You wouldn’t know it by looking outside, but the official start of Summer has arrived. Mother Nature has decided to ring in the season with a heaping helping of rain, wind, and grey skies, and I am none too pleased about it. For starters, it makes meal planning a challenge – I want to be outside, grilling something fresh and light and eating it under the stars with Mike, not rummaging through the pantry for an alternate dinner that isn’t another. damned. pasta dish.

Don’t get me wrong – I love pasta, but I was desperate last night for something, anything other than old reliable pasta, and as I stood in front of the open freezer, a plan began to form. I pulled out two little zip-top bags of previously cooked Rancho Gordo posole and some homemade red chile sauce. From the fridge, I gathered homemade stock and a big bunch of beet greens, which I stemmed, chopped and rinsed. I chopped up some red onion and a hefty amount of garlic, and sauteed them until soft before adding the chile sauce to the pan to warm. The stock went in next, then the hominy, and I brought the whole thing to a boil before reducing the heat and adding the greens. When the greens were tender, I turned off the heat, tasted it for seasoning, and brightened the flavor with the addition of plenty of fresh lime juice. To dress our plates up a little, I added shavings of a tangy sheep’s milk cheese, sliced radishes, chunks of creamy avocado, and a scattering of chopped cilantro.

And that was dinner. And it was good – better, in fact, than this mishmash of leftovers had any right to be. Take that, Mother Nature.

This was a meal built on leftovers, the sort of thing you’ll probably be seeing a lot more of around here as we tighten our belts in the months ahead. We had the better part of last Friday’s roast chicken left in the fridge (minus a drumstick, which Mike had lunched on), as well as portions of cooked hominy in the freezer from my last pot of pozole, so I decided to combine the two for a lighter, quicker take on that spicy Mexican dish. I started with a bit of leftover pork fat melted in the bottom of my heavy pan, and added a large onion, chopped, and a healthy pinch of kosher salt.

Mike had made a particularly potent batch of chile powder for me earlier in the day, and I added a judicious amount of that – probably a tablespoon – as well as additional ground cumin and some Mexican oregano, which I stirred through the onions. The bird went in next, with 5 or 6 cups of water, and I lidded the pot and let it simmer away for about a half hour, so the chicken could make its own stock. I fished out the chicken and the few bones that had fallen away from the carcass, and when it was cool enough I shredded the meat off in big chunks with my fingers, adding them back to the pot. The thawed hominy went in next – about 2 or 3 cups worth, and when it had all come back up to a simmer, I started tasting and adjusting the seasoning, adding enough freshly squeezed lime juice and salt to balance out the heat of the chiles.

I served it up in my favorite deep bowls, with a grating of cheese, some sliced radish and creamy avocado on top, and crunchy tortilla chips on the side (which were great crumbled into the broth). This was a warming, hearty meal on a snowy night, which didn’t require much in the way of time or energy to assemble, and it was a great use of that leftover roast chicken.

I can tell that I’m missing my family when I keep pulling out comforting dishes with flavors that remind me of home. The approaching holidays make me miss them even more, as it has been far too long since we’ve been in a position to celebrate together. This year will be no different. Like many of you, we’re dialing back our spending, keeping things low-key for the holidays as well as in our day-to-day lives.

I took a personal day on Thursday, a day to recharge my batteries a bit, handle a few errands and to relax at home. We took the bus out to Pawtucket for part of the day, with a stop at LJ’s BBQ for lunch on the way back in, but before we headed out, I made us breakfast. It’s such a treat to have breakfast at home during the week, and since we had the last of a package of tortillas to use up, I made migas.

They may not look like much, but they’re one of my favorite things in the world – little bits of tortilla, fried up with seasonings (I used a bit of leftover enchilada sauce I had made previously), and scrambled with eggs until the whole mess is soft and creamy and bound together. Give it a little hit of grated cheese, and you’ve got pure comfort on a plate.

Dinner was my latest version of a pork and hominy stew, which I think might have been my favorite yet. We had a pork shoulder from Pat that Mike divided up to be used over a few meals, so we portioned out a bit for the stew, cutting it into chunks and letting the meat sit in a bit of a dry rub of chipotle powder, salt, cumin and Mexican Oregano from Rancho Gordo.

Also from Rancho Gordo, the hominy – this was my first time cooking with the dried kernels, and though the process is time-consuming, the resulting flavor and texture are totally worth it (and since we had soaked and cooked an entire pound of it, we have plenty of prepared hominy portioned out in bags in the freezer for future meals).

I browned the meat in a little rendered fatback (also from Pat) to boost its porky flavor, then added plenty of chopped onion, a couple of fat garlic cloves, a puree of roasted tomatillos and poblano peppers, and some of our homemade chicken stock. I added a little more salt, cumin and oregano, squeezed in some fresh lime juice for balance, then finally stirred in a couple of cups of the cooked hominy for the last half-hour of so of cooking.

I think you could say it was a success.

So an American, an Italian and a Mexican walk into a pork store…

Okay, lame joke, but seriously, isn’t it amazing how the same piece of pork can yield three very different meals? I think Mike and I were both surprised that we haven’t felt like we were eating leftovers all week, though we really were. A little creative remixing works wonders.

The third and final embodiment of our pork shoulder was a savory Mexican stew called posole (or pozole, depending on who you ask). I think the most important components of the dish are a good, rich stock and flavorful chile powder, and I was happy that we had both – chicken stock left over from the batch I made Sunday, plus Mike’s take on Alton Brown’s chile powder (which he generally makes with whatever varieties of dried chiles we have in the pantry, so each batch is a bit different).

I began by softening about a cup and a half of diced onion in olive oil, and added three fat garlic cloves which I had peeled and smashed. I seasoned them with salt and allowed the onion and garlic to cook until the garlic was fragrant, then I added a tablespoon or so of tomato paste to a hot spot and allowed it to cook for a few moments before stirring it through. I then added two generous tablespoons of the chile powder to the onion mixture and stirred so the onions were coated. The pork went in next – the shoulder bone along with all the meat still clinging to it, plus the fat I had trimmed off after the initial braising. I added two cups of our chicken stock plus two cups of water, covered the pot and let it come to a boil, then reduced the heat and let it simmer for about half an hour.

The pork that had been left on the bone had mostly fallen off in big chunks at that point, so I removed the meat and bone from the pot and set them aside for a moment. I added two cans of white hominy, drained and rinsed, to the broth, chopped the pork into chunks and returned the meat to the pot. I added the juice of one lime, adjusted the salt, and let the pozole cook for about 10 more minutes before serving. For garnish, I used lime wedges and thinly sliced radishes; you can also use diced avocado, tomato, fresh cilantro or grated cheese.

Mike said that this was by far my best posole yet, and I have to agree with him, though I can’t take all the credit since his chile powder played a major part. But the way the pork bone and especially the pork fat enriched the stock was really something special – using those parts that I might have otherwise discarded or used another way added a wonderful richness to the broth. Our pork shoulder is now gone, but we got three great dinners out of it (four if you count the remaining ragu in the freezer), and I think this cycle was a big success.