Food Glorious Food

My Memere, who passed away four years ago yesterday, loved this guy Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet. Mem loved him so much she affectionately referred to him as the "Froog". Dictionary.com defines frugal this way...
economical in use or expenditure; prudently saving or sparing; not wasteful. This makes a lot of sense because one of our most beloved Mem-isms is "waste not want not". She probably said this every day of her life. Mem was known for eating leftovers that the rest of us would call garbage. She liked good food as much as the rest of us though, specifically cheese and lobster. Mem didn't care much for most people's perennial favorites like pizza, burgers, and spaghetti, but she would eat those things, saying, "waste not want not."

I find myself thinking of Mem and her "Froog" a lot today, since I have spent the last few hours in the kitchen turning what some people might call garbage into some really yummy food. Mike had to drive to Tallahassee and back today, and he won't be home until well after dark, so it was just the kids and myself for supper. Earlier in the day I had decided on leftover Easter ham and Annie's macaroni and cheese for dinner. A week or two ago while doing the shopping Mike had come home with fat free sour cream. I'm a fan of skim milk, but I prefer a lot of fat in my sour cream. I'd done a fair job of disguising the "fat free-ness" by mixing it with regular sour cream, but we still had some left. Guess what, when you make Annie's macaroni and cheese with fat free sour cream, it's a win win! And there went all the fat free sour cream and most of the Easter ham. There was still the issue of the left over Easter mashed potatoes that my mother sent us home with. Combine them with the ground turkey we had in the refrigerator, a packet of brown gravy, and a can of corn, and tomorrow nights shepherd's pie is already put together. I could even make the case for having this meal because Jake and I are doing a 50 days of Easter devotional sticker activity and the last few days have focused on Jesus being the Good Shepherd, so there you go frugal and homeschooly at the same time. While getting out the ham and potatoes I had to move the leftover peanut butter frosting from Madi's birthday. Hmmm, peanut butter frosting... what choice did I have but to make a chocolate cake for it to go on. I'm not going to talk about the fact that it was a from scratch cake made with freshly ground whole wheat and the normal amount of sugar being replaced by a smaller amount of evaporated cane juice and a mushed banana (also very close to being garbage), I try not to talk much about health foody things because the health nuts and exercise nuts that populate facebook really rub me the wrong way. That left only the leftovers of the leftover ham. I thought it would really be good with scambled eggs, but I was in the make right now mood and scrambled eggs made tonight would definitely be garbage by tomorrow morning. Guess what though... breakfast casserole made tonight will be scrumptious tomorrow morning and thus more almost trash turned gourmet!!