We had a bit of leftover salmon – and after the boys were done pawing at it to get all the crispy skin, it was none too pretty looking either. When I mentioned the possibility of salmon cakes my son jumped up and down, clapping his hands. Regular readers know that I take an almost sick pleasure in frugality. I’m not cheap, but I can really work the clever haus frau angle and something about wasted food makes me a bit nuts. Salads, cakes, and fritters are all ways to stretch leftover fish and seafood. To make what’s old new again, to make what’s not quite enough plenty.

Salmon cakes

Feel free to experiment away with these. I have no idea what you like in your salmon cake. You might want a bunch of minced peppers or chiles or some bizarre combination of spices. Go to town. These proportions of fish to egg to crumb, however, should serve you quite well. If you like mayonnaise in your salmon cakes, go ahead and add 1/4 cup in place of one of the eggs. Me, I can’t figure out why you would do that.

2 cups (about 12 oz.) cooked and flaked salmon

2 – 3 tablespoons minced green or red onion

2 tablespoons minced parsley (or combination of herbs of your choosing)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon cayenne (clearly optional)

2 eggs

1/3 – 1/2 cup panko or freshly toasted bread crumbs, plus more for coating, if you like

Flour for coating if you don’t want to use panko or bread crumbs, if you like

Oil for cooking

In a medium bowl, combine the salmon, onion, herbs, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Mix to combine. Move the mixture to the side of the bowl and crack the eggs into the now sort of empty section of the bowl. Use a whisk or fork to beat the eggs. Now gently combine the salmon mixture and the beaten eggs and think about what you’ll do with that minute of washing and drying an extra bowl that you just saved.

Stir in panko or bread crumbs. Breads crumbs vary *so* much that the amount is a bit tricky. You want the mixture to hold together, but you don’t want it to get too bread-y. If you want to form and cook the salmon cakes right away, you’re going to need to add even more panko. If you’re willing to form them and chill them, you can get away with less.

Spray your hands with cooking spray or oil them with olive or vegetable oil and form the cakes. I make mine about 3 inches across and an inch thick. Place them on a baking sheet, cover, and chill for a few hours for best results.

Dredge the cakes in flour or bread crumbs, if you like, but I find it’s not necessary and quite messy.

Heat a large frying pan over medium high heat, add some vegetable or olive oil for cooking, and cook salmon cakes, a few at a time, until golden brown on one side, about 4 minutes. Turn over and cook until golden brown on the other side and cooked through, another 4 minutes. Repeat with remaining cakes. Serve hot or at least warm.

My mom defrosted the smoked whitefish she put in the freezer after we couldn’t eat the entire fish my mother-in-law hand-carried from Zabar’s last Christmas. It was a little tough. So I scraped it and mixed in some mayonnaise, some mustard, a spring onion a neighbor had dropped off from their garden the day before, and the two mini sprigs of dill my mom managed to scrounge from her own garden. Plenty of freshly ground black pepper later and we had a pretty tasty dish.

While I was doing that, my mom put the last bits of cheese on what was left in an open box of lavosh crackers for a little appetizer:

As you can see, they got a wee bit burnt. We used some nasturtiums from the garden to distract people from the burnt sections and put them out anyway. Guess what? They were pretty good. Good enough so I had to swipe them off the table to get a picture. Good enough so we had to stop Ernest from snarfing down all of them himself.

Along with these delights were some beet greens, a warmed-up baguette, a salad with an avocado vinaigrette (thus using both the remaining lettuce and the half avocado in the fridge) and some ears of corn that hadn’t made their way into the pot the night before (or perhaps the night before that?) or the sweet corn pancakes. It wasn’t at it’s best. It was tough instead of tender, starchy instead of sweet, and the Minnesotans, who know from corn, just let it be:

Was the whitefish salad actually good? Were the crackers really edible? The uneaten corn is an argument in their favor, but as a whole we were a hungry crowd who were likely to eat most anything put in front of us. We’d had a big day. You see, my mom, aunt, uncle, and I took Ernest to Paul Bunyan Land. It’s a rite of passage for youngsters in the Brainerd Lakes area. I have an intensely clear memory of the giant talking statue welcoming “Molly and David Watson from Minneapolis” when my brother and I went as kids and wondering how on earth he could possibly know our names. I continued to think this even as I turned around to ask my mom how he knew our names and she was lagging behind us, having obviously whispered our names to the ticket-taker as we went ahead. But I had an impressive ability to allow myself to believe what I wanted to believe as a child (Santa Claus? I was fully on board with that in the third grade. The third grade people!), so I ran ahead to the first ride instead of connecting the dots.

Paul Bunyan Land has a new owner and a new location since I was a kid. It is less grand than I remember, has fewer rides, and is on a pasture between a corn field and a junk yard a few miles outside of town instead of on a concrete-slabbed brightly lit lot in Brainerd proper. It is bleak yet charming, a tricky combination that is partially achieved by staffing the place with a carefully maintained balance of surly teens and cheery retired guys. The whole thing was, to quote my aunt, “a hoot.”

Ernest liked the rides –

And my uncle liked the various Paul Bunyan-inspired sculptures –

But Ernest did not like the creepy giant statue saying his name. In fact, he didn’t like the creepy giant lumberjack statue sitting in a tree at the entrance at all. He didn’t like it so much that he refused to eat at a table near it. So we sat to the side while Ernest ate a hot dog, the grown-ups picked at a shared order of nachos, and everyone sipped a soda. I mean a pop. We were in Minnesota, after all.

Do you think creamy cole slaw has mayonnaise in it? I did. That’s what I thought until I was 29 and visiting my friend in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. We made cole slaw and I learned that the good stuff – that creamy, luscious kind that reminds me of the little container that would come with my Kentucky Fried dinner as a kid – is actually creamy. As in, it has cream in it.

I’ll let you take a moment to recover – this comes as big news to many people who never make cole slaw. Of course, I’m sure there are plenty of mayonnaise-laden versions out there, but the good stuff? Cream. Heavy cream.

You mix a little bit of cream with vinegar and the acid in the vinegar thickens the cream into a dressing-like, some may say mayonnaise-like, consistency. Some celery seeds, if you like, some salt, some pepper, and maybe some sugar if you’re one of those people who like sweet cole slaw, and you have the best cole slaw ever. I posted a full recipe for Creamy Cole Slaw over at Local Foods. It only gets better if it sits in the fridge for a bit and it could serve you very well this summer if you get invited to many potlucks or barbecues or, if you live in the 1960s, “patio parties.”

I had the chance to make some cole slaw last weekend – perhaps it will fit into your weekend this week. We had a couple families over for a last-minute cook-out. I thawed a bunch of delicious homemade sausage I still had in my freezer (I’m telling you, my dashing husband’s largely vegetarian diet is really cutting into my meat consumption) and, in a last-minute moment of utter and complete panic that 21 sausages would not be enough for six adults and four children (one of whom isn’t quite two), little patties I made for the kids out of some bulk sausage I also had (upper left corner of the grill). In what world would 21 sausages not have been enough?

Indeed, we had a few sausages leftover at the end of the evening – but not as many as you’d think. Just three of the lamb sausages,* which were spiced and just the eeniest teeniest bit dry. I cut them up, sauteed them in olive oil with some garlic and spinach and a few basil leaves, tossed the whole thing with pasta shells, and topped each serving with black pepper and grated goat gouda cheese. The resulting dish was surprisingly delicious – not like leftovers at all – and I like to think demonstrated a real rise on my part to the challenge my dashing husband unwittingly made when he said, “We have a lot of food, but none of it goes together.” A sentence guaranteed to make me say, “Ha!”

* Since the kids ate the four patties, that means the six adults ate a whopping 18 sausages – that’s three a piece. Me? I had one and a half. I’m a lady.

You see these a lot in Spain. For me, they took some getting used to. Slices of potato omelet as a sandwich filling? I’m all for carbs, but doesn’t that seem a bit nuts? And then I tried one and it was good. Of course, I was in a place at that exact moment, personally, that made a heavy, carb-laden, eggy concoction really hit the spot, if you know what I mean. But then I had one while waiting for a flight at the Madrid airport. I was not hung over, it wasn’t the best possible version of a tortilla sandwich (airport food is airport food the world over from what I can tell), and it was still a pretty impressive food item.

So our leftover goose egg tortilla was cut into slices, layered in lengths of baguette, and called dinner (along with a salad, as is our way).  How can room temperature potato and egg and bread be so satisfying?

I barely had the energy necessary to heat up the leftovers, but I did it. I made leftover broccoli tofu stir-fry and shanghai chicken and butter braised cabbage (see 2/27 and 2/6 postings) palatable and convinced a kindergartener that they made an awesome dinner. Okay. Not awesome. Edible. That made an edible dinner. And nutritious – don’t forget nutritious. I poured hot sauce over mine in an attempt to wipe out this plague I seem to have contracted. As my college biology partner used to always say: you have to show the cold who’s boss.

And then my poor dashing husband, who I had thought was going out for dinner, changed his plans. He had the then-lukewarm reheated leftovers straight out of the pot.

Have you figured out that I love leftovers? I love having food already cooked and ready to eat. I love that many dishes taste better after a little time to themselves (stew being a classic example). I love that some dishes transform into whole new creatures as leftovers (you know how enchiladas sort of morph into a real casserole after sitting around for a day?). And I love that others offer themselves up to be turned into completely new creations, but with so much less fuss than the original dish. Leftovers? To me they are convenience food at its finest.

So what’s with the yummy looking cake, you ask? It’s a winter squash spice cake made with leftover roasted squash. I used my new secret baking weapon: whole wheat pastry flour. It’s not as heavy and dry as whole wheat flour, but it has some whole grains unlike all-purpose flour. I find I can substitute it 1-to-1 for all-purpose flour in most recipes – certainly any for homey cakes or cookies like this.

The hungry boy wanted noodles for dinner. Since I had no brilliant idea for dinner anyway, noodles it was. I tossed them up with some leftover dino kale with chiles and garlic from the other night. I put plenty of parmesan on Ernie’s and doused mine with the last of the leftover garlic yogurt sauce from the dumplings last week. Just yogurt, garlic, salt. How can it be so delicious? And yet it is. Even more so, some may say, from the extra garlicky-ness it exudes from having sat around for a week. Garlicky enough to be deliciously tempting but also garlicky enough to make a person think twice about drowning her pasta with a solid 1/2 cup of it if she had any chance of getting lucky.

Alas, my dashing husband is traveling. So I slept with cold feet and garlicky breath. Really garlicky. Garlicky enough to sort of bother me. I could hardly wait to wake up and quell the stench with coffee.

We got a beautiful head of Treviso radicchio in our CSA box this last week. I could have grilled it, sauteed it, broiled it, roasted it, thrown it in a salad. But instead I made an old family favorite – something I created maybe 10 years ago and which my dashing husband loves. I warn you: it’s weird, it’s intense, it’s probably a bit much for most people. Radicchio and blue cheese risotto. It’s a bit blue-ish purple, which I find rather fabulous. 

And yes, Ernie ate it. I did, however, pull out his portion before I added the blue cheese. 

And the best part? The risotto cakes I just made myself for lunch. There’s a whole tray of them in the fridge waiting to be fried up for dinner. 

Risotto Cakes

Leftover risotto

1 egg per 1 1/2 cup leftover risotto

1 cup white rice ground into powder in a coffee or spice mill (this will be enough for plenty of cakes and make it super easy to coat them and keep your hands somewhat dry)

Vegetable oil

Stir risotto to loosen it a bit if it’s started to get clumpy. Beat egg(s) and stir into risotto. Put ground rice powder in a shallow bowl.

Scoop risotto mixture in 1/3-cup balls and put them in the rice powder. With a dry hand, pick up rice powder from around the risotto and spread it over the risotto ball, slightly flattening it into more of a patty or cake. When cake is thoroughly coated, transfer to platter to baking sheet. Repeat with remaining risotto.

Heat a large frying pan over medium heat. Swirl in enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom. Place risotto cakes (as many as will fit without touching) in pan and cook, undisturbed, until browned. Carefully flip each cake over and brown on other side. Serve and eat pretty much immediately. They are extra delicious with a salad of hearty or bitter greens with a pungent sherry-vinegar or balsamic-vinegar dressing.

Talk about creative re-use. I turned leftover tortilla chips and unused tiny containers of hot sauce into dinner. Quite frankly, I want a medal.

Want to join me?

1. Go to 22nd and Bryant, get a half dozen tacos at El Metate, and bring them home for lunch to feed yourself, your dashing husband who is scrambling to pack for his glamorous trip to London, and your son who is home because of “Columbus Day” (I know, I know: whatevs).

2. Eat said tacos but stop your son from eating all 4 little paper bundles of chips.

3. Take your dashing husband to the airport.

4. Come home to a, shall we say, confused phone call from your tax person about the numbers and forms you’ve sent her. Frantically call your dashing husband before he boards his flight.

5. Let your son watch hours of videos and movies while you pour over numbers and papers and receipts.

6. At some point realize you don’t need to eat, but your child probably does. Look at the kitchen in dispair. Notice pile of chips.

7. Put chips in a big bowl. Pour leftover bits of hot sauce over them and toss to coat. Desperately look for an onion, some green onions… something. Cilantro! Only half-wilted!

8. Heat some oil, saute some garlic, add the leftover half-can of tomatoes you also scrounged up and the chips. Stir around a bit. Sprinkle with grated cheese. Cover and let everything heat up while you scramble a few eggs.

9. Ignore your son’s demand for a snack at that exact moment. Sprinkle things with minced cilantro. Put leftover marinated green beans on the plate because vegetables are very important.

10. Serve. Eat. Wonder why you don’t make chilaquiles all the time. Find missing paperwork. Sleep the sleep of the just.