Anyone who follows this blog on even a semi-regular basis will be reminded of the opening sentence in one of Calvin Trillin’s books (I think it’s from Alice Let’s Eat) where he says that his mother never wasted anything, and always served leftovers, the original meal for which was in some long forgotten past.
And so it is with me. Working in a grocery store where we do our utmost to make sure we waste as little as possible, it would still be possible to run a good sized, high end restaurant on the food we give to shelters and food banks. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you, it’s just that you don’t want to get to this point at home.
Cooking is all about transformation: raw into cooked; cold into hot; solid into liquid; inedible into edible; leftovers into something completely new! Nothing, or almost nothing goes to waste in my kitchen. That Pot au Feu I was wrestling with a few days ago in an earlier post? It never made it into it’s original dish, but I’ve frozen the broth and turned some of the meat into a delicious, cold-weather, borscht for tomorrow’s dinner, when both the SO and I will settle into the one at-home, together meal we get with our crazy schedule this week.
The “recipe” is below, but it’s seat of the pants, or in this case tailored to the size of the pan which is deliberately smaller than usual since in thinking about any meal, I think ahead to what I could do with the leftovers. Short of stuffing cabbage with a chopped up, cooked down version of the borscht, I don’t think there’s much else to be done with it so I deliberately used a pot big enough for three people, about a litre and a half .
Stay tuned for what will happen to the leftover canned tomatoes! The beef stock! The cabbage!
It Was a Cold and Stormy Night Beef Borscht
Serves 3
10 minutes to assemble; 90 minutes simmering
Saute 1 large onion, chopped, 1 clove garlic, diced, 1 leek, sliced, if you have it, 1 carrot, peeled and diced in about 1 Tbsp olive oil. Cook over high heat at first, lower the heat after about 3 minutes and saute for an additional 5 minutes. Sprinkle with 2 tsp Hungarian paprika and stir to mix.
To this add about 1 1/2 cups canned peeled tomatoes and their juice, 1 1/2 cups beef broth, about 1 cup cooked beef, pulled into pieces, and 2 cups thinly sliced cabbage, 1 Tbsp sugar. Simmer on the stove for about an hour or until the cabbage is soft and the sauce has thickened. Right before serving squeeze a little bit of fresh lemon juice and taste for a balance between the sweet and the sour. Serve garnished with chopped fresh dill and sour cream.
Posted by crazy4food 
