'I hate leftovers!'

This has been a chant of mine over the years.

It has also been a curse.

You see, I learnt to cook for a bar full, not for a family and certainly not for two.

So every time that I open the refrigerator, there is a chorus of dishes calling out, 'Remember me?!'

But life just seems too short to eat the same meal two days running.

So here's some of my favourite ways to turn sloppy seconds into second best.

Mum used to cook a roast every Sunday.

More often than not it was lamb, sometimes chicken, sometimes beef.

Sifting through the misty water coloured mouthfuls of family meals, it isn't the Sunday roasts that stand out, it's the Monday re-hashes.

A roast lamb would often find its way to the table as a Shepherd's Pie

Roast chicken was destined for the Breville sandwich maker, gravy and all (how I remember that blistering eruption of gravy hitting the chin with the first bite!).

But the laziest, tastiest recycle was cold sliced meat with Bubble & Squeak.

Bubble & Squeak, for the uninitiated, is leftover fried veggies, so named for the sounds that it makes in the frying pan. You chop and slice the leftover roast potatoes and pumpkin, toss in the ubiquitous 'green' and fry it all up in a skillet with some butter. Let it burn a little, spoon it around to brown the other side as well. done.

As soon as the aroma of roasting meat drifted from the kitchen on Sunday afternoon, my taste buds were perking up for Monday night's supper. Mum used to cook twice as many vegetables with the roast to make sure that we had enough leftovers for it.

In a pinch, she'd boil up some extra spuds on Monday afternoon to 'pad' it out.

Living alone, I cannot tell you the last time that I cooked a roast on a Sunday afternoon. But that doesn't mean that I don't still crave the fried veggies on a Monday night.

I'm more likely to have a pot of leftover smashed veggies lurking in a corner of the fridge than a dish of shriveled roast spuds. I love the mix of parsnips and rutabagas (swedes), potatoes and carrots...boiled 'til tender then smashed up with butter, fresh parmesan and some pepper and nutmeg. Maybe a little rosemary.

Heat: some olive oil (for crispness) and butter (for flavour) in a skillet, then add the smashed vegetables and use a spatula to flatten out the veggies into a frittata / disc shape. Use a fork to poke a few holes around; this lets the steam escape and helps the bottom of the pan crisp up. As the veggies start to get crisp and a little burnt on the bottom, use a spatula or spoon to turn spoonfuls over. This lets the veggies crisp up on the other side as well.

What I love about Bubble & Squeak is how the crusty, crispy bits end up all through the dish; I tend to tumble the crunchy bits through and let the veggies fry up long enough to get crisp on every side imaginable.

Of course, tasty as can be, Bubble & Squeak looks exactly like it is; a skillet full of leftovers.

So put some flash with the trash, so to speak. Ditch the cold cuts and tart it up with some monster prawns sizzled up with saffron.

Recently my mind wandered to saffron as I was staring down at my skillet full of sizzling, squeaking veggies. I was in the process of packing and moving and had discovered that I had about 8 different containers of saffron. Glass vials, plastic cases...precious Persian threads, cheap stuff from the local market...I must have been hoarding the stuff for years.

Pondering about how well this most precious spice pairs with lobster and prawns, the parsnip frying away beneath me called out and said, 'What about me!'

I adore parsnips. Could eat them all day. But you have to admit, the parsnip is an ornery little gnome of a vegetable and saffron is the titian-maned Rita Hayworth of spices. Only three strands adorn each flower and they must be picked by hand. Over 70,000 strands accumulate to less than a pound.

'You want me to waste these threads on you? That's like putting diamonds on a troll!'

I was speaking into a skillet.

The skillet replied; 'Think of it as pairing Quasimodo with Esmeralda; it'll make a better story.'

He had a point. I could taste the flavours mingling. Besides, I had a small fortune's worth of threads in my spice drawer.

'Okay, but I'm tossing some foxy prawns into the fray; you'll have to fend for yourself'.

No sooner was the bargain struck than I heard another chorus of discontent.

'What about us? Don't forget us!!'

It was the bowl of fresh peas calling out. They wanted in.

'Okay, it's a free for all'

Fried parsnips, Colossal Prawns, Saffron and Fresh Peas. Four little heroes. Ringo, John, George and Paul. Beautiful music was about to be made.

The Parsnip Bubble & Squeak: make sure that the leftover veggies that you are frying up have a couple of parsnips in them. If not you can boil or roast some up and add them to the potatoes, carrots, swedes and anything else lying around. Cook freshly shelled peas (about a cup) until just tender. Scatter them on top of the Bubble & Squeak

The Saffron Colossal Prawns: any sized prawns will do, but I love the colossal ones because I'm lazy. Heat 2 tablespoons (each) of olive oil and butter in a skillet over a low flame. add 2 pinches of saffron and let it heat gently for a couple of minutes. Crank up the heat and add the Prawns. Don't overcrowd the skillet (the prawns will stew and sulk if there are too many). 2 minutes each side should produce a pan full of blushing beauties. Toss these on top of everything else. Pour the juices from the pan (I'm guilty; I melt an extra ounce or two of butter with more saffron and pour that on top of everything), then dig in!

I make this grilled chicken salad. It's on the site. It's one of those dishes that people ask me to make for them. I plead, 'Don't you want to try something new?'

'No!' is the usual reply.

Well, in my usual state of over-catering, I always grill too much chicken and bell peppers for the salad and they sit around the fridge for a few days until I get around to cramming them into a sandwich.

The trick with cooking for someone and having them stay over is to come through with a morning-after breakky that looks unplanned. You don't want your date to think that you'd thought as far as breakfast; that's presumptuous by anyone's standards.

So cracking a few eggs, slicing some cheese and tossing in leftover chicken and peppers from last night's salad gives you a killer frittata that makes you look like a master of the impromptu bite delight.

Marcella Hazan is the first point of reference on all dishes Italian and she states that a frittata differs from an omelette in that it should be cooked slower and will be denser. She recommends starting it in a skillet on the stove and then, rather than deal with trying to flip it, finish it off under the broiler.

Sounds good to me!

Beat: 8 eggs until foamy (I use a whisk...appliances are too noisy and, by rights, your date should be dozing whilst you put this together). Add 1/3 cup cream / half and half / milk (whatever you have on hand). Season with a little salt and cracked black pepper.

Heat: 2 tblspns butter in a skillet, when it starts to foam, I arrange about 10 slices of pancetta around the base and sides of the skillet. This gives the frittata an unforgivably sexy crust when you turn it out later.

Chop: the chicken and peppers and slice about 1/2 cup of Basque cheese (it was in the salad last night, remember? Any other sharp cheese will do). Chop a couple of scallions / spring onions and a couple of tablespoons of parsley. Add all of this to the egg mixture.

My belief is that the skillet should be hot when the eggs hit it so that the air starts to rise, then turn the gas down to low so that the frittata cooks slowly. Give it a good 5 minutes, shake the pan a little, when the egg mixture is still a little loose in the centre and set around the sides of the skillet, it's time for the broiler (which, by the way, you have heated up).

Scatter: 1-2 tablespoons of grated parmesan on top of the frittata, then place it under the broiler / grill. This will only take a minute of two. Don't let it burn, it is there to finish cooking and turn golden brown. It will also puff up considerably. This is a good thing.

I usually start the broiler heating the same time that I start making the frittata, I toss some leftover baguette and tomatoes into the broiler whilst the frittata is cooking. The I turn everything out onto a platter, pour some juice and coffee. Slip 'Dusty in Memphis' into the cd player...

Do I think I'm set to conquer?

How did William feel in 1066?

Did I just serve the frittata with juice and coffee??

Silly me!

The standard 'morning after' beverage has to be a Bloody Mary.

Which is why there is no such thing as a 'perfect' Bloody Mary.

Most of us wake up with a mouth which feels like the bottom of a cockatoo's cage when we reach for this 'hairy dog' cocktail. Discerning taste buds are M.I.A

The non negotiables are tomato juice, vodka, worcestershire sauce, tobasco, lemon juice and a celery stalk.

The variations that I've been served have included everything from kaffir lime to fresh chili. I have a mate who swears on using tomato paste watered down with soda instead of tomato juice (the fizz, he insists, gets the fur rug off his tongue).

My favourite will always be the one served at Zuni in San Francisco. Partly for the minced onion and cracked pepper floating atop, but mostly because someone else has made it for me.

It's your hangover; cure it anyway you like!

Not strictly a 'sloppy second', I just wanted to use up some leftover cream cheese and a slab of chocolate that I had loitering around the fridge.

This cake started its life as Nigella Lawson's Marble Cake, which had in turn started its life as someone else's recipe.

I didn't have the orange or the coffee on hand, I wanted to add the cream cheese and I was too lazy to divide the batter in two...if you have a copy of her book, Feast, you'll see they are very different beasts.

This one is dark, dense and a little cheesy. I'm sure that we've all dated someone like that at least once. I'm open to anyone's suggestions on what to name this one...drop me an e-mail and we can name it from there.

Place: 225g / 8oz soft butter; 4 eggs; 1 1/4 cups sugar; 1 3/4 cups self raising flour; 1/2 cup buttermilk; 1 tspn baking powder; 1/3 cup of cocoa and 1 tspn vanilla into a food processor. Pulse for 30 seconds, scrape the sides and pulse for 10 more seconds.

Add: 175 g / 6oz of chopped semi-sweet chocolate and 175g / 6oz of cold cream cheese (cut into cubes). Pulse these through the cake batter.

Pour: batter into a greased and lined loaf pan (a large one; mine measures 11x 5) and bake in an oven which has been pre-heated to 400f. After 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 375f and bake another 40 minutes or until cake feels firm in the centre.

Enjoy: hot slabs of this cake with vanilla ice-cream, or let it cool and serve with a good cuppa.

Sorry to have been so slow at getting this newlsetter out.

The Richter Scale of my life has been going beserk for the past few months.

I moved house, did a couple of laps around the US and took a brief trip home to Australia to sort out my accent.

I've also been flirting with TV producers, working on another website and living out of suitcases and boxes.

But I'm back and I'm hungry. I hope that you are too!

Mannix

mannix@thelovebite.com