Friday Night Improv... Leftovers

Bear here... Hi everybody! Remember the mushrooms we got out of our yard. We had them with homemade pesto (with basil from our garden) and pasta. (Right.)

Mmm, Mmm, good!

Next up, tonight's leftovers:

I  let the Cook of Anarchy loose on a refrigerator full of leftovers. Here's what I had to work with:

• Older asparagus 
• Beet stems and greens (aka beet leaves)
• Leftover plain brown rice
• Leftover roasted chicken (store bought)
• Sunflower seeds (roasted)
• Canned red currant jelly (homemade)
• Pan with bacon fat in it (from Theresa's lunch)

Here is how I did it...

I steamed the asparagus and beet stems until soft (around 10 min.).

In a recent cooking class I learned about tempering as the key process in Indian cooking. Tempering involves heating oil to a high temp and then adding spices.  When the spices stop spitting, it's done, which usually takes less than 10 seconds. For this dish, I tempered the bacon fat and some olive oil with dried cumin and mustard powder. I used roughly 2 tblsp of oil and 1 tsp each of the spices.

Then I added the chopped up chicken and 1 1/2 cup of the rice. I mixed in the cooked asparagus and beet stems and kept stirring until it was all hot. Then I stirred in 2 tablespoons of coriander. I added the beet greens last and when they wilted it was done.

I felt the dish needed crunch so I put roasted sunflower seeds over the mix.  As a bonus Theresa and I recently canned red currant jelly. It is supposed to be good with savory dishes so we tried it on the side and the sweet-tartness really worked with the other flavors.

Time to go back to watching TV.     Type at ya later...