There's a container of mu shu pork in the fridge, and you know
no one will ever eat it.  It tasted so good with Chinese
pancakes and hoisin sauce at Sixuan King last night, and it
looks so ghastly today.  So...  You fry it with a little
olive oil, sprinkled with thyme and oregano, and serve it
with polenta.  For breakfast.

You get the idea.  Doesn't have to involve leftovers.  What
spur-of-the-moment ideas have you tried?  Include the ones
that worked and the ones that flopped.

12 responses total.

Please tell me the mu shu pork, olive oil and polenta was
a flop.  I need to believe that.

It was seriously delicious.

One of my favorites is "invent-a-lentil" soup.  You start with a pot of
water and maybe some fried onions.  Then add lentils and other random
foods from around the kitchen (pasta, beans, rice, spices, etc), and
probably somem salt.  (I don't salt many things, but I was raised with
Campbells as my ideal of soup, so soup doesn't taste right to me unless
it is seriously salted.  Though I have definitely had overly salty soup.)
The resulting invent-a-lentil food is sometimes a yummy soup and sometimes,
when I give in to temptation and throw in too much stuff, a mass of cooked
lentils-and-things.  The most important thing seems to be to avoid throwing
in too much stuff; other than that, almost anything involving lentils and
warm water seems to turn out soothing and yummy.

My favorite is "Rice and".  Rice and veges, rice and leftover Chinese
take-out, rice and tomatoes, rice and just about any casserole combination
you've ever eaten (even rice and tuna and mushroom soup).  Even easier if you
start with leftover frozen rice.  Think non-asian spicing, and it almost
always works.

   don't ever try making soup with spam.  :)

At a party in college one night we ran out of mixer after all the
stores had closed, so we tried using Alka Seltzer.  If you've
never tasted rum and Alka Seltzer, you don't know the meaning of
the word "horror."

   yikes.  that reminds me of the time some friends of mine ran out
of orange juice, so they started making screwdrivers by dissolving tang
in their vodka.  

Or the time in college when people didn't have Coke, so they were serving
"Rum and Tab" instead.  Actually, it was kind of good....

i was once at a small party, and folks were drinking
a shot of tequila smothered in whipped cream. bleah.. didnt partake.

We almost never cook with recipes, just add what we have around, but in some
sort of nutritious proportions.  Today was oatmeal and pomegranate syrup,
which was a bit sour so I added honey.  Jim eats tahini and sesame seeds and
honey and raisins for dessert, sometimes with chopped apples.

well, i had stuff to make beef kabobs on the grill, but the weather tuerned
bad.
so, in a skillet i browned a round steak, seasoned with salt pepper and
worchestershire.
then i added a bunch of wine to simmer it in.
to this i added 2 chopped onions, green pepper, bid wad of
chopped garlic, mushrooms and a pint of cherry tomatos.
i simmered this about an hour.
then i added a couple blops of fat free sour cream and simmered that.
meanwhile, i boiled some potato and onion peroiges.
i removed the steak from the veggie cream sauce, and thickened it
with a little cornstarch. i added the boiled perogie dumplings, and
cut up the cooked mean and added that back into the mixture.
                   ^meat
this turned out pretty good.

I have geek friends who call the vodka-and-tang concoction a "sonic
screwdriver."

Or maybe it was vodka and gatorade.  I've sort of repressed the details.

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