healthy: possessing or enjoying good health or a sound and vigorous mentality; a healthy body; a healthy mind.

That means a healthy apple describes the health of the apple - the term has nothing to do with how the apple affects our health.  Enter the term healthful which dictionary.com defines as:

healthful: conducive to health; wholesome or salutary: a healthful diet.

A healthful apple denotes that the apple has a positive affect on our health.

But nothing is simple with the English language.  If you read a bit further along in the dictionary.com definition of healthy you'll find the third definition to be:

healthy:  conducive to good health; healthful: healthy recreations.

Argh!  What does this mean?  (Other than the English language is confusing that is) 

Which is right?  Or perhaps the real question is which is most accurate?  Strictly speaking  healthy refers to the apple not to our health.  Yet, English is constantly evolving.  Ask 50 people what the terms "a healthy apple" vs "a healthful apple"  mean and your're likely to get a wide range of answers.   Perhaps context and the person's health awareness all play a part in how they perceive the statements. It seems the research community is going with 'healthful".  Now I admit the first time I heard the term healthful used in place of healthy I found it awkward.  I think the term is growing on me... but in either case it's food for thought!

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Nothing lasts forever, and yet the more you cook the more miscellaneous leftover items that amass in your pantry.  That's why this month the Leftover Tuesdays challenge was go dig deep into your pantry (dry, cold, frozen or even the garden) and generate a culinary creation to use up what you found.  The result?  A couple of casseroles, two sandwiches, two salads, a stuffed flatbread, a burrito, and a stir-fry!  Each a unique and appetizing creation but don't just take my word for it - read about them and decide for yourself.  And perhaps you'll also find a use for that odd ingredient sitting in your pantry....

	Just in time for fall, Megan from "What's Cooking" has created some wonderful comfort food in her unnamed casserole creation.  Megan not only used leftover macaroni & cheese but she raided the cold, dry AND frozen pantry to scrape up the components of this dish including some cheese pieces, frozen peas,  frozen cooked chicken,  and penne pasta.  I love comfort food so it's really too bad we're having a heat wave here or I'd be trying this one out now…
	Fiber from "28 Cooks" created Asian Grain Burgers.  These vegetarian burgers have an interesting (and somewhat startling) red color that results from the addition of beets!  Fiber, who admits to frequently overfilling the pantry, found a wonderful assortment of grains in the pantry raid that combined to make these nutritious and tasty burgers.
	While Tigerfish, who writes "teczcape",  didn't provide us with a poetic saga this time (perhaps next time Tigerfish?) we did get a great pantry raid Sardine Sandwich creation from a can of sardines that needed to be used and a leftover English muffin.  I can't say I'm a fan of sardines but the sandwich really does look good!
	From the creator of Leftover Tuesdays, David over at "Cooking Chat", we have a Mexican Bean Orzo Salad.  The pantry raid couldn't have come at a better time for David who was only home for a couple of days between trips.  The resulting salad was created by raiding the cold pantry for some spinach, an open jar of spaghetti sauce, an onion and a green pepper all of which were nearing the end of their lives; the frozen pantry for a roll; and the dry pantry for some beans and orzo.  From my current hotspot, this salad not only sounds delicious but also nice and refreshing...
	Joel, who writes "FoodMonkeys", said he "wasn't really to sure about the pantry raid theme".  But he joined us anyway to create a "Baked Egg in Tomato with Chicken Salad" after raiding his pantry for some spinach,  ½ an ear of corn, a slice of red onion and a tomato.  Glad you decided to raid the pantry for brunch Joel - the dish looks yummy!
	Stephanie from "Dispensing Happiness" created "Brick Red Mole Chicken Tortillas" from her pantry raid.  To create this wonderful dish she used an old can of Pineapple Juice (seems I always have a can sitting in the pantry even though I rarely use them!), the remains of a roasted chicken and a container of Brick Red Mole that had been sitting in her freezer for well over a year!  Clearly the pantry raid was an ideal and timely challenge for Stephanie…
	Julie Rider, a retired, wheel-bound foodie from Santa Clara, CA submitted "Cauliflower and Ham Layered Casserole".  Julie has been using this recipe (which is listed at the bottom of this post) since 1972 to use up leftover cauliflower and ham.  Yum more comfort food to try!
	Kazari who writes "I think I have a recipe for that…" created a scrumptious Gozleme out of the pantry raid.  Do you know what a Gozleme is?  Well, I admit I'd never heard of Gozleme before.  Seems it's a Turkish flatbread that is stuffed with goodies. Hmm sounds like a Turkish version of a calzone!  During the pantry raid Kazari found some leftover chili con carne, a mixture of vegetables and in the freezer some gravy which combined nicely into the pantry raid Gozleme.
	Finally, my entry - well actually Husband's entry was "Pantry Raid Stir-Fry".  The creation used up some rice noodles from the dry pantry;  eggplant, patty pan squash, 1/2 onion, 1/2 jalapeño, 2 green onions and a bit of ginger that had seen much better days from the cold pantry and some frozen chicken breast from a long forgotten meal.  The result was quite tasty if I don't say so myself but better yet we've cleared out the pantry some (trust me we could probably raid it for a couple of weeks straight before we clear out all the aging products…).

I'm always amazed by the creativity and uniqueness of everyone's Leftover Tuesdays entries and this month's pantry raid was as amazing as ever!  Thank you everyone for participating.

As promised one entry was randomly choose to win a cookbook!  The lucky winner is.....drum roll..... Stephani from Dispensing Happines!  Stephani you will soon be the proud owner of "Knife Skills Illustrated" by Peter Hertzmann just send me your address so I can get the book out to you!

As soon as the next Leftover Tuesdays host is lined up I'll announce it here…

And here is the recipe for "Cauliflower and Ham Layered Casserole"  provided by Julie Rider, from Santa Clara, CA

• 1 large head cauliflower
• 2 cups diced cooked ham
• 2 Tbs. butter or your choice
• 1 and ¼ cups sour cream
• 1/4 cup of chopped green onions
• 2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1/8  tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp mace
• 1 and 1/2 tsps paprika
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/2 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese

Break cauliflower into 2 inch pieces, cook in boiling salted water until just barely tender.  Drain, rinse with cold water, drain and cool.  Place a layer of flowerets in a sprayed pan.  Top with a layer of ham.  Keep making layers until ham and caulflower are gone.  Dot with butter, set aside.

Combine sour cream and green onions, mix well, then add egg yolks, stir in salt, nutmeg, mace, paprika and pepper.  Mix thoroughly and pour over casserole.  Cover and bake in preheated 375 degree oven until mixture begins to bubble, approximately 25 to 30 minutes.

Serves 6.

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Every summer my weekends are packed with cooking in an attempt to keep up with the garden bounty.  While the specifics vary each year, depending on what I've grown and what has done well, the result is consistent - we primarily eat meals cooked with vegetables from the garden each July and August.  That's why when I saw the "Grow Your Own" blogger event over at Andreas Recipes I knew I'd be participating.

I grow at least two types of tomatoes each year - slicing and sauce.  The slicing tomatoes are wonderful just cut up and eaten raw or diced and tossed with pasta.  The sauce tomatoes taste good raw but they really shine when made into sauces.  Since I've already posted about my yearly batch of homemade ketchup I thought I'd post about one of my other summer garden cooking traditions - spaghetti and meatballs with homemade sauce.  This is one meal that Husband requests every year.  The sauce is a great use for the 5+ pounds of tomatoes I get each week and it uses some of my home grown basil, flat leaf parsley and garlic. 

About the only downside of making this sauce is the amount of time it takes.  Most of the time is spent prepping the tomatoes to remove the skin and seeds.  If you want a smooth rather than chunky sauce then you can really reduce the prep time by simply putting the tomatoes through a food mill after cooking them a bit.  But Husband and I like chunky sauce and for that the time is well spent.

My tomato sauce is based on this recipe from Cooking Light with some minor adaptations to use fresh tomatoes.  First, I blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for a couple of minutes to loosen the skin.  After removing the skin I cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze out the seeds.  Next, I dice the tomatoes and let them sit in a colander for a couple of hours to drain out excess water (otherwise yo will have a rather thin watery sauce...).  And that's it the tomatoes are prepped.  Once this is done you can proceed with the sauce recipe as is - just cook until the tomatoes are done.  In fact, you can pretty much take any sauce recipe and replace fresh tomatoes with the above prep steps to make your own homegrown tomato sauce.  Just be sure to taste the sauce as you season to accommodate the much more flavorful homegrown tomatoes.

Once a year I also add meatballs to the sauce.  This year I tried a new recipe, also from Cooking Light, that initially cooks the meatballs in the oven.  This really reduces the complexity (and clean-up) and the meatballs tasted great.  I'll be using that recipe again next year.

While the tomato sauce cooked I made a batch of Parsley Pesto.  If you've never had Parsley Pesto you simply have to try it.  Imagine all of the greatness of basil pesto with the pizzazz of parsley! Yummmmmmmmmmmm! It made a great appetizer but I also use this for pizza to make quick summer meals.

And for those who are interested this year my summer garden includes several types of tomatoes (sauce tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, cherry tomatoes), two basil varieties (sweet and purple),  flat leaf parsley, green beans, cucumbers, and of course the squash (zucchini, patty pan, butternut and butter cup).  I also just planted some of the seeds for the fall/winter garden which will have Brussels sprouts, beets, Walla Walla onions, fava beans, snow peas, and garlic. 

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Last night Husband decided to make dinner. Thing is I didn't have anything planned and neither did he.  What to do?  Well, with the Leftover Tuesdays Pantry Raid going on it wasn't a difficult decision to see what the pantry held and make dinner from it.  Husband spent a few minutes going through the dry pantry, the fridge, and the freezer.  We ignored items that were new or staples.  Yet, we found a pretty wide assortment of things - many of which were rather old including:

Dry Pantry

peanuts

rice noodles

Fridge

eggplant

patty pan squash

1/2 onion

1/2 jalapeño

2 green onions

a bit of ginger that had seen better days

~2 lb green beans

Freezer

some chicken breast from a long forgotten meal

It was a pretty large assortment of items with a bunch of vegetables that had accumulated from the garden and various leftovers that didn't make it into previous meals.  But what to make of it?  Husband decided that with all of the vegetables and the rice noodles a stir-fry would be ideal. 

The result?  Husband did a good job making the odd selection of ingredients into something quite tasty.  And he used most things up!  Although we still have a bunch of peanuts I need to use in something soon (ideas welcome!).

Here is the 'recipe' -  but keep in mind that most amounts (and even ingredients) can be changed to work with whatever you have in your pantry...

Husband's Pantry Raid Stir-Fry

Chicken Marinade

• 1 chicken breast
• 2 T soy sauce
• 1 T oyster sauce

Vegetables

• 1 T Ginger, grated
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 1/2 jalapeño, diced
• 2 green onions, sliced thinly
• 1 lb bok choy
• 1 patty pan squash, sliced
• 1 lb green beans, parboiled
• 1 lb eggplant, diced
• 3 small cloves garlic, diced

Sauce

• 1 T rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 T corn starch
• 2 T soy sauce
• 2 T oyster sauce

Slice chicken into bite-sized pieces.  Mix with soy and oyster sauces.  Set aside while preparing vegetables.

Sauté chicken, set aside.  Sauté squash, eggplant and jalapeño until tender.  Add bok choy stir until wilted.  Return chicken to pan, add tomato and sauce.  Cook until sauce is thick.

While vegetables are cooking boil rice noodles. 

Sprinkle some peanuts on top to complete the dish.

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After a brief hiatus in July, Leftover Tuesdays are back and Project Foodie is honored to be this month's host!  We are going to spice things up a bit this month with a theme, longer timeframe, and a special PRIZE.  As always everyone is encouraged to participate - even if you don't blog!

The Challenge

Leftover Tuesdays is the brainchild of David over at "Cooking Chat" who challenges us to convert our leftovers into new and exciting dishes.  This month we're going to have a PANTRY RAID!  We challenge you to dig deep into your pantry - be it cold, dry or even the live garden pantry - find as many existing leftover items as you can and use them to create an exciting dish. 

I'll also randomly choose one entrant to receive a free cookbook! 

How to submit your entry

1. Prepare a culinary creation from items (ie. leftovers) already in your pantry (cold, dry, or garden) between Monday August 13th and Monday August 27th.

2. Email me This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it with your entry by midnight (PST) on Tuesday, August 28th, with the subject "Leftover Tuesdays". Be sure to include the following, very important information:

• Your name and location.
• A 100 x 100 jpeg photo of your creation - if you would like it included in the roundup.
• The recipe and a description of it or if you are a blogger then the name of your blog, your blog URL, and the URL for your Leftover Tuesdays post.

Want to see previous Leftover Tuesdays? 

Round #1 was at Cooking Chat, Roundup #2  is over at Rachel's Bite, Round #3 is at What's Cooking, Round #4 is at ceres & bacchus, Round #5 is here on Project Foodie and Round #6 is at Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity.

Have fun creating and cooking - I'm looking forward to seeing all of your wonderful creations!

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