Remains of the Day

Too much food goes to waste in our house. Cucumbers rot in the crisper because I forget to pick up salad mix, baguettes go stale when Ben and I are sick of sandwiches. Frozen food never stays frozen in our ridiculous freezer, so ice cream and stores of vegetables rarely last a day before becoming suicidal. Only Ben’s Jagermeister stays cold, buried in hard drifts of frost.

I am mostly to blame for the wastefulness, though I would never think myself wasteful. I was raised on an organic farm near Napa, and my father built his own Ferris wheel sized compost turner when I was barely able to read. I am nothing if not self sustaining…. And stubborn. Of course I’ll use these vegetables if I just buy them; the price is too good to pass up. Sure, I only need one tenth of this Dutch process cocoa powder for a recipe, but who doesn’t need Dutch process cocoa powder around? My personal favorite: Ben has a big enough appetite that we won’t have leftovers (on chicken parmesan meant to serve four people). In the end, two people only need so much food, yet I retain the delusion that I am cooking for ten in a kitchen straight out of the Food Network.

History repeated itself last Friday when I made tortellini for two and homemade vodka sauce for a regiment. You must understand that Ben is ravenous for my vodka sauce. We had a pretty substantial debate at the store because he wanted to buy an industrial vat of Stoli for the occasion (in reality, the recipe requires less than a shot glass). I still made enough vodka sauce to fill a medium saucepan, confident that Ben would turn his dinner plate into tortellini soup. As I watched him delicately apply the sauce like a debutante on a diet, I briefly considered throttling him.

The remaining vodka sauce, about four cups’ worth, sat in our refrigerator for a few days. Seeing it was like waking one morning to find permanent marker on my face. I couldn’t ignore it away and neither Ben nor I were in the mood for pasta again, but I had to do something with the sauce and fast.

Tonight my frustration got the best of me. In a fit of ridiculously immature growling and stomping, I just dumped the sauce on top of some seasoned chicken breasts and shoved the mess in the toaster oven at 425 degrees. Thirty minutes later, both Ben and I were pleasantly surprised. The vodka sauce was perfect on top of the chicken. The sauce became firmer, but not hardened or burned, and it cocooned the chicken in juicy flavor reminiscent of chicken parmesan. I will definitely make this again, even if it is not a matter of making a use of leftovers.

The moral of this story: sometimes it’s good to let your temper get the best of you!