Weekend Fridge Cleanout

Sometimes weekends are for tackling a culinary project be it a single complicated dish or making dinner for friends.  But more often it’s about cleaning out the fridge, making a few quick dishes that can be eaten on the fly and even better served hot, cold or somewhere in between.  After all, I gave my heart decades ago to that ingeniously simple group of Italian dishes often labeled antipasti, co-authoring a thinly veiled cookbook salute to them called Cucina Fresca.  Writing a book like that pretty much assures you a lifetime of ideas for hot weather eating.

So here’s what I made this weekend for eating over the next few days.

Curried Spinach-Sweet Potato Soup

• Wilt spinach in water with garlic and some curry powder.  Add leftover cooked yam without peel.  Puree with immersion blender.  Serve with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream

Lazy Woman’s Strawberry Shortcake

• pretend you made scones or poundcake
• don’t pretend and just serve berries in a bowl with sour cream and nut garnish

Blanched Green Bean Salad with Cabbage and Almonds
Blanched Broccoli

• add garlic, cooked in butter and some lemon
• eat cold out of bowl for healthy snack
• add to anything from pasta to simple veg side dish

Onion-Corn-Sugar Snap Succotash
Seared “Porchetta” Pork Chop

• Be happy there is a thin pork chop in the freezer from a pig share from months ago. Sprinkle salt, fennel pollen, pepper, thyme on it and sear over medium heat letting the fat render.  Remove it from heat and use it later with anything else on this list

Hull and freeze berries for future eating, baking, smoothie making

High five yourself for saving a ton of money by using everything that would have been thrown out in a few more days.