I can hear them. At night they wait outside, calling to me, "We can smell it." "Give it to us, we'll get it eventually."No, it's not the vampires from I Am Legend; it's the freegans. Damn freegans. They're waiting for me to throw out that last hamburger patty from Sunday's BBQ, or the rest of last night's asparagus. Or maybe they want those sauteed mushrooms that have about a day left until they become a penicillin farm.
What kills me is they're right, they will get it all eventually. Eventually I'll throw out all this food even though it's perfectly good. But what can I do?
The answer is "fridge velcro." What is fridge velcro? It's a term coined by my hero Alton Brown for foods you can throw damn near anything into and it will come out edible. Fridge velcro lets you combine a bunch of disparate ingredients that are too small to qualify as leftovers by themselves and make a full meal.
The 4 best forms of fridge velcro are:
- Pasta: This one doesn't seem like fridge velcro but that's because in America we have a habit of overdressing our pasta. Sure, not everything goes with spaghetti, but try this instead. Mince one to two cloves of garlic and put them into the bottom of a large bowl with a tablespoon of olive oil. Then add your freshly drained pasta and toss to coat. You can put almost anything into that (although make sure any vegetables are cooked) and you've got a meal. I've even put chopped asparagus in there and it turned out great. If you have nothing, toss in some ground pepper or crushed red pepper and you're in business!
- Quiche: A quiche is basically an egg pie (a custard if you're a gastronome). Just buy a frozen pie crust, layer your leftovers at the bottom and then pour the egg mixture on top and bake. Boom, done. Here's a great quiche recipe, ignore the part about baking your own crust (if you want to) and adding bacon to the filling (if you want to).
- Gratin: Most of us only know Potatoes Au Gratin from the freeze dried crap-in-a-box that our moms rehydrated for us when we were kids. But a gratin is a great way to reuse leftovers. It's essentially a potato casserole, all you do is slice everything really thin, layer potato, then leftover, then potato, add a little dairy and bake. Poof, remnants of dinners' past are gone. Here's a descent video recipe for a gratin that explains the whole layering and slicing process. Just make whatever substitutions you want to include your leftovers.
- Blondies: Perhaps my favorite of all. I've written about making blondies before. They're a cup of sugar, a cup of flour, a stick of butter and a bunch of other...stuff! Got a few peanuts rolling around in the bottom of the can? Throw them in. Raisins hiding the back of the cupboard? Why not? M&Ms from the 1994 Olympics? Uh....I might just let those go. But anything nutty or sweet from this century is perfect in blondies. Easiest baking I ever did.
-Garrett
