Yes.

Its ready.

Got it all prepared.

Its finished.

It's stunning.

Yes.

It's great.

It's all so ready.

So just let it all begin.

Oh, I'm just finishing up my pizza.

Hi, I'm Chris Fennimore, and welcome to the kitchen.

My wife always jokes that my favorite part of any meal is the leftovers.

And I don't mean just reheating what you had the day before in the microwave.

For me, leftovers are like a culinary challenge to change the flavors, the textures, and the presentation of the original ingredients into something very different and delicious.

So today, we're going to take a look at two segments from the show that we devoted specifically to leftovers.

For this first segment, Nancy Polinsky and I tackle the leftovers of my annual tribute to Saint Patrick corned beef and cabbage.

Now, this is a very hearty version of corned beef hash.

So just let it all begin.

You know, we're making corned beef here.

Well, yeah, actually, I made corned beef, and I follow that tradition around Saint Patrick's Day is when I normally do this.

I make corned beef and cabbage.

It's like a boiled dinner.

You know, you put corned beef and and cabbage and potatoes and carrots in a crock pot, and then you cook it and you don't eat it because it's just I don't know.

It's not that it's not that interesting to me.

It's just like boiled meat.

I don't I don't know.

So anyways, I always you're clearly not Irish.

No, I know I' not Irish, but but I, you know, what I do is I tak all this leftover corned beef.

I mean, some of it I might just make into sandwiche because a corned beef sandwich is, is.

Now you're talking my language, says the Jewish girl.

I mean, that's a tasty thing, you know, especially if you, you know, you make Reubens out of them or something like that and put some, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut and all of that jazz.

But when I'm lef with all of these ingredients, what I like to do is to make a hash, because that's the other thing I love is corned beef hash.

But usually the corned beef hash that you get i most places comes out of a can.

Yeah maybe that's why I've never been a big fan of corned beef hash.

Sort of puny.

The corned beef that's in there.

Yeah.

Isn't that I don't know where they get it from this.

I know where it is.

You know?

This is this is okay.

I can't wai to taste your legitimate stuff.

All right, so I'm going to do this.

I'm chopping up some of this beef, but I'm, I'm cutting it into recognizable pieces.

Absolutely.

It's not a mush.

Right.

And then that might b the significant difference here.

That might be.

So now I have to, half stick of butter.

I have to get the pan warm, and I'm going to put this up a little bit and let me put this all into that big bowl here, because I want to mix it together before we start frying it.

I don't want to, you know, whatever.

And now I need a couple of, those potatoes.

What kind of potatoes are these?

Just plain old.

You know I think these were Yukon gold, but it doesn't make any difference whatsoever.

Whatever you would have in your corned beef.

And there's some onions in here, too.

And some carrots you can get and there's some carrots, and I'm going to use them all, actually.

But I don't want to be, fuss about this because this is hash.

Yeah.

Hash means.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what does it matter what you start with?

Right.

And I like to, as I said, have things be a little rustic looking, recognizable.

The potatoes in canned corned beef hash are the size of micro cubes or something.

Well, again, it's probably why I've never been a big fan of hash, but I think I'm about to change my mind.

I can already tell.

Yeah, this is, it's pretty nifty.

Yeah.

So this isn't a recipe you grew up on?

No, no.

Something you created.

It was something I, you know, I opened the fridge, and I had, corne beef in the in the fridge, and, you know, I wanted something besides just the corned beef sandwich.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is always, as I said, always fine by me.

That's one leftover.

I'm happy to just keep having corned beef sandwiches.

I'm going to lower this just a little bit.

It's really cranked in there.

But I want to add one more potato so it's more evenly balanced.

Well, I like a lot of potato.

You know, I would just fry potatoes, but I love that crunchy brown outer edge.

Well, that's one of the tricks of this recipe.

And that is that, you put it in, we're going to mix it all together and then, as they say in Italian, non chew touch, like, non che peek, you know, non chew touch.

Leave it alone.

People always moving stuff around in the frying pans too much.

I'm going to include a couple of, carrots, carrots and a little bit of this, of the leftover cabbage as well.

I know that seems strange.

Yeah, but it's not too strange.

You can start mixing this, and I'm just going to add a little bit of.

The corned beef, I mean, the, cabbage.

All right.

It's already has kind of a peasant feel about it.

Okay.

And I'm going to add this in little cabbage.

A meal in itself.

Right.

Vegetable starch.

So it's got a little bit of everything.

Yeah.

All right.

Now I'm just going to, stir this around and pour it in the pan.

Love that sizzle.

That's the idea.

It's got that butter on the bottom.

You can take that.

And I'm just going to press this down and then not touch it, and then leave it for a minute or two, because you want it to get that nice brown on the bottom.

And that won't happen if you move it around.

If you move it around, it'l it'll get hot, but it won't get as crunchy as it will if you just.

Okay, let' let this sit for a minute now.

And we've been talking about recipes.

And could you do this with other leftovers?

Heck yeah.

I mean if you had a roast beef dinner, that you had some leftover pieces of roast beef, you can make roast beef hash because you always have potatoes with that.

You always have some peas an carrots or something like that.

And I would say, go for it.

In terms of making a hash out of it, I need our kitchen magicia to bring me, one of those, big, lids for the, for the pan, because I'm going to try to actually, flip this a little bit.

We got it.

Thanks.

There you go.

I'm going to just put that on there to to let it cook a little bit.

I'm going to try to flip it.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm glad I'm here to witness this.

Things you wish you hadn' decided to make on television.

I'm glad you're not going to do the flipping it in the pan, you know, without the lid thing.

Know we've had chefs on here who could do that.

I'm not one of them.

I, I mean, I can You did it with an omelet once.

I saw you do it with an omelet.

I. And I was very impressed.

I, I don't think I need to do that.

I tried the spatula under and very carefully flip it.

So, yes you could make this with other.

You can make other kinds o hash.

You can make turkey hash.

You could make turkey hash with, some stuffing and, and some, potatoes and leftover turkey.

And then you could even sprinkle some cranberries in there.

Whatever you'd like to do.

A hash just means the stuff all put together.

And then of course frying it.

It's not a bad.

Sure.

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

In a heavy, anything cooked i butter is going to taste good.

So it doesn't matter what you start.

Yeah.

It' not then what you put in there.

In the interest of time, we're not going to let it sit any longer.

We're probably not.

I'm going to try to, slide this out.

I suggest that you, make this.

In a, nonstick pan.

Okay.

Oh, that's so smart.

Whoop.

Look at that.

Not so smart, but pretty smart.

But then you're sure that everything's getting cooked evenly on both sides?

Yeah.

So now as thi cooks on the second side.

Yep.

And I am seeing the brown on the potatoes.

Yeah a little bit I mean ideally you would want more I would have left in a couple more minutes.

Then I just take some heavy cream.

And I pour this in here.

Oh and what this manages to do is to sort of like, bind it together.

The the cream acts as a binder as it cooks.

Yeah.

And it will actually brown the, the sides a little bit.

Now, your seasoning is coming from the seasoned corned beef and the seasoned potatoes in the season.

Cabbage.

Exactly.

The, the corned beef.

It has a like a flavor packet when you cook it.

And that flavor packet is what, and ends up being the flavor of the corned beef.

I can' imagine what you would put in.

There's already a little salty.

Yeah.

The, the the potatoes in the cabbage and the carrot just taste like what they are.

So that doesn't add any sort of seasoning to it.

Yeah, but, that's the way I would do it.

Okay.

So now this has got to, cook until it starts to sort of come together.

We may or may not have time for all of that, but but, but we get the gist of it.

This is all this is all that it is.

It is jus it is merely, those ingredients that you have left over, cut into cubes.

And then what would I serve this with?

I would actually serve this with some fried egg because I love corned beef hash.

That was the last thing I was expecting you to say.

Yeah.

Fried eggs.

Yes.

Okay.

Fried egg and, the, and corned beef hash.

It's going to be delicious.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

I'm just going to stir this in rather than let it sit.

But that's what you would normally do.

You would let it sit until this will start to brown and come together.

The, the cream will thicken as it condenses in the heat.

And let m give you a little bit of this.

So you get the flavor of, of what it i that I'm talking about, because it's a good thing to taste.

Yeah.

No, I'm, I'm still sitting here processing, putting it with eggs, which, I love that idea.

Now that you've planted the idea in my head when I go to a diner, I always see if they have corned beef has and eggs on their on their menu.

Unfortunately, as I said, smells good.

It's almost always canned hash and nothing like this.

It's nothing like, in fact, if you asked me to name this dish upon looking at it, hash would never enter my mind because it doesn't have that hash consistency.

Well, because it's big an chunky, it's yeah, median real.

All right.

I'm goin to let the rest of this cook up.

But there it is.

Corned beef hash with leftover corned beef and cabbage from your, dinner on Saint Patrick's Day.

But, you know, Saint Patrick's Day is better tha the same Patrick's Day dinner.

I think so, yeah.

Corned beef hash.

Cooking on television is a challenge.

And even when the recipe is as simple as this one, it's hard to fit it into, like, a 10 minute or 12 minute segment.

Sometimes the magic of television can come to the rescue, and other times you just have to use your imagination.

Our next recip brings me back to my childhood, when my mother would use leftovers from our big weekend feasts to provide lunchtime meals for myself and my two sisters.

We invited our director's daughter, Violet Born, to come into the kitchen and help us with my version of fried macaroni.

By the way, people often ask me if anythin ever goes wrong in the kitchen.

Well, this segment is a good example of the perils of live TV cooking.

Oh yeah, we're back in the kitchen and we got a guest cook, Violet Born Violet.

Right.

Well, great to see you.

Now, Violet's mom is the perso who's calling the camera shots.

She's directing the show.

In the in the control room.

Hi.

Rebecca.

But, you but you don't normally come out and cook.

You usually just help your mom in the control room, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And what grade are you in?

Second.

Oh, pretty good, pretty good.

Are you much of a cook at home?

Yeah.

Pretty much.

Yeah.

What do you like to make?

Well, my favorite thing is to make my homemade chili.

Oh, homemade chili sauce.

Do you have a secret ingredient for your chili?

Oh, you never saw it.

Special tomatoes.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

We wont tell anybody abou the purpose of the special tomat No special special ingredients.

Now, Violet what I need you to do is to just mix these eggs with, you can break them in.

Just make make sure that they're, little broken up and mix together the whites and the yolks.

Okay, that's a little more like try a fork.

I might break it up.

Wait a minute.

I want to just get something out of there.

Yep.

And one second.

That's good.

Okay, okay.

There you go.

Now, you know what I need?

A little olive oil.

Nancy, we had a lot.

I know, I know, but I need about two tablespoons to put it in the bottom of this pan.

And that's the good stuff.

This Chris only uses the good stuff for olive oil.

And now we need this is ricotta cheese.

This is a couple of cups of ricotta.

And we're going to mix that right in.

All right.

Now switch over to this.

Good.

Yeah okay.

Now here's the thing.

This this recipe is called fried pasta.

Seriously.

Yeah.

Deep fried.

I had no idea that's what we were making.

It's exactly what I used to get every Tuesday or Wednesday.

When I came home for lunch, we used to walk home from school for lunch.

So did I, an my mom would make us leftovers.

But she always again made them into something else so we would have had pasta on on Sunday and there was always pasta left, and she would fry it up in different ways depending upon the kind of pasta that she had.

I didn't know you could fry.

Yeah I guess you could fry anything.

You can.

You can try anything.

I'm going to put in some, Romano cheese.

This is the cheese that we always used.

It's a sheep's milk cheese.

A little bit, Tangier, then Parmigiano Reggiano, which is what people think of as Italian cheese.

Yeah.

By the way, you can't put too much.

I know I'm noticing, and I am smelling how pungent that is.

Yeah.

It's delicious.

That's good.

You like cheese?

Okay.

Now certain kinds which is nice.

Yeah.

My dad buys this very odd cheese and I did not like didn't lik it was kind of a stinky cheese first I liked it but then it taste just odd yeah let me use your spoon for a second.

I'm going to I'm goin to put this pasta right in here.

Maybe not.

Maybe not all of it, but some, but some.

It's really a matte of your own judgment, you know.

How much do you have left over?

How many people are you going to feed, how much you have got to that you have?

But this is about four cups, so mix that together.

That's going to be a little harder to do in front of you.

I've mixed cookie down.

This is har okay I'm going to hold the bowl.

And while it is a brow belt in karate, are you serious.

Yes.

Yes, sure.

She can mix pasta for sure.

Okay.

Right.

I'm just going to keep telling her how great she is.

You're just terrific, Violet, I can break a board.

with my with my heel or my shin?

Oh, really?

Okay I'm not going to get you angry.

I'm not.

I'm only fighting for self-defense.

That's right.

Self-Defense.

That's the way to go.

You know what?

I could use my kitchen magician's.

I need a knife to chop up this parsley a little bit.

I like to add the parsley.

It adds a nice, fresh flavor to it.

Yeah, I agree, there we go.

And it often comes right out of your own garden.

Yeah, I have this in my garden, but we have to take it out.

My dad makes a special soup.

He makes cultural soup.

It's called chicken bone.

And it's really good chicken bone soup.

It's the best.

Well you don't need the chicken bone.

You don't need the chicken bone.

It gives you the flavor.

Flavor.

All right, I'm going to put this in.

And now we're good.

Oh.

Now your arm must be hurting a bit.

Now I'm going to put it in the in the frying pan.

Violet okay.

Just get this.

This is this is the part of her I can't even imagine.

Have you ever had fried pasta?

I have no clue.

No, she has no clue.

I know, I know that I haven't.

So we're both going to experience something new together here.

All right, so we just sizzle.

I have a money cookin show before, but not in a while.

Oh, you have been on the cooking show this this cooking show?

Wait a minute.

You've been on another cooking show?

Oh, a cake show.

I don't remember what other ones, but I've been in a newspaper four times, TV five times newspaper four times, TV five times.

Look out, look out!

This woman is really going to take the world by storm.

How old are you?

Seven and seven and a half.

And you've already had nine major media presences.

Hits.

Okay.

All right, so now this is just a napkin in butter?

No, olive oil.

Olive oil.

Get my recipe.

And, this is going to, it's got to cook up until those eggs start to set a little bit.

And then, the eggs are what's going to hold it together.

Sometimes my mom would make it with no eggs, and we just pu the pasta in the pan and fry it.

Yeah.

Especially when she would make, what we call aleo olio, which is a, just olive oil and garlic was on the pasta and would have been like, capellini, angel hair pasta.

Yeah.

And then she would fry that with nothing in it, no cheese or anything.

And then we put cheese on, on top.

That sounds good, but you can you can fry up any kind of pasta.

If there were meatballs left from your Sunday dinner, you could put the meatballs in there.

You like meatballs?

The little pieces of, pork from spare ribs.

We used to put that in our sauce.

Yeah.

What school do you go to?

Fox chapel elementary, Fox chapel care for Kerr Kerr?

Yes.

Elementary.

Great, great.

So all your friends will be watching?

No, no probably not.

They're not watching cooking shows on Saturday.

Some of my friends are interested in cooking, and probably they might be watching.

Yeah, but what are you intereste in besides karate and cooking?

Swimming, gymnastics and basketball.

Oh, my God, Ice skating too.

Oh, we're coming into ice skating season, aren't we?

Yeah, I'm already taking three classes.

My normal ice skates.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's hard.

Do you ever think you would want to play ice hockey?

I'm not trying.

No, no.

Too too dangerous words.

I did figure skating.

Oh.

Figure skating.

Oh, I know, you know, I be I'm dangerous on skates.

Yeah.

I mean, the only thing I cant do is get up.

Yeah, and I can't stay up, so, you know.

Yeah, we we'd be great together.

Yeah.

We could go skating together, I can.

There's, something called foot ball touches, and it's when your feet go into a football shape.

And that slow you down?

No, no, there's.

You can walk on ice, you can glide on ice.

One foot glide, two foot glide.

And, something else is football touches.

I already told you about that.

I forgot whatelse.

Okay.

Theres so much.

It's a lot, Yeah, but I'm pretty good.

Yeah, I'll bet you are.

We gonna do that flipping thing again?

I'm going to do this flipping thing again.

And I've never heard of this process.

And now I'm seeing it twice in one day.

Amazing.

Ooh.

Okay.

Did you know?

Okay, now I can.

Was too hot, I needed it.

Yeah, you needed a towel.

I'm going to put some shredded cheese on the top here like this.

And what kind of.

That's different.

Okay.

This is this is mozzarella okay.

And we're just going to just until that cheese melt and gets a nice little coating on the top.

Yeah.

And then we'll have to taste to that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You do that.

You had an idea for cooking turkeys that I loved.

You sai how do you make a turkey brown.

Get a nice brown turkey.

How do you make a turkey Brown is when you cook it.

You have a few minute after it's cooked a little bit.

Then you have to take it out for a minute.

Put some cinnamon on it and then you just put it back in and it's going to become a bit golden turkey.

There it is to be golden colored and you can serve it for dessert.

It'll be.

Yeah.

You know, this is going to be a new flavor craze.

Cinnamon turkey I like it all right I like it.

So now let's see.

We got this.

Oh you got over there.

I did not wait to taste this.

All right.

And we're going to You want to taste some of this.

You're going to love this.

These gets a little pasta.

It gets a little bit crunchy but it's nice and cheesy.

Yeah.

It actually should have gotten a little crunchier.

Well, we ran out of time.

Although the stuff under the pan is probably very crunchy.

Yes.

Right.

There's one.

I want to make sure I get you some of that.

Oh, it looks delicious, Chris.

It really does.

It's a, it's all the ingredients of, of like, you know, baked ziti or something like that.

But you do it in the frying pan.

Now just I don't want you to get burned on that.

I know.

Okay?

So be careful that you get a piec and blow on it a little bit now.

Yeah.

We try not to burn children on our shows.

We.

Pretty good.

You want some more cheese on it.

No we would, it's very cheesy.

We would probably put more cheese and cheese on top of that.

So Violet.

And I give it four thumbs up for thumbs.

That's pretty good.

Frie macaroni is in Violet's future.

We, I think, Rebecca, you're going to need to get this recipe and take it home.

Thanks for joining us on this segment.

It was really fun to have you.

You're a great mixer.

And, you can come on the show any time.

All right.

Now, the question is, who's going to clean up that mess?

Thank heavens for our kitchen helpers, Mary Irwin Scott and Joseph Soto.

It was always fun to have Violet on the show, and now she's all grown up.

But hopefully still cooking.

And that's it for today.

It's time for me to look in the refrigerator and see what I can rustle up for dinner tonight.

As I always say, we do it for you, but we can't do it without you.

So keep cooking and keep watching.

So just let it all begin.