Tag Archives: left overs

In lieu of Wrist to Forehead Sunday, I offer the following cooking post:

For dinner last night, I decided to use up some leftovers. We had some meatballs and some cheese dip. The cheese dip was an attempt I had made at Horned Dorset Dip, which I have enjoyed at wine tastings at Ilion Wine and Spirits. The guy there told me the recipe and I wrote it down.

The recipe is basically equal parts chopped onion, grated cheddar cheese and mayonnaise. You mix, put in oven and bake at 350 degrees till bubbly. I think. I confess, I relied on memory rather than searching through various notebooks I may have written it in (although now that I think about it, I bet it’s in my wine tasting notebook in my purse. Silly me!).

The dip did not turn out as well as what they served at the wine tasting. I don’t know if my oven was too hot or I baked it too long, but the cheese kind of separated, as melted cheddar sometimes does. We ate it and liked it anyways. We put what was left over in the refrigerator.

Regarding the meatballs, well, shake your gourmet fingers at me if you must, they were the pre-made frozen kind. I had heated them in the oven and we had dipped them in sauce as an appetizer/munchy kind of thing. The leftovers had no sauce on them so were open to many possibilities.

I set the oven to 350 degrees to preheat (kind of the universal temperature, isn’t it?) and grated some mozzarella cheese. I put on water to boil for macaroni then thought some garlic would be welcome. I peeled and crushed a few cloves, then set the stove timer for fifteen minutes, so it would reach its full antioxidant potential (or is it cancer fighting? I can never keep these things straight).

Where I somehow managed to time things right: the water in the pot came to a boil almost as the timer was at eleven minutes, the time needed to cook the rigatonis (my chosen pasta shape of the day). Once the pasta was cooked and drained, I added the leftover cheese dip, the freshly grated cheese, the leftover meatballs and a little butter for good measure (I used the butter that came with the Italian bread we didn’t eat the last time we ordered from Salvatore’s). I almost forgot the garlic but remembered it in time.

It was immediately after I put the stuff in the oven that I remembered that I had intended to add a can of mushrooms (pieces and stems) for a vegetable. It wasn’t too late: I pulled the casserole dish out and added them. This had the added benefit that I was now sure the garlic was thoroughly mixed in as well.

I baked it for fifteen minutes, stirred it, then fifteen minutes more, covered. Then I sprinkled the last of my Italian style breadcrumbs over top of it and baked it uncovered for five minutes more. I immediately added Italian style breadcrumbs to my grocery list (preview of coming attractions).

Even if I do say it myself (and who else is here to say it?), it tasted pretty darn good. There is a little bit left over, but I intend to heat that up for my dinner tomorrow. Steven won’t be home before seven, and I have a meeting at 6:30. So I’m feeling all kinds of pleased with myself today: used up left overs, have a plan to use up the left over left overs, and avoided a Wrist to Forehead Sunday post. Hope to see you Monday.