Taco Two Ways: Chickpea Curry and Shredded Beef

I'm always at a loss as to what to do with leftovers in my house. My husband packs his lunch to work and most days that entails a frozen meal of some sort, because it's the easiest to transport. I try to eat as many leftovers as I can the next day, but I am often still left with a freezer full of past meals and no idea what to do with them. Recently my husband came up with a good solution for leftover chickpea curry and shredded beef: he made tacos.

For the curry tacos he used corn tortillas, placing Bengali chutney on one side, topped it with the leftover chickpea curry, yogurt and cilantro. The shredded beef taco consisted of the beef, green salsa, shredded Mexican cheese and topped with cilantro. Alternating the two tacos while eating cut down on the spicy flavor of the chickpea curry taco. It was a great way to use leftovers in a new way!

Bon Appetit Spicy Shrimp Quesadillas

Good ethnic food is limited in the area that I live, so I am always on the lookout for recipes. Last week I made Shrimp and Coconut Curry with Green Beans and kept the leftovers for Bon Appetit's Spicy Shrimp Quesadillas.

This meal is a great way to get two dinners from the same base recipe. My family loved the original shrimp dish and the leftovers make for quick prep for the quesadillas. I only had to buy minimal ingredients for this dish and the prep work took less than the suggested 35 minutes. I did not make any modifications to the original recipe, I thought that it worked great as written. The best quesadillas were the first two, which held together better than those that followed. This might have been due to the shrimp sitting in the mixture longer for the last batch or they might have been overstuffed.

This recipe was a hit with my kids. They both loved the quesadillas and ate them happily. This recipe benefited from the added heat from a tomatilla and chipotle salsa (recipe coming soon) that I made. This was a good fusion recipe that my whole family enjoyed and will go into my recipe file for future use.


For the recipe go to Bon Appetit Spicy Shrimp Quesadillas.