The Repurposed Dinner

My friend Gaius Derf said, "Don't you mean we're eating leftovers?"

I politely (after hitting him severely with a cane several times) replied, "No. Leftovers are if you just take something out and reheat it. Re-purposing is taking advantage of things you have to create entirely new dishes. (So Take That!)

I was inspired because I had a number of things in my fridge and freezer that were quite yummy but of which I only had small amounts. Thus the need for some creative re-purposing.

I started by making a bruschetta.

I had made a pot of fava beans the week before with onions, garlic and sage and ended up with way more than we could eat. I thought these would be great as a spread.

 So for this dinner, I did just that, pureeing them with some olive oil, salt and pepper

And then I put the puree down as a base on some toasted French Bread and put a salad of sauteed shallots & garlic with fresh tomatoes, parsley, and basil from our garden. It was pretty good I must say.

Next up was a lasagna.

My making of lasagna has evolved over the years. When I was younger, it was a dish for a special day and was a humongous project with enough food for a dozen people. In recent years, I've toned things down, making smaller versions that are true to the original flavor profiles of the original but with more creativity.

I was motivated for this one by some leftover cooking gravy I had from an Austrian Goulash project last winter. I like my lasagna sauces now to have a distinct meaty component. I augmented the goulash gravy with some tomato puree from last year's crop and some dehydrated tomatoes from the same.

I had some Italian sausage and some ground pork that I used for meat balls.

I'm kind of off of ricotta cheese these days for lasagna. I think the dish ends up too heavy. Daughter #2 uses a bechamel sauce in hers. I like to add cheese to the bechamel. I used a Dubliner cheddar and some Parmigiano Reggiano for this because it was what I had.

I've started using pasta sheets that don't require boiling

If I have the time and energy, I would make my own pasta because that really gives the dish a lighter complexion but it is also a lot of work.

Here is a layer with the sauces, mozzarella cheese, and meat

And here it is ready for the oven

And a slice ready to eat

I was inspired for cocktails by Daughter #3's recent ode to the Negroni and an article I read about them shortly there after. It's a very simple mix of one third each of three ingredients.

For dessert Wife continue the quest to rid ourselves of all last year's peaches before this year's crop comes in with a totally kick butt peach gelato. Sorry no pictures of that.