Brunch from Saturday-night Leftovers

So what do you with your leftovers?

Do you shove them in the fridge and forget about them, eventually tossing them in the garbage? Or the following day, do you get creative and make a whole new meal from your leftovers?

I had brunch at a friend's last Sunday and she unabashedly served her leftovers from the evening before, jazzed up with freshly picked veggies and herbs from her garden.

On Saturday night she'd grilled herself salmon, boiled pasta and corn, whizzed up some basil-walnut pesto, sauteed some green beans from her veggie garden, and had enough to feed herself plus some.

Hence her offer that I, and one other friend, join her for brunch on Sunday. And without much effort, that brunch turned into a fresh feast on the patio.

That's the beauty of leftovers: it takes much less effort to create a whole new meal simply by adding a couple fresh ingredients, a pretty garnish, and hungry, appreciative friends :)

Here's what she did to create the leftover dishes pictured:

Brunch from Saturday-night Leftovers
1) Toss cooked rigatoni into a bowl.
2) Scrape cooked corn from cob with a knife. Add kernels to pasta.
3) Warm leftover garlic sauteed beans in a pan, add to pasta.
4) Add marinated dried tomato pieces.
5) Saute a fresh squash in a little butter, add it warm to the above ingredients.
6) Stir basil-walnut pesto through pasta and veggies.
7) If pasta looks a little dry, drizzle with some extra olive oil

To Serve: Either serve pasta and veggies in individual bowls, and leftover salmon on a serving platter, or portion leftover salmon onto plates with pasta and veggies. Decorate with fresh basil leaves. You might also like to serve a side dish of meaty green and black olives, and or a plate of crusty bread and cheese.

We followed our delicious leftover meal with fruit: blueberries and sliced granny smith apples doused in fresh-squeezed lemon juice. The tart GS apples and lemon juice, paired with the sweet blueberries were excellent palate cleansers, as was the slightly sweetened, Darjeeling iced tea we had with our fruit dessert.

All so simple and delicious: Leftovers, they're the new gourmet!