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Month: July 2022

Reinvention Queen’s Tips and Bits II

It is now July, 2022 and I thought I would repost my tips and bits of ideas on reinventing food. I am adding a few ideas that I have reinvented from existing food. If you reinvent a dish, please share with us through comments. Let’s see what I have been up to lately.

Reinvention Queen goes from Grilled Garlic Lemon Pepper Fresh Asparagus to Arline’s Garlic Asparagus Cream Soup. Don’t let a good leftover go to waste. Reinvent a new dish.

I had made squash the regular way and had been gifted some onions too. I didn’t use a recipe but threw self rising cornmeal mix (2 parts) and self rising flour with a beaten egg and some seasonings, garlic and onion salt, everyday seasoning with salt and pepper. I added a small amount of cayenne powder and fried the patties you see. Waste Not, Want Not.

I save my leftover biscuits, cornbread, raw vegetables, leftover peas, corn, beans, tomato gravies and freeze them in zip loc freezer bags. Soups come easy as well as my cornbread dressing and then there is as Southern as it gets, Biscuit pudding (slightly different from bread pudding) but saving leftover bread and freezing it gives you the ability to make delicious croutons seasoned to your preference. See these ideas on future blogs. Here is the original post from January 2022. Happy Reinventing to all of you and thanks for your support and welcome to all the new subscribers.

Don’t forget leftover cake and create a new dish from adding the leftover cake into another cake recipe. It is like a rebirth when combined with new ingredients and a good use from the leftover cake.

Today, while it is chilly or rather colder than I like it to be, I am staying inside and while I am hibernating, I thought I would share some of my tips and even some I have learned from others with my readers. I love reinventing dishes from leftovers and I have some awesome spaghetti sauce that needs to be eaten but you know as well as me, that making the same spaghetti dish gets mundane. While looking this morning, I found an easy way to make personal pizzas in the air fryer using English Muffins. Look at this easy way to use that spaghetti sauce:

Recipe by Gilat Split the English Muffin in half Place the English Muffins split side up in the air fryer for 3 minutes at 400 degrees.Remove from air fryer and top each with pizza sauce and cheese (optional: mini pepperoni, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder.Place back into the air fryer for 4 minutes at 400 degrees.

These are ideas that can be used to add ingredients you have on hand and make it your own.

Don’t you find that you always have more salad that you can eat when you order from a restaurant that have awesome salads, especially Caesar Salads with the delicious super greens? Next time, you could use one of my tips by removing some of the greens into a storage container for later. Make sure that you keep the greens with no dressing to stay fresh and crisp. Yesterday I shared this tip on FB when I made homemade tuna salad that I used one of the dressing containers of Caesar Dressing in the tuna mixture which was an awesome taste.

I have learned to save the extras from take out, store immediately, and use. Do you save the condiments like soy sauce, ketchup, duck sauce, Arby’s sauces (the horseradish sauce is great for making your own tartar sauce). Waste not, want not is Reinvention Queen’s motto.

Another great tip for saving extra rice from Chinese take out as you know they give you too much to eat at the time you get it home: Place extra rice with a paper towel in a zip loc bag or container. You can make a quick soup by using the rice along with a tomato condensed soup, a vegetable can of soup, or a cream of whatever soup with a little broth added to the leftover rice. Wallah, instant soup and usage of food. Never waste, make something new instead. BTW, add some leftover cooked veggies to whatever soup you make.

How about making your own seasonings? This is a handy reference and we all know we have so many bottles of spices in our pantry. Why buy the blends? Make some from what you have on hand.

What to do if you find your favorite bread on sale and know that you would love to stock up but worried about keeping it fresh? See this tip:

Photo tip by Thehomesteadsurvival.com

One of my dear friends cooks with fresh veggies and fruits to keep her immune system cranked up and here is a great tip from Debra Brown:

This is where I use creativity by looking at what I have in the refrigerator and adding it to some pantry items. Deb and I think alike.

Note from Arline Miller, Reinvention Queen: I have posted several dishes made from an original dish on my blog and if you search on my home page on the right side and type in Reinvention Queen, it will bring up several posts focused on making the most of what you have. When I bake, broil, fry, meats, I do more quantity in the first round to save energy (both mine and the stove’s).

Jon Taylor provides a great tip for making Nature’s Flu Shot and my thoughts are make this up by using excess lemons, pineapple juice, and garlic that you may have in your fridge.

Let’s get our minds to working to use up the pricey items we are buying so that we don’t waste and conserve our money. Inflation hurts but we can beat the odds by using what we have in oh so many ways….Until we cook/bake again…..Arline Miller, Reinvention Queen.

(C) Copyright, 2012-2022 Arline Miller of Sipping Cups of Inspiration and Reinvention Queen with all rights and privileges reserved. Third party material is sourced, if known, for credit references.

Reinvent Yourself

As my nickname speaks, Reinvention Queen, I feel it represents a lot more than just reinventing food. Maybe the first step in reinventing anything should be reinventing ourselves. Today on the blog I would like to address this topic on how we can reinvent ourselves.

To begin with, if you have read some of my reinvention posts, you know that my motto (not original but a good one) is Waste Not, Want Not. This means we should not waste ourselves and if we make good use of our minds, bodies, and not to forget, our souls, we will not want.

One of the first steps in my Reinvention Process, I look in the refrigerator or pantry to see what I have available. Let’s get personal and look at ourselves in the mirror. Let’s look for opportunity and not vanity. While we take a minute to see our pros, we have to see our cons. I am never negative but I also am a realist. What are your best talents, attitudes, qualities, and integrity traits? What are your obstacles or as a cook let me say, what are your bitter tastes? Once we see the good, the bad, and the “ugly” and I am not speaking physical appearance. we can decide what new dish can be invented from the “ingredients” we possess.

Next, I look for combinations for making the most flavorful reinvented dish. I feel if we give our associations some mental workouts, we can re-evaluate what can mix well with our own ingredients. One observation in life I see is we try to make too many non compatible ingredients work instead of finding the workable combination. I want to relay a personal story at this point for all of us to recollect since I feel fairly sure you have a story too. When I was marketing and making what I call good money, my dear Mom, with good intentions, said to me, “Why don’t you get a regular job like teaching?” I looked at her having many great friends who were good teachers. I respected them highly but knew I made a lot more money than they did at the time and replied, “Mom, why would you want me to take a pay cut?” My point of this story is not to boast as many people I know make a lot more than I do and have many more benefits to draw from. My point is we have to look at our ingredients (talents) and make good decisions. My next point is even if we are in a good place, we have to keep our eyes open and be flexible. That, I find to be a valuable asset in my life is I chose to be flexible and willing to change. Look in your pantry, see what makes you smile, fills you up and satisfies you.

I can make a dish, enjoy it immensely, but I have a nature to want to see how it would taste if I changed it up a little. That’s what makes me enjoy cooking as it gives me an opportunity to try something new. This is the same way in life. You don’t have to quit your career and/or job, but look around, find something new to learn and try. Ask your employer can you expand your job, cross train, add a new dimension. You cannot believe how many times in my life, my curiosity overrode any boredom in doing the same old same old, if you get my drift.

Reinvent a dish that will have more appeal to kids. Reinvent yourself so that you will be appealing to everyone, kids included. One of my creations for our grands.

I find myself making two or three different dishes using the first initial ingredients. I pull one ingredient from one dish, add from another one, and throw in something new. I would not be happy if I was on an assembly line doing the same task over and over. Some people love that stability and they are happy in their comfort zone. I applaud them but that is not my ingredient list in life. What is your ingredient list? If you find yourself content as some steak and potato guys are, so be it. Life is good and that is all that counts.

Today, pull out your ingredients, see what might could be added or even subtracted to make the best life dish yet. Reinventing yourself may be the best recipe ever!

(C) Copyright 2012-2022 Arline Miller of Sipping Cups of Inspiration and Reinvention Queen with all rights and privileges reserved. Third party material is sourced to original location/author, if known, for credit reference.

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