leftover night, October 2

Last week we got takeout Indian food one night.   One of the things we got was sort of a steamed plain bread, which is good, because that's what the kids ate.  L also ate a sort of Indian-cheese-filled pastry dumpling sort of appetizer, too. Everything else was SPICY.   So spicy that, when I found the leftovers today in the fridge, along with more brown rice from yesterday ,I decided to turn them into dinner by mixing some leftover cooked kale, some carrots, and a LOT of yogurt into the spiced chickpea dish we hadn't been able to finish the first time, and then served it over brown rice.   We had a few of those little pastry dumpling things and some Indian bread left, and I made us a cucumber and yogurt salad without any spices.  The doctored version - good, but still spicy enough to require a beer!

K  had a plate with brown rice, a leftover breaded chicken piece, and some plain cucumbers. L ate some
leftover cauliflower, some rice, one of the cheese dumplings and a few bits of chicken.

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Monday, October 1

I didn't get my act together to eat lunch from inside our fridge, and then I tempted my husband (who works from our home office most of the time) to come to the really yummy Tibetan buffet and pick up his library book on the way.  And then the really yummy Tibetan restaurant turned out to be closed on Mondays.

We ate at the Amsterdam Falafel Shop across the street - where they have the option of a bowl with as many pieces of falafel as you want and then all the interesting vegetarian salad and topping options you want, sold by weight, or a small or large pita with a set number of falafel pieces *more for the large one) and then all the topics you can fit inside the pita.   The bowl is less messy and lets you have more toppings without mixing up too many weird flavors in the same bite, and a reasonable amount of toppings costs about the same amount as the one served  in the pita.    So that's what I got.   K was at school, and L ate some falafel and devoured a bunch of pink-colored pickled turnips.  And then we noticed that they a set of squirt bottles of different sauces - they put some tahini and some garlic cream sauce next to the ordering station, but over by the tables you could get many other kinds.  Including something called "curry ketchup."  We had to go back an order some fries to fully appreciate the curry ketchup, and L of course devoured many of those too - quite happily dipping in the curry ketchup.  (His big sister will occasionally eat regular ketchup on fries,
but generally is not a sauce fan and that and mac and cheese are about the only sauces she will consider.)

My hope is that if we eat there sometime with Ms K as well, she will eat some plain falafel in a bowl for protein.  She does like vegetables, but all of their salads have "interesting" flavors, and she usually just eats plain lettuce, or plain cucumbers, or plain steamed broccoli, etc.  I would like to have them be an option for all of us, though, since they are a good nearby cheap fast option for dinner.  If she doesn't like the falafel, then I guess we'll have learned for next time and she'll eat fries for dinner, with a side of ketchup-as-a-vegetable....

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Lentilly leftovers

I made this thing from the Bittman app a couple nights ago -- lentils with rice and onions, pretty simple. I mixed in some leftover chicken and topped it with yogurt. ET VOILA. pretty good lunch. It's the happiest meal of the day, you know.

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