Waste not, want not

The theme for this post would seem to be "use up the leftovers!"

I made Broiled Apricot and Cheese Toast for breakfast, which I stumbled upon while searching for things to do with apricot jam. As you'll recall, I bought the jam for the Pecan-Apricot Chicken, and then used it again for the Butter and Jam Thumbprint cookies, but I still have about half a jar left. Ordinarily, I am not one to open a container of ricotta just to have something to put on my toast, but I knew I'd be using it for dinner, and wouldn't need all of it, so I guess you could call that "pre-leftovers." Anyway, I really liked the flavor combination, but the broiling did not go as well as I'd hoped. The edges of the bread got crispy, but the parts that were covered with the jam and cheese did not, so it was kind of just hot bread rather than toast. This is the first time I've tried the broiler setting on my toaster oven, so maybe it's just not that great. I'd probably toast the bread partway first, then put the topping on and broil for a couple minutes to get the cheese hot.

Dinner was Florentine Prosciutto Wrapped Chicken, which used the leftover prosciutto from the Fettuccine with Prosciutto and Peas, as well as the pine nuts I bought for the Chicken Rigatoni with Pesto Cream Sauce. I cut the recipe by half, since that was all the chicken I had. The chicken was again the thin cutlets rather than whole breasts, so instead of stuffing them, I just put the spinach and ricotta stuffing on top, and then laid a slice of prosciutto on top of that. I'd be suspicious of that 18-20 min baking time, though - my chicken was cooked in 20 min, but I would imagine full-sized stuffed breasts would be much thicker and would take at least double that. Anyway, the chicken came out moist, the prosciutto was nice and crispy, but overall it could've used a little more flavor. Maybe I'd try chopping up some fresh basil with the spinach.

As a side dish, I made Sauteed Peas and Red Onion, because I also had leftover peas, and... okay, here's the thing. On one of my recent supermarket trips, I bought this enormous red onion, and I have no idea why. I'm sure I meant to use it in some recipe or other, but I can't for the life of me remember which one. And I don't like raw red onion (I think it has an overpowering taste), so it's not like I can use it up in salads or anything. So I've been trying to find ways to use up this friggin' mutant onion (seriously, it's bigger than a softball). I used some of it in my Quick Crab Stew, but that only called for "one small onion," which was less than half of this sucker. Anyway, this seemed like a good, simple solution, although I cut the recipe waaay down, since I only had 6 oz of peas, not 30, so I still have a lot of onion left. I also added a teaspoonful of minced garlic, because that's just how I roll.