Got leftover steaks and baked potatoes from last night’s dinner? Turn them into breakfast GOLD by making an easy, delicious hash.

Here’s the how to: Chop potatoes and steak (or chicken, pork chop, meat loaf, whatev) into roughly equal size cubes (1/2 inch-ish). Chop a couple shallots or onions finely. If you’re like me, then for some odd reason your leftovers also fortuitously include a ziploc containing 5 cooked bacon slices and you should definitely chop those up as well. If you’re lucky enough to own a vegetable, like a bell pepper or broccoli or something, well then your fridge is better stocked than mine. Go ahead and pat yourself on the back, then give that the chop chop as well.

Heat some butter (or lard, duck fat, olive oil, whatev) in a large saute pan over high heat. Add the potatoes- those should get crispy so they need to cook the longest. If you have some hard vegetable like broccoli then throw that in with the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Toss or stir to brown the potatoes on multiple sides. When you’ve got some nice browning on at least a couple of sides, add the shallots (and your softer vegetable if you’re using one: I’m talking bell pepper or zucchini-type stuff) and cook another couple minutes until the shallots soften but not so long that they brown. Add the meat(s) and cook just until heated through, tossing or stirring, a couple minutes. Check the seasoning and adjust. If you really want to clog your family’s arteries, fry some eggs and put ‘em over the top. What the hell. You only live once.

I like to eat this with some Greek yogurt mixed in, but then again, I’m weird like that.

I was bizarrely having a spaghetti and meatballs craving, which is probably, oh, the first time EVER that I have had one (and no, I am not secretly pregnant.) So without further ado, I present an extremely satisfying down-home meal that will compel your guests to ask if you learned all your secrets from a fabled Italian nonna. Although to be fair, it helps if you ply your guests with a couple bottles of wine and maybe a few shots of tequila before sitting down for dinner, which may or may not have happened before I served this meal. I’m just sayin’.

I used my new favorite thing, quinoa spaghetti from Whole Foods. It tastes almost exactly like regular spaghetti but imparts the nutritiousness of my favorite pseudocereal. One more note: the recipe combines many meats (3 to be exact) but you could just use all beef if you like.

Spaghetti and Meatballs
This will serve 4-6 easily.

Ingredients:

for the meatballs:

• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 slices bread (any kind) crust removed, torn into pieces
• 1 Tblsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped finely
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 Tblsp roughly chopped Italian parsley leaves
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 1/2 pound ground veal
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup parmigiano-reggiano
• salt and pepper
• vegetable oil

for the sauce:

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped finely
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 20 ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
• salt and pepper

Method:

Make the sauce:

• Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook a couple minutes, until soft and opaque.
• Using your hands, pull the tomatoes out of the liquid in the can and crush them up with your hands a bit before adding them to the pot. Add about a cup of the liquid from the tomato can. Season with salt and pepper and cook at a simmer for about 20 minutes, at which point the sauce should get thicker.
• Reduce heat to lowest possible setting and cook another 20-30 minutes. Taste sauce and add more salt and pepper if necessary. If desired, add in some chopped fresh basil or oregano at the end and stir in.

While sauce is cooking, make the meatballs:

• Put milk in a large bowl and add torn bread pieces to soak. Set aside.
• Heat olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and parsley and cook until soft and opaque, about 8-10 minutes.
• Add onion mixture and all meats into the large bowl with the bread and milk, along with the egg, parmigiano, and some salt and pepper, and mix with your hands until mixed together. (Reserve the onion pan for cooking the meatballs.)
• Preheat the oven to 350.
• Heat about 1/4 inch of vegetable oil in the onion pan over medium high heat. Form meatballs that are between the size of a baseball and a golf ball. Brown them on all sides, about 15 minutes total.
• Put about 1/4 of the sauce in a 9×13 pan. Add meatballs. Put another 1/4 of the sauce over the meatballs. Put into the oven and cook for about 15-30 minutes, until they are cooked through.
• Meanwhile, cook your noodles as directed.
• When the meatballs are done, mix the drained noodles with the remaining 1/2 of the sauce. Spoon the meatballs on top of the noodles and sprinkle with extra parmigiano if desired.

This technique from SteamyKitchen.com is one of my favorite ways to cook salmon, although admittedly I had kind of forgotten about it. I was happy to rediscover it the other day. The technique is easy and adaptable, and seems almost impossible to screw up or overcook.

Basically, you cook salmon at a really low temperature for about 30 minutes, which cooks it thoroughly while allowing it to retain it’s tenderness and doesn’t let it get dry and chalky. The recipe gives several suggestions for different flavor combos, but today I brushed the salmon with a honey-mustard mixture and cooked it on a bed of oranges and parsley.

You can find Jaden’s technique for low and slow salmon right here, at Steamy Kitchen.  Mmmm. Thanks Jaden!

I have been really busy so I haven’t been cooking that much lately, but I did make this last week and then ate the leftovers for several days after that. This is a really simple, foolproof recipe that is elegant and delicious. My aunt Sherrie, the “queen of chicken” (since she basically only makes chicken) got this recipe from someone and was kind enough to share it with the whole family! I served it with a wild rice blend but you could also serve it with mashed potatoes or buttered noodles. It’s also easy because it’s like chicken+salad all in one dish so you only need a starch to go with it- I think you could even get away with just throwing down a loaf of crusty bread to sop up the sauce- and then you are totally going the super simple route.

Leeks are grown in soil so they tend to have dirt all throughout so it’s really important to make sure they are clean through and through. You want to cut off the root end and throw that away, then slice them thinly (a couple millimeters? My intrinsic metric system is not that well-developed, but that sounds right. 1/8 of an inch or less.) You can slice the white part and the light green parts but you shouldn’t use the dark green parts because they are kind of tough. (In a restaurant you would save the dark green parts and use them to flavor a stock, or you might julienne them and fry them to use as a garnish. At home, I tend to throw them away. I mean, compost them. You should compost them unless stock-making is in your near future.) To get the leeks clean, put the sliced leeks into a bowl of cold water and break up the little rings with your fingers. Agitate them in the water then put them in a strainer and run more water over them. Leave them in the strainer to air dry until you need to use them.

Also apropos of nothing really, I recently learned how to say leeks in Spanish – they are called “poros.” I don’t think of leeks as being particularly a staple of Mexican food, but, good to learn!

Chicken with Leeks
This will make plenty for 8 people.

Ingredients:

• about 4 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts, trimmed
• 1-2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 2 shallots, chopped finely
• 1 T olive oil
• 1 cup white wine
• 2 cups sliced leeks
• 1 cup heavy cream (can use less if you like a lighter sauce or think that’s too fattening)
• 5 T dijon mustard
• 1 bag of prewashed baby spinach leaves (hence the ease of the recipe- you can, of course, just use regular spinach and wash it yourself but I am lazy)
• salt and pepper

Method:

• Cut each chicken breast into a couple of pieces, so they are about 2-3 inches by 1-2 inches (doesn’t really matter, you just want them to be manageable and basically the same size as each other.) Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Heat the oil in a big saucepan over medium high heat. (I like to use a non-non-stick pan- ie, a “sticky” pan like stainless steel- for maximum brown saucy bit creation.) Add the chicken, garlic, and shallots and cook, stirring, until the chicken is browned.
• Add the wine and lower the heat to about medium low. Cover the pot and cook for 20 minutes.
• After 20 minutes, open the pot and add the leeks. Simmer 5 minutes.
• Mix the cream and the mustard together with a whisk or by shaking them in a jar together. Add to the pan and cook for about 2 minutes until it looks and tastes tasty and saucy. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed.
• Put the spinach in a big flat bowl and put the chicken and sauce on top. Serve immediately.

Note: if you have leftovers, the best way to enjoy this dish the next day is to just put the chicken and the spinach and everything in a frying pan together- it doesn’t need any oil or anything- and cook it up. You will now have a similar dish but with cooked spinach. MMMM!

What is TotMac, you ask? Why it’s homemade Mac N Cheese topped with Tater Tots, of course. Behold: TotMac!

I cannot tell a lie: I did not come up with this concept. There’s a great little neighborhood restaurant here in SF called Q and they are known for topping their Mac with Tots. HOWEVER. While I have enjoyed Q’s Mac on several occasions, I have always felt that the Mac execution could be improved upon. Ergo, I Totted my own Mac, with diabolically delicious results.

So, here’s how it goes down: make some hella good homemade Mac N Cheese. You can really make it however you like it, as long as you PROMISE to make it hella good. Cook frozen tater tots according to their packaging. Cook your Mac N Cheese for 10 minutes less than you normally would. Cover top of hot Mac with hot Tots and cook for about 10 minutes. If you’re CRAZY LIKE ME which is to say LIKE A FOX  you can put crumbled crispy prosciutto or bacon on top of the Mac, but under the Tots.

So Tot your Mac today: it’s highly recommended for those who fancy the idea of double carbing your carbs while white trashing up your fancy Mac N Cheese!

My parents lived in Queretaro, Mexico for a couple of months 2 years ago- and ever since then my Dad has been OBSESSED with something he ate there ONE TIME. He does not stop talking about it! Using his descriptions, I did some detective work via my Diana Kennedy cookbook and figured out he probably ate Chiles En Nogada- a very interesting and admittedly somewhat challenging Mexican recipe. I’ve been promising him that I would make it, and when I finally did, it was really rather time-consuming and I wasn’t sure it would be worth it.

The main issue that I had is that the recipe calls for fresh walnuts. Here’s where I admit I don’t actually know what a fresh walnut looks like. It also said to skin the walnuts, ie remove the papery skin part… which sounded really vexing and actually totally completely WAS vexing. That is because I felt like I was in a walnut skinning sweatshop with my tiny fingers painstakingly working the skins off of walnuts for hours on end. Welcome to my sweatshop. Note the tiny pile of hard-won naked walnut pieces on the bottom left. Ugh.

In the end, it was all totally worth it. The dish was beautiful, unusual, and super delicious. It didn’t taste strictly Mexican, and in fact had shades of the Middle East in the flavor profile. It was also absolutely gorgeous. Even for a lazy slacker like me- it was totally worth the effort!  Next time I will try just NOT skinning the walnuts… or try to track down those fresh walnuts once and for all.

Luckily for me, and for you, Elise from Simply Recipes posted Diana Kennedy’s recipe in full right here! For the record, Elise doesn’t skin the walnuts. Of course, if  you’d like to open your very own walnut sweatshop… be my guest!

I didn’t originally make this dish with the intention of post the recipe, since it was just something I threw together. In the end, it turned out pretty fabulously so I decided to share it. In fact, Ross said it was “one of my favorite things you’ve ever made, ever” and then stuffed his face with seconds. In fact, before bed he said “I want to eat more pasta.” In fact, when he woke up in the morning, he went straight to the fridge and finished it off. So I can’t promise that YOU will love it, but some people certainly do.

If you like pasta dishes which feature the noodles more than the other stuff- then this is not for you. If, however, you like pasta dishes in which the presence of noodles provides a vehicle to get giant chunks of salty pancetta, earthy vegetables, and fresh ricotta into your face, then you should give it a try. It’s like a bowl full of fall, and extremely satisfying on a chilly night.

A few notes about the ingredients: It’s best if you can get slab pancetta or slab bacon and cut it into cubes, but you could use regular thick-cut bacon if you have to. The ricotta must be fresh, not in the tub from the supermarket. (At the risk of sounding terribly haughty I had actually made my own ricotta, which I’ll talk about in a future post, as it’s actually pretty simple to make at home.) You can get fresh ricotta at an Italian market or a kind of fancy store like Whole Foods. You could also omit the ricotta if you want; it definitely rounds out the dish, but it would still be tasty without. As to the pasta, I used fresh pappardelle, but I wouldn’t recommend it- I think a smaller pasta shape would work much better. Finally, if the pancetta is very salty you may want to be conservative on salting the rest of the dish.

Autumn-Is-Here Pasta

serves 4.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. fresh pasta
• 1/2 lb slab pancetta, cut in 1/4 inch cubes
• 1 large or 2 small carrots, peeled and cut in small cubes
• 1/4-1/3 lb chanterelle mushrooms, chopped finely
• 2 leeks, sliced thinly and rinsed free of dirt
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/2 cup chopped sundried tomatoes in oil, drained
• about 1/2 cup fresh ricotta

Method:

• Cook pasta according to directions.
• Meanwhile, in a large saute pan, cook pancetta in a single layer over medium low heat, until crisped and browned. Remove to paper towels.
• Pour out grease, leaving a light coating in the pan. Reserve remaining grease in a bowl.
• Raise heat to medium high and add carrots. Cook until soft and a bit caramelized. Remove to bowl.
• Add 1-2 teaspoons to reserved grease and cook mushrooms over medium high heat until browned and crunchy. Remove to carrot bowl.
• If you still have grease, add another 2 tsp to pan, or if you’re out of grease add 2 tsp olive oil. Add leeks and cook 2-3 minutes, until bright green. Add white wine and lower heat to low. Cook until wine has evaporated.
• Stir in mushrooms, carrots, bacon, and sundried tomatoes. Mix with pasta.
• Top each serving with about 2 Tblsp ricotta.

Method:

This recipe has an interesting and meaningful provenance. When I used to teach cooking to high school students in New York, we had a competition in which the students had to create and execute their own original recipes. I was a judge for the competition, and when I tasted thie dish, I remember being blown away by their creativity and ability to invent something so original and delicious. Needless to say they won the competition, and I won a copy of the recipe!

If you’re having trouble grasping the concept, think crab cakes but made with saucy shredded chicken and diced green apples. Their winning version was served over green apple risotto, but I served the cakes over mashed potatoes, with acorn squash on the side. I suppose you could use bottled bbq sauce to save time and effort, but the sauce with this recipe is divine and not that hard or time-consuming to make, so I recommend putting in the extra effort. In fact, I recommend you make a double recipe of the bbq sauce and save some for later!

Barbeque Chicken Cakes
This makes enough for 6 people- 2 cakes per person.

Ingredients:

• Honey BBQ Sauce (recipe below)
• 1 whole chicken breast, boneless and skinless, cut into big chunks
• 2 chicken thighs, skinned and boned
• 2 Tblsp butter
• 1 medium onion, diced finely
• 1 granny smith spple, peeled and diced finely
• 4 eggs
• flour for thickening and dredging
• panko bread crumbs for coating
• salt and fresh ground pepper
• oil for searing

Method:

• Season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat about 1 Tblsp vegetable oil in a saute pan over high heat and brown chicken on both sides.
• Add about half of the bbq sauce (1 to 1 1/2 cups) and turn the heat down. Cook with the pan loosely covered and cook until the chicken shreds easily with a fork,  around 20 minutes. Remove to a bowl and shred chicken, using 2 forks.
• Heat 2 T butter in a saute pan and saute onions and apples over medium low heat until soft. Add to chicken.
• Add a bit more bbq sauce to the chicken, enough to moisten. Make sure to reserve about 3/4 cup of the sauce for garnish.
• Add 2 eggs to the chicken mix. Add flour 1 Tblsp at a time and mix in until mixture holds together, but doesn’t become pasty. Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Heat a couple Tblsp. oil in a saute pan. Meanwhile, prepare a small plate with a small pile of flour, and another with bread crumbs. Beat remaining 2 eggs together.
• Form chicken mixture into patties. Dredge in flour, then eggs, then panko on both sides. (If the patties start to fall apart smoosh them together.)
• Saute on both sides until browned. Feel free to remove to a cookie sheet and keep warm in a low temp oven while finishing the sauteing.
• Warm the reserved bbq sauce, and drizzle over top of cakes with a spoon.

Honey BBQ Sauce
One recipe will make enough for one recipe of BBQ chicken cakes, about 3 cups total.

Ingredients:

• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 jalapeno, seeds removed, chopped finely
• 1 Tblsp vegetable oil
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/4 cup coarse-grain mustard
• 2 Tblsp rice vinegar
• 1 tsp Tabasco
• 3 Tblsp firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 Tblsp curry powder
• 1 1/2 tsp paprika (not smoked)
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Method:

• Heat vegetable oil in sauce pan over medium heat. Cook onion and jalapeno until soft.
• Add all remaining ingredients.
• Turn down heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. When you stir make sure to scrape the bottom so all of the brown caramelize-y bits get mixed in.

I have no idea where this recipe came from, it’s scribbled on a scrap of paper- but I changed it a lot from the paper scrap version because it had what I perceived to be too much sugar and too many unnecessary steps. It is quick, easy, and colorful, and the figs and pork are a fantastic combination.

I bought luscious Black Mission figs for this at the Farmers Market, but then I let Ross eat them all as a snack. So I had to buy figs at Safeway, and all they had were the green Kadotas. But shockingly they were pretty good figs, even from Safeway.

For a side dish, you want something that can sop up the yummy sauce. I sauteed finely chopped mushrooms with thyme and mixed them into couscous for an easy and fast side dish, but mashed potatoes or a crusty loaf of fresh bread would be good too.

Pork with Balsamic Figs
This is pretty fast, as well as easy- start to finish, around 20 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 4 thin-cut, bone-in pork chops
• 1 T olive oil
• 1 T butter
• 4-6 fresh figs, cut in quarters
• 2 T balsamic vinegar
• 1/3 cup beef broth
• 1 T brown sugar
• salt and pepper

Method:

• Season pork chops liberally with salt and pepper on both sides.
• Heat olive oil and cook the pork chops on high heat, 2-3 minutes per side. Remove to platter.
• Put butter in pan and melt. Saute figs a few minutes, until a little browned. Remove from pan.
• Add balsamic vinegar, broth, and sugar to pan. Cook on medium until reduced and a little thicker. Season with salt and pepper.
• Add figs back to pan for a minute. Pour sauce and figs over pork and serve immediately.

In honor of July 4th, I give you… a German recipe! My paternal grandfather had a couple of specialty dishes and one was to make schnitzel. His family hailed from Germany and he had learned this from his mother. I hadn’t eaten it for years, but now that I’ve become reacquainted with it, I won’t make that mistake any longer! It’s easy to make and you can often cobble it together with things you already have in the house.

My mom said that with veal this is called wiener schnitzel but with pork my Grandpa called it jaeger schnitzel. I got to thinking that if jaeger means pork then Jaegermeister means pork master and that seems odd. So I looked it up and my Gramps was wrong. Jaeger means hunter so jaeger schnitzel is this recipe made with hunted meat, usually venison. Etymological mystery solved! Too bad, though, because it’s more fun to say jaeger schnitzel.

I was with my mom and my aunts and we were all cooking together, and we noticed that this is a lot faster and easier to make with 2 sets of hands- one person to do the breading and get their hands messy, and one to do the frying. There is no official recipe for this so I’ve explained the technique but not given specific amounts. In addition to pork, you could use chicken or veal cutlets. We used panko because it’s pre-crumbed, but my grandpa used crushed Ritz crackers, which add a buttery sweetness. You can use any kind of bread or cracker crumbs.

Pork Schnitzel

Ingredients:

• pork cutlets or tenderloin sliced thinly
• bread crumbs, panko, or cracker crumbs
• flour
• eggs
• salt and pepper
• butter-flavored crisco and butter (or oil and butter) for frying
• lemon wedges for serving

Method:

• Using a mallet, pound pork until very thin.
• Prepare three dishes, one with flour and salt and pepper, one with a couple beaten eggs mixed with a splash of water, and one with the crumbs.
• Heat a large skillet over medium high heat with about 2 teaspoons each of butter and crisco (or oil.)
• Dip pork in flour, then eggs, then crumbs and place in hot pan. Cook each side until golden brown and remove to platter. Serve with lemon wedges.
• Note: You will need to add more fat with each round or every other round. If you make a lot, at some point if there are too many burnt crumbs in the pan you should clean the pan out with a paper towel and start with fresh grease.