but it takes a genius to make a good meal out of there's-nothing-in the fridge-Friday-nights (since most of us do our grocery shopping on the weekends).

From the depths of my Kitchen stadium I challenge any Iron Chef to produce a world-class meal using today's secret ingredient: stale leftovers! (and the contents of my fridge and pantry, no special food delivery allowed).

It doesn't take a genius to make a good or even excellent salad out of arugula, fenugreek sprouts and hand-picked blueberries with aged balsamic vinegar from Modena and extra virgin olive oil. What takes genius is to make a good meal out of a month old cabbage, weeks-old dried apple squares, a head of garlic and some rye bread. Yes, give me truffle oil and I will turn any meal into an out-of this world experience, but in this frugal times what we need is real skills to teach us how to transform leftovers into Friday night suppers (instead of into fodder for the garbage can) and how to cook better with less (less fat, less sodium, less time and above all, less money).

I'm tired of hearing the phrase "good food starts with good ingredients", "impossible to make a good dish out of bad ingredients". What a lie.  

What did our mothers, or most likely our grandmothers do in times of scarcity? And I mean grandmothers like mine, who raised her two daughters (my mother and my aunt) alone without the economic and otherwise support of a husband? Who had to work and keep house at the same time?

Well, here's one example. My grandmother didn't use the most expensive ingredients, but she knew a few basics about good nutrition and good housekeeping, and how to get the most nutrition for her dollar.  First of all she didn't buy canned or processed food, she canned and processed the food herself. Second, she kept an herb garden (OK, I draw the line at that, since my thumbs are totally black and not green as demonstrated by ten years of failed gardening attempts - and counting...), but still, I can buy herbs in the supermarket, and dried ones are as good as the fresh ones for most applications. Third, she had a couple of tricks up her sleeve to make a wonderful use of leftovers... which brings me back to my initial rant at the Food Network and its abuse of expensive, over-the top foodstuffs. 

It all started with those Apple Squares I did a couple (or more?) of weeks ago (see previous posts). They were excellent the first day, but by the fourth day they had grown old and a bit dried, so the last six or so squares had been sitting in my fridge for some time... luckily they did not grow any mould, but they definitely were past their prime. I was desperate to do something to save their lot but my Internet searches failed to produce any results, as did the Food Network. And it was Friday night, the fridge was pretty much empty, I had a small amount of butter (I've been waiting unsuccessfully for the yearly non-salted butter $2.99 special but I guess it's not coming back and I'll have to fork out the $5.99 per pound in my next shopping trip), and so on.

Luckily I remembered that old cookbook that has been passed on to me from my mother who had inherited it from my grandmother... It was so worn I had actually spent $70 on new binding. That was ten years ago. By now you will know I actually am quite fond of that cookbook and it is not gathering dust on a bookshelf like so many fancier "Food Network Star" -endossed ones.

 

Well, the book revealed a gem of a recipe: bread-crumb pudding with raisins and orange peel. I didn't have raisins, but when I weighted the crumbs of the Apple Squares it made up the exact required amount of dried weight of crumbs and raisins combined and since my crumbs had "dried" apples I figured that would do. Thankfully I did have candied orange peel, the real homemade stuff that grandpa painstakingly made for me three years ago, it's rock-hard (like candy, of course!) and it takes an ice pick to get at it, but at least the stuff keeps well.

And what a wonder four eggs, a half-cup of icing sugar (actually I had run out of icing sugar and used fruit sugar plus a tablespoon cornstarch instead, since I knew - from my cookbook bible that icing sugar is powdered sugar plus cornstarch...), a quarter cup of butter and some serious beating (thanks the Man for stand-alone mixers...) did.

Now THAT I call genius. After a fifty-minute bake out came a perfect warm apple-orange pudding, soft, with a consistency of a light genoise and a golden colour throughout.  Nobody would know it was made out of a weeks old, dried-out cake...

I fail to be impressed by chefs throwing down pricey oils and condiments, what impresses me is a well-prepared meal where nothing gets wasted and where at the end of the day, someone else volunteers to do the dishes.