Lessons in leftovers: chicken and rice

Featured recently on HeadWay, leftovers can be perilous for the migraineur. If tyramine is your trigger, it's best to be wary of aged protein in any form. The amino acid tyrosine breaks down over time into tyramine, thought to be a vasoconstrictor that can trigger a migraine cascade.

In English: the older the protein, the worse the pain. It's often associated with aged cheese and pickling, smoking or fermenting, but can be just as nasty in days old leftovers.

And herein lies the dilemma: how to love to cook and live to eat and not waste a ton of food? For this, the freezer is my friend. If I can't finish a dish within 24 hours, freezing the leftovers can buy another day.

Ironically, I also don't own a microwave, so have had to learn some 50s-era tricks. In this case, I made a classic one-pot chicken and rice, but used last week's frozen roast chicken.

First toast a cup of rice in hot olive oil until fragrant and glistening. Nestle the frozen chicken parts in the rice and add 1/2 cup of white wine for flavor. Then add 2 cups of water, a bit more than you'd use for rice alone. Bring to a boil and simmer for 45 minutes.

About 15 minutes in, add veggie of choice (or fruit--with winter coming to a close, I'm still cooking with apples and turnips).

Waste not, want not, and wait for Spring.

Mussels with burdock and celeriac over toasted bread

My great bread experiment continues, and leaves me with half-eaten loaves at the end of the week. Searching for new ways to serve it forth, I decided to pour mussels and broth over nice, thick chunks of toast.

I started with the last veggies left in the fridge: a hefty celery root and a thick burdock root. Both can be a bit intimidating, and they're better peeled with a knife than a traditional peeler. Celery root is toothsome and mildly sweet. Burdock, on the other hand, is somewhat stringy, like an astringent ginger root.

Peel, cube and slice, and allow to soften in olive oil over medium heat while attending to the mussels.

Sort the mussels, tossing any that are cracked or won't spring closed when knocked against the counter.

Add a bottle of clam juice (I like Bar Harbor) and 1/2 cup of wine to the pan. Bring to a simmer and toss in the mussels. Cover, simmer and shake until most mussels have opened. To prevent overcooking, fish out the open mussels with tongs or a slotted spoon and then toss any that remain stubbornly shut.

Toast a thick slice of bread under the broiler for a couple of minutes per side. Cube or tear into a nice pile on the plate, spoon the roots, top with mussels and pour the juices over the lot.

Duck egg-in-a-hole

A bonus from this weekend: lunch of duck egg and homemade bread.

The first result of my greenmarket haul was a triumph in two parts. First, I was determined to use the dozen gorgeous duck eggs that a local farmer was most kind enough to split in half (I pleaded Single status to get him to sell me only 6). I love duck eggs--I depend on eggs for weekday meals, and duck eggs are gamey enough to trick both brain and palette into thinking that I'm eating something much more flavorfully complex than a mere egg.

Second, I'm still on my campaign to find (or make) a migraine-worthy bread. I found a good recommendation for whole grain--or malted barley-free--bread. When Knead 2 begins on the bread machine, cancel the program and start over. The extra knead and rise cycle creates the necessary gluten structure to create an acceptably spongy loaf. Hallelujah. My next experiment will be to program my own bread recipe with an extra long rise cycle rather than an extra knead (thank you NYTimes and the Curious Cook).

So I cut a nicely thick loaf of bread, excised the whole with a highball glass, and heated an omelette pan over medium high with a tablespoon of butter. In went the bread, and I cracked a duck egg into the hole. Egg, bread and all get flippend when the whites turn a bit solid, but not too firm or the yolk won't be dip-able.

A welcome treat after a greenmarket haul and a challenging yoga class.