The All Of It Leftover Challenge
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All Of It
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WNYC Studios
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audio
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Publication Date |
Apr 19, 2021
Episode Duration |
00:28:51

In honor of Earth Week, we kick off our series, "Chew It Over: Rethinking Leftovers & Food Waste," with cookbook author Julia Turshen who will help us launch the All Of It Leftover Challenge. 

Select one of the recipes below to make for dinner this week, and then turn into leftovers at least once! Tell us how it goes. Send us your photos and tag us on Instagram, and we’ll check in with you at the end of the week to see how it went.

The recipes are: Roast Chicken with Onion Gravy, Stewed Chickpeas with Peppers and Zucchini, Ropa Vieja and Red Lentil Soup Dip. They're excerpted from Julia Turshen's new book Simply Julia: 110 Easy Recipes for Healthy Comfort Food.

 

**Roast Chicken with Onion Gravy**

Add this chicken to the list of recipes inspired by our volunteer work at Angel Food East. To make it, you cut up a chicken, season it, and roast it in a skillet on a bed of sliced onions and chicken stock. After the chicken is cooked, you set the skillet on the stove, reduce the cooking juices just a little bit, and then stir in mustard and sour cream to make a rich onion gravy without any flour, roux, or anything else that usually causes gravy anxiety. Serve this chicken with mashed or crushed potatoes (they’re a good place to put more sour cream) and steamed green beans. Or with cornbread and cooked greens. Or with noodles and peas. Or with rice and buttered broccoli. Or with warm rolls and roasted squash. You get the idea . . .

Serves 4

1 large (or 2 small) yellow onion, thinly sliced into half moons

2 cups [480 ml] chicken stock (homemade, store-bought,

or bouillon paste dissolved in

boiling water)

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 whole chicken, cut into 8 parts (or 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts or 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs), patted dry with a paper towel

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 8 thin slices

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1/2 cup [113 g] sour cream

Preheat your oven to 400.F [200.C].

Place the sliced onion and chicken stock in a large, heavy, ovenproof skillet (I use a cast-iron one for this). Season the mixture with a large pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. 

Place the chicken pieces, skin-side- up, on top of the onion mixture and season them generously with salt and pepper. Place a butter slice on top of each piece of chicken and roast until the chicken is browned, firm to the touch, and registers at least 165.F [74.C] on a digital thermometer, about 40 minutes.

Use tongs to transfer the chicken pieces to a serving platter and cover them with foil to keep them warm. Place the skillet with the onions on the stove and bring to a boil over high heat. Let the mixture boil for 5 minutes to thicken slightly, then turn the heat to low. Whisk in the mustard and sour cream and season the gravy to taste with salt and pepper. Pour the mixture over the chicken pieces. Serve immediately.

**Stewed Chickpeas with Peppers and Zucchini**

A late summer go-to during our volunteering shifts at Angel Food East, this light stew of chickpeas, peppers, and zucchini is the best way I know to use up a ton of summertime produce without a ton of effort. Served with a creamy, lemony sauce and couscous, pasta, rice, or quinoa (or any grain), it’s a healthy-and-Hearty recipe that is simple to make and infinitely adaptable, too. Swap out the chickpeas for any type of bean. Have extra peppers? Add them! Have a bunch of tomatoes? Chop them up and throw them in. Dice some eggplant, roast it, and fold it in at the end. Add vegetable stock to this and call it soup. Skip the grain or pasta and use the mixture to fill quesadillas. This is flexible cooking, which is my favorite kind of cooking.

Serves 4

For the sauce

1 large handful fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped (a little stem is fine)

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup [120 ml] vegan mayonnaise (or regular mayonnaise if you’re

not vegan)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

For the stew

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium red onion, thinly sliced into half moons

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 bell peppers (red, yellow, and/or orange), stemmed, seeded, and thinly sliced

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 teaspoons dried oregano

Kosher salt

2 medium zucchini [about 3/4

pound (340 g)], ends trimmed, cut into bite-sized pieces

Two 15-ounce [425 g] cans

chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup [60 ml] water

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

To serve

Cooked couscous, pasta, rice, quinoa, or any other grain

First, make the sauce

Place the parsley, lemon juice, vegan mayonnaise, and salt in a small bowl and stir well to combine. Reserve the mixture.

Next, make the stew

Place the olive oil in a large, heavy pot (like a Dutch oven) over medium heat. Once it’s warm, add the onion, garlic, bell peppers, tomato paste, oregano, and a large pinch of salt. Cook, stirring now and then, until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the zucchini, chickpeas, water, and another large pinch of salt. Turn the heat to high and when that little bit of water begins to boil, turn the heat to medium-low, cover the pot, and cook, uncovering it every so often to stir, until the zucchini is very soft and the mixture is stew, about

25 minutes. Turn off the heat, stir in the vinegar, and season the mixture to taste with salt. Serve the stew warm over the couscous (or whatever you’re serving it with). Top each serving with a large spoonful of the sauce.

**Ropa Vieja** 

In my early twenties, I ended up living in a studio apartment in the same building that I grew up in. It was a surreal experience, almost a time loop, and living there allowed me to reconnect to some of the places I went to as a little kid. One of those places was La Taza del Oro, down the block on Eighth Avenue, a very special lunch counter that opened in 1947 and sadly closed in 2015. Along with Casa Adela in the East Village, La Taza del Oro was one of New York’s iconic Puerto Rican restaurants and it served dishes from other cultures too, including traditional Cuban ropa vieja (which translates to “old clothes,” an evocative description of the texture of the shredded beef). 

I make this version at home regularly, and while it doesn’t bring back a restaurant I wish was still thriving, it helps me keep my memories of it alive. It’s also just so satisfying and soul-warming (which is why I made it a few times for our local volunteer EMT squad when Covid-19 hit our area). After cooking, shred the beef and store in a container in the refrigerator for up to a week (it’s honestly better the longer it sits). Warm it up in a saucepan over low heat (splash with a little water or stock if it needs some moisture) and then enjoy on its own with rice or sweet, starchy things like roasted squash, fried plantains, grilled corn, or Sweet + Spicy Mashed Sweet Potatoes (page 135). It’s especially great with the Best Black Beans with Avocado Salad (page 62). You could also use this beef for tacos or inside of a pressed sandwich (try it on your next grilled cheese).

Serves 6 to 8

1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced into half moons

6 garlic cloves, crushed

2 medium green bell peppers,

stemmed, seeded, and thinly sliced

One 14.5-ounce [411 g] can diced tomatoes with their juice

1/4 cup [60 ml] yellow mustard

⅓ cup [65 g] raisins

1/2 cup [120 g] pimento-stuffed green olives, plus 3 tablespoons olive brine for finishing the dish

One 2- to 3-pound [907 g to 1.3 kg] boneless chuck roast, trimmed of any large pieces of fat or gristle, cut into 3 even pieces

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons ground cumin

Fresh cilantro, for serving (optional)

Preheat your oven to 300.F [150.C].

Place the onion, garlic, bell peppers, diced tomatoes with their juice, mustard, raisins, and olives (hang onto that brine for later) in a large, heavy ovenproof pot (such as a Dutch oven). Mix well to combine. Sprinkle the chuck roast pieces all over with the salt, black pepper, and cumin. Nestle the pieces into the mixture in the pot. Cover the pot tightly with a lid or aluminum foil.

Roast the beef until it’s incredibly tender and shreds easily when you poke at it with tongs or a couple of forks, about 3 hours. Add the olive brine to the pot and use those tongs or forks to shred the beef directly in the pot (discard any large pieces of fat as you work) and mix it together with the juices. 

Season to taste with salt. Serve warm with cilantro sprinkled on top (if you’d like).

**Red Lentil Soup Dip**

Even though I wrote a whole cookbook about reinventing leftovers, called Now & Again, I often eat tons of stuff cold, straight out of the container. We all contain multitudes. Enter this dip, which is inspired by leftover red lentil soup that I mistook for hummus one day and stuck a carrot into and ate standing in front of my refrigerator. It was so good that I decided to do it on purpose going forward and cook red lentils as if I were going to turn them into a gently spiced soup, in the spirit of traditional masoor dal, but on the thicker side with less liquid. Serve with raw vegetables, any type of cracker (it’s especially good with papadums), or put a dollop onto a bowl of rice and cooked vegetables and call it lunch. And you can always add a few cups of stock, serve it warm, and call it . . . soup.

Makes about 2 cups [480 ml]

3 tablespoons coconut oil (or extra-virgin olive oil)

2 teaspoons garam masala (or 1/2 teaspoon each ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, and black pepper)

1/2 cup [100 g] split red lentils

One 131/2-ounce [400 ml] can coconut milk

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons plain yogurt (or coconut milk yogurt if you’re vegan), for serving 

2 tablespoons toasted unsweetened coconut flakes, for serving

Place the coconut oil and garam masala in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When the spices begin to smell fragrant, just about 30 seconds, stir in the lentils, coconut milk, and salt.

Bring the mixture to a boil, turn the heat to low, cover the pot, and simmer until the lentils are completely soft, 20 to 25 minutes. Season the mixture to taste with salt. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool to room temperature. It will thicken slightly as it cools. Transfer the dip to a serving bowl. Top with the yogurt and toasted coconut and serve immediately.

All recipes from the book SIMPLY JULIA by Julia Turshen. Copyright © 2021 by Julia Turshen. Published by Harper Wave, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.

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