It's official: I'm brilliant.

Picture the scenario: leftover pumpkin-pie filling. Runny, perishable, but oh so delicious, way too delicious to waste. What to do? What to do?

Solution: last night I baked it gently in a little baking dish in a water bath, as you would a custard (which it is, anyway). I covered it and stuck it in the fridge, there to languish overnight. This morning I dashed out to the grocery store (lest you worry overmuch about my carbon-emissions extravagance, I combined several errands in the one trip) and got (among other things) a packet of frozen sheets of puff pastry. I let it thaw, cut each piece into triangles about, oh, maybe four inches on a side, spooned a teaspoon or so of the cooked pie filling into each one, crimped the edges but good, and baked them at a very high temperature until they were brown and all puffy like it says on the package.

Oh, my, are they good. (In the photo, you can see the pumpkin oozing out of one or two of them because I didn't crimp all the edges to "but good" standard; however, that adds character to the shot. I should be a food stylist maybe.)

Then, as often happens with the best-laid plans, I found I had two sheets of the puff pastry left over. What to do, what to do?

Cranberry pastries!!!!!

Using the same construction methodology, I placed a dollop of cranberry sauce in each triangle. Those are still waiting to be baked, so I haven't eaten any yet, but I bet they'll be good, too. UPDATE: Yes. Yes, they are.

I bring you this "Imaginative Things to Do With Leftover Stuff" episode as a public service. (Alas, it's too fiddly to qualify for Writin' Rations™.)