Magic Leftovers

The other night I threw together one of our favorite quickies-beans and rice. Brown rice cooked with tomatoes and spices, refried beans, lettuce, fresh tomato, and plenty of salsa, olives, and (tofu) sour cream. Simple stuff, but nourishing and delicious. I fixed quite a bit of both rice and beans, so we had a lot left over.


In one of my recent posts I mentioned that I love leftovers. The only time I don't like having leftovers is when the food wasn't any good to begin with. Otherwise, what's not to like about having tasty food cooked and ready to go? It's also easy to transform leftovers into something a little different.

I was pondering the possibility of making a casserole using the beans and rice when I decided to press the rice into a glass pie dish. The rice was fairly sticky, so it pressed into shape perfectly. I brushed the rice with a little olive oil to keep it from drying out and put it under the broiler for a few minutes to try to help it firm up a bit. Then in went the refried beans, and some frozen mixed vegetables that have been hanging out in the freezer (mostly corn with bits of cauliflower, broccoli, and red pepper). I steamed the frozen veggies briefly in the microwave and seasoned them with a little chili powder, Bragg's, and chipotle sauce. I also had half a can of diced tomatoes left in the fridge from making the rice the night before, so those went in with the vegetables.


I put it in the oven till everything was nice and hot, and that was that. I was hoping I would be able to get pretty slices out of it, but it was fairly messy looking on the plate. When I do this again I will play with the crust (flour, flax?) and let it set a little longer when it comes out of the oven. But that's just being picky, because it was delicious. The textures all worked well together and the rice was nice and crusty around the edges.

Magic Leftovers