Recipe of Necessity

With less than two weeks to go before I leave Vegas, I am in the middle of the ritual of Paring Down The Pantry. I hate to waste food, so for the past several days I’ve been trying to put together meals out of what’s on hand to use up what I’ve got.

Today’s menu for brunch (the only meal I wind up eating when I work swing shift, because by the end of the day I’m just not hungry for much more than tea): Mexican Squash (essentially short, stumpy, speckled zucchini) stuffed with Buffalo, Red Quinoa, Garlic and Scallions, and Roasted Tomatoes stuffed with Red Quinoa, Pinjur (a spicy red pepper salsa-like thing) and Gran Padano.

Can you tell I’ve got an excess of red quinoa on hand? Actually, I love the stuff, especially for stuffing or instead of rice because of the texture and nutty taste. My cobbled-together meal was actually quite yummy.. Here’s a shot of the leftovers:



Not particularly pretty, but with a nice garnish it would certainly be serve-able to guests.

I finished with a piece of each of the test batches I did for my upcoming final tasting for the chefs: what I think is a highly successful white chocolate panna cotta with saffron and hibiscus and a less-than-successful dark chocolate and port wine panna cotta. Yeah, I freakin’ love making panna cotta. It’s easy, it always turns out well for me, it keeps forever beautifully in the freezer and you’ve got an instant elegant presentation if you put it in a mold to set, plus once you’ve got a great basic recipe, it’s a blank canvas that you can really have fun with.