Adventures in Leftover Relish, Part 2

Having mostly gotten rid of the cran-apple-orange relish, I was still faced with a tub of the yummy but soon-to-be-fermenting cranberry salsa.

No tips online for using that up.

And, oh, by the way, the avocados I'd bought to use on the Thanksgiving salad but forgot to use were sitting on the counter, turning very, very ripe.

avocado. cranberry salsa. avocado. cranberry salsa.  hmm...

Spouse 1.0 used to love the cranberry salsa at La Salsa.  He'd eat it on food that had avocado in it.  The food might be soft tacos, which were made with corn masa, which is kinda like cornmeal, which is kinda like blue cornmeal.

Sounds like blue cornbread to me!

Except, with green avocado, blue-gray cornmeal, and cranberry-red salsa, what color would it really be?

Was I insane? Desperate? I don't know. But, Spouse ate it and liked it. And, coworker Nick said, "Yummm" when he ate it. So, maybe it's not quite as weird as it looks.

Nah, it's pretty weird.  I think I'll need to keep thinking about ways to use up leftover cranberry salsa.

Ack. Bad lighting.  It actually looked a lot rosier than this.

Noodle Pudding, Sort Of

I made the mistake of buying some gluten-free pasta that was not Tinkyada a couple of weeks ago. It was on sale at Henry's for a really irresistible price.

Unfortunately, the pasta itself turned out to be pretty resistible.

It wasn't awful. It just didn't hold up well. It turned to mush -- as I'd been warned that all non-Tinkyada gluten free pasta would.

I got to thinking about noodle kugel, and how it's kinda sorta like baked french toast or strata: Eggs and dairy and such mixed with starchy stuff and baked. 

I had 4 ounces of the pasta spirals left, so why not make a small pasta pudding, kinda sorta like noodle kugel, for the Spouse?

So, I cooked the pasta. It was really nice not having to worry about cooking it for exactly the right number of minutes. If underdone, it'd cook some more when I put the eggy goo on it and baked it. If overdone, the eggy goo would disguise it.

Next, I tossed in some dried cranberries and some frozen ones.  Mixed a large egg with 1/2 cup almond milk; dashes of cinnamon, nutmeg, & cloves; a splash of vanilla; and a tablespoon of raw sugar.

Poured the eggy goo over the pasta and baked it in the toaster oven at 350 for about 40 minutes.

It came out surprisingly good for being such lousy pasta.  Looking forward to seeing if Spouse 1.0 likes it.

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

In my defense, it been a long day at work.  I was tired and my hands hurt.

And, yes, I wanted chocolate pudding.

I was out of the handy little cuplets of Zensoy, and I really, really, really didn't want to bother with the homemade mess of cocoa powder, almond milk, and blah blah blah.  I was also out of arrowroot.

Spouse 1.0 had plenty of chocolate soy milk.  90 calories per cup.

Hmmmm.... What if I borrowed some?

The resulting pudding would be nearly as low cal as that famous name brand pudding I'd given up when we went healthy. Oh, happy low calorie thoughts.

But, what to thicken it with?  I had potato starch and tapioca starch.... And no arrowroot.

Tapioca pearls = tapioca pudding. So tapioca starch must be a most puddingly starch indeed.

Woo hoo! Low cal and just 2 ingredients!  Chocolate soy milk and tapioca starch.

Yes, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

As it cooked, I tasted it. Not bad, but bland and needed to be sweeter. Added a dash cinnamon, a splash of vanilla, a few drops stevia, and a very light sprinkle of raw sugar.

Tasted better, but as it thickened I noticed a very strange stretchy sliminess to its texture.  Ewww.

But, I really, really, really wanted chocolate pudding.

So I ate it.

And, was glad I'd only made four servings. 

On the bright side, it has separated less than all the other homemade non-dairy chocolate puddings. And, when chilled it's not so very stretchy and slimy. 

And it is chocolate.

Vanillascotch Pudding

Yup, I continue my quest for an easy and perfect pudding.

For now, I'm giving up on the crock pot chocolate pudding.  I think I'm finally strong enough to stir a 4-serving recipe on the stove, and the extra work hauling out and washing the crock pot is no longer mitigated by being able to spread the stirring out.

I'll still crock pot the tapioca. It's not as high-maintenance as chocolate.

So, hurray for stove-top chocolate pudding.  But, woman does not live by chocolate pudding alone, or even chocolate with periodic bouts of tapioca.  I need butterscotch.

Luckily, there are recipes for butterscotch out there. So, last week I decided to make butterscotch pudding.

Of course, I can't leave well enough alone. I can't even leave "well enough except for substituting almond milk" alone.

First change: Just say no to processed sugar -- even brown sugar. Raw demerara. About 1/4 what the recipe calls for. And, add a tiny bit of molasses to provide extra brown-ness to the raw sugar.

Next change: Substitute 1/4 date sugar for brown, just because I have it on hand, and just because it's novel.

Third: Leave out the other half of  the sugar. Add some liquid stevia.

Use 1/2 the butter the recipe calls for.  Never mind the fact that this is supposed to be butterscotch. Who needs all that fat?

No corn starch. Arrowroot.

And, of course, almond milk instead of cow's.

Now, add a little extra vanilla to make up for all the flavor lost by cutting back on sugar and fat and such.

Not really butterscotch. Not really vanilla. Vanillascotch.

Results: Don't try this at home, kids.  It's ugly. The date sugar doesn't dissolve, leaving it grainy. It's not bad while it's still warm, and it's even edible when cold. But, who wants not-bad edibility for dessert?

Nothing to Write Home About

Whenever my mother was not particularly impressed by something, she would comment, "It was nothing to write home about."

If Mom had been alive and present for last night's dinner, I know exactly what she would have said.

So, why am I writing about a dinner that was nothing to write home about? Consider it a cautionary tale.

It all started with the remaining two sirloin burger patties from Tuesday night. I still had some leftover brown basmati. I still had the yummy bean dip. I could have just replicated the prior night's success.

But, where's the adventure in that?

More rummaging in the cupboard. I have a supply of Trader Joe's organic fat free marinara because Spouse 1.0 likes to disguise his vegs in assorted sauces. I like to buy him marinara because then he smothers his vegs in yet more vegs so they won't taste like vegs.

So, let's break up the hamburger patties and heat them and the brown basmati in some marinara. It'll be like spaghetti, only without the trouble and mess of boiling pasta.

Nice in theory.

In practice, not so great.

Part of the problem is that rice is simply not spaghetti. And, brown rice (even if it is basmati) is especially not spaghetti.

But the biggest problem was the marinara, which tasted a bit metallic to me. Maybe it's the basil.

Adding visual insult to culinary injury, the colors and texture of the medley... Let's just say I was glad the Spouse had been raised to keep his descriptive similes to himself when confronted with ugly food.

Just to be safe, I hid his under a blanket of melted low fat cheddar.

Menu:

• Sirloin burger and rice reheated in marinara
• Big bowl of vegies

Nutrition:

• About 300 calories for her and 600 for him

Results:

• Nothing to write home about