Well, we went a little crazy with our dinner party last week, but the benefit has been lots of leftovers to manage. Sunday night, we made omelettes with our leftover porcini/sausage/onion stuffing and the last sixth of our Red Hawk cheese. It is one of Red Hawk's many charms that a little goes a long way. With each of us getting essentially a twelfth of a full wheel, the omelette was still full-flavored. I also made some sandwiches with our leftover pain de mie (which keeps well for a few days and makes fantastic sandwich bread), which I filled with lunch meat and gruyere (both purchased with the intent of eating sandwiches all week).

We accompanied this dish with the 2001 Sauvignon Blanc from Bernardus in Monterey. This was one of our wines from the K & L Best Buy club. It was a very pleasant wine, which Melissa described as nicely balanced (I wasn't in the mood to take notes). It had an eye-opening acidity, but that lingered just long enough to cleanse your mouth, so was not too jarring.

Much of the brioche from that dinner, as well as the pear compote from the fried pear dumplings, got converted into bread pudding. This bread pudding came out stunningly well. I did the main pudding as cubes, but followed a suggestion from Christopher Kimball which I then filterered through my memory of a bread pudding we had at bacar recently. Basically, lay slices of brioche on top (I made irregular triangles), partially submerging them in the custard but otherwise having them standing at an angle (don't lay them flat). Brush these with melted butter and then sprinkle with granulated sugar. The peaks, rising above the custard, become a rich golden-brown color, and provide a nice textural counterpoint to the custard-soaked cubes in the bottom (at least on the first day). One of the best and prettiest bread puddings I've ever made.

Sandwiches in general have been a theme, first because of the pain de mie we had left from dinner on Saturday, but also because a co-worker brought in a George Foreman Grill. Now, I'm very skeptical of something which proudly touts its ability to reduce fat. It strikes me as the reverse of a flavor injector. But it is an option to explore in addition to the toaster oven and microwave. And certainly it does a decent job of toasting sandwiches. It makes nice grill lines on the bread. Each day this week, I've brought two sandwiches and "grilled" them with good results. My co-workers expressed mock disappointment that I was merely bringing sandwiches, but I reassured them by pointing out that I had made the bread and the mayonnaise.

Costs for the last three days:
Eggs (I used close to a dozen between the bread pudding and the omelettes so I'm counting them): $2.40
Ham: $6.59
Cheese: $3.50
Total costs: $12.49
posted by Derrick at 10:56 PM

What do you do with leftover hummus? The wise person's answer would be that you eat it just like you would regular hummus, as it keeps well for a couple of days.

But that is not how I prefer to do things here at Eating Well Cheaply. Leftovers must be reimagined whenever possible, yesterday's Dish A becoming today's Dish B. And that is how I ended up standing in front of a pan of hot oil early Thursday morning.

Fried hummus, hummus dredged in flour, egg, flour again and then dropped in hot oil, is a good thing. Sort of a Mediterranean hush puppy. But I learned a few things in the process:

• I prefer buttermilk for my batter when frying
• Hummus, being soft, does not lend itself to a beautiful presentation when fried. I'd recommend sticking it in the freezer for a little while until it is still malleable but holds its shape when subjected to the dredging process. I had little misshapen blobs of hummus to deal with at lunch.
• Your heart may want to believe that fried things can be reheated to be as good as new, but your head knows better. My fried hummus blobs were great right out of the oil, but soft and sad at lunch.

Nonetheless, it was an interesting experiment. I don't know how I came up with the idea; I think I read something once about fried chickpeas and it stuck (hummus being made primarily of garbanzo beans, also known as chickpeas). I served my four blobs on a bed of greens with a light dressing (I had to resort to using some bottled dressing in the office fridge because I had neglected to make any; it was surprisingly not bad) and triangles of pita bread, which I arranged around the plate in a sawtooth pattern. I was annoyed I hadn't made mayonnaise, as it would have been a nice accompaniment. I refuse to eat whatever is in the jar labelled mayonnaise at work; once you've had homemade mayonnaise, it's really hard to eat the jarred stuff.
Costs:
Greens (bought the previous day at the farmer's market): $1.50
posted by Derrick at 10:44 PM