A Trifling Leftover Inspiration?

A traditional trifle is made with ladyfingers or sponge cake, pudding, and whipped cream, but a recent muffin surplus gave me an idea for an efficient alternative. Rather than allowing the extra muffins to go stale, I sliced them in half (to make two discs) and used them as the bottom layer of a trifle. In this case, the muffins were a rich coffee cake, so I used vanilla pudding and whipped cream. But after Thanksgiving, I am tempted to try this with pumpkin muffins and cheescake pudding. I can imagine this could come in handy when office meeting leftovers make their home. What combination would you try?

Recipe: Mexican Pulled Chicken

What to do with chicken leftovers?  After grilling, we often have a lot of extra chicken, and while I like it hot off the grill, I tend to scorn the leftovers.  Until now, chicken salad was our go-to solution for leftover chicken, but I was looking for something new, and a bit healthier.  A little searching around yielded a recipe for Mexican Pulled Chicken.  The original recipe calls for uncooked chicken to be simmered with onions, cumin, chili powder, soup stock, and salsa, then removed, pulled, and added back to the pot.  It is just as easy to introduce the chicken at the post-pulling step, which has the additional benefit of making the total cooking time shorter.  The salsa you choose will greatly affect the flavor of the dish, so pick a good one!  I used a corn and bean salsa, and ate Mexican Pulled Chicken wraps all week for a quick lunch or dinner.  This recipe is Kosher, but for some delicious treyf, sprinkle on some cheese.

Garden update: One out of four pepper plants (the orangsicle variety) has four little peppers growing, two out of seven tomato plants (cherry and lemon boy) have tiny tomatoes, and one out of six eggplants has a small whitish purple fruit growing.  The cilantro (aka coriander) I planted in early april is blossoming, and hopefully I will be able to harvest the seeds soon!

Cilantro in bloom

Pretty little flowers, do your thing!