I've noticed over the years that some things I make taste good, but once they have 'aged' in the fridge a day or two they taste sensational. Anything with a tomato-based sauce (chili, spaghetti sauce, etc.) seems to improve as leftovers. The baby back ribs I made yesterday were good, but today they turned fantastic. What do you make that greatly improves with age?
Potato salad ! Although, to be fair, sometimes my potato salad barely makes it long enough to get cool, let alone last until the next day. The deviled eggs, however, always taste much better the day that I make them than they do after they spend the night in the refrigerator; so it is probably good that they seldom last overnight either.
I think potato salad taste good anytime and a few days in the fridge certainly does not degrade it. I haven't haven't had any deviled eggs in so long I had forgotten about them. I wish I could make them. My mother in law lived with us for almost eighteen years. She made routinely deviled eggs and potato salad. I suppose I was a schoolboy living at home the last time I ate collards. And I've never been much on black-eyed peas but they were a staple on our table on New Year's day. Pinto beans, vegetable soup or beef stew always tastes after it has rested a while in the fridge, to me. All this talk of leftovers is making me hungry.
I like 4 bean salad with red onions ,red and green capisum and finely chopped celery ,...some add bacon but I try to steer clear of all processed foods like salted meats so I don’t add it ..I like a mix of apple cider vinegar and good quality Aussie olive oil, the salad tastes much better after a few days when all the flavours have combined. I’ve been told by friends I make a nice chicken soup in winter ,it may be the fact I cook the stock two or three days before making the soup ,I think the combination of cooking long and slow and letting it sit in the fridge for up to three days enhances the flavour ,it’s the only time I use processed foods like ham , I add a ham bone as well as a full chicken trimmed of most of the skin and fat to make the stock
There are a surprising number of lentil haters around (saw a famous cook on TV many months ago deriding it), but I'm not one. Its not my favorite bean, but I make a batch at least once a month, and it has never lasted longer than four days. I usually make lentils with leftover ham & ham juice, but when $2 bacon shows up at the Dollar Store I will use it with a package of ham hocks or salt pork. Onion, green onion, leek, or poblano pepper is the only vegetable I ever tried in it, so far. What veggies do you use?
Often wanted to try my hand at collards, but never got up the nerve (few things I hate worse than throwing out food). Do you have a favorite recipe?
With lentils I would use any vegetable, no holds barred, but the usual veggies in the soup tend to be a variation of Potatoes, Kale, cabbage, onions, leeks, Carrots and Butter beans ( I don't use peppers because I don't like them)... More often than not, it's lentils, onions, Potatoes , Carrots & Cabbage with the Bacon joint stock... then bacon pieces shredded from the joint to make a thick unctuous soup.. I'm a fan of Barley too, most people aren't, and I'll often put that in the soup too....
Veggie soup - any vegetable left over in fridge. Normally my veggie soup has, potatoes, green beans, carrots, onions, broccoli-sometime celery- ground beef and anything else that resembles a veggie, so I can think it is healthy
The kale sounds real interesting. Been trying to find a way to add it to my meals. How do you incorporate it into the lentil soup? Keep in mind I have never touched greens before, other than spinach, so no idea how to use it...like do you discard the ribs? I vaguely recall Granny throwing out the ribs of some leafy green, but no idea what it was. I refused to touch any leafy green as a kid, but since I had something at a restaurant with lots of bacon and onion in it (about 10 years ago), I have gotten more open-minded. I have loved barley ever since I tried Campbell's Beef and Barley soup, which I have long since surpassed, but I don't make it as much anymore. Beef soup bones are nearly impossible to find here, and while ox-tails are readily available, they are gawd-awful pricey. I do use a half'n'half mix of brown rice and barley in my chicken-vegetable soup.
After reading the “Green For Life” book by Victoria Boutenko, I have been trying to add more and more greens into my diet, and I do that in several ways. One, of course, is in green smoothies, or what I call green lemonade (peeled lemon, greens, sweetener and water blended until smooth) which is a lighter drink than a green smoothie. I also add greens to any soup that I am cooking, or pot of beans or lentils, and even into brown rice. If the green has a really large rib in the middle, then I do strip the sides off and cut them into smaller chunks, and then I slice the rib like you would cut up celery for soup, into thin slices. If it does not have a large rib, then I just chop the leaves up into smaller pieces and add them to the soup mix. I even add the greens into things like spaghetti, scrambled eggs, and stir-fry veggies. Being an experimenter by nature, I also tried making fermented/pickled greens (I think we have a thread about that here somewhere), and I did eat them, but haven’t tried that since. I made kimchi also, but I just do not enjoy it for whatever reason; so that is mostly off of my list of how to use greens.
Thanks for the tips. I will definitely try adding kale to my next batch of lentil soup. Sounds as though you use it like I do my fresh frozen powdered spinach...I include a heaping spoonful in whatever I make for breakfast, lunch and supper. I figure I get one serving a day doing that. Don't think I could manage the smoothie, fermented greens, or kimchi, but I'm open to increasing the greens in my meals.
There are very few foods that I will eat as leftovers, and I can't think of any that taste better afterwards. I can eat turkey for a couple of days after, and some homemade soups are okay the next day too, as long as they don't include any pasta. There must be something else but, if I wasn't married, I'd compost foods after I was done with them rather than putting them in the refrigerator. My wife puts thing in the refrigerator but they usually end up being composted later, anyhow.