Shelby's Rainy Day Potato Chowder

Hot sauce is the secret to the
zing in this potato chowder.

Today I came home from work to find a delicious lunch of soup and cheese sandwiches awaiting me, created by my daughter, who is visiting for Christmas break. It was a gray and rainy day, but I confess the soup certainly brightened things up! That's the power of good soup. It just does something good for the soul.

You'll enjoy this dish. It's so easy to prepare and healthy and delicious to boot. A definite keeper!

Turkey Faux Pho — an Asian inspired soup

There is just one problem with a batch of good broth. Those little bitty tiny bitty bits of meat on the bones! Now I belong to the waste not want not school, so I have to pick the meat off the bones and use it somehow. But what do you do with 3/4 cup or so of teeny tiny pieces of meat?

I had been experimenting a bit with making some sort of meatballs but most of my test versions fell apart, oh well! Back to the drawing board!

But this time, I turned the idea on its head a bit. Instead of a meatball, why not a wonton? This turned out quite well. Delicious, fairly easy, healthy and frugal. All the right stuff. Here's how to make it ...

Easy peasy, kinda cheesy — Puff pastry rollups

This whole idea seems too simple for a recipe, but here's what I did:

It's probably better to put the filling
closer to the edge than I did.

The finished rollup
was delicious!

Take a puff pastry sheet and cut it into fourths. Lay out whatever of your leftovers you like near the edge of one square. I used chopped ham and turkey, sweet potatoes with black walnuts, cranberry sauce with pinot noir and topped that with a bit of smoky gouda cheese.

Roll those up kind of like a sushi roll, then bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until they are bubbly inside and golden on top.

If you're a single person like me, you could probably cook these longer and slower, taking the rollups out just before their tops turn golden. Then you can rebake them during the week and they will seem fresh. But you want to be sure the insides come to temperature if you're going to do it that way.


For a second batch of something a little bit different ...

Hot Chicken Salad — Roman chicken on China Romaine

Our romaine lettuce, as it happens, is a vegetable of ancient Rome. It was eaten cooked as well as raw, and believed to have medicinal properties. There's no doubt in my mind that Romaine does have medicinal properties! It's packed with vitamin A, for one thing, which is needed for good eyesight, and it has many antioxidants.

As it would happen, Romaine is also very close to a Chinese vegetable, Ei-A vegetable. More about that is explained at this delightful blog http://asiabyfrida.com/2011/10/26/easiest-chinese-stir-fry-recipe-–-romaine-lettuce/ which served as the inspiration for this little cooking experiment. That and the package of Romaine lettuce past its prime in my recently cleaned out fridge.

So having that neglected package of Romaine lettuce and a craving for some chicken diavolo ... a fusion of tastes came together in my mind ...

Bit of magic for 69 cents a pound

Chicken reminds me of a black Magician's hat. Because a chicken, like the magic hat, can provide so many meals from one small bird. Every savvy cook knows this and has an array of recipes that take full advantage of the 69 cents per pound magic whenever it appears.

Chicken stirfry, center, spiced with sage,
lemongrass and red pepper.

My boss for example buys three such chickens and cuts off the wings for her first round of endless meals. That's 12 chicken wings which can be served with a nice salad or pan-fried potatoes for a Friday night wing deal. I love this idea and have copied it a few times.

From there we depart ways a bit ...