QUICK TREATMENTS: Cooked Grains
Leftover oatmeal into baked goods
“If I have any hot oatmeal leftover from breakfast or loose cereal grains at the bottom of the box, I’ll put these into muffins or pancakes. The same goes for rice or wheat berries I might have cooked for dinner.” (Martha Rose Schulman, recipe developer, New York City)
Thai-inspired "stir-fried" rice with leftover vegetables
“I’ll make a Thai-inspired stir fried rice, adding whatever vegetables I have lying around. Maybe I’ll brown tofu in a little oil, add some shredded carrots, red peppers, broccoli (blanched or steamed) and beat an egg into it. Add some fish sauce or soy sauce and you’ve got a one-dish meal with vegetables in it.” (Martha Rose Schulman, recipe developer, New York City)
“Compost bread” from hot cereal and miscellaneous ingredients
“I make bread regularly: breakfast bread with dense whole grains. I call it ‘compost bread.’ I’ll put in the last 3 tablespoons of quinoa, the dregs of oatmeal, dried cranberry, nuts, seeds, pistachios from a party that still need to be plucked from their shells, amaranth (to give it some crunch factor) or millet (give it a stir and let it rise overnight). Everything thrown into my no-knead bread, because it rises for a long time.” (Bobbi Marstellar, recipe developer, Chicago)
Rice pudding from take-out rice
“Both my husband and I enjoy leftovers for lunch. Take-out rice becomes rice pudding made with a basic custard, with whipped cream and raisins. Or I’ll throw rice into a soup. For me, leftovers have 9 lives just like bread: you make stock from the bones, you make risotto with the stock, you make cake from the risotto. Chicken and rice never dies.” (Bobbi Marstellar, recipe developer, Chicago)
Pottage from rice, black beans, onions, chives and garlic
“Just the other night I picked out all the allium in my refrigerator drawer: onions, chives, garlic and then sautéed them all and made a hip rice and beans for my family. I used a handful of black beans, leftover rice (not really enough for a full dish), a little ketchup, ground cumin, Sriracha sauce, the tiniest last shake of smoked paprika and a couple of drops of rice vinegar. It tasted like meat because of the smokiness of the ruddy paprika and the earthy flavors of the black beans. The coalescing of the rice and beans created the protein.” (Rozanne Gold, cookbook author, New York City)
