Trash Day Gourmet With Mel

What's so special about Tuesday? Well, given my wonky work schedule, one could say that Tuesday is my Monday. It is also garbage day, the unceremonious day when decisions about the freshness of foodstuffs in our fridge are made.

It's more than just the day of reckoning for leftovers. It has become a time of creativity in stretching the food dollar in new and tasty ways.

Last week was a boon for whipping up leftovers into new dishes instead of throwing them away. One sad, wrinkled, lonely roma tomato was diced fine and after making a roux out of olive oil, garlic and herbs, become a seductive chunky red sauce paired with a handful of elbow macaroni. I made a slight mistake in burning the roux slightly which resulted in a toasty, summery flavor.

Two heads of wilted baby lettuce were brought back to life with a soak in cold water. On day 1, Tuesday, one head was chopped into a salad bowl and decorated with leftover steak sliced thin, a pinch of cheese, some cherry tomatoes, a couple of green onions that weren't too wilted, half an avacado, and cucumber. It was every bit as delicious as expected.

Head #2 was consumed on Wednesday. What adorned this masterpiece? Leftover taco meat, more cheese, cukes, carrots, the last of the onions, more tomatoes, and a couple packets of sauce from Taco Bell. Yum for the border!

A few other items were repackaged for eating for later. We had a venison roast that was a bit too freezerburnt to keep too much longer, but still good enough to make. A slow roast in the slow cooker kept it tender and Dave recooked it the next day slow in barbeque sauce. The gamey was tamed by the sweet and smoky.

Ah, but for today, there was more tossing and cosuming to be done. There's really no culinary magic to be done with bologna, and while it passed the sniff test today, I worried that it would not be the case in a couple of days. What's a girl to do but fry it up and eat it with mustard! I also sliced up an avacado for a taste of summer instead of throwing it in the trash.

The strawberries were no longer sweet and plump, and the cherries, imports from Chile, were looking tired too. Removed the tops from the strawberries, pitted the cherries, and threw it all in a blender with a splash of grape juice for color and moisture. The fruits roared back to life and will be tasty stirred in oatmeal and cream of wheat, our breakfast cereals of choice for the winter.

Ah, but there are other things that simply go bad. We bid farewell to the mushrooms, fungi that was no longer fun; baby food that didn't age well in the fridge; sour cream that turned. There have been instances in the past where we simply asked "what the heck is that!?" and dumped it.

All this food eating, casseroling and dumping has made bellies in our house quite happy but this leads to the inevitable task I do not want: off to the grocery store! At least we know there's going to be some great specials heading into Superbowl week.

Bon apetit!