Leftovers

I only cook vegetarian at home. Mostly. It is too much work to try and make separate meals when only two people are eating. I'd rather put all my energy into a single meal. I've taken to cooking some things at a higher volume to guarantee leftovers, like veggie pot pie or baked mac-n-cheese.

The problem is when I have good leftovers from work. Two beautiful pork chops, half a flank steak, a duck breast. Then I have to figure out a way to make something for both of us. My standard has been something like a vegetable heavy pilaf or a quick risotto. I get a nice seared carnivorous meal on top and J. gets seared tofu. At my laziest, I have tried the same marinade or spice rub on both. Just do the tofu first! It only needs a few minutes in any marinade anyway, and doesn't mind sitting around and waiting on the back of the stove under a piece of foil.

I once worked on a job for a mail order ham company. It was a week long and every day they would send 20 fresh hams, half of them butt and half shank. We only used the shank ends, so already there were 10 hams to get rid of at the start of the day, and the rest supposedly had to go by the end. I know, this sounds crazy, but the sugared crust, which was the selling point, would dissolve into the moisture of the ham overnight in the fridge. So fresh hams every day.

Everyone I know ate ham that week. Friends would stop by the studio and leave with a nine pound ham in their bike basket. More than once. All of the studio staff took a ham home. I sent a messenger home with a ham. By thursday I was overwhelmed. I had refrigerators stuffed to the gills and 20 more hams coming that day. 

Finally someone had a brilliant idea. We were about 10 blocks from the Bowery Mission, which is a homeless shelter/soup kitchen/life fixer. After a quick phone call I messengered about 70 hams to them. Normally It is hard giving shelters food, because they only want packaged, sealed stuff, but we didn't have that issue with them. Hurray, leftovers!