An Impromptu Stew. #fritz

An unusual presentation, but whatever works. #fritz

 

The fact is, (and has always been), that cooking for one has its difficulties, not the least of which are leftovers.

May I be frank with you? I’ll be earnest if you’d rather—

We had a few ounces of beefy stock left over after cooking a roast a few days ago. We still had cold beef in the fridge, and this after hot beef sandwiches, as well as one helluva good cold beef sandwich.

We still had a couple of mushrooms left over, from making a series of four pizzas, all of which came out pretty good. Things being as they are, that is to say things, means that while we used up the cheese and the pepperoni and the bacon, we still have (or had) mushrooms left over. We still had red pepper left over. We still had the vegetable cocktail, which we bought and dribbled over our aforesaid roast. You can see where I put a bit of that in our stock/gravy/juice.

Love that veggie cocktail.

Then there is the whole question of lunch. I had some idea that I was going to do this. I try to keep the makings for some kind of salad around here.

The prep time isn’t huge, there is some simmering time.

So, with most of a tin of beef gravy, left over, and our bit of beef stock, (left over from cooking), and our mushrooms, and a few leftover green peas, we sort of had the makings for what I like to call Impromptu Stew.

Before we even got to putting that on the burner, we had already peeled a very large (and free) potato. The free ones taste better, for some reason…

***

More fucking leftovers. Cook 'em up and get rid of them.

 

That has to be thoroughly boiled, otherwise they can be pretty hard to mash.

We made a salad of Romaine, green onion, red pepper, and tomato. We set out the bottle of Thousand Island dressing. We polish up our sexy black plate with a bit of paper towel, and voila.

It’s beginning to look like a darned good lunch. So, you want the potatoes to boil, the salad to stew in its own juices in the fridge while you’re cooking, and then to have the stew simmer and bubble a bit, not excessively, but basically, the mushrooms are the only thing in there that really hasn’t been cooked before.

There is no butter or margarine on the potatoes. Salt and pepper maybe.

That is either a thin gravy or a thick soup, ladies and gentlemen, and one hopes you all will excuse the rather unusual presentation.

Whatever works, works.

The meal was good, quite frankly my soup beats the hell out of those industrial soups…

And the funny thing is…we have leftovers. I guess that goes in the fridge alongside that half a pizza from a day or two ago.

You can never have enough leftovers, that is what I always like to say.

(Fuck.)

#fritz

 

Louis Shalako has books and stories on Kobo.

 

Thank you for reading.