You Ate What?

When I was making vegetable soup yesterday with the last of my fruit-and-veggie-stand vegetables, I started reminiscing about something an ex-boyfriend told me he and his roommates used to do. He said that at the end of the week they would take all the leftovers from the fridge and put them together and eat them, no matter what they were. He described putting leftover hard boiled eggs into things like leftover Chinese food and anything else that happened to reside in the fridge at week's end. He even implied that dessert items would occasionally be tossed into the mix, but this I don't believe. How disgusting? How daring? How practical?

I play it pretty safe when it comes to incorporating leftover foods into new dishes. I put Friday's kamut pilaf into my soup, but that was hardly an out-on-the-ledge choice. In fact, I didn't even combine chili and macaroni until I was almost thirty.

So I wonder, am I missing out on a whole universe of palate-tempting concoctions? Should I be combining Tuesday's leftover tofu and broccoli with Thursday's TVP spaghetti sauce? Should I throw caution to the wind and maybe come up with something intoxicating?

Maybe this leftover dilemma (which is a real one for anybody who lives alone) is the reason I eat steak so often. I've evolved into an almost-otherwise-vegetarian with a three night a week steak habit for a reason, I think. Steak is easily consumed, and accompanied by vegetables, very satisfying. It leaves no leftovers if you make sure you portion correctly. If done correctly (very rare) it satisfies any blood lust that can be satiated without committing a crime.

But back to the world of leftover combining. What am I missing? What do you put together to make something new out of leftover food? Is it anything anybody else would really consider eating? My mother used to fry leftover spaghetti in butter and that was pretty good. Are you just poor and desperate and you have to eat it all anyway, so combining is a way to pretend it's something new? Let me know your special dish, or maybe how you like your steak cooked.