Leftovers? Luxury!

     Last Wednesday, we had sliced zucchini in puttenesca sauce, with a little ground sirloin and pancetta* in it.  The sauce is absolutely delicious, and carries the squash along nicely.  Then Saturday, I'd made grill-baked meatloaf -- well, not exactly made: the butcher counter at or neighborhood grocery makes "Italian  meatloaf," ready to go in a foil pan, with bell pepper rings and a couple of cherry tomatoes on top.  Cooking it on the grill sounds crazy, but it works; the foil pan goes on mostly-flat perforated grill pan and enough to the hardwood smoke permeates the meatloaf to give it a nice flavor.  My covered grill hits 350°F easily with hardwood lump charcoal. (Fresh green beans, steamed with slivered almonds, on the side -- a four-minute microwave dish.)

     Both meals resulted in leftovers -- more than half a small meatloaf and a fair amount of tasty, meat-laden puttensca sauce.

     Sunday dinner was obvious.  I set the sauce to thawing while I chopped and sauteed a small white onion, followed by mixed exotic mushrooms (King trumpet, maiitake and oyster).  A small can of plain tomato sauce and some sliced olives, a pipparra pepper cut up small and pickled red peppers followed, then the thawed puttensca and, once it was bubbling, the meatloaf, cut into more or less meatball-sized cubes.  With a little grated Parmesan cheese on top, it was a nice ragout.  Leftovers?  Sure.  But what leftovers they were!

     I keep wanting to try baking bread in the covered grill.  It'll be tricky, but it might be very good indeed.
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* The one thing I'd do differently is that I bought a small container of cubed pancetta and some of them were a little tough even after slight browning and long simmering.  A little dab is all it takes, so the slightly more expensive but oh so delicate thin slices would be better, scissored into bits of flavor and added to the ground sirloin very shortly before pouring in the sauce.