Thursday, July 31, 2008

Oh I love summer, or, the leftover queen returns

Some nights we cook several different dishes, more than we really need for one meal. Then we eat easy leftover meals for a couple of days.

That's what happened tonight, because Mr. Fixit and Ponytails volunteered to barbecue some chicken wings after I already had some things ready to cook. Not one to pass up this opportunity, I figured we'd just have a little more variety at dinner and a few more leftovers and quick lunches.

This is what we had:
Swiss Chard Ratatouille with whole-wheat rotini
Sweet potatoes baked in the toaster oven
Bread-machine bread
Barbecued chicken wings (plain but served with bottled sauces)
Chocolate frozen yogurt (homemade)


Swiss Chard Ratatouille

Our garden is loving the frequent rains this month; we have had a lot of chard already and the zucchini are doing better than they usually do here. I made this up tonight to take advantage of what we had on hand, but you can improvise.

Pick one bunch of chard from the garden; chop the stems separately from the leaves. Heat about 2 tbsp. olive oil (or less if you want) in a large skillet, preferably with a good high lid. Our set of pots and pans has an extra-high lid that's supposed to work with the Dutch oven but also fits the frying pan, so if I'm doing greens that take up a lot of room, I use that.

Sprinkle the hot oil with salt, and saute the chard stems and 1 8-oz package sliced mushrooms (or any other kind of mushrooms). Garlic as well if you have it, but we were out and I didn't feel like using powdered; onion if you want (I didn't). Add vegetables that don't take too long to cook: the chard leaves, some chickpeas, 1 chopped tomato, some canned garlic-herb pasta sauce (tomato-onion would be good too), 1 chopped zucchini (chopped not too thin unless you just like it mushy). Cook, covered, 15-20 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the chard is soft, tomato is cooked, and chickpeas are heated through. It will be slightly liquid from the tomato, but shouldn't need any thickening. Serve over pasta. Mop up the sauce with bread.

Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

You're not going to believe this one.

Combine small amount leftover fudge icing (warmed in the microwave and slightly thinned with water) with plain yogurt. Freeze until solid.

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