QUARANTINE COOKING GUIDE // How to stretch your food supply, reduce waste & make nutritious (even delicious) meals

So, here we are. Never thought I’d ever have to cook this way (and we will for sure cherish the next time we can shop, cook, and eat the way we did before). But these extraordinary times call for a new way to think about food.

Your grocery runs are limited and you have to lean more on pantry staples. You may have to feed more people, for more meals. And you’ll either have more time at home, or less time with the demands of family and other challenges raised when you’re all cooped up.

Like all of you, I’m still learning as I go. Here are some tips as you navigate this new way of cooking. I’ll be updating this post as I refine my techniques, so save this page and keep checking back!

COOK SIMPLE > COMPLEX

Set yourself up for leftover success. For example, start with separate preparations of rice, beans, and roasted vegetables. For the first meal, create a grain bowl with your favorite vinaigrette. Next time, use the rice to bulk up a soup. Puree the beans into a dip. Add the veggies to a frittata. Finally, mix the rice, beans, and vegetables with chili powder, cumin, and tomatoes (fresh or canned/jarred) for a Mexican-style dish. Notice — if you started with that last dish, you'd be way more limited with your leftover layup. Start simple.

CASE STUDY: Lemony Brown Rice Bowl with Shrimp

The bulk of this is made with long-lasting pantry ingredients — brown rice, lemon, red onion, feta, olives, and frozen shrimp. The fresh ingredients are there, but I’ve purposely pared back. I used just three mini cucumbers, a handful of grape tomatoes, and about three stems of dill (a side salad for me in better times, but times have changed).

The tough bottom inch of the dill stems, along with the onion skins, were saved. I’m freezing these with chicken bones from another night. Once I have enough scrap ingredients, I’ll make stock.

The olive brine flavored the rice, almost like a vinaigrette would (think: salt, fat, acid, umami). Feta brine would also do the trick.

MIX FRESH WITH SHELF-STABLE OR FROZEN 

If you’re anything like me, you like lots and lots of veggies. Problem is, you’ll run out sooner that way. Better some fresh ingredients, for longer, than no fresh ingredients, sooner. 

Add mushrooms to your boxed mushroom soup. Add cabbage to your frozen dumplings. You’ll stretch your fresh ingredients + boost the nutrition of your shelf-stable products.

A CARROT SAVED IS A CARROT EARNED

Reexamine your recipes and  ask yourself:

• Will this ingredient satiate me/ fill me up? (rice, beans, pasta, etc)

• Will this satisfy me/ make me happy? (chocolate, cheese, etc)

• Will this offer important nutrients? (kale, raw veggies, etc)

• Is this ingredient critical to the taste of this dish?

Sadly, something like carrots in a stock doesn’t make the cut. The flavor is too subtle, and you’re boiling away all the nutrition. Save these ingredients for dishes where they will shine — in terms of taste, nutrition, and impact.

If you can’t bear to be without your classic mirepoix, use scraps in your stock — carrot peels, the base of your celery, onion skins and ends — items that would normally get thrown away.

BE FLEXIBLE WITH INGREDIENTS

The other day I made too much corned beef. So the next day I made split pea soup, then fried rice — both using corned beef as you might use ham. In more mobile times, I’d probably buy ham, but for now we use what we have.

EXTRACT AS MUCH FLAVOR AS POSSIBLE / NO WASTE

The rinds of your lemons. The bones of your chicken. The brine in your pickle jar or feta tub. These are great flavor enhancers that don’t require an extra trip to the grocery store. Before you throw anything away, think to yourself, how can I use this? 

Additionally, we are accustomed to prepping our food a certain way. But many of these components are edible. Consider: the leaves of a cauliflower, the stems of soft herbs, the knobby end of zucchini, the broccoli stalk. In some instances, you will have to shave off the fibrous part or cook for a little longer, but otherwise, these vegetable parts are totally edible.

CASE STUDY: Kale, White Bean, Vegan Sausage Soup

The stock was made with not just a chicken carcass, but also the skin. Skin is not always added to stock, but I couldn’t throw it away. Skin adds a “roasted” taste, along with salt and fat — all components that ensure this soup isn’t as austere as its modest ingredients imply.

Use the stems of the kale. Just boil them a little longer than the leaves.

Did you know you can freeze bread? Just slice it (if it’s not already) and freeze. Oftentimes, I get little broken bits in my frozen bread bags which make them too small for normal bread usage. Here, I used them for cheesy crouton floats, and added the crumbs in the bottom of the bag into the soup itself (actually many of your favorite soups contain bread — ribollita, gazpacho…).

Got a parmesan rind? Drop it in the broth. You know how it goes by now. What’s normally thrown away can add fat, salt, umami — FLAVOR.

USE FRESH WHEN IT MATTERS, SHELF-STABLE WHEN IT DOESN’T 

For example, right now I have fresh onions and I also have dried onion flakes. I’ll save the fresh as a taco topping, where the freshness is important. I’ll use the dried in a stew or soup, where the onions will melt away anyway.

LEAN ON INGREDIENTS THAT COUNT

When you’re making a meal, you’re assembling a team. Skip the wallflowers and go with the jacks and jills-of-all-trade. Sausages (meat or vegan) are great because they offer a trifecta of flavor — fat, salt, spice. When used in a soup, you can even get by using water instead of broth — it’s that flavorful. Other MVP ingredients — strong cheeses, bacon, ham, anchovies, fermented black bean paste, miso.

LET YOUR TECHNIQUE ADD FLAVOR

Improve your dish — without dipping into your food supply. Cut your ingredients small so you have the satisfaction factor in every bite. Brown the sausage, toast your bread, broil your cheese. The Maillard reaction lends complexity and depth by virtue of heat and time (ie: something you have in unlimited supply).

MAKE LESS FOOD 

Of course, use food that’s about to go bad, but otherwise, try not to cook more than you can eat/ can tolerate eating day after day — especially if the dish doesn’t freeze well or you don’t have room even if it did. If you’re stress baking or cooking, halve recipes. You’ll get the same amount of stress-relief, with less waste.

How are you cooking differently these days? Share any tips, questions, or comments below! 

#FoodNetworkStar Episode 4 Recipe: Ketchup Shrimp

Oh I know what you were thinking when I said I was making ketchup shrimp on Episode 4. 

Ew, ketchup? That’s an insult to shrimp. 

But trust me, ketchup shrimp is a nuanced and complex dish. If I didn’t mention its main ingredient in the title, you wouldn’t even know it had ketchup. 

But I think ketchup is great, so I let the dish wear its name loud and proud. So what’s the story behind it? 

Ketchup shrimp is a treasured Tom family recipe. I’ve eaten it for as long as I can remember. Without fail, my dad makes it for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but he’s also known to make it just because. And why not? It just takes a few pantry ingredients + shrimp. It seriously takes 10 minutes or so. 

But ketchup shrimp isn’t a Tom family invention. In fact, it’s a staple in many Chinese-American households. When you think about it, ketchup is a magical ingredient. It’s sweet, a little tart, and has tons of umami, a “meatiness” that fills your mouth. 

When Bobby and Giada announced that our challenge was to make a typical weeknight meal, I immediately thought of ketchup shrimp. It's fast, interesting, and has a bonus: if someone else got the shrimp before I did, you can easily use this same recipe (with some considerations for the meat) with chicken or pork. 

RECIPE
Ketchup Shrimp 

1 lb shrimp, cleaned with shells on  
10 cloves garlic
3-inch knob of ginger
1 tbsp vegetable oil 

½ cup ketchup
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tbsp Chinese black vinegar (if you don’t have this, you can substitute rice vinegar or even balsamic vinegar) 
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce 

Peel ginger. Finely dice the garlic and ginger. Heat a frying pan on medium. Add oil and heat until shimmering. Add garlic and ginger and saute until fragrant and golden, about 2-3 minutes. Remove the garlic and ginger, while keeping the oil in the pan. 

Increase heat to high. Add the shrimp in the fragrant oil and saute for 2-3 minutes on each side, until the shells have a bit of color on them. Remove the shrimp and add them to the garlic and ginger. 

Mix all the remaining ingredients together -- ketchup, hoisin sauce, black vinegar, and worcestershire sauce. Add to the hot pan and reduce for one minute, until just slightly thickened. Add the shrimp, garlic, and ginger and stir, coating the shrimp with the sauce. Keep stirring until the sauce is thick and clinging to the shrimp, about one minute more.    

TIPS & TRICKS 

• One of my goals as a cooking teacher is to eliminate the need for a cooking teacher. So I try to explain why steps are the way they are. For example, why do you cook the garlic and ginger first, remove them, and then add the shrimp? Well, garlic is notorious for burning and turning bitter, so it needs to be cooked at a medium heat. Shrimp needs a high heat to achieve browning. When you saute the ginger and garlic on medium first, you ensure you don’t burn the garlic, and you also flavor the oil for the shrimp. 

• This dish is endlessly adaptable. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever made the same version twice. Sometimes I’ll add sriracha, sometimes soy sauce or fish sauce. Sometimes I’ll add sesame oil. The proportions are very flexible, so feel free to experiment.  

• Yes, keep the shell on! The shell has so much flavor. Think of it this way -- seafood stock is made from crustacean shells. By keeping the shells on, you are getting both the meat, and a super-concentrated “broth”. 

• So you have the shell on, how do you eat it? That's up to you. Personally, I suck the sauce and use my tongue and teeth to finagle the meat out. Sometimes some shell will accompany your bite… just spit it out. My husband peels the shrimp, and then swipes up the sauce on the serving plate. Whatever floats your boat, but remember -- shells are your friend! 

Pork Shrimp & Chive Dumplings

Some people run. Others doodle. I like to make dumplings. 

To me a stack of dumpling skins is like a yoga class -- no distractions, just a moving meditation while you focus on spoon, fold, cross, pinch and repeat. 

While dumplings aren’t strictly weeknight meal-material, they are easy weekend projects that set the groundwork for easy weeknight meals. Though if you’re reasonably nimble with your hands, you could knock out 50 dumplings in 40 minutes and if you have a helper, half that! Pop some veggies in the oven and roast them while you prep. You can have dinner on the table in an hour or so. 

This is what a weeknight meal typically looks like for me: a small amount of meat, a small amount of carbs, a cooked veg and a raw veg. I also try to make enough for my husband and I to eat for lunch the next day. See? Small weekend project, big weekday payoff. 
 

RECIPE 

Makes 50 dumplings

1 lb raw, peeled, deveined shrimp
1 lb ground pork
½ cup of chopped garlic chives, flowering chives, or scallions
1 egg
1 teaspoon shaoxing wine or dry sherry
1 teaspoon white pepper (black pepper also works) 
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons salt
1 12-oz package of wonton skins 

Finely chop the shrimp so it is almost paste-like (but not quite). Mix with the rest of the ingredients, except for the wonton skins. Br careful not to overwork, otherwise the meat will be tough. I recommend using your hands! 

Set up your station: a sheet tray (for your finished dumplings), a bowl of water (to seal the dumplings), your meat, and the wonton skins, covered by a damp paper towel to prevent drying out. 

Spoon about 1 heaping teaspoon of meat into the center of the wonton skin. Fold your dumpling like the image below, using water to seal the triangle and the “arms”. When done, place on the sheet tray, careful not to overlap the dumplings. Repeat until all the wonton skins are done.   
 

To cook: Bring water to a boil in a wide saute pan. Drop dumplings into water and cook for about 5 minutes, or until meat is cooked through. If boiling from frozen, boil for 6-7 minutes.

To freeze: Place baking sheet filled with dumplings in freezer. Freeze until just-frozen, about 1 hour. Then place in a freezer bag and save for a weeknight meal!

Serve with a dipping sauce of soy sauce and rice vinegar. Proportions are to taste! If it’s still too salty for you, add water.

TIPS & TRICKS

• If you want to experiment with adding more flavorings to the filling like cabbage, water chestnuts, etc… don’t. You only have 1 teaspoon in each dumpling so they’ll come at the expense of the meat.

• You can pulse the shrimp in a food processor, but be careful not to overdo it. You still want the shrimp to have texture (think salsa and not tomato sauce).

• It might seem like the meat mixture has a lot of salt, but remember that the salt will leach out into the boiling liquid/broth.

• You want to use a wide saute pan when boiling the dumplings so they cook in one layer. If you boil in a pot, the wontons will knock against each other not only side-to-side, but also top-to-bottom, potentially ruining all your great folding work!

• Make an easy broth out of the boiling liquid. Add a couple slices of ginger and soy sauce to the water. Then add dumplings and cook. The pork/shrimp/chive mixture will add flavor and the wonton skins will add starchy body. Serve with sliced chives.

• If you have extra meat after you’ve used all your wontons skins, fry it up with a little oil and deglaze the pan with black or rice vinegar. This creates an extra-savory topping that gives a hint of what’s inside (think spiced chickpeas on top of hummus).