I hate left overs. Mom of course made me eat the rerun meals when I was a kid, what mom doesn’t? Waste not, want not. Food then, as it is now, was too expensive to waste. Mom’s dinner offerings were always delicious and the first leftover meal wasn’t too bad, however, when a meal was revisited the third time around, that’s when I started putting up a fuss. “Wasting perfectly good food is a sin” she would tell me and “there are starving children back in the old country”. I know the line is “starving children in Africa” but my mother grew up in post WWII Eastern Europe and just like the character, Maria Portokalos from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, would often say to my brother and I “eat your food, when I was little, we didn’t have food”.

Therefore, I dutifully ate the leftovers and dreaded every bite, that is until I got older and learned to reinvent a rerun meal. Voila, brand new dish! Problem solved. No more “oh (sigh) leftovers” instead “I really want to eat that!” In fact now I look forward to having those leftovers. I enjoy the challenge of how I can make the rerun a home run.

Today the leftovers are from yesterday’s post, The First Supper. Buttery Cauliflower Mash and Bacony Greens transformed into mini casseroles. The results were delicious. Seriously, Yummmm! Here is how I remade these two dishes into one awesome side.

Ingredients

1 cup/serving leftover Buttery Cauliflower Mash The First Supper

1/4 cup leftover Bacony Greens, chopped The First Supper

1/3 cup leftover meat, in this case remains of boiled beef ribs, chopped (optional)

1 egg

1/2 tbsp almond flour

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Place all ingredients into a bowl and stir until combined.

I will mention that I have not added salt to this mixture as the Bacony Greens and Buttery Cauliflower Mash were quite salty. I used salted butter with the mash and the alder smoked bacon I used with the greens was very salty. The finished dish was well seasoned, perfect without the further addition of salt, however, as always season to taste.

Next prep the pan. Here I am using a silicone brownie pan, a muffin tin would work as well. Oil the pan with avocado oil as it is virtually tasteless.

Each rectangle holds 4 tbsp and I got 6 mini casseroles. Place into a preheated 400F/200C oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the top is a nice golden brown.

Now the mini casseroles are done and they make a perfect side dish. One serving is 2 mini casseroles, therefore 2 gram total carbohydrate 7gram fat, and 8 gram protein per serving.

Today I felt like a salad for lunch and thought these little casseroles would be a tasty addition. I was not wrong. To make the salad:

Ingredients

1 egg poached (super simple method to poach an egg coming up)

1/2 cup baby romaine lettuce

1/8 cup pecan halves

2 cherry tomatoes sliced

Jamie Oliver is credited with this method for poaching an egg and it is brilliant. Start with a room temperature egg, a small cup and some cling wrap. Place the cling wrap in the cup and add a little oil so that the egg doesn’t stick to the cling film. Add salt and pepper. Crack the egg into the centre of the cup and cling film.

Bring up the edges of the cling to surround the egg and give the little bundle a twist and using a twist tie seal the egg in the cling. Place the parcel into a pot of simmering water for 4 min for soft poached 5 min for medium poach. I went medium today but generally prefer a soft poach.

Once the egg is done poaching the salad can be assembled.

One medium poached egg, two mini cauliflower casseroles, some salad greens, a little pecan and a touch of tomato. Scrumptious! Serving equivalent to carbs 7 grams, fat 22 grams, protein 16 grams and fiber 1 grams.

Try these out and let me know what you came up with, would love to hear from you.

Happy Eating!

Irene The Keto Gourmet