Week Twelve: Freezer Challenge & Reader Recipe Spotlight
Team! We did it! We raised $305 for City Harvest. Thank you so much to everyone who donated to our campaign—I’m so grateful for your generosity. Meeting this goal is the best birthday present I could’ve asked for. If you’re interested, you can learn more about the incredible programs that your donations helped to fund.
Sunday 4/30/23
Refried beans and rice bowls
What I love about this newsletter as a creative project is that I can’t rest on my laurels too long. Sunday morning comes, I hit publish, and before I know it, it’s Sunday night, and I’m making another dinner. Ever onward.
This week’s theme is Freezer Challenge, which is similar to the Buy Nothing week I implemented a few weeks ago. I’m challenging myself to come up with meals using mostly the food that’s accumulated in my freezer.
I got right down to business, emptying my frozen stock scraps (vegetable odds and ends and chicken bones, including the carcass of the chicken I roasted last week) into a stock pot, covering with cold water, and simmering for a few hours. It was a rainy Sunday here in Jersey City, and it was so cozy to have a pot of stock bubbling and steaming on the stove, filling the house with the smell of roast chicken. This process yielded a shimmering golden liquid that I’ll turn into chicken noodle soup later this week.
I also thawed a big bag of red kidney beans I’d cooked and frozen last month, and turned half of it into refried beans for tonight’s dinner. I sautéed garlic and tomato paste in a little bit of the lard I’d rendered from my Easter pork shoulder, and added cumin, chili powder, and black pepper. I stirred in a little of the chicken stock, and a splash or two of vinegar from a jar of jalapeños, and let the beans cook down until they were soft and saucy.
I’m realizing, in writing this, how many thrifty little tricks I’ve absorbed over the years, from sources as varied as my parents, cooks in restaurant kitchens, Mark Bittman, Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal, and June Xie’s Budget Eats series on YouTube. Basically, it all boils down to the idea that you should never throw away flavor. Peels, bones, shells, cooking liquid, bread crusts, scraps of fat: so many odds and ends can be saved and transformed with a little work. Kitchen magic.
I topped our beans and rice bowls with grated cheddar, chopped banana peppers, and my homemade curtido (fermented red cabbage). It was not a photogenic dinner, and I am respecting its wish for privacy by posting no photos, but it was a satisfying meal.
Monday 5/1/23
Chicken and black bean enchiladas
Anne was teaching an evening class from home tonight, so I needed a dinner plan that would be easy and quick. Luckily, I had thrown together this batch of enchiladas last week to use up the last of my roast chicken, and stashed it in the freezer (without baking first) for a night like tonight. And since this week is a freezer clean out week, it just made sense.
When I made these last week, I chopped up about two cups of chicken, a mix of white and dark meat, and sautéed it in a pan with minced garlic, a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, cumin, chili powder, a can of black beans, and some diced banana peppers. The mixture got spooned and rolled into corn tortillas, which I placed in a greased baking dish and covered with canned enchilada sauce and shredded cheddar. Very “easy weeknight dinner.”
On the subject of tomato paste: I previously wrote that I prefer to buy it in the aluminum tube, since it makes measuring and storage so convenient, but that was before my dad sent me this article about tomato paste. Did you know that tomato paste is made from specially grown “paste tomatoes”? I didn’t know that until I read this article. I also learned that you can measure out canned tomato paste into tablespoon portions and stick them in the freezer, where they will keep until needed, and it’s a lot more cost effective than buying the aluminum tubes. So that’s my new approach to this incredibly useful ingredient, and it’s working out beautifully. Thanks, Dad!
Tuesday 5/2/23
Chicken noodle soup with pumpernickel toast
I was eager to put my homemade chicken stock to good use, so I made homestyle chicken noodle soup with garlic, onion, carrots, bell pepper, corn, and tomatoes. I chopped up some raw chicken breast, browned it briefly in a separate pan, and added to the soup to simmer with the veggies. At the very end, I added a few handfuls of egg noodles and cooked until al dente. The soup was very good, savory and brothy and bright, and the noodles had a delightfully bouncy texture. I finished each bowl with a splash of fresh lemon juice.
I served this soup with buttered pumpernickel toast, because why not? I was looking for a good loaf of sourdough at the store, but our Stop & Shop doesn’t carry any sourdough bread at all. What the heck, Stop & Shop? I would put in a product request with William at the Customer Service desk, but I’m still waiting for him to address my (very reasonable) request that the store carry Chobani oat milk, so my faith in that approach is dwindling.
My relationship with the Stop & Shop is complicated. I love it, because it’s so close to our apartment, and because the employees are a real cast of characters and I enjoy my interactions with them, and because right by the checkout, there are boxes of cat litter featuring big pictures of cats that hold the baby’s rapt attention while I pay and bag up the groceries. All good things! But I have to admit it’s not the world’s greatest grocery store (that honor goes to the Texas chain H-E-B). This location is on the small side. Their produce section leaves much to be desired, there’s no deli counter (!!), and they apparently don’t believe in sourdough. I guess the question is, do I need the things I love to be perfect? And the answer, applied equally to people, meals, and grocery stores, is no.
Wednesday 5/3/23
Tofu and noodles with Kate’s tahini sauce
Reader Recipe Spotlight! My dear friend Kate recently told me about a dinner they make regularly, featuring tofu, wheat noodles and veggies in a homemade tahini garlic sauce. They described it by saying, “It tastes like takeout but is ready in 20 minutes, and no hidden fees!” I was sold.
Since it’s freezer clean out time, I thought this recipe would be a good way to use up a block of tofu and a bag of cauliflower. I thawed and pressed the tofu, tossed the cubes in a little soy sauce, and coated them in cornstarch before pan-frying to a crispy golden brown. I roasted the frozen cauliflower, cooked a batch of these Japanese udon noodles that were hanging out in the pantry, and stir-fried some red pepper and carrots. I put all these characters in a bowl and coated them with The Sauce.
Kate writes: “The sauce is sort of different every time. I LOVE peanut sauce, but Kari is allergic, so I started using tahini as a base in a pan with a little water, over low heat. Then, I put a little sesame oil and either soy sauce, tamari or aminos, whatever you have. Then, I like a little garlic powder or ginger or both, and maybe a little onion powder. Then I add more water if it’s too thick. I pull the noodles out of the strainer and into the sauce and make sure everything is all covered. Add scallions and sesame seeds. Delish.”
I made the sauce as described, adding a splash of this and a pinch of that, tasting regularly, which is my favorite way to make a sauce. I went rogue and gave it a little maple syrup for a boost of sweetness and rice vinegar for a kick of acid. Y’all. It was SO GOOD. Do you ever start eating something and love it so much that you’re instantly nostalgic for it, even though you’re still eating it? This was one of those moments. You can expect to see this tahini sauce in regular rotation. Thanks for sharing your recipe, Kate!
Thursday 5/4/23
Rotini with salsa di limone
It’s turning into an unexpectedly noodly week! I guess it makes sense for a pantry challenge week, because we have a lot of pasta in the pantry, and it tends to make a good, neutral backdrop for odds and ends.
This recipe has been in my family for years, and by that I mean we found this Giada de Laurentiis recipe sometime in the late 2000s and have been making it ever since. It’s simple and delicious.
I used a half pound of whole wheat rotini and a half pound of chickpea rotini, for extra protein. Chickpea pasta on its own isn’t my super fave, but I couldn’t really tell the difference here. I had two pints of grape tomatoes, so I decided to chop one pint fresh into the salad and roast the other pint in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper. I wished I had roasted them all! Roasted tomatoes are one of my favorite things in the world, the way they get soft, jammy and caramelized. Side note: now that I’m a New Jersey resident, I’m extra excited for this summer, when world-famous Jersey tomatoes and corn will be in season.
I had planned to add some shredded chicken to make this more of a meal, but for some reason I decided to boil the chicken breasts? Which I never do? It didn’t go well. The boiled chicken was dry, tasteless, and utterly undeserving of a spot in this hallowed recipe. Mama said there’d be days like this! I’ll save it and figure out something else to do with it.
Friday 5/5/23
TikTok salmon rice bowls with charred edamame
I was trying to decide what to do with the frozen salmon fillets I’d thawed when I remembered another viral TikTok recipe, one that my sister Abbey has been recommending for a long time: the TikTok salmon rice bowl. I browsed a few recipes, all based on the viral video from Emily Mariko, before settling on this one from 40 Aprons.
It’s basically baked salmon in a brown rice bowl, topped with cucumber and avocado, and drizzled with both a ginger-garlic soy sauce and a sriracha mayo (I used sambal oelek instead of sriracha). I didn’t watch the original video until after we’d eaten, and I was surprised by how much more elaborate the 40 Aprons recipe was. I’m a big fan of how it turned out: kind of like sushi, but with cooked salmon, and in grain bowl form. I’ll have to keep this recipe in mind next time it’s winter and we’re craving sushi, but want to eat something warm and filling.
I also had a bag of frozen edamame I wanted to use up, and thinking of how much we enjoyed the charred edamame from Ozu (our go-to Japanese takeout place), I found this recipe for chili-charred edamame. This was excellent and easy, and we loved it.
I have to say, there’s a lot more room in my freezer than there was at the start of the week! I should’ve taken before and after pictures, but I didn’t think of it. Just close your eyes and imagine a very full freezer: that’s what it looked like before. Now picture the same freezer with a lot less stuff in it: that’s what it looks like now.
Saturday 5/6/23
Scrambled eggs and waffles with roasted berries
We were out late in Brooklyn with friends (getting home at 8pm counts as late when you have a baby) so I decided to keep dinner nice and simple with the old standby, breakfast for supper. I scrambled some eggs with cheddar cheese. We had some protein waffles in the freezer (Kodiak brand, buttermilk vanilla flavor, highly recommend), so I heated those up in the oven. Anne’s not much of a syrup person, so I decided to try something I had in a yogurt bowl at a cafe earlier this week: roasted berries. I spread some fresh blueberries and blackberries out on a sheet pan, sprinkled them with brown sugar and sea salt, and baked them at 450º for about 20 minutes, until they got jammy and caramelized, not unlike the tomatoes I roasted on Thursday. Roast everything!
Eating these roasted berries reminded me of when I was growing up in Texas, and my parents would take my sisters and me to pick wild blackberries in certain brambly stretches of land along highways and train tracks. All spring, we’d keep our eyes out for wild berry patches, and by early May, just in time for my birthday, they’d be ripe enough for us to make a day of berry picking. We’d come home in the early evening, buckets full and mouths stained purple, and my mom would cook the ripest berries down into a deliciously tart compote that we’d bake into little tart shells, or eat spooned over vanilla Blue Bell ice cream. Heaven on earth.
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Thanks so much for reading. Here’s a link to last week’s Dinner Diary, in case you missed it. And here’s a link to the music video for Cat Emotions by Moshow the Cat Rapper, an incredibly positive soul who reminds me that life is too short not to do what brings you joy. He just loves cats and rapping and following his dreams! Plus, his cats have names like Sushi, Ravioli, and Parmesan. I love this guy.
Want to see your own recipe featured in a future issue of Dinner Diary? If you have a favorite dinner recipe you’d like to see in the Reader Recipe Spotlight, reply to this email, leave a comment, or heck, call me on the phone! I’ll be glad to hear from you.
Love you all, thanks for making my birthday wishes come true!
Hannah