Leftovers are like the Do-Over of the food world. You’ve got leftover roasted chicken? Strip it off of the bone and making a sandwich out of it. Leftover taco stuff and no shells? Make a Build-a-Mountain. Did I just hear you right? What’s a Build-a-Mountain?! Why am I the only person who has heard of Build-a-Mountain? Teacher Sis, since you are the only other person I know who went to Mt. Ida Elementary, back me up on this.

Build-a-Mountain is like a taco salad, except the concept is that you get to “play with your food” and make it yourself. You get your tray from the Lunch Lady and it has a bunch of little stacks of ingredients on one plate and another empty plate for building your mountain on. Not only is this a fun lunch for kids, but it is also a lesson in physical science, because the order in which you layer your ingredients is vital, structurally.

On the bottom you want something relatively solid. Chips are a usually a good base, but sometimes leaving the chips out to use as “shovels” later is also wise. I usually put beans down first or second, depending on if I put down chips, as sort of the clay. Then comes the meat as soil. Then lettuce as foliage. Sour Cream comes next to cap our mountain in snow. And as any good elementary school-age boy can tell you, it is obviously a volcano because of the lava (salsa works as a representative for lava in both color and heat, so nice). And Voila! a mountain. Then you get to come in Godzilla-like and eat it. It is probably the most fun thing to eat ever. I mean, I’ve held on to the memory of this school lunch from when I was in First grade for almost 25 years now. So, it has got to be good, right?

Last night, Pancake Land and I decided to eat more leftovers instead of making the Chicken Fried Steak dinner that I promised in yesterday’s post. The fridge was getting a little full, mainly because I have no idea how to cook for just two people. I grew up cooking for an army, so I can’t help but cook for an army. Truthfully, it is kind of disappointing if I cook and we don’t have leftovers because then I am like “What am I going to eat for lunch, tomorrow?” and that just only opens the door to going to Taco Bell. Leftovers are our friends. Well, my fridge was over friended, if that’s the case. And we did a number on the food storage container count of the interior of the fridge last night. Now, we have got to work on those damned cupcakes.

Well, I’m off to school and then work in the Letterpress shop. I got my registration issues solved and am officially enrolled for Spring of 2011. Whoo! Microbiology and Advanced Bookmaking here I come! Anyway, more soon. ~SC