Leftovers

I really dislike leftovers. It’s not that I mind eating day old food, it’s just that I don’t like eating the same food at the same meal twice in a row unless it happens to be breakfast. I don’t find the practice to be enjoyable (law of diminishing returns etc.) so it’s not something I do too often.

This happens to be problematic for me because, as someone who considers himself a pretty good cook, I try not to waste too much. This is easy to do in a restaurant setting but becomes much harder when you cook at home unless of course you are willing to eat leftovers.

This brings me back to my dilemma. How do I solve this problem? Sometimes its possible to create a new dish or something fun to eat but really it’s easiest to create something from my favorite food group—sandwiches.

Add some good bread, a couple of pickles, some mayo (or some other kind of sauce), something fresh and something green and you have the beginnings of a great sandwich.

Here I turned my dinner party leftovers into a nice Monday evening meal—Short Rib Banh mi with pickled carrots, watermelon radish, cilantro and ginger mayo. I enjoyed eating this so much I made a Banh mi again the next night, trading out the short ribs for leftover Chinese food and adding some Sriracha to heat things up a bit. Maybe I was being a little hypocritical but sometimes when something is really delicious you look ways to tweak it so you can eat it as many times as possible.