Repurposing

Use Your Leftovers or Repurposing

            When preparing your ingredients, be thinking about what you can use in another way.  Clean you vegetable thoroughly before peeling.  Save the peels to make vegetable broth.   Long ago, I kept and empty milk carton in the freezer.  I would add small amounts of leftover vegetables to the carton.  When the carton was full, we had vegetable soup.

            There are hundreds of ideas for leftover meats.  I used to collect turkey recipes to use up leftover turkey at Thanksgiving.  That goes for leftover potatoes, pasta and rice.  There are times that I make extra just to have the leftovers for other dishes.

            Be creative and think of repurposing your preparation leftovers.  An example is pectin made from apple peels.  Simmer the peels and reduce the liquid.  This can be used to make jellies, jams and preserves.  Research this if you are interested in trying to make pectin.

 

This Week’s Challenge

            This week think of one thing you can repurpose.  This can be a one-time reuse of leftovers or a long term saving of leftovers from processing vegetables.

 

Tip for this Week – Breading

            Breading an ingredient requires three steps of dredging.  Usually these are dredging in seasoned flour, a wet coating of beaten eggs or milk, and final dredging in some kind of crumbs.  The final stage can be breadcrumbs, crushed crackers, crushed cereals like corn flakes.  Use one hand to dredge in dry ingredients and the other hand for the wet middle stage.  This prevents the build up a breading on your fingers.  It does take some coordination and concentration on which hand does which step.

 

Step one seasoned flour

Step two egg wash




Step four fry in oil



Step three Panko bread crumbs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week in Punkin’s Kitchen

 

 

Turkey Croquets

The ingredients

 

 

2 C      Turkey, diced (or other leftover meat)

2-3 C  Potatoes boiled and smashed (or leftover mashed potatoes)

            Salt and pepper to taste

1 C      Flour

2          eggs, well beaten with one T water

2 C      Panko bread crumbs

            Oil for frying (vegetable or canola oil)

            Ketchup or other condiment for dipping


 

1.    Place a skillet over medium high heat and add about an inch of oil.

Use enough oil to come up half way on the croquets.  I used canola oil.

 

2.    Take about ¼ C of the potatoes and mix with a few chunks of turkey.



Boil the potatoes and cool handles

Smash the potatoes  little.  Add the meat or add the meat when shaping. 



  

3.    Form the mixture into a cylinder shape, like an oversized spool of thread.

It is fine to see the chunks of meat.

4.    Roll the cylinder in the flour to completely coat it.

5.    Dip the cycling in the egg mixture.

 

6.    Roll it in the panko breadcrumbs.

 

7.    When the oil is hot, add the breaded cylinder to the oil to fry. 

8.    Continue making more cylinders and breading them, then add them to the skillet.
 

9.    Watch them closely, once one side is golden brown turn it to make sure the entire croquet is golden on all sides.

The oil should come half way up the croquets.  Turn them when the bottom is crispy golden brown. 

 

10. Remove the browned croquets to drain is a heat proof dish lined with paper towels.

 

11. Serve with a dipping sauce and a salad.

 

Plan at least three or four croquets per serving.  This depends on the size of your croquets.  I usually serve them with ketchup, but other sauces like A-1 sauce or tonkatzu sauce or even barbecue sauce are good.  This is a good way to stretch leftover roast or steaks when you don’t have enough go around for the meal.  This time I uses equal parts ketchup and A-1 for the dipping sauce.

 

Also this week

            Cookies!  I needed to make cookies for the neighbors and for work so I made Toffee Crunch and Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I use the recipes for the chocolate chip or tollhouse cookies on the package of Nestle’s chocolate chips.  Here is the recipe for Toffee Crunch cookies.

Toffee Crunch and Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

 

Toffee Crunch Cookies

 

1 C                  Butter, softened

1 C                  Light brown sugar

3/4 C               Sugar

1 t                    Vanilla extract

Two                 Eggs

2 C                  Flour

¼ t                   Salt

¼ t                   Baking soda

16 oz.             Toffee chips

1 C                  Oatmeal

1 C                  Sweetened, flaked coconut

1 C                  Slivered almonds

 

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Cream the butter and both sugars.  Add the vanilla.  Beat the eggs slightly and add to the butter mixture and mix well.  Sift the flour, salt, baking soda.  Slowly add to the butter mixture and mix thoroughly.  Mix in the toffee chips, oatmeal, coconut and almonds.

 

Drop dough by teaspoons onto an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes

 

Happy cooking!