The short lull between Christmas and New Year’s Eve descended on our house yesterday. After hosting two parties on the 26th and the 27th, yesterday was my time to take it easy. There were enough leftovers from last Monday’s barbeque to whip up meals and I didn’t need to cook anything new. Last night, I curled up on the couch with a good book from a great guy and his lovely wife (who, by the way, is a terrific cook). I had a box of tarts right next to me, one of the many fattening gifts we received for Christmas. 
It was good that dinner was not an overly tiring event. We had leftover sirloin steaks from the barbeque and enough chicken, tomatoes and pineapple stew which I cooked again upon the request (encore! encore!) of my mom-in-law. I diced the steaks, took a little sauce (with the chopped veggies) from the stew and made a brand new rice dish with them. Really just a matter of tossing them all together with some chopped carrots and pimientoes. I served the chicken pieces from the stew separately. Breakfast this morning (brunch, actually, since we all woke up late–what bliss!) was a heated can of corned beef topped with grated calico cheese, leftover mashed potatoes and Japanese sweet corn also from last Monday’s barbeque.
If you want to serve your corned beef the way you would your meat loaf, chill the corned beef in its can, unopened, for about thirty minutes to make slicing easier. It’s a great way to serve corned beef instead of the usual guisado (sauteed) with garlic, onions and tomatoes that Filipinos are more familiar with. It’s good to be a little creative with canned goods. I always believed that canned goods were not necessarily made to be eaten out of the can. There are ways and ways with them and they can be served with a little more panache to make them more exciting. I’ve done wonders with Campbell’s and sardines during times of extreme kitchen emergencies (okay, sometimes, laziness is more like it).
Above, a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law–a set of jars that say “Welcome to my kitchen.” I love them! See, my mom-in-law is a great cook too and she knows about kitchens. When she visited a couple of weeks ago, she looked the new kitchen over, loved it and then gave me this set of jars for Christmas. That means she took stock of what I have and didn’t have and knew I needed more jars. 
Thanks, Mommy, I hope you get to read this soon.
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