Your Questions: Ideas for Leftovers?
Since this is an entire show of leftovers, Rachael is opening up the mailbag to tackle some of your questions about leftover recipes! Get her ideas for coffee, spaghetti and leftover chicken stock below:
What can you do with leftover coffee? Rachael jokes that while making coffee is not her strength and John takes charge of their morning brew, she has some great ideas for using the coffee once it's in the pot!
Chili: "I often see it as an added ingredient - the secret ingredient - in some chili recipes," Rachael says. "You can throw a little into the chili ... It really brings out the flavor of the beans."
Coffee Pan Gravy: "My dad's from the South, so everybody from the South knows about red eye gravy. It's red eye gravy because it perks you up a little bit! You take some good strong coffee and you make a pan gravy, and you can add some mustard or maple syrup to it or do it in ham drippings. Your red eye gravy always has one main ingredient: the coffee!" Click here for the recipe.
Tiramisu: "In my Italian side of the family this is the number one use for leftover coffee," Rachael says. "You soak cake with coffee liquor and good strong leftover coffee, you layer it in with sweetened cheese, a little dusting of cocoa or cinnamon on top - absolutely fabulous!"
Iced Coffee: "I love this idea," Rachael raves, as she pulls ice cubes out of the freezer that were made using leftover coffee. Start with the coffee cubes and add your leftover morning coffee for a delicious drink that won't get watered down when the ice cubes start to melt. "The flavor never changes!"
Can you freeze extra spaghetti? "Frozen pasta is fine," says Rachael, "but it would be a little mushy for me. I like it al dente." Instead, she suggests reinventing the meal when you have leftover pasta. "I would put it in a baking dish with a little bit of EVOO all around and cook it up like a lasagna, put a little extra cheese on top so you get extra crunchy all around the edges. That would be my choice for the leftover spaghetti."
How can I avoid getting stuck with leftover chicken stock? If you normally buy canned stock and then have to search around for a container to store the rest, Rachael suggests switching to stock-in-a-box. They have re-sealable lids that are simpler to store. "These boxes just go in and out of the fridge and you can use them for up to two weeks," she explains. "I will give you a heads up: your nose will know when any stock has gone south!"


