You all know what a fan I am of leftovers and ‘repurposed’ ingredients. Most of the foods I’ve been fixing lately have been a continuation of that tradition of mine, especially because it’s been a particularly busy time around our place. We’ve had the usual spate of spring concerts and recitals, more than the usual number of social and business-social events at home and other places, and planning and preparation for a large quantity of upcoming happenings. The garden’s been coming in at top speed. I’ve been trying to clean house more seriously than I had in a long time, because it’s really overdue and I’d love to sell off and give away a lot of underutilized Things. Oh, and I’m trying hard, really I am, not to fall behind with my writing and artwork.
That latter means, naturally, keeping my blogging current, but in addition it means working on two art commissions—one a super-fast turnaround project I just got a few days ago. It also includes attempting to continue with the development of several books to follow up on the one I published in January.
I’m neither complaining nor bragging, just stating a truth that is pretty much like the daily one facing the majority of people I know, each with his or her variations on the details. And it reinforces my attachment to quick, simple, reusable and flexible ingredients and dishes more than ever. Today, for example, I made and froze what will (I’m certain) be a delicious potato side dish for later this week, when friends are coming over for a casual dinner visit. I used a combination of a smashed microwave ‘baked’ potato, a handful of chopped and mashed leftover french fries—good hand cut ones from our favorite old school steakhouse—a handful of crushed leftover potato chips, and enough leftover pimiento cheese from the batch I made for our party the other night to make it all into a cheesy potato casserole. I had some crisped bacon in the fridge, so the casserole is topped with that for the finish. It doesn’t look like so much yet, being in the freezer and all, but I’m expecting to enjoy it quite a bit, along with whatever else I manage to put together for the occasion.
Confession: I got an itch to do something trendy, despite being so rarely trendy myself, and I made a lattice out of the bacon. Silly, but kind of fun. And if one is going to wrestle with trying to cook a little in the midst of lots of real life busyness, shouldn’t there be a little bit of silly fun involved? No, wait: a lot?
Art-Colored Glasses 
Looks very tasty!
I’ll warm some up anytime you show up at my table! 🙂
I can’t look…I’m on a diet. *covers eyes*
I’m no supermodel in any way, but I’ve mostly come to terms with the idea that the pleasures of food are more important to me than the pleasures of a fabulous shape 😉 …as long as I don’t have to constantly buy new and larger clothes or have nasty health effects, I’m likely to remain lax about my eating habits and just keep up an attitude of ‘damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead’!
xo
True….but I need to lose for health reasons because of my recent knee replacement. I’m not huge either but this extra 15 pounds is killing my knee! lol
Sigh. Irksome, to have knee pain of any kind! Hope you’ll be springing about like the Bionic Woman in no time with that new part of yours. I messed up my knee in a ladder fall many years ago and it’d gotten so painful and immobile by the time I was 40 that I was finally too miserable to go gallivanting with my husband and a couple of friends one day in Germany, opting to stay near our hotel in town, from where I semi-crawled into a couple of stores to hunt for a suitable cane among the walking sticks. That was the last straw! As soon as we were back from that trip, I started experimenting with Glucosamine/Chondroitin and (whether physically or psychologically or both) got quick and impressive help, so 14 years later I’m still pain free and standing upright. I feel *very* lucky when I know so many my age and even younger who’ve had worse outcomes and required more extreme measures for treatment. Now if I can avoid my mom’s fate of spinal stenosis + scoliosis + osteoporosis!! YIKES!!! *That* IS something I’m willing to eat/act/think differently to avoid if that’s what it takes. I guess we all have our thresholds, don’t we. 😉 Here’s to your getting great and happy mileage out of your new knee! xo
Wow that’s incredible!! I’m so glad you were able to recover from that episode!! I have tried the Glucosamine not to mention reiki, and all kinds of other things lol. I do think dairy is a huge culprit. No animals ingest dairy after their baby stage but humans. It’s not natural and causes a lot of inflammation. I’ve been trying to eat very little of it and it seems I feel better when I follow that regimen. My new knee is infinitely better than the old one, that’s for sure so yay for that! Thank you for sharing this Kathyrn.
Hope you’re seeing great improvement with every passing day. 🙂
I’m on my way to a knee replacement this coming winter. Oh the joys! 🙂
I love your lattice! It must have been fun to do 🙂
A bit greasy, perhaps, but yes, it was amusing to Play with My Food that way! I have a feeling it’d be more effective to cook the woven bacon in the oven than in a pan as I did it, but my oven is at death’s door and smokes like a fiend, so I thought putting bacon in it would be a recipe for disaster at this point! 😉
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