Whoever thinks leftovers are depressing isn’t doing it right. When stored properly, reheated and jazzed-up to look pretty, leftovers offer as cheerful a lunch alternative as freshly cooked food.

Last Saturday, we had a Greek-themed cookfest. Happily, our experiments all turned out yummy (even if my hummus was too peanutty). Still, we overestimated our appetites so we ended up with leftovers. Our host, Naomi sent us off with baggies of leftovers. One of the leftovers, a Greek Shrimp & Feta Stew stars in Tuesday’s bento. Crappy leftover? Goodness no! (Note: Greek cookfest coverage to follow.)

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Bored with the usual chicken? Super Pesto to the rescue!

I have to admit to being an abuser of pesto. Aside from the usual Pesto-laced pasta, I’ve tried adding pesto to a varied array of food. Pesto Rice, Pesto Mashed Potatoes, Pesto on crackers–just a few of the many ways I’ve tried serving it up.

This morning’s pesto concoction was unplanned but nevertheless inspired. My initial idea was to make Pangrilled Cajun Chicken but the bottle of sundried tomato pesto in the fridge sent me its siren call. Suddenly, Delifrance’s Chicken Pesto sprung to mind and a quick googling helped me arrive at the conclusion that turbo broiling it would be the way to go.

Here’s something I’ve been missing for quite some time. My usual Japanese grocery ran out of the Japanese rice I usually buy so no onigiri for the last few months. Fortunately, I found a good looking bag of Koshihikari at one of our local groceries last weekend so I can finally make onigiri again. Yay! To end the long drought, here’s one of my favorites, Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese onigiri!

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It was my mom’s turn to cook yesterday, so she prepared Nilagang Baka (literally, boiled beef), a Filipino-style beef stew. To prepare, she boiled the beef in water with onions and whole peppercorns for hours on end to soften it. She used what we commonly call bulalo which is beef stuck against the bone, with the bone marrow still intact. She added potatoes and petchay (bok choy), though some people choose to add cabbages instead. Served steaming hot, with patis (fish sauce) on the side, nilagang baka is excellent eaten with lots of rice on cold days like these.

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