Thank Goodness for Leftovers

Today I'm loving the leftovers from Saturday's dinner. Between staying late for students to make up work and having to be back at school by 6 p.m. for spring open house, I didn't have much of an opportunity to make dinner. So, leftovers to the rescue!

Saturday's dinner - Tony's Summer Pasta - came from Allrecipes.com. I found it using my new IPod app (dinner spinner) which allows selections for main ingredient, prep time, and part of the meal. This dish was one of 10 choices that popped up when I specified pasta dinner in 20 minutes. It was easy to fix and tasty enough that all three of us ate good-sized portions Saturday evening. The basic idea is to marinate some chopped tomatoes and shredded mozarella in olive oil, basil, garlic, and pepper while cooking a pound of linguini. When the pasta is done, drain it and toss in the marinade. Voila! I did make a couple of changes, of course. The recipe calls for a pound of cheese, but that seemed like overkill, so I only used half that amount. I also cut the garlic (six cloves) in half to keep it from overpowering the fresh basil. In addition, I tossed some shelled shrimp into the pasta water at the end to make the dish heartier, dinner fare. Finally, I squeezed half a fresh lemon across the top to brighten up the whole thing. (I just adore lemon-pepper and pasta!)

Since a whole pound of linguini is involved, there was plenty to take to school today, which brought a touch of home to a long evening. To make matters easier, this was good cold. The linguini had absorbed some of the moisture and the tomatoes, shrimp, garlic, and basil flavors had melded nicely. In addition to having good leftovers at school, we started the day with leftover brunch items from yesterday's holiday feast - including baked French toast and hashbrown casserole. Between these two meals I didn't feel I missed eating well on a day that kept me out past 8 p.m. (On school nights I normally turn into a pumpkin at 9, so rolling into the driveway at 8:20 is pushing it for me!)

In retrospect, last week nothing sounded good and I was in a food funk, but the weekend seems to have restored some energy to my spatula, and I'm looking forward to making dinner tomorrow night being sure to leave plenty of leftovers for lunch!