Using what ya got, or when you buy too much of something

Ok, you know the situation. It looked SO good. It was SUCH a good price. And all of a sudden, that ten pound jar of honey slipped into your bag. Or the six pounds of cashews. Or... fill in the blank.
If you dont' go too crazy (I should talk!), you can usually deal with your "enforced largesse" by being a bit creative, and by waiting a bit. Of course, if you are in the habit, as I am, of buying enough fruits and vegetables to feed six people every night for a week, three times in a row, you WILL find yourself in trouble, which will go well beyond the dirty looks of your partner as he mutters "where the hell are we going to put all this stuff?" Well, this is NOT about one of those confrontations, but it IS about using up "too much of several good things."

When I planned the grocery list for the magical Tuesday I spoke of in a blog or two ago, the rockshrimp looked SO good that I bought twice what I would need. I KNEW I'd use them... And I THOUGHT I had bought just enough asparagus. WRONG. I bought twice as much. Was that a mistake? Probably not. I was so hungry for spring produce that, if I remember correctly, I almost bought three times as much. Creme fraiche. The recipe said 8 ounces, but it looked skimpy to me. Uh, it wasn't. So there was 8 ounces extra, that had actually baked onto the fish and stayed in the pan when I took it out to serve it. It was mixed with capers and shallots. And it looked too good to get rid of.

So we ate that on Tuesday. Now, the mistake I think people make with leftovers is that they make the same thing, a second time, and serve it immediately the next day. There are very few things that I want to eat two days in a row. Spaghetti with red sauce is an exception. So are steamed clams. Fried eggplant? Yes. Fresh ricotta? You betcha. But not too much else. Hot meatloaf for dinner, made well, is wonderful. A second night in a row, and it's a chore.

So, here's what happened. I had that left over sauce, the asparagus, the shrimp, and turned it into pasta sauce. It was in fact wonderful. And I'm gonna tell you how I did it. First though, I'm gonna suggest how you can make the sauce if you don't have left overs.

If you recall, the sauce was simply a matter of a chopped shallot, a tablespoon of soaked capers, and 8 ounces of creme fraiche. You dont' need instruction on how to do this, now, do you?
Well... ok. What I would suggest you do is simply chop the shallot, soak the capers, mix them with the creme fraiche, and put it aside for about an hour or so for the flavors to meld a little.

Now, to the rest. Cut the very end of the asparagus off, where they have cut it from the plant. Don't take more than about a quarter of an inch. Then cut the rest into about one inch lengths. Add some oil to a pan, and add the asparagus. Cook them for about two or three minutes, no more than that, adding a teaspoon of salt to it. Add a pound of rock shrimp and turn it with a spoon. A half dozen turns is more than enough. Then take that OFF THE HEAT and let it sit. The residual heat will allow the vegetables and the shrimp to cook. As will the pasta, which we are now going to get to.

This is a dish that calls for stubby pasta or tubes, or something like that. I would stick away from spaghetti, or linguini or anything like that. Boil it up the way you would cook it normally, and stop it just a moment or two from finished. Drain it and put it into the pan with the asparagus and the shrimp.

You just added more heat. Those veggies and shrimp are COOKED. So all you have to do now is take the creme fraiche and stir it through the stuff until you've got everything coated, and WHAM. You have got DINNER. And a fine one too.

If you do not care for shrimp, this would work with scallops (they are almost always interchangeable). You could also use crab, if you felt extremely rich, and you could use chunks of white fish, or white meat chicken. Chicken you would probably have to cook more, and I would suggest reversing the order of the meat and veggies: cook the meat first, and then the veggies.

Wretched excess (well, it wasn't wretched), turned into a quick weekday meal. How neat is that?

There may be ONE MORE TRICK in the bag using that sauce. Stay tuned.. And that one is thanks to the quiet side of this relationship, Guy