It has become some kind of ritual for me to have a cooking tantrum sometime in the 24-48 hours before leaving for a trip in the van. Some are more…SUBSTANTIAL than others. The most manageable fits are those where I have something specifically planned in my mind that I want to cook up, to put the bits + nubs in the fridge to good use and have some elevated items along for wherever we’re headed. Cookies, maybe a treat for our hosts on the other end of our journey. A little jar of hummus. Some extra granola. Sane.
The most insane of these rampages happens when I have no plan at all; I deep dive into the fridge, the pantry, and start spinning like a crazy person. All of the herbs and greens become pistous – enough to freeze and to take. Homemade jam with the fruits, cocktail shrubs with the berries and teas, cookies of course, noodle salads and dumplings and freshly squeezed juices. Mayhem.
I can’t stand to waste even one shred of bounty in the fridge. It makes me ill watching beautiful vegetables get tossed to compost because I didn’t have the time to use them. And for as much as I hate tossing or wasting food, I love coming home to an empty fridge even more. So, there’s really no way around it – an outburst of cooking is my destiny.
The tantrum I threw with myself before this trip to Washington State, to dive deep into the mountain biking here, was some hybrid. I had plans, but they were loose. I had done a realllly good job of behaving myself at the market and hadn’t overbought produce for the week which meant my eyes and cooking capacities were adequately sized for my stock. Cookies (double chocolate rye,) were in the works – something I’d been wanting to make. A riff on this favorite carrot cake happened to make use of a few very buxom carrots I had. And there was a little bit of buttermilk hanging out, a handful of dainty, earthy Hakurei turnips, a bit of miso and a bunch of greens I never got around to sautéeing.
There is nothing in my being that dislikes a biscuit. Particularly a savory one. They’re ridiculously versatile – very happy to be enjoyed straight from the oven with a bit of butter, flaked off into a bowl of soup, used to mop up egg yolks or tahini dressing at the bottom of a salad bowl. And while day-of is a pretty perfect time to eat them, no one complains about enjoying one a day or so after they were baked, griddled up like so. And so I went for it.
Alone, the veggies on hand were underwhelming at best. But I knew that when braised in miso and butter, the turnips were champions of my heart. The greens could be turned in the same way. So I went off to marry the two and ya know what, it worked.
There was definitely some pot clanging. Flour was poofed all over the place. But in the end, all of the treats were wrapped up, I even packed lunch, and that night, I dunked the flaky, salty, frugal, and fabulous little biscuits in a bowl of Creamy Elote Soup (shared…)
The next morning, van-fridge full with well-used leftovers, pantry maxed, and with deliciousness to enjoy for days, I was so thrilled to have spent the day in a delicious fit. Over the next few days, I would whip out a biscuit and griddle it up with a bit of ghee as a comforting and truly excellent breakfast, wherever I was.
If there’s one thing that I hope you pick up from this little weekly newsletter (that isn’t a great recipe you love and make for life,) it’s the idea that the SPECIFIC foods we source matter. That for our own health, the well-being of our communities, and for the planet at large, it’s wise + worthwhile to buy the most virtuously sourced products we can. And those, as you know friends, are too valuable to waste a single bite of.
Here are a few things that I make on the reg to use up fridge goodies. All easy, and none of them with recipes to guide them:
In the world of Ayurveda, there are 6 distinct flavors that we perceive. But by other philosophies, there are only 4: salty, sweet, bitter, and sour. Umami is the “scientifically proven FIFTH taste,” specifically pertaining to Japanese culinary traditions, and it’s the one that makes you go “Mmmmm.” If you’ve ever had that craving for pancetta and parmesan in a carbonara or the deep flavor of ramen noodles in their broth….you’re craving umami. The flavor is brought to dishes when flavors of salt combine with textures of fat and protein, specifically. You can add this flavor to your food by mixing in parmesan cheese, kombu, tomatoes, dried shiitake mushrooms….and miso paste, as we do here!
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