Eggs+Leftovers=Frittata

By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

Both at work and every day in my home cooking, I use eggs like they’re going out of style. Soft-boiled, scrambled or baked are my favorite preparations for enjoying the egg in its pure state.

But when it comes to transforming leftovers into a free meal, nothing beats a frittata. You can toss virtually any ingredient into some beaten eggs, and pour it in a hot pan; and then when you pop it in the oven, in the words of Carl Weathers, you got a stew going.

While I often love throwing together a couple random ingredients leftover from the fridge into my frittata, my favorite leftovers are actually herbs that are on the decline. They’re just starting to wilt and you need to use them up quick? Make a simple herb frittata that both highlights the eggs and the random mix of herbs you used. Or just use one herb but toss in enough to really make the flavor punch. Served alongside some spicy salad greens like arugula or watercress, it becomes a light, very Parisian meal that you can enjoy, knowing you didn’t pay the high price for it.

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Pork Roast: How Lori Weathered Sandy

By Lori Powell
For One or Two Bites, a blog for singles and couples

As mentioned last week, I got through Sandy by cooking two roasts, one beef and the other pork, in an attempt to soothe and satisfy neighbors who were not as fortunate.

Below is the recipe for the roast pork. My leftovers are sitting in my now-working freezer and will serve as the base for a delicious pork and white bean chili for the night my Thanksgiving guests arrive.

I spent part of last week sorting out and clearing out my pantry, freezer and fridge…long overdue. It was very cathartic and now I’m ready to cook from what survived in my pantry from the storm.

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Dinner from Leftover Pasta and Two Chicken Breasts

By Sandy Hu

The other day, I was wondering what to do with some angel hair pasta in the fridge. I hadn’t made enough pasta sauce for the leftover and besides, I wasn’t feeling like a hot and heavy meal.

So, I began to think of what I wanted to eat: cold noodles…an Asian flavor profile with citrus and soy sauce…crisp sliced cucumber…the bite of green onion. I wanted to keep everything light and refreshing.

I had a couple of boneless, skinless chicken breasts that needed cooking so I thought I could make one sauce, divide it up using some for the pasta and some for a marinade for the chicken. Then grill the chicken, slice it and fan it over the noodles. So far, so good!

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Leftovers, Revisited

By Sandy Hu

Last month, I cited a Wall Street Journal article about how much food Americans waste. It struck a chord with one of our Special Fork Food Editors, Debby Goldsmith, a veteran food journalist who was Associate Food Director at Good Housekeeping for many years.

Here’s what she wrote:

“I read that WSJ article at the dentist and I just couldn't fathom how or why people are so wasteful with food and everything else. I compost, I burn paper waste; I recycle.

We now have single stream recycling upstate (New York) so everything from newspapers to every number of plastic (the number in the recycle triangle on disposable plastics) except bags goes in the same giant bin and I lug cans and bottles to the supermarket for my 5-cent wild money.

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Feeding the Landfill

By Sandy Hu

Recently, The Wall Street Journal published a story called “Leftovers: Tasty or Trash?” in which the writer shared some eye-opening statistics:

- An average U.S. family of four throws away between $500 to $2,000 worth of food each year
- 25 percent of trash in a home (all avoidable waste) consists of vegetables
- 16 percent is fruits and juices
- 14 percent is grains
- 13 percent is milk and yogurt

Here’s another disturbing fact cited by the paper: After paper and paperboard, food is the next largest solid waste component in U.S. landfills and incinerators. A staggering 33 million tons of food was dumped in 2010 according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

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