I love when the unexpected turns out great. Yesterday Andy and I wanted to have an easy dinner without a lot of fuss. He was talking about Taco Bell, but I had just gone major grocery shopping the other day. Plus, ever since we've made friends with our neighbor Mathilde, Taco Bell just doesn't sound that great. Mathilde's authentic Mexican food is to die for! So I talked Andy out of Taco Bell and set out to make something easy. I knew I needed to use up some ham, but I was tired of my regular leftover ham recipes. Instead, I looked around and came up with this curry noodle dish. It was amazing: one of the best pastas I've ever made and oh so simple. The egg noodles have great substance and the scent of the curry powder will make your house smell great! If you want yours to have a little more bite, add some red pepper to your dish. Enjoy!
Curry Noodles with Summer Squash
Ingredients:
8 oz Egg Noodles*
2 Cups Chopped Ham
1 Medium Yellow Squash
1 Medium Zucchini
1 and 1/2 Cups Water
1 TBSP Dried Minced Onion
1/2 TBSP Curry Powder
1 and 1/2 TBSP Cream Cheese
3 Oz Plain Yogurt
2 Chopped Roma Tomatoes
1. Put water in a medium sized soup pan on stove top and bring to a boil.
2. While water is starting to boil, chop ham, squash and zucchini. Put in a separate medium sized soup pan. Add water, dried onion, cream cheese, yogurt and curry powder to pan. Turn heat on high right before putting egg noodles into boiling water. Bring to a boil and turn down to medium heat. Continue stirring while cooking so sauce won't burn on the bottom.
3. Follow directions on egg noodles. Cook until al dente. When finished cooking, drain water and put back into pan. Turn stove off under noodles.
4. Right before mixing sauce in with noodles, take out a large spoon full of sauce and mix a teaspoon of flour with liquid to form a paste. Pour paste back into sauce and bring sauce to a boil, stirring frequently. (This will thicken your sauce up a bit.) Pour sauce over noodles, turn heat back on and bring to a boil, stirring. Turn off heat and let sit covered for 5 to 10 minutes.
* I used specialty, dried egg noodles (from Aldis). If you don't have these, I reccomend the type you buy from the freezer.
Our first What's for Leftovers reader has submitted a recipe! I love that when Danielle saw leftover chips in her work breakroom, she thought about our WFL site. Together we're saving money and resources!!! Read Danielle's story and recipe below. When we move to our new site, http://www.whatsforleftovers.com/, I'll have a section for readers to submit their recipes for everyone to try. In the meantime, email your recipes to andreablevins@hotmail.com and I'll post the recipes for you. Make sure you post comments on What's for Leftovers or on our Facebook page to let Danielle know how much you love her recipe :)
What to do with Leftover Ruffled Potato Chips
Our work had a birthday treats day last Friday and I brought a lot of different things. One of the many things I took in was Ruffled Potato Chips and dip. When I came back to the lounge at the end of the day, the dip was gone. About a serving or two of non broken chips were left and about a cup or so of broken chips. I’ve been reading your blog and I thought what a waste. So, I took a Ziploc bag and took them home. I searched your blog and of all of the yummy recipes I couldn’t find one. I had a feeling that potato chips would be yummy on top of a tuna casserole. Went to my pantry and fridge and some of my normal ingredients were not there. This is what I found.
Crunchy Tuna Noodle Casserole
Ingredients:
1 can (10 ¾ oz) of Campbell’s Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom
1 can (10 ¾ oz) of Campbell’s Healthy Request Cream of Chicken
1 can (10 ¾ oz) of Campbell’s Great for Cooking Cheddar Cheese
1 bag (12 oz) of Egg Free Wide Pasta Ribbons
1 bag (16 oz) Frozen California Medley
1 cup of Shredded Cheese
1 cup of crushed up Ruffled Potato chips
2 cans of Star-Kist Tuna in water (about 12 oz together)
Salt and Pepper to Taste
1. Take Frozen Vegetables and sit out to thaw.
2. Take 3 quarts of water, bring to boil. Add noodles and stir occasionally for 5-7 minutes. Do not let noodles get too tender. Drain water and noodles into a colander. Do not rise noodles.
3. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. In the same pot as noodles were cooked in, add the can of Cream of Mushroom, Cream of Chicken and Cheddar Cheese. Mix together. Add Salt and pepper to taste. Mix in drained tuna and thawed out Vegetables. Mix in noodles. Pour mixture into a 9-inch x 13-inch x 2-inch rectangular baking dish (3 quart casserole dish).
4. Take Shredded Cheese and sprinkle over the mixture, making sure it is evenly sprinkled. Add more cheese if you want. (I don’t know how much cheese I actually used. I eyed it.) Then take the crushed up Ruffled Potato chips and spread out on top of the cheese.
5. Put in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until cheese is melted nicely.Let cool for 5 minutes, serve, and enjoy!!!
By Danielle Farris
