spring cleaning, kitchen style

Maybe the idea of spring cleaning has gotten the better of me, or maybe I'm anticipating the fact that I'm going to be moving at the of the summer, but I've started to focus most of my cooking on using up food that I have a lot of already. It started when I finished off my bottle of teriyaki sauce with the marinade I made for my baked tofu (see this past thursday)...

Friday's lunch followed a similar theme. I bought a bottle of pesto at Trader Joe's with no set intention for it several months ago. I came across it earlier this week while looking for baking soda and decided that it's time to use it. I also had an open box of boca burgers with one burger left (and an unopened package of garden burgers to start on). I decided to create what I call an italian burger. It's a boca burger with provolone cheese melted on it and topped with pesto. I ate it on a whole wheat bun, and it was incredible. I also finished off what little remained of an open bag of guiltless gourmet salt-free tortilla chips with an open jar of whole food's salsa.

I cracked out the bottle of pesto again for last night's dinner, using it to top the meager remains of my Dreamfield's penne pasta. My side was grape tomatoes in oil and vinegar. For dessert, I ate the last few cookies in my box of Tagalongs (I'm pretty sure they were stale, though...gross).

When I returned from yoga class this morning, I knew I wanted something different than what I normally have for breakfast on weekends. My normal breakfast on weekends consists of a Thomas' light multigrain english muffin with either promise light spread, peanut butter, neufchatel cheese, or jam (or sometimes a combination of the last two), along with a bowl of Kashi 7 whole grains puffs. Sometimes I'll throw in some fresh fruit, depending on what I've got. On this morning, though, I decided to change things up. Using the egg beaters I bought recently, I made an egg scramble consisting of goat cheese crumbles and the remaining two grape tomatoes. I ate it on a toasted english muffin. I meant to put some pesto on the english muffin, but forgot to. It was pretty good without it, but I'm sure it would've been even better with the pesto. maybe I'll try it tomorrow, even though I'm out of tomatoes now (maybe I'll use some of the mushrooms I have, instead.)

If I have enough basil, i'm going to try round one of making pesto tomorrow. I have a jar of roasted red peppers to get rid of, so I'm going to make red pepper pesto. I'll probably freeze it, since I have the regular pesto from Trader Joe's to finish off, first.

Making Use of Leftovers, Round Two

I'm working from home today, which means I have a little more leeway in what I want to make for lunch. In preparation for this, I raided my fridge last night to see what I had. It hit me as soon as I saw the leftover baked tofu: marinated tofu! I cubed the brick and marinated it in a mixture of teriyaki sauce and tamari (turns out I had very little teriyaki sauce left, so I made this combination) overnight, along with some sliced baby bella mushrooms. It was so good! Definitely plan on making this one again next time I buy baked tofu, especially the five-spice variety.



Ingredients:
1 serving five-spice baked tofu
1/4 cup sliced baby bella mushrooms
1 tbsp teriyaki sauce/tamari/soy sauce

Directions:
cube tofu and place in container with mushrooms. Pour sauce over tofu and mushrooms, stir until evenly coated. Marinate overnight.
place tofu, mushrooms, and sauce in greased frying pan. cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until heated through. serve warm.

Making Use of Leftovers

I always prepare my lunch for days that I go to my school the night before, since waking up at 6AM only allows me an hour to get ready for the day before commuting for 35 minutes. I originally planned on defrosting some of my leftover bulgur chili that I froze last week for today's lunch. But when I opened my fridge, I noticed all of the fresh produce I had in there that I did not want to waste. This feeling was brought on by the fact that I recently had to throw out an entire cantaloupe that fell victim to mold.

Using the cherry tomatoes, arugula, and goat cheese I bought for last night's dinner, along with some berries that I bought to mix in with my yogurt that I eat for breakfast at my school, I came up with one hell of a good-looking salad. (I'll post a picture on here when I have it for lunch later). I even threw in some sliced mushrooms that I found in my fridge from last week, too. My dressing of choice is Walden Farm's no-calorie raspberry vinaigrette. My hope is that this combination will result in a sweet-salty salad of perfect proportions.

To me, the trick in creating the perfect salad is making sure that it is the correct size portion-wise. Portion-distortion is a huge problem in our society, and my family and friends are no exception to this. I don't eat out at restaurants as often as I used to, but I've developed a habit of ordering from the appetizer menu instead of the entree menu (not only are the portions smaller, but it's cheaper). The thing is, we don't need to eat more to feel full. In a recent study I saw on the news, people reported feeling full when eating a smaller portion than they were used to. It's all a matter of how our brain perceives what's on our plate.

In making this salad, I used the following measurements:
1 cup arugula leaves
1/4 cup cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup sliced baby bella mushrooms
1 tbsp blueberries
1 tbsp goat cheese crumbles
2 medium strawberies

I originally planned on using 1/2 cup of cherry tomatoes, but I realized that I didn't need that many as I started slicing them.

So I'm curious: how do you like to make use of leftover ingredients?