So today I had a nearly empty fridge, and some leftovers to use up. And two different sets of tastes to cater for – mine and my mother’s. I reheated the leftover layered veg dish from the other day, and did an omelette with red peppers and red onion for mum, and leek and mustard pork sausages for me, with a lovely bean and tomato salad.
In terms of the order of things, I put the veg dish in the oven with a foil tent over it to prevent burning. It was in there for about 45 minutes all told. Once it was in there, I put the sausages under a hot grill, turning regularly (and at one point panicking when one of the sausages ruptured and spewed boiling sausage-juice straight into the element of the grill, bringing forth flames and smoke – but I turned them all over and it didn’t happen again. phew).
until they looked much like this: 
I also put a bunch of frozen baby broad beans, soya beans, and garden peas in slightly salted water, and brought it to the boil. Then I drained them, and (just very slightly obsessively) peeled the broad beans, because they’re so much prettier that way.
Once that was done, I chopped a couple of tomatoes into chunky, irregular pieces, and quartered and sliced a 3-inch chunk of cucumber, added the beans, and then added home-made dressing.
The dressing is made with a mix of vinegar and mustard mixed together, and then with about 5 times as much oil as vinegar added, fresh black pepper ground into it, and then shaken violently. I use a dedicated jar for this purpose, because it can be topped off whenever you’re running low on dressing.
At this stage, I brought out the veg dish, and added a mix of grated cheddar and lemony-peppery breadcrumbs (bought, and very good) to one half of it – this would be my half, and the other half would go to mum.
Then I broke a couple of eggs into a bowl and mixed it, with a little salt and some more fresh ground pepper.
Then added some chopped red onion and sliced red romano pepper to the pan with a little butter, and gently fried it til the onions were just beginning to soften.
I fished these bits out of the pan, and poured in the eggs.
Standard omelette making procedure followed – picking up the edges of the omelette and letting the remaining liquid egg flow to the edges.
Added the veg a minute or so before it was cooked.
Folded the whole shebang over, and left it to just finish off while I started serving everything else.
The final veg dish with cheesy yummy crust:
And my finished plateful – sausages, veg, and yummy salad.
And then for pudding we had leftover stollen from christmas, with a very lovely non-dairy icecreamy sort of dessert (vanilla flavoured), and with some leftover bitter orange syrup, that I made over christmas when I was candying orange peel to be dipped in chocolate, for homemade presents.
I have to say, the leftover veg stuff tasted SO GOOD! Much better than the first time round, so next time I’m going to plan it in advance and make it a couple of days before I need it, because the maturing does it so very much good.
The salad is an absolute favourite, and works really well if you can add some tiny little spanish Couchillo olives to it. They look awesome, and they taste amazing in there.
I’m going to candy some more orange peel and clementine slices soon, so I’ll have more of the syrup, because it is such a useful ingredient – I’ve very little of it left, and it’s time I had more. It tastes gorgeous drizzled over icecream, into plain yoghurt, or with pannetone dipped into it, as well as working very nicely stirred into hot chocolate. It was much better than the candied peel, if you ask me. :p
So. That’s it for tonight. Enjoy!
foodporn 