Kitchen-sink cooking

Some of the best meals I've made in my life were co-opted from others, taking scraps of this, and scraps of that, and re-combining them into "new" dishes. Leftovers from restaurants are packaged to go only to reappear the next day, dressed casually in a new outfit: shards of Thai vegetables folded into a scramble (to make a dish "breakfast" simply crack an egg over it), taco bits and black beans turn into hearty salad toppings, and plain white Chinese rice (who doesn't end up taking a container or two of that home?) become milk porridges, fried rice stir-fries, and leftover "mashups" (a veritable kitchen sink of one-pot meals. Let's call it.... a rice-or vegetable-based slurry?). Homemade savings,  too—whether last night's mashed potatoes, uneaten turnips or broccoli, or yesterday's stale bread and vegetable soup—can be refreshed by combining it in some manner with the protein de rigueur: grilled chicken and ta da! Enchiladas, mystery casseroles, and thick melange stews. Even sauces, yes, an explosion of flavors held in tiny containers, become inspiration for entire dishes in my kitchen. They get dumped and stirred into just about everything I make, the surprise ingredient that is often even a surprise to me.