Leftovers Makeover

Welcome!

In my family I'm known for "winging it" when it comes to many aspects of my life, especially in the kitchen. As 20-something year-olds, my husband and I still have our moments of poor Adulting; and when we forget (again) to go grocery shopping, we often have to do our best Chopped contestant impressions to answer the age-old question, "What's for dinner?"

To launch this blog, I'm going to start with a Flavor Creation my family said couldn't (well, more like, shouldn't) be done--Chinese Leftovers Soup! The story of the why and how I came up with this idea begins on New Year's Day. My husband and I were in charge of making lunch for the group and I had the wild idea to make soup from scratch in an effort to be mindful of the diabetic needs of some of the family. I put a bunch of fresh ingredients in a pot and voila! a delicious soup was born. (More about the vegetable soup recipe to come in a later blog post.)

Source: http://www.quoteswords.com/35-funny-minions-quotes-and-sayings/

The next day, we go out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant.  I order the pineapple chicken chow yuk expecting a stir-fry type dish with pineapples and chicken.  When the food comes, it has a bit more sauce on it than I expected; the food was all covered in a fairly thick clear-ish sauce.  Since this was the first time I'd ordered the chow yuk, I still have no idea if this is normal or not but either way, not what I was expecting and not really something I enjoy.  Don't get me wrong, the flavor was good and the food all cooked perfectly, but I was a bit turned off by the consistency of the sauce. With the success of the previous day's vegetable soup fresh on my mind, I thought to myself, Why not make this into a soup? I figured by thinning out the sauce into a soup broth, I could leverage the flavors of the dish into something I would enjoy eating.  This is the point where I voice my idea and am met with some laughter and strong suggestions to forget this crazy idea. My sister-in-law had ordered the same dish so she understood where I was going with the idea but the rest of the crew was less than enthusiastic; even my husband was wary knowing he would end up as the guinea pig.

Never one to be deterred by nay-sayers, the next day, I set out to turn my leftovers into a delicious soup. I started by straining the chicken, pineapple and vegetables out of the sauce and throwing them in a saute pan with a dash of sesame seed oil.  I then put the sauce from the meal mixed with some sweet and sour sauce into a few cups of water in a pot on the stove. I whisked the soup base together and left it to boil.  Then, I worked on lightening/freshening up my leftovers by letting them cook in the saute pan while I started on making some noodles to add to my soup.

Source: http://www.veganosity.com/homemade-vegan-pasta/

Upon a close examination of my refrigerator, I found we were seriously lacking a few staples including eggs.  So, like a child raised on computers and search engines, I Googled, "vegan homemade noodles" and found this recipe from Alex Meyer over at Veganosity. Following the instructions (yes, sometimes I do actually follow a recipe, well steps 1-3 anyways...) I prepared the noodles to be added to the soup.  After the leftovers had gotten a decent sear and the soup base reached a boil, I added the leftovers to the base and reduced the heat.  As the soup cooked, I added some ginger, pepper and garlic seasoning and another dash of sesame oil diluted in another cup of water to the soup until I was happy with the taste.  With the noodles prepped and ready, I tossed them in the soup and turned up the temp to maintain the boil.

Once the noodles were done, I turned off the heat and prepared myself for the first test and ladled myself up a bowl.  What I tasted was pretty delicious, if I do say so myself.  The flavors of the original dish were still present but the food tasted fresh and basically became a Chinese flavored chicken noodle soup.  Now, I may be biased but you can rely on the results of the ultimate test--my dear husband, the guinea pig.  DH's not afraid to be brutally honest...not even the threat of a night on the couch can change his review; so though it may have taken a bit of convincing, my husband did agree to try my new concoction and... Drum roll please... He liked it! He even said he was, "literally eating his words," from the night before and especially liked the noodles. I guess not only was my experiment a success but also my first foray into making homemade noodles!

Don't take my word for it, try it out and let me know what you think in the comments section below.
Thanks :)
Happy Experimenting!

Recipe Recap - Chinese Leftovers Soup

You'll need:

• 1 container of leftovers
• Separate sauce from food best you can
• Noodles
• Flour, salt and water are needed for the recipe I used but you can use any noodle recipe or pre-made noodles
• Water
• Six cups seemed to work for me but the amount will vary based on the quantity of the leftovers and leftovers sauce and how thick the leftovers sauce is
• Chinese and other seasonings
• I used sesame oil, ginger, sweet and sour sauce, and fresh ground pepper and garlic seasoning.  I didn't need to add any salt as there was plenty in the leftovers sauce, but you may need to; add salt and other seasonings to flavor your soup to taste.

Instructions:

1. Get water, sweet and sour sauce (optional) and sauce from leftovers boiling in large pot to make soup base.
2. Fry up the leftovers and add to soup base, let simmer while you prep noodles.
   NOTE: if you use pre-made noodles or make your noodles up beforehand, let simmer for roughly 30 minutes; you can go longer to really bring out the flavors just be aware of the cook on the vegetables.
3. Prepare noodles. As you prep the noodles, continue to taste and season the simmering soup base.
4. Add noodles to soup base once both are ready.
5. Increase stove temp to maintain boil and boil soup until noodles are cooked.
6. Turn off heat and enjoy!