TBT, baby!

One of the new directives we are taking to heart with our revamped nutritional plan is to not waste food. Whether it is leftovers, fresh fruits or vegetables nearing the end of their life span in the crisper, or sheer boredom, we are newly determined to use our food more thoroughly, more creatively, and not waste our resources.

We seem to have fallen into a pattern of heading over to the Asian market on Friday morning before the crush of people shopping for the weekend begins. Much like Costco, many aisle endcaps feature specials on products, bulk buys, and animated pitchwomen handing out tastes of food, many of which I am still unable to identify. At any rate, shopping on Friday morning to replenish our food stores has put a new onus on cooking on Thursdays to use up the last of our leftovers, prepared foods we may have on hand, and little bits of fresh produce. So in a culinary sort of way, we have our own "Throwback Thursday," revisiting what is in the fridge from our week of meals and finishing it up rather than letting it languish there and be tossed out later.

The last of the bok choi went into this side dish, along with sesame greens and seasoned mung bean sprouts, as well as the last of the Korean tofu, redolent with chili oil, scallions and garlic. You can pretty much put this stuff on anything and it will taste marvelous. That emptied three containers and one bag. Bam!

Our sushi handroll meal from a previous dinner yielded some leftover rice, and the last of the scallions, shiitake mushrooms, and some more of the chopped greens went in there as well. A half of an onion was chopped in there, and it all simmered until it was glorious and translucent. This was the real star of our breakfast, and the leftovers went to work with me for lunch. Two more containers and two more bags from the crisper. Yeah!

As you can see from the first photo, we added some toasted nori, and I put a small plate of homemade pickles was added to help digest the grain, an old holdover from my macro days. The varied textures of daikon, burdock, and onion tempered with aged soy and rice vinegar were a nice finish to our little meal. Tummy happy, and a little lighter, too...I've dropped seven pounds so far.