Leftovers
LEFTOVERS.
Many dainty dishes can be prepared with cold meats, vegetables and other things if we would only make a study of these little things. It is astonishing also how much we save in making all of the good things we have serve a double purpose. If we have steak, the bones and trimmings make delicious soup. Put on with water, the stock can be made, and if we do not need it today, it may help out to- 159 morrow. If the steak should be tough and a portion left over, grind, add a little grated onion, lemon juice, put in pan, run into oven and season with a little butter. Stale bread crumbs are suitable for bread puddings, dressings and fillings for scalloped dishes, omelets, griddle cakes, etc. Dried crumbs are prepared from crusts and small pieces of hard bread dried in a cool oven until a light brown. Roll thin on a pastry board or put through a meat grinder. Sift crumbs. Use them to cover articles of food cooked in deep fat. Keep dried crumbs in jars, tie pieces of muslin over jars and keep in a dry place. Whole slices of stale bread may be used for toast. When fried or stewed corn is left from a meal, mix with a little flour, sweet milk and egg. Drop in a little hot but- ter and fry brown on each side. Good for breakfast with crisp bacon. When pieces of broiled or fried bacon are left it can be ground or mashed and folded in an omelet, or put on toast with sauce. When yolks are left it is nice to saute in butter, turning over several times until well done. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Serve hot on small rounds of buttered toast. Be careful to keep them in shape. Another nice way to use yolks when left from dishes re- quiring only whites. Have water on stove boiling, drop in yolks either in shell or just as they are. After cooking, thoroughly drain, run through ricer and bake with white sauce in oven, using one cup for eight or ten yolks. Potatoes can always be utilized, and they make pretty, wholesome dishes, combined with cheese, onion and thick white sauce, also eggs.
MACARONI ITALIAN.
Leftover macaroni and cheese can be made Italian by pouring over it strained tomato juice, a little onion, salt and cayenne. Stew until well blended. 160
- Cool fast, refrigerate, and reheat properly. This chapter assumes a cool larder. Cooked meats and vegetables should be refrigerated within two hours, kept no more than three or four days, and reheated to 165°F throughout — and any sauce or gravy carried over should be brought to a rolling boil.
- The thrift is worth keeping. The chapter's instinct — that cold meat, macaroni or vegetables become a dish rather than waste — is exactly the argument modern kitchens are rediscovering. The methods need updating; the premise does not.
A leftovers chapter was standard equipment in a general cookbook of this period, and it carried no apology. Iceboxes were small, marketing was frequent, and a household that wasted cold meat was thought careless rather than busy. The chapter's dishes — macaroni recrossed with cheese and white sauce, cold meat rebuilt into a made dish — are the direct ancestors of mid-century casserole cooking.