A Meal Fit for a King: Leftover Meatball Bruschetta

Well there was no marked improvement in the inspiration department yesterday afternoon.

The result?

Left over meatball bruschetta and the most half assed post like EV-VAR.

Yes, it was looking like we were having the leftover meatballs for dinner. Which was ok but I didn't fancy a carb heavy meal or the mess of having to cook rice or pasta.

So I thought maybe I could do something different with the meatballs and hit on bruschetta.

This is something I remember having quite often as a quick family Friday night meal at home. Often Mom was using up meat and whatever from other meals during the week.

It was a super easy meal that meant she could take a break from more complicated meal prep and enjoy Friday night.

Super easy, considerably lighter than pasta or rice, and considerably less washing up.

If you don't know what bruschetta is it is a fancy word for cheese and tomato on toast.

It can sometimes include meat and it can sometimes leave out the cheese. Usually it will have a tomato saucy base of some kind but it isn't required.

Really it is a term for putting a any sort of topping on a slice of toated rustic loaf, french bread, or baguette and grilling it.

The Ingredients

Leftover meatballs
Foot long french baguette
Mozzarella
Olive Oil
Sea salt and black pepper

The Tools

Bowl
Pastry blender
Microwave
Baking sheet (cookie tray)
Oven with a grill
Cheese grater

The Method

1. Take one Chinese takeout container full of leftover meatballs and put into bowl
2. Squish with pastry blender until they are no longer balls but just a sort of chunky in the tomato sauce
3. Microwave on high for 3 minutes until the mixture is hot
4. Put on your grill and make sure the shelf is about 6 inches away from the heat
5. In the mean time cut the loaf in half length ways and then cut each length in half
6. Drizzle top side of loaf pieces with olive oil
7. Crack some sea salt and pepper over them
8. Place bread under grill until toasted (oiled side only)
9. Grate the cheese
10. Top each piece of toast with meatball mix and top that with cheese
11. Place back under grill until toasty and bubbly

Serve hot with a fresh green salad.

Recommendations

OK. I will be the first to admit that this is a really half assed post. You are unlikely to have Chinese takeout containers full of SDs leftover meatballs in your fridge.

But you probably have leftover spaghetti sauce or fajita meat or stew.

You might even have a day or two old baguette or French loaf lying around.

You for sure have some sort of leftover from earlier in the week that when slapped on a nice piece of bread and covered with cheese will be delicious.


Meat can be mixed with a can of chopped tomatoes. You can use a can of tuna fish.

I didn't use a lot of cheese on this as I did want something light. In fact I used a piece of cheese I had leftover from something I did last week that probably would have gone to waste otherwise.

This meal was all about using up the leftovers but making something new.


Conclusions

The point of this post is to demonstrate that even leftovers can be used to create something simple yet delicious and even elegant.

I mean really if you are using leftovers pretty much all the cooking has been done before you even start!
SD actually exclaimed about half way through his second piece "This is a meal fit for a King!"

SD is really easy to please. Apparently.

And making this and sharing it with someone I care about really brough back some fond memories of Friday nights as a family. Such a simple thing to make such a remarkable impression.

I was glad to be able to pass this on to SD by making him something that had such good recollections and associations for me. The very definition of comfort food.

The washing up was minimal as there were not pots and pans. It used up leftovers that might otherwise have been wasted. It was cheap.

We went to the store after work so the loaves were on special. Something that was usually almost £1 was 29p. The salad was a little luxurious as it was one of those prepared baby leaf things but that was only a £1.

There was a piece of the bruschetta and some salad left for lunches today so it all fed the equivalent of three people for about £3 if you can try to factor in the meatballs. Which is really difficult because the amount of time SD spends cooking anything generally defeats any kind of cost benefit analysis.