Underwriting Leftovers

   In remembering the legacy that is our grandparents', leftovers do not often receive the credit due them. I have known someone who would rather see once-eaten meals fill the fridge until the value of real estate (a.k.a., shelf space) which they cluttered had them evicted to the trash. I still know another who, in similar thought, has set a presumptive expiration date for all such meals, and would not return to them if the date was passed. And I know others who would cook for a single meal, or portion, just to avoid eating the same dinner more than one day in a row.
   I can connect with most of those mentalities, but a friend of my past taught me the following mantra: "waste not, want not." (He didn't live by it, but I adopted it all the same.) And I can recall such punishments as "no dessert until dinner is finished," or having applied the concept of not taking more [of a helping] than I could eat, or hearing my paternal grandmother consistently repeat "finish to the last." Those generations responsible for such wisdom survived the Great Depression, at such vulnerable ages that left them trusting wholly in their own parents' care for their best. I cannot spit in their face or curse their memory simply because I do not have a taste—a preference—for the meal placed in front of me. But that's just me.
   I grew up eating leftovers regularly. From picking at bacon straight out of the fridge when stopping at my grandfather's house after church, to microwaving a Kraft Single over a bowlful of potato salad while my mom was out shopping, to eating whatever my grandfather had cooked for his wife and son that week past, or even "cleaning out the fridge"—by consuming, not discarding; I was raised on leftovers, and I eventually gained a heart beyond them for conservation of resources and efficiency of their use, which nowadays translates into making ingredients stretch as far as they can go.
   Our beloved a-nonni-mous knows better than anyone how to do this, and for her sometimes-questionable methods, her continued health stands as a testimony of the very words she ever reminds us of. They basically carry the same effect as, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." And I believe it (though I'm not so bold to take some of her sorts of risks, especially under Jes's watch). Still—and my mother can attest to my inquiries—I show much interest in understanding how long something can last, especially canned items which, if you're familiar with Rhett & Link, may stand the test of time better than anything on the market, wholly dependent upon their initial freshness and the success of the process which secures this.

The Preservationist

   There is great admiration in my heart for antiquity. Nowadays, we look at the refrigerator and freezer as the ultimate means of preservation. Shirley, even my grandfather's household appreciated this: they owned two fridge-and-freezer combinations and a full freezer, where were saved future meals as well as specialty dishes (such as homus and m'hommorah and Syrian cheese and yebret). But, with such authentic cuisine and the carrying-on of tradition, I was also turned on to the practices that had been around for millennia and centuries before such giants of innovation walked in: cured meats are as ingenious as they are delicious, and pickling seals the nutrition of fresh vegetables beneath layers of unique flavors for the months when nothing is growing.
   Pickled cauliflower was a treat from my grandfather, one that I miss dearly. Green tomatoes were also delightful, and one of his daughters continues to make bread-and-butter pickles, sweet and tart. From the Polish side of my family, I had once eaten a pickled watermelon—storebought, however. Harvested young, it was much the same as a giant pickle[d cucumber]. I have also fallen in love with sauerkraut (as a side to kielbasa), and Jes and I actually aspired to make it once. I researched it, saved a fact sheet to my computer, and even contemplated sterilizing Mason jars for the occasion. I was most intrigued that the recipe only includes two ingredients: cabbage, and salt. But, we never set aside the time for it. One day.
   The first time you make something is always the hardest. The second time is a memory game, and a chance to clear away mistakes. By repetition, you master the art, and refine it. I imagine that in the far future, Jes and I will be that couple whose open pantry shelves are filled with jars and jars of various pickled vegetables and preserved fruits, bursting with color as much as with flavor. They will redefine for us the meaning of "shelf life." And everyone we invite over will look forward to the day when we decide to make a new batch of something, thereby passing on the tradition along with the food. But, of course, by that time, it would be ingrained habit.
   I have actually made marmalade before, on a whim; that's a start. As a kid, I recall the science experiments of making homemade syrup: Equal parts water and sugar, dissolved and boiled until the viscosity had noticeably increased. If I remember correctly, I dipped a pencil in it. I probably don't remember correctly, or wholly, because I can't imagine why I'd need to do that. And I don't believe it was a random thing for me to do. I wasn't always as weird as I am, you know. *Edit: there was a string suspended from a pencil, for to make homemade rock candy.
   I had also put sugar in a spoon while at a restaurant with family, added just enough water via the straw-dropper technique, and cooked it over a candleflame like it was crack. I'm just giving you the proper imagery. The point is, I was learning...to create food. I'm not a druggie, honest. Anyway, after it bubbled up and I got a few concerned looks from my uncle, I dunked it in ice water and voilà! I'd made a lollipop.

Intrigue

   It is these sorts of things I reminded myself of when I endeavored to make grapefruit marmalade. Now, I like marmalade. I prefer it over the exceedingly sweet grape jelly or strawberry jam at diners. And the interesting thing about marmalade, I'd learned, is that its gelatinous consistency comes from pectin. And the reason that marmalades are made from citrus fruits is that their pith (the white part under the peel) contains so much pectin. I'd taken to eating this, especially from a navel orange, which has a lot more of it compared to other kinds of oranges. It's packed with nutrition and swaps the acid of the pulp for a gummy texture. It has the essence of the fruit it covers and orange pith still has a touch of sweetness.
   But grapefruit is not my thing. My mother eats it, Jes loves it, but I cannot stand it. I—Daniel, who has bitten into a peeled lemon as though it were an apple, who has eaten kumquats whole, despises the aftertaste of grapefruit. Jes has captured exclusive footage of my attempt to eat a ripe grapefruit for breakfast, thinking just maybe it would taste different from any other time I'd tasted the juice. Imagine, now, the countless videos of child abuse where parents offer their hungry infants a lemon wedge, and you've got me regretting my decision until Jes could no longer stand to see me in such pain. That's right: my determination would have seen me through it if it was the last thing I ever ate.
   So, the grapefruits were bought for Jes, but I had interest in using their peels, rather than see them to the trash. They don't exactly biodegrade well, being so full of oil. (In fact, my mother occasionally toasts orange peels over open flame for the scent.) I looked up a recipe, was hardly amazed at its simplicity, and started cooking. I didn't have nearly as many peels as it called for (6 grapefruits' worth), but I divided properly. Nickelodeon's Doug had taught me that division, and not subtraction, was the most important cooking operation.
   Admittedly, dicing the peels was the most fun. My knife skills are not the greatest; a touch of perfectionism remains in me, and sometimes daring curiosity (such as, wondering which knife would work best). The object here was to section it up into 1-cm squares, so it helps to peel them neatly from the fruit in the first place. Of course, by now, most of our grapefruits were already eaten, because this recipe came as an excuse to use leftovers, not as the reason for buying them. I think we had half of one remaining, the other half of which I had tried and failed to stomach. The recipe I'd found also called for an orange, to sweeten the batch, but as this was already a trial-and-error sort of creation, I ignored that ingredient.

April 2, 2015 - Grapefruit Marmalade

   There, doesn't that look scrumptious? Even sans orange, I didn't mind eating this.
   The peels are quick-boiled thrice—each time dulls down the bitterness. After strained the final time, they're cooked with some of the pulp (no water), some sugar, and I added a cinnamon stick. It's all simmered down until the desired consistency is reached, then it's chilled overnight and ready to serve on buttered toast. And just so you know, the above is still alive and well in our fridge. As long as it's kept airtight, nothing should trouble this stuff for quite a while.

The Stockpile

   There are two types of leftovers. There are those that are literally left over from a meal, already cooked and for the most part ready-to-eat. Then, there are those that are not yet cooked, and are probably better-known as "kitchen scraps." The peels above are of this second type, but there are so many others that any given meal may produce, and it is sad to say much of it goes straight to the trash bag. But just like egg shells and banana peels should probably be thrown into your garbage garden, most of the trimmings from vegetables and cuts of meat should rather end up in a bag in your freezer.
   My first laudable use of such scraps was [at least] 12 months in the making. The recipe for homemade broth is actually very flexible, so that if you've got the basics down pat, settling down and making it becomes a streamlined, carefree process. But it all starts with flavor-packed ingredients: fresh, clean, unused vegetable parts, along with fresher ones and spices.
   Now, this probably goes back to 2013, when I was living in my friend's house and had created a new habit of collecting, and freezing, kitchen scraps such as celery heart, carrot ends and scrapings, onion skins, asparagus ends, and mushrooms. The most important thing to know about this vital step is cleanliness: make sure it's fresh (or at the very least, not on its way out—i.e., spoiling), and notably in the case of carrots, etc., make sure it's cleaned before you peel/trim it. Because these trimmings will end up soaking in water, and you may not want the taste of dirt.
   Speaking of dirt, once this stockpile of scraps was finally broken into—all of this going into a big pot—I also added leek greens. Leeks are notorious for trapping dirt in between their leaves, and not just the gritty particles of it, but sometimes caked smears of it that make you wonder how they got there. Leeks will take some extra effort to clean fully, but for my ulterior motive they were an essential ingredient in this veggie broth.
   Additionally, I doubled up on fresh celery, shiitake mushrooms, and more asparagus ends, because let's face it, asparagus will always give you tough ends. If spices are any balance against how much was going into the pot, I added 3 bay leaves and 3 garlic cloves, with their skins, as well as a rough-chopped white onion and its skins. I think the skins of these Allium sp.-bulb vegetables condense a lot of flavor that we otherwise wouldn't know about, similar to citrus peels which we might only zest, if that. And for the final touch, mainly because they were in my fridge at the time and were not seeing better use, I sautéed radishes and a turnip because I'd heard that roasting, charring and similar techniques help to bring out nutty flavors in such root vegetables.
   There are some vegetables which shouldn't go into broth-making, namely belonging to Brassica sp. This does include turnips, but mostly considers cabbage, broccoli, kale, etc. Their inclusion solely regards the bitter taste they might impart on a broth, especially if used in excess. Potatoes are not used for the reason that they absorb flavors rather than give them. And ground spices are not better options than whole versions.
   The rule for stock calls for water to cover. That is to say, however many solids you've got, give it enough water to fill the crevices and just cover it all. And here comes the easy part: boil, then simmer uncovered for an hour without stirring. Stirring is one of those mechanical processes that helps tenderize and break down food. As far as the broth is concerned, we want the exact opposite: for those ingredients to stay as whole as possible while draining them of their flavors. If anything, the only extra treatment they'll need is to skim any "suds" off the top layer; these would be broken-down proteins, but their removal is purely an aesthetic option, as they lead to cloudiness. When the hour is up—and taking care not to cook for too long, for sake of the delicate balance of flavors—the heat goes off and it cools slightly before the final step.
   Straining will show you what you've been working toward. Understandably, the finer the sieve or whatever you use, the clearer your product will be, and usually a little cloudiness is not terrible. Starchy vegetables will increase cloudiness, but if you choose to follow this recipe, you may wish to strain with cheesecloth layered over a colander. We didn't have cheesecloth, so I made do with the next best thing: a dampened paper towel. Hey, it was that or the naked colander, which really wasn't an option.

January 9, 2015 - No-Salt Vegetable Broth

   Now about that ulterior motive. The above broth was made for a homemade ramen meal. But what should become of those strained solids? Because knowing me, they've got to go as far as they can before I'll consider ditching them. Two days later, the vast majority of them found their way into a potato-leek soup. I searched out the onion and garlic skins, those 3 bay leaves, and however many carrot ends there were, and the rest of the broth scraps landed in a pot with gold potatoes and a splash of water. The conglomerate was boiled and then puréed, a process which took quite a while to do completely with one of those hand-blenders, and finally simmered with milk, cream, butter, salt and pepper, and thyme. The end result? C'est magnifique!

January 11, 2015 - Potato Leek Soup

   Cooking with vegetables is the safest route to take, and saving up those scraps comes second nature now, but this summer I decided to take advantage of another easy-to-cook element: shrimp. And all of those endeavors deserve their own post (to follow), but I'm glad I chose early on to purchase the "EZ-peel" flash-frozen shrimp. Frozen, because chances are any fishermen-caught shrimp were already frozen at some point; and easy-to-peel because the beheading and deveining process actually makes it so. Plus, if they're pre-peeled, you're only robbing yourself of that tasty layer. Once sufficiently thawed, their shells were peeled and refrozen until the point where I'd accumulated enough for a long-desired homemade shrimp stock.
   Technically, a stock is created to serve its purpose as a base (for soup, sauce, gravy, etc.), whereas a broth is considered complete on its own. Stock would more likely be concentrated with a richer flavor (more commonly using meat or bones), while broth is mild and owes much of its taste to seasoning. And because I made the following to be added to my trial gumbo, it may indeed be called a "stock"—though shrimp may not have ended up the proper star of it.
   The overwhelming flavor of this stock came from one vegetable which I'd underestimated. You may recall my mention of onion, carrot and celery as foundational ingredients, but the thing about these (and especially celery) is that the denser or more tightly packed cores hide a lot of flavor. So it was, that when I used the entire celery heart in addition to a stalk or two, the essence of the vegetable overpowered everything else. All I'm going to say, then, is remember to keep the balance.
   Before anything else, approximately 1 pound's worth of shrimp shells (along with garlic skins and onion skins) was tossed into the pot and cooked from frozen, until they gained color and basically separated from each other. Then came the famous triplex of fresh onion, carrot, and celery, along with garlic and thyme. And finally, water to cover, a tasty splash of Sauvignon blanc, a dollop of tomato paste, and a touch of salt and pepper set this medley ready to boil and simmer for 1 hour.

July 21, 2015 - Shrimp Stock

   Of course, the final step was straining, and this time we did right. If you've already read the roux-and-gumbo post, you'll know that we'd gone to IKEA by this time. We invested in a proper mesh strainer, and I bought cheesecloth from a supermarket, so I was actually able to mash and press this stuff against it without fear that the filter would break. Then, dividing the perfect (albeit celery-y) product between two containers to be refrigerated for the next day's meal, it was time to address the leftovers.
   The idea for potato-leek soup came hand-in-hand with the first broth I'd made. These leftovers, however—sans anything I knew wouldn't blend well (shells, skins and thyme stems)—sat in our fridge for a while before I finally thought of a way to use them. I shoved them in our food processor, pulsed them with some oil, and ultimately wound up with a carrot purée. This I added to pasta, and shrimp (because, summer), and was reminded of pasta fagioli...in appearance only, I assure you. Edible? yes. Tasty? somewhat. Satisfying? on many levels.

August 7, 2015 - Shrimp Primavera