Recently, I’ve acquired a new talent. Maybe I have a skewed sense of what’s yummy and what’s kinda nasty, but I’ve found that I’m not too bad (in my opinion) at making meals out of leftovers and odd ingredients scattered around the house. Here’s a list of some easy meals entirely using ingredients that are currently in my fridge.
Meal #1: Wild rice, black beans, and a fried egg.
My family tends to eat wild rice with poached eggs for Sunday night dinner because it’s a pretty simple recipe to cook up after a busy weekend. It’s quick, easy, healthy and yummy. What more can you want? If you don’t know what wild rice is, it’s not actually rice. It’s a grass seed (I think), and it’s darker than brown rice-almost black. You can cook it in chicken or veggie broth, which is delicious and keeps really well in the fridge. After field hockey today, I warmed it up with some leftover black beans (from burrito night) in the microwave, and I used some vegan butter *ooooh* to fry a sunny-side up egg. [PRO TIP #1--if you put an egg on anything, it automatically becomes a full meal.] I mixed in some mango-chile hot sauce into my rice and beans, plopped the egg on top, and stirred it all together.
Meal #2: Tomato mozzarella salad.
My mom makes pizza a lot, so we always have extra fresh mozzarella on hand, and tomatoes are coming into season. I chopped some red and yellow grape tomatoes in half and cut two mozzarella balls into little chunks. I grabbed some leftover balsamic salad dressing and some fresh basil--and boom! A meal.
Meal #3: A veggie sandwich.
I don’t like mayo in my sandwiches, but dry sandwiches are gross. I usually like to use Sabra hummus or mozzarella cheese to make it a little more edible, but since I already used the mozzarella in my salad, and I ate the hummus last night while I was watching “Modern Family,” I had to devise another plan. I found some homemade pesto base from who-knows-how-many-pasta-night-ago, and I thought, “BINGO.” Technically you’re supposed to mix heavy cream into this pesto to make it pasta sauce, but we never do that because it’s easier to keep in the fridge (and we always forget that step anyways). So I just spreaded it onto my bread as it is, added some tomatoes, lettuce, and a slice of cheese, and ate it. I’d give it ⅘ stars.