray bottle or brush it with water and a pastry brush. Wrap it in waxed paper (or plastic wrap if you’re not ascared of heating plastic) and microwave it. You can also wrap it in foil and put in the oven. For a roll that is only a day or two old, just put in in the oven at about 200°F / 90°C for a few minutes. Dare I suggest there are some things that might be just a skosh BETTER the second time around?
To get a stale food crisp again, toast it slowly. To freshen tortilla chips, spread them on a cookie sheet and bake at 200°F / 90°C for about 5 minutes. The oven’s dry heat drives out any moisture and now you have warm chips for your salsa just like la cantina serves!
Rice is prolly my fave starch. But we like sticky rice. I don’t do all that rinsing of the dry rice to get rid of the loose starch so that the cooked rice is separate grains. But after a day or two in the fridge and reheating in the mic, whaddya get? Dry rice. Now I add a splash of water and cover it while reheating it. Fab.
My greatest accomplishment…pizza. You want a crispy crust, but soft toppings. Put the leftovers on a pizza screen which leaves the crust mainly open to the heat source, but lay a piece of foil over the toppings. You could remove the foil for a minute or two at the end if you like. Delish.
What’s your trademark resurrection?
-mwm
A stay-at-home mom managing the family finances, Midwest Mom is our New Voice from south of the 49th Parallel. Married for 19 years with two boys, 11 and 9, she considers herself “a self-help junkie.”
February 18, 2012 at 9:50 am
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February 19, 2012 at 7:44 am
We purchased “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois and have fresh bread every day! it saved us a ton at our local bakery as we are bread snobs. It is also really great bread! And it is so much cheaper to bake your own bread. We also have the “Square Foot Gardner” which is about producing food in four foot raised gardens. We have a hobby farm so it is not as much of an issue for us but if you have a small garden you can produce your own food.
February 20, 2012 at 9:05 am
We eat leftovers all the time. When I make a dinner specifically of leftovers it’s called Sequel Night.
Sometimes I serve it just as it was served the first time around, other times I change it up.
Left over roast/chicken/turkey gets made into hot sandwiches served with pan fried mashed potatoes (if there were any left) or french fries (if there were no mashed).
Left over meatloaf goes into sandwiches or just reheated. Left over steak/chicken/pork becomes tacos, quessadillas or sandwiches.
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