As I promised, the blog will bring my readers more ideas on how to realize leftovers are treasures, pearls of cooking, and work relief while providing new dishes using what you have prepared. Waste Not, Want Not is my motto and stretching the food budget dramatically. Prices are out of sight, and no relief is in sight, so how do I go veggie crazy? Let us see.
Let’s look at how the roasted veggies kept reinventing themselves into several dishes:
- First, we enjoyed the freshly flat top grilled veggies with splashed olive oil, low sodium soy sauce, and seasonings (your choices). Our plate shows garlic shallot shrimp, pan seared with seasonings along with scrumptious grilled red snapper. We made a tossed salad with super greens, carrots, sugar peas, tomatoes, cucumbers and any fresh goodies we had. The image with the white plate shoes the grilled veggies.
- Second meal, I made brown wild rice and heated the veggies (not cooked but heated) and combined the veggies and rice. This made a great lunch without any bother and was delicious and it seemed like a new taste combo. The image with the rice and veggies displays quick thinking and a tasty lunch is made in a few minutes.
- Third meal, was created from a video my daughter sent the concept idea and since I had a lot of veggies left, I made the crustless roasted veggie pizza. It was a great hit. Since I don’t have permission to post the video, I will walk you through my version which was fantastic because the veggies had so much flavor already. This only took me a few minutes to prep. 1) In a sprayed 9 X 13 pan, I placed the grilled veggies on the bottom of the pan. 2) In a separate saute pan, I browned Jimmy Dean regular sausage and a drained can of fire roasted tomatoes with added Italian Seasoning. I removed any liquid after the meat was cooked. 3) I combined Panko seasoned bread crumbs and Grated Parmesan Cheese and sprinkled it over the veggies to form a second layer, 4) I added the sausage and tomatoes to the pan forming a third layer; 5) I spooned the Bertolli spaghetti sauce (amount is variable but just enough for flavor but not too much, I used 1/2 jar); 6) I spread and covered the top with Parmesan cheese in jar over the sauce and topped with grated Mozzarella cheese. 6) Baked at 350 degrees until bubbly approximately 30-40 minutes. It cut into squares easily and made a great reinvented dish which I will remember when we roast more veggies.
- Added dish from this one. I had more sausage/tomatoes than I needed for this dish to I added a partial pkg (3/4) Taco Seasoning and about 1/3 cup water and mixed together with about 2 T sour cream and made a fantastic hot dip for chips. My husband loved this dip so it proves Waste Not, Want Not.
- In summarization, we enjoyed freshly grilled veggies, had a great quick lunch with rice and vegetables (which I might add that I added some ham to my husband’s plate for protein), and a crustless, out of this world veggie pizza, and for an added plus a free dip using the leftover sausage and fire roasted tomatoes. It doesn’t take a restaurant chef to make reinvented food into wonderful meals for your family and friends.
This is some thoughts Reinvention Queen wants to leave with you. I didn’t go into what can be reinvented from the Snapper and Shrimp. When you cook, do like I do, think ahead, have your supplemental ingredients and seasonings at hand but so importantly, use what you have on hand. Flavors can be combined and seasonings are your friend. I will do a future blog post with my daughter who we have tagged Reinvention Princess since she amazes me with her creativity and ability to spark up the plainest food to make restaurant quality dishes. This is how we want to proceed with the blog in the summer so stay tuned. It is not so much recipes as a mental and fun exercise and experience of what we call “Playing with your Food”.
Until we cook again…..Arline Miller, Reinvention Queen of Sipping Cups of Inspiration with all rights and privileges reserved. Third party material is sourced to original location and author for credit references. (C) Copyright 2012-2023.
