When the refrigerator is bare.....

I was going to go to the grocery store after work last night. I just needed a few supplies to get me through the day as I'm heading to the "big city" tonight to get the bulk of my groceries (some things are cheaper and well worth the drive). But then there was Downton  - yes, we may have three different PBS stations with our antenna but we don't get the "right" PBS station to watch DA when it airs. Thankfully we also have a Roku so we can watch it the next day. I'm also thankful that I didn't see any spoilers on Facebook before I was able to see the episode. 

By the time we finished watching Downton and dried our eyes, our little, hometown grocery store was closed. Today I will just work with what I have. 

Opening the freezer I found ice cream (my son would be just fine with ice cream for dinner), a bag of frozen California vegetables, two salmon fillets, walnuts, one pie crust, a box of puff pastry, and frozen radishes. 

The refrigerator didn't have much either. Milk, butter, condiments, celery, carrots, one sweet potato, 2 dozen eggs, a small chunk of cheddar cheese. The pantry has the normal stuff - flour, sugar, rice, noodles, etc.

Last night I was in the same predicament so I made vegetable fried rice (I'll share that "throw-it-together recipe" recipe too). Tonight I'm making up a recipe. Let's call it "Vegetable Stromboli". 

Easy Fried Rice (click HERE for printable)

1 ½ cups brown rice

3 cups water

3-4 T. Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (or soy sauce)

1 T. Sesame Oil

⅓ of and onion, diced

1-2 celery stalks

1 cup (approximately) diced carrots

3 eggs

• Bring water to boil
• Add rice
• Simmer for 20 minutes. While rice is simmering….
• Saute the vegetables in sesame oil for 15-20 minutes or until tender. While veggies are cooking……
• Scramble 3 eggs in a bowl and set aside
• Once veggies are tender add eggs.
• Once eggs are cooked stir in rice and aminos/soy sauce.

Done.
Don’t have carrots or celery? No worries. Use what you have - peas, broccoli. No veggies? Just add the egg. Have a slab of leftover ham or chicken? Dice it up! Maybe I should call it Left-Over Fried 

Rice.

Vegetable Stromboli (Printable recipe HERE)

1 sheet frozen puff pastry

2 cups vegetables (I’m using frozen California blend)

White Sauce:

3 T. butter

3 T. flour

approximately ½ c - 1 C. milk

• Spread out pastry sheet.
• Heat oven to 400
• Bring water to a boil, add vegetables and remove from heat. (Since I’m using frozen vegetables I am going to do a quick boil to warm and remove “icicles”. I’m thinking fresh vegetables such as hard carrots would do well with a little softening too.).
• In a small sauce pan warm flour and butter on low/medium low to make roux
• Slowly add milk to roux, whisking often...looking for a THICK gravy not runny white sauce
• Add Salt and pepper and/or preferred seasonings to  “gravy” to taste
• Add roux to veggies
• Place veggies and roux down the center of the pastry
• Fold 2 opposite side of the pastry to the center and press to seal.
• Place pastry, seam side down, on to baking sheet and tuck ends to seal
• Bake for 30 minutes until the pastry is golden.

I do have a little chunk of cheese in the refrigerator so I'll cube that up and add to my vegetable "gravy". Scratch that. Someone got to the cheese before me. Instead I added a little Wildtree Basil Pesto and a good "shaking" of garlic salt.

I'll let you know how it turns out and if I remember I'll take a photo! :)