Miroton

When it comes to food, I fall somewhere between frugal and absurdly-stingy. Expiration dates have little swaying power when I'm looking at a $14 package of sausages that got buried and forgotten in the meat drawer.

So I was delighted to discover that the French have a version of leftovers casserole, analogous to the only Italian dish I make regularly, pasticcio. Pasticcio is basically cooked rice mixed with your leftovers, combined with cheese and breadcrumbs, and baked. Miroton is the same, but Frenchified.

My "leftovers" were some of last night's pasta, half a tomato, a cup or so of rich stock, a bag of potatoes that were going soft, and a (surprisingly good) baguette from wal-mart that was going stale. Perfect. I caramelized an onion in my tava (more on how much I love my tava later), while boiling two of the potatoes. This went into a skillet with the noodles, tomato, stock, and a lump of buerre manié to thicken, while I sauteed diced baguette in butter.

Whoops, the potato slices were supposed to be on the bottom. I push them down under the other stuff then poured in some half-and-half. I wish I had a Frencher cheese to coat the top, but tonight it'll have to be Great Value shredded cheddar, also from wal-mart.

This wasn't very photogenic (sorry, Amy) but tasted good.

Reaction Rundown:
Everyone ate this except Sasha, who ate cereal and sesame sticks from CM. Then the boys played Star Wars Wii and I went to Willhoite's for poker.
I pushed all in with a pair of fours 'cause I was pretty sure the other guy was drawing to hearts. I was right, but he got his heart and I went home in 10th place or so.