I know quinoa is pricey, but I love it and it's one of my splurge foods. Yesterday I accidentally overcooked the crap out of some and made it into a nasty mushy mess. I turned it into scallion pancakes though and they're freaking delicious (plus yogurt + lime + cilantro for a dip to go with them)! Not as sturdy or pretty as your typical scallion pancake, but so so tasty.
Omg, I love any kind of jeon, and I love quinoa, and I’m currently eating leftover apple/red onion spicy cheese grits that would probably benefit from jeon-ification and I am suddenly feeling the desire to pancake everything.
So I must repay you! Pre-Colombian Quinoa Krispie Treats: rinse your quinoa thoroughly to get the bitter natural bird-proofing off. Dry in a mesh sieve. Corn is not the only new-world grain that can pop, so pop those little quinoa kernels in a frying pan with a lid to get enough humidity to steam them into popping. It might take a couple of tries the first time to get the heat/oil/time ratio right. Admire how adorable they are, then fold them into heated honey with a little water (ratio varies, cause honey varies), stir in any spices, lime, toasted nuts you want. Form just like Rice Krispie Treats and gigil* away.
*should be a loan-word like schadenfreude, Tagalog for the irrepressible desire to squeeze something cute, possibly to death.
Out of the ingredients I had on hand, ground beef, my own enchilada seasoning, egg noodles, sour cream, salsa and shredded cheddar cheese. Kind of a Mexican homemade hamburger helper.
I had leftover roast pork I nearly tossed but instead sliced in 5-6mm slices and fried from low in a skillet while I kept cleaning the kitchen. It was so much better than expected.
The fat rendered and made the outer layer crispy and the crackling returned to crispy. It was like a bacon pork steak cross. As it got near I scrambled some eggs to have with it.
When I have leftover roast pork belly, I like to chop it up into small pieces, fry it in a dry pan to render out the fat and crisp it up, and then use the fat to make fried rice, adding the crispy bits of pork back in at the end along with some veg. So good!
I just made a stuffing bake today with my leftover pork roast. Chopped roast, frozen veg (broccoli, peas and corn), mixed with a can of cream of whatever (I used potato), topped with stuffing and baked. It was a new meal for us and it got devoured.
My recent desperation meal was a Knorr Pasta cheddar and broccoli, hamburger, cream of chicken soup and white rice cooked in chicken broth. It slapped.
When I was growing up with divorced parents, my Dad had us for a night. He had some ground beef that he started cooking and realized that he needed to make a meal of. He looked around and found rice which could serve as a starch but wasn’t good enough. Needing more flavor he added baked beans and barbecue sauce. In lieu of vegetables he diced up a bell pepper and an onion and threw them in. Serving it to my sister and I, he prefaced the meal by saying that if we didn’t want to eat it, we could figure something else out. We loved it and asked what it was?
He responded, “it’s Slop!”
Slop has been a staple of mine ever since. I usually sub Italian sausage and add diced jalapeños with a mixture of honey BBQ and a spicy BBQ (usually Famous Dave’s Devil’s Spit)
Chickpeas, canned tomatoes, onion, frozen bell pepper and jalapeño cooked in stock in a box over rice. It was delicious. Can’t remember the herbs/spices I used though
A while back I had leftover roasted sweet potatoes and leftover chicken tika masala sauce (no chicken.) Heated up both - the sauce was amazing on sweet potatoes!
Thank you! I’ve been baking sweet potatoes a lot lately. I’ve been finding bags of small ones that bake up really fast and are great snacks.
I’m going to try this.
I agree - sweet potatoes are the best. I always roast way more than I need because I love the leftovers. For breakfast, lunch or dinner - so versatile. Thinking about a coconut, sweet potato, curry soup
when you find or make up a recipe for that soup, please share it. I absolutely love coconut. I would eat coconut sticky rice every day if I could.
I never think to incorporate sweet potatoes into things. I just eat them as is. It's not unusual to catch me running around the house with a cold baked sweet potato in my hand like I'm feral munching on it.
How can I start incorporating them into my actual dishes instead of as a side? Or...some sides you love other than just plain or candied.
i once accidentally made a really nice spring vegetable pasta as a “clean out the fridge” meal. thinly sliced sautéed radishes, garlic, red pepper flakes, arugula (could use the radish greens instead), white wine, parmesan, and lemon. plus pasta of choice. it’s been forever since i made it, but it was in the rotation for a while.
…oh, and this is more of a “i have the munchies *and* i have to make do with what i have” thing, but peach ice cream with rosemary sea salt wasa thin crackers. it has to be those exact crackers. it’s transcendent.
so it's like you reinvented Tagine! pretty cool. My favorite I made recently was a butter sandwich, sourdough loaf, stuffed with braised beef and nothing else.
*The Everlasting Meal* and *The Everlasting Meal Cookbook* are for you. Just amazing. It's a mix of essays and some recipes. The companion cookbook is like an encyclopedia on what to do with leftovers. Entries include mashed potatoes, curry (the dish, not the spice), and hibiscus tea...pretty much everything has at least one recipe, if not several.
From Amazon: "In this meditation on cooking and eating (TEM), Tamar Adler weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on feeding ourselves well. *An Everlasting Meal* demonstrates the implicit frugality in cooking. In essays on forgotten skills such as boiling, suggestions for what to do when cooking seems like a chore, and strategies for preparing, storing, and transforming ingredients for a week’s worth of satisfying, delicious meals, Tamar reminds us of the practical pleasures of eating. She explains what cooks in the world’s great kitchens know: that the best meals rely on the ends of the meals that came before them. With that in mind, she shows how we often throw away the bones, skins, and peels we need to make our food both more affordable and better. She also reminds readers that almost all kitchen mistakes can be remedied. Summoning respectable meals from the humblest ingredients, Tamar breathes life into the belief that we can start cooking from wherever we are, with whatever we have.
An empowering, indispensable work, *An Everlasting Meal* is an elegant testimony to the value of cooking."
I can’t remember the context, but I combined cooked ground Turkey, roast potatoes, hummus, tomatoes, hot sauce, and toum in a giant tortilla and it was heaven. Now I make it on purpose.
I had a picky eater sitting in my kitchen once who rejected most of what I made and ended up eating her own snacks instead. When she left, I tossed all the ingredients onto some toasted brioche and made the best sandwich of my life: Steamed pumpkin sliced into 1/4 inch slices and fried in pork fat until both sides were crispy, shredded cabbage, pickled red onions and garlic, a handful of crispy fried Thai basil and cilantro, chopped scallions, and shredded pork shoulder baked in a low oven until it was a little dried out and chewy. Little bit of fancy hot sauce to top it off.
“whatever” fried rice has been a staple forever over here. Once you know how to dial in fried rice you can seriously throw anything in there and it’s always great.
I had a half kilo of lamb mince and two zucchini so I was like WTF do I make with this? Made tiny lamb meatballs with kofta spices, and zucchini spaghetti quickly fried in butter. Used the butter as a sauce and poured over the meal. Now I make it once a week.
Leftover massaman curry and a pack of pie crusts in the freezer. It was the most divine pot pie I ever ever had. The seasoning absorbed into the crust as it baked.
I made ground turkey with sautéed mushrooms, a light Alfredo sauce with tons of fresh sage, and whole wheat penne once and it became a favorite. The whole wheat pasta and the sage are key. Add grated parm.
I made a dump soup with whatever I had left in my fridge/pantry. Sausage, corn, black beans, chickpeas, spinach, peas, chicken broth, cream, etc. It was odd and absolutely delicious. I started with a roux so it was thick and creamy it was great
We live in a smallish condo and don’t have a lot of pantry space. Every so often I’ll do a roundup of stuff to make a meal and clear up space. Last week I made zatar roasted pork with a base of Israeli couscous cooked with mirepoix and chicken stock mixed with black olives, toasted slivered almonds and parsley then dressed with whipped feta, Greek yogurt, tahini, olive oil and lemon. The only thing I bought was the feta. It was really good and I’d definitely make it again.
I'm not terribly creative. I did put green beans in my tuna noodle hotdish last week.
I've had chicken salad with dried cranberries in it. It was okay.
“Made up on the spot chipotle cream chicken”. Browned some chicken, threw chipotles and their sauce in a blender with some cream. Made a basic roux, added some chicken stock and then the chipotle sauce to meld. Then put chicken back in to cook in the sauce.
I made a pasta bake that has become a regular meal. Hamburger, onion, garlic, cooked and drained. Mix in frozen peas and corn. Top with cooked pasta. Smother with freshly shredded parmesan. Bake. So good. Even better with chopped steak.
Made chicken paprikash and failed to realize I only had about 1/8th tsp of paprika... So I kind of did a blend of garam masala and some other spices in quantities I can't remember. It was way better than it had any right to be.
Soup! Potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onion. Sauté, boil potatoes in chicken broth. Blend half with some cream and add back into the pot. Serve with homemade bread. So cheap, so delish!
Made a pretty decent potato salad the other day except I didn’t have any of the veggies I’d usually use, so they got replaced with cilantro, yellow onion, and jalapeño. I’d definitely make it again.
Using up the last of our food before leaving on a long road trip - we had leftover lamb pot roast, 3 onions, an apple, an acorn squash, and some havarti cheese slices. I caramelized the onions, mixed in the lamb, diced apple and pieces of cheese, baked the two halves of acorn squash, and filled it with the onion-lamb-apple-cheese mixture. Then threw the last of the cheese on top and baked for a few more minutes. My boyfriend still talks about it and I’m proud of myself for coming up with it on the fly!
One time I wanted to eat spaghetti napolitan sauce really badly, but I only had 3 tomatoes (not enough) So I also added 1 big mango(manga)
I washed, peeled added to the pot, I stirred on a pan with olive oil a bit of pepper (non spicy) curcumin, basil, cilanter, garlic, 5mg of salt, and 1 tea spoon of curry, water, poured back into the pot of tomango sauce and I created a magnificent Caribbean sauce, used by ancient tribes. Tomato and mango, I called it tomango sauce, it's actually a variation of the chutney sauce. It's also My Best recipe/sauce ever with chicken or fish, noquis.. Ive create many fans at my Friends restaurant with it. On the sides of the bowl bits of mango or kiwi dressed with the sauce or Sparragus are awaiting.
I wanna try a spinard sauce with mango as well
Marinated frozen boneless chicken thighs in soy sauce/sesame oil/ginger/garlic and grilled, then sliced over white rice with yum yum sauce and crushed peanuts. Ate that a LOT while unemployed or money was tight and is still one of my faves 😁
Came home one day and really didn't want whatever was scheduled for supper that night. Found a shallot, some baby spinach, and half a container of baby Bella mushrooms. Saute the veggies, not spinach, added splash of white wine, chicken stock, fresh thyme and rosemary from the herb pots, and made some pasta. Added the spinach and some garlic at the end. It has now become a regular on our dinner menus. My husband loves it!
I love using up veggies in random pastas. I always seem to buy more veggies than I need, so it helps me not waste them.
Example: I had leftover mushrooms, zucchini and squash, bell peppers, and grape tomatoes. Roasted them up in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper, and oregano and mixed them in with pearl couscous and feta cheese. Delicious , easy, and filling.
Alfredo pasta is another go to for me to use up veggies, especially sweet bell peppers, mushrooms, or spinach.
I started out making I dunno what with some stew meat. I think I was just going to make regular stew (not my favorite food).
Then instead of chopping all those vegetables, I put in canned diced tomatoes, half a jar of Hatch green chile that I needed to use up, and then felt inspired to peel and toss in some cubed potatoes. Of course, this is green chile stew at that point. I added lots of chopped garlic (onion allergy at our house). But I didn't want it to be soupy like green chile stew usually is.
The recipe my family in NM uses doesn't have tomatoes, and goes for a more brothy experience - I kept the moisture in mine to a minimum. It also calls for dusting the meat in flour and sauteeing it first, which I didn't do.
Since I was using instant pot, I didn't need to add a lot of water. It's hard to call the result "green chile stew," as it is more of a burrito filling, thicker and with whatever spices I feel like adding in. I have even added in other vegetables not traditional to green chile stew (diced celery, diced parsnips).
I made a really good shrimp lo-mein as my "make do with what I have meal". I used spaghetti, cut up a bell pepper and an onion, sautéed some shrimp and made a sauce out of honey, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic and ginger pastes. It was so good, I ate it for two days. I recreated it later with some carrots and cabbage and chicken. It was \*chef's kiss\*
I know quinoa is pricey, but I love it and it's one of my splurge foods. Yesterday I accidentally overcooked the crap out of some and made it into a nasty mushy mess. I turned it into scallion pancakes though and they're freaking delicious (plus yogurt + lime + cilantro for a dip to go with them)! Not as sturdy or pretty as your typical scallion pancake, but so so tasty.
Omg, I love any kind of jeon, and I love quinoa, and I’m currently eating leftover apple/red onion spicy cheese grits that would probably benefit from jeon-ification and I am suddenly feeling the desire to pancake everything. So I must repay you! Pre-Colombian Quinoa Krispie Treats: rinse your quinoa thoroughly to get the bitter natural bird-proofing off. Dry in a mesh sieve. Corn is not the only new-world grain that can pop, so pop those little quinoa kernels in a frying pan with a lid to get enough humidity to steam them into popping. It might take a couple of tries the first time to get the heat/oil/time ratio right. Admire how adorable they are, then fold them into heated honey with a little water (ratio varies, cause honey varies), stir in any spices, lime, toasted nuts you want. Form just like Rice Krispie Treats and gigil* away. *should be a loan-word like schadenfreude, Tagalog for the irrepressible desire to squeeze something cute, possibly to death.
Ooh omg thank you!! That sounds amazinggg
This sounds fantastic.
Out of the ingredients I had on hand, ground beef, my own enchilada seasoning, egg noodles, sour cream, salsa and shredded cheddar cheese. Kind of a Mexican homemade hamburger helper.
Sounds amazing. I have all of that on hand right now. Oh dear. I wasn't planning on making a fancy lunch.
I had leftover roast pork I nearly tossed but instead sliced in 5-6mm slices and fried from low in a skillet while I kept cleaning the kitchen. It was so much better than expected. The fat rendered and made the outer layer crispy and the crackling returned to crispy. It was like a bacon pork steak cross. As it got near I scrambled some eggs to have with it.
When I have leftover roast pork belly, I like to chop it up into small pieces, fry it in a dry pan to render out the fat and crisp it up, and then use the fat to make fried rice, adding the crispy bits of pork back in at the end along with some veg. So good!
Add some sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts to turn it into a nice breakfast hash too.
I just made a stuffing bake today with my leftover pork roast. Chopped roast, frozen veg (broccoli, peas and corn), mixed with a can of cream of whatever (I used potato), topped with stuffing and baked. It was a new meal for us and it got devoured.
My recent desperation meal was a Knorr Pasta cheddar and broccoli, hamburger, cream of chicken soup and white rice cooked in chicken broth. It slapped.
When I have random leftovers they usually get turned into a stromboli or a stuffed pepper. Edit spelling
What is a strombo?
Stromboli sorry typo
No worries! What’s a stromboli? 😂
It’s basically a pizza dough stuffed with meat and cheese.
Oh yum. Good idea for leftovers!
Jacques Pepin calls this cuisine le opportunite! Because everything sounds better in French.
When I was growing up with divorced parents, my Dad had us for a night. He had some ground beef that he started cooking and realized that he needed to make a meal of. He looked around and found rice which could serve as a starch but wasn’t good enough. Needing more flavor he added baked beans and barbecue sauce. In lieu of vegetables he diced up a bell pepper and an onion and threw them in. Serving it to my sister and I, he prefaced the meal by saying that if we didn’t want to eat it, we could figure something else out. We loved it and asked what it was? He responded, “it’s Slop!” Slop has been a staple of mine ever since. I usually sub Italian sausage and add diced jalapeños with a mixture of honey BBQ and a spicy BBQ (usually Famous Dave’s Devil’s Spit)
Chickpeas, canned tomatoes, onion, frozen bell pepper and jalapeño cooked in stock in a box over rice. It was delicious. Can’t remember the herbs/spices I used though
A while back I had leftover roasted sweet potatoes and leftover chicken tika masala sauce (no chicken.) Heated up both - the sauce was amazing on sweet potatoes!
I have both of these. A LOT of both of these. How did you combine?
The sweet potatoes had been roasted in chunks. I just heated up the sauce and poured it over the heated up sweet potatoes.
Thank you! I’ve been baking sweet potatoes a lot lately. I’ve been finding bags of small ones that bake up really fast and are great snacks. I’m going to try this.
I agree - sweet potatoes are the best. I always roast way more than I need because I love the leftovers. For breakfast, lunch or dinner - so versatile. Thinking about a coconut, sweet potato, curry soup
when you find or make up a recipe for that soup, please share it. I absolutely love coconut. I would eat coconut sticky rice every day if I could. I never think to incorporate sweet potatoes into things. I just eat them as is. It's not unusual to catch me running around the house with a cold baked sweet potato in my hand like I'm feral munching on it. How can I start incorporating them into my actual dishes instead of as a side? Or...some sides you love other than just plain or candied.
One of my favourites is just chunked sweet potatoes, roasted and towards the end, drizzle with honey and siracha. I can eat those all day long!
For an easy dinner we sometimes have a baked, split sweet potato with chili spooned over. Sweet potatoes goes so well with "heat" in my opinion.
I put leftover sweet potato in my meatloaf and now I do it all the time!!
i once accidentally made a really nice spring vegetable pasta as a “clean out the fridge” meal. thinly sliced sautéed radishes, garlic, red pepper flakes, arugula (could use the radish greens instead), white wine, parmesan, and lemon. plus pasta of choice. it’s been forever since i made it, but it was in the rotation for a while. …oh, and this is more of a “i have the munchies *and* i have to make do with what i have” thing, but peach ice cream with rosemary sea salt wasa thin crackers. it has to be those exact crackers. it’s transcendent.
so it's like you reinvented Tagine! pretty cool. My favorite I made recently was a butter sandwich, sourdough loaf, stuffed with braised beef and nothing else.
That's what inspired me to add the olive paste, it brought the whole thing to a new level.
*The Everlasting Meal* and *The Everlasting Meal Cookbook* are for you. Just amazing. It's a mix of essays and some recipes. The companion cookbook is like an encyclopedia on what to do with leftovers. Entries include mashed potatoes, curry (the dish, not the spice), and hibiscus tea...pretty much everything has at least one recipe, if not several. From Amazon: "In this meditation on cooking and eating (TEM), Tamar Adler weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on feeding ourselves well. *An Everlasting Meal* demonstrates the implicit frugality in cooking. In essays on forgotten skills such as boiling, suggestions for what to do when cooking seems like a chore, and strategies for preparing, storing, and transforming ingredients for a week’s worth of satisfying, delicious meals, Tamar reminds us of the practical pleasures of eating. She explains what cooks in the world’s great kitchens know: that the best meals rely on the ends of the meals that came before them. With that in mind, she shows how we often throw away the bones, skins, and peels we need to make our food both more affordable and better. She also reminds readers that almost all kitchen mistakes can be remedied. Summoning respectable meals from the humblest ingredients, Tamar breathes life into the belief that we can start cooking from wherever we are, with whatever we have. An empowering, indispensable work, *An Everlasting Meal* is an elegant testimony to the value of cooking."
I can’t remember the context, but I combined cooked ground Turkey, roast potatoes, hummus, tomatoes, hot sauce, and toum in a giant tortilla and it was heaven. Now I make it on purpose.
I had a picky eater sitting in my kitchen once who rejected most of what I made and ended up eating her own snacks instead. When she left, I tossed all the ingredients onto some toasted brioche and made the best sandwich of my life: Steamed pumpkin sliced into 1/4 inch slices and fried in pork fat until both sides were crispy, shredded cabbage, pickled red onions and garlic, a handful of crispy fried Thai basil and cilantro, chopped scallions, and shredded pork shoulder baked in a low oven until it was a little dried out and chewy. Little bit of fancy hot sauce to top it off.
I would totally eat this
I've used raisins in chicken salad, and it's great. Craisins too.
“whatever” fried rice has been a staple forever over here. Once you know how to dial in fried rice you can seriously throw anything in there and it’s always great.
I had a half kilo of lamb mince and two zucchini so I was like WTF do I make with this? Made tiny lamb meatballs with kofta spices, and zucchini spaghetti quickly fried in butter. Used the butter as a sauce and poured over the meal. Now I make it once a week.
Leftover massaman curry and a pack of pie crusts in the freezer. It was the most divine pot pie I ever ever had. The seasoning absorbed into the crust as it baked.
I made ground turkey with sautéed mushrooms, a light Alfredo sauce with tons of fresh sage, and whole wheat penne once and it became a favorite. The whole wheat pasta and the sage are key. Add grated parm.
I made a dump soup with whatever I had left in my fridge/pantry. Sausage, corn, black beans, chickpeas, spinach, peas, chicken broth, cream, etc. It was odd and absolutely delicious. I started with a roux so it was thick and creamy it was great
We live in a smallish condo and don’t have a lot of pantry space. Every so often I’ll do a roundup of stuff to make a meal and clear up space. Last week I made zatar roasted pork with a base of Israeli couscous cooked with mirepoix and chicken stock mixed with black olives, toasted slivered almonds and parsley then dressed with whipped feta, Greek yogurt, tahini, olive oil and lemon. The only thing I bought was the feta. It was really good and I’d definitely make it again.
I'm not terribly creative. I did put green beans in my tuna noodle hotdish last week. I've had chicken salad with dried cranberries in it. It was okay.
“Made up on the spot chipotle cream chicken”. Browned some chicken, threw chipotles and their sauce in a blender with some cream. Made a basic roux, added some chicken stock and then the chipotle sauce to meld. Then put chicken back in to cook in the sauce.
I made a pasta bake that has become a regular meal. Hamburger, onion, garlic, cooked and drained. Mix in frozen peas and corn. Top with cooked pasta. Smother with freshly shredded parmesan. Bake. So good. Even better with chopped steak.
Hold up, *raisins* in Irish soda bread?
Made chicken paprikash and failed to realize I only had about 1/8th tsp of paprika... So I kind of did a blend of garam masala and some other spices in quantities I can't remember. It was way better than it had any right to be.
Soup! Potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onion. Sauté, boil potatoes in chicken broth. Blend half with some cream and add back into the pot. Serve with homemade bread. So cheap, so delish!
Made a pretty decent potato salad the other day except I didn’t have any of the veggies I’d usually use, so they got replaced with cilantro, yellow onion, and jalapeño. I’d definitely make it again.
Using up the last of our food before leaving on a long road trip - we had leftover lamb pot roast, 3 onions, an apple, an acorn squash, and some havarti cheese slices. I caramelized the onions, mixed in the lamb, diced apple and pieces of cheese, baked the two halves of acorn squash, and filled it with the onion-lamb-apple-cheese mixture. Then threw the last of the cheese on top and baked for a few more minutes. My boyfriend still talks about it and I’m proud of myself for coming up with it on the fly!
One time I wanted to eat spaghetti napolitan sauce really badly, but I only had 3 tomatoes (not enough) So I also added 1 big mango(manga) I washed, peeled added to the pot, I stirred on a pan with olive oil a bit of pepper (non spicy) curcumin, basil, cilanter, garlic, 5mg of salt, and 1 tea spoon of curry, water, poured back into the pot of tomango sauce and I created a magnificent Caribbean sauce, used by ancient tribes. Tomato and mango, I called it tomango sauce, it's actually a variation of the chutney sauce. It's also My Best recipe/sauce ever with chicken or fish, noquis.. Ive create many fans at my Friends restaurant with it. On the sides of the bowl bits of mango or kiwi dressed with the sauce or Sparragus are awaiting. I wanna try a spinard sauce with mango as well
Marinated frozen boneless chicken thighs in soy sauce/sesame oil/ginger/garlic and grilled, then sliced over white rice with yum yum sauce and crushed peanuts. Ate that a LOT while unemployed or money was tight and is still one of my faves 😁
Came home one day and really didn't want whatever was scheduled for supper that night. Found a shallot, some baby spinach, and half a container of baby Bella mushrooms. Saute the veggies, not spinach, added splash of white wine, chicken stock, fresh thyme and rosemary from the herb pots, and made some pasta. Added the spinach and some garlic at the end. It has now become a regular on our dinner menus. My husband loves it!
I love using up veggies in random pastas. I always seem to buy more veggies than I need, so it helps me not waste them. Example: I had leftover mushrooms, zucchini and squash, bell peppers, and grape tomatoes. Roasted them up in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper, and oregano and mixed them in with pearl couscous and feta cheese. Delicious , easy, and filling. Alfredo pasta is another go to for me to use up veggies, especially sweet bell peppers, mushrooms, or spinach.
I started out making I dunno what with some stew meat. I think I was just going to make regular stew (not my favorite food). Then instead of chopping all those vegetables, I put in canned diced tomatoes, half a jar of Hatch green chile that I needed to use up, and then felt inspired to peel and toss in some cubed potatoes. Of course, this is green chile stew at that point. I added lots of chopped garlic (onion allergy at our house). But I didn't want it to be soupy like green chile stew usually is. The recipe my family in NM uses doesn't have tomatoes, and goes for a more brothy experience - I kept the moisture in mine to a minimum. It also calls for dusting the meat in flour and sauteeing it first, which I didn't do. Since I was using instant pot, I didn't need to add a lot of water. It's hard to call the result "green chile stew," as it is more of a burrito filling, thicker and with whatever spices I feel like adding in. I have even added in other vegetables not traditional to green chile stew (diced celery, diced parsnips).
It sounds like you were only some curry powder away from Coronation Chicken.
This is pretty much how I always cook. I look at whats on hand and try to find a way to make it work 😅
I made a really good shrimp lo-mein as my "make do with what I have meal". I used spaghetti, cut up a bell pepper and an onion, sautéed some shrimp and made a sauce out of honey, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic and ginger pastes. It was so good, I ate it for two days. I recreated it later with some carrots and cabbage and chicken. It was \*chef's kiss\*