While breading zucchini isn't something you'll find yourself doing on a weekday, you can bread, bake, and freeze so you have slices ready to go. These frozen slices are a great start to many meals... Obviously, fried eggplant and zucchini are wonderful in a parmesan casseroles, but what about pairing panko crusted eggplant with garlic sauce and rice? Or try corn meal on squash and bake up an enchilada casserole!
I abhor waste... So, when I finally started growing enough tomatoes to can, the sight of compost bin bound skins made me weep. This year, I ran across a post from Serious Eats that offered microwave instructions for drying tomato skins. Excellent! I loved the idea but considering the amounts of tomato skins I'd be drying at a time, their microwave method wasn't practical. So, I dried my skins in the oven just like I'd dry chilis or herbs. Keep the powder in your spice rack to top popcorn, french fries, or mozzarella.
Fresh and dried basil are vastly different ingredients. While you can substitute dried for fresh in tomato based sauces and soups and still produce a great result, for pestos and curries, dried basil is simply not an option. But as autumnal colors paint the landscape, not only is fresh basil scarce, the stuff you find in clamshells is lacklaster, expensive, and the varieties are limited. So, if you want pesto in December, your best solution is to plan ahead and freeze your garden fresh basil. Your winter pesto may never be as bright as summer's, but when winter has come, you'll welcome a taste of summer.
Lemongrass is a perennial that's only hardy to zone 9. So, here in zone 6, if you want fresh lemongrass, you got to grow it as an annual or grow it inside. Indoor plants never survive my neglect, but in order to get the most of my plant, I dry the leaves so that I can have herbal lemongrass tea throughout the winter. Being caffeine-free, this tea can be enjoyed all day, and the dried leaves don't have the bitterness that plaques steeped fresh leaves.
After a cook-out, I have way more burger buns than a single vegetarian can ever hope to use. I don't mind keeping a bag in the freezer for the occasional veggie burger, but I don't have the space for much more than that. So, this year, as I was breading my zucchini, I thought, "Why not make that extra bread into breadcrumbs?" You can use any sort of buns or bread, store bought or artisanal, stale or fresh. Failed attempts at baking bread work too! Before it ends up in the compost bin, try this...
Summer picnics and parties leave the fridge full of leftovers, and after a couple days, you're done eating that caprese pasta salad. Give these side dishes a second life as soup or chili. While mayonnaise heavy pasta and potato salads won't work, Mexican, Greek, and Italian inspired quinoa, pasta, and rice salads are perfect.
When using measuring cups, how much flour you stuff into a cup can vary significantly from what I put into a cup. Why is this? Because you may pack your flour and sugar more tightly, push out more air, and in turn, stuff more flour into a cup. The most accurate method for measuring ingredients such as flour, sugar, and oats is by weighing them. And some of the new digital kitchen scales won't take up any more room than a salad plate. The best part is that it's less messy too! Here's how to do it...
Press "Tare" to set display to "0".
Weigh multiple ingredients in same bowl. Give each item its own section in case you need to take a little of something out.
If you bake a lot, and don't have a kitchen scale, get one! But if you don't yet have one or don't bake enough to care to have one, use this method to measure your dry ingredients as accurately as possible...
Spoon ingredient into cup
Heaping cup
Level cup
For spices, using weights is generally unnecessary, but when it comes to salt, the difference can be huge! Compared to kosher, smaller grained table salt can squeeze double the salting power into each teaspoon. That's right.... A teaspoon of kosher salt weighs 3 grams while a teaspoon of table salt weighs 6 grams. That's double the sodium chloride! So, when a recipe calls for kosher salt and all you got is table salt, be sure to cut back the volume measure by half. But if you're using weights, kosher and table salt can used interchangeably.
Even when I'm not baking, I prefer to weigh my ingredients. How much cheese is in a cup of shredded cheese? How many carrots do I need for 2 cups of sliced carrots? It all depends on how the food is chopped and how big your produce is. When I'm cooking dinner on a Monday, I don't want to ponder such questions... I just want to eat. That's why I use weights for the majority of my recipes.
Weigh before slicing and dicing
MUFFIN TIN: A 6-cup jumbo muffin tin works best for this. Ladle the soup among the cups. Fill them about 3/4 full.
Freezer ready!
FREEZE: Put in freezer overnight or until completely frozen.
REMOVE: Flip tin upside down onto cutting board and run hot water over the bottom of tin cups. Frozen soup pucks will start to dislodge from the pan. You can lightly twist the pan or press on the bottoms to help the pucks release.
Run hot water over tin bottom to loosen frozen pucks.
Frozen soup pucks ready to be bagged.
BAG AND FREEZE: If desired, label and date your freezer bag. Toss your frozen pucks in and freeze until needed.
Date and label freezer bag and toss in the freezer.
REHEAT: One puck is perfect for a cup of soup and will fit into a small 5 oz bowl. For a meal, 2-3 pucks will fit into a soup bowl. Just microwave for a few minutes, stir, and repeat until the soup is hot.
Frozen soup puck in 5 oz bowl. Ready for the microwave.
RINSE beans under cold water and drain.
SOAK beans about 8 hours or overnight. I place my beans in a 6 quart stock pot and cover with cold water to about 2/3 full. If it's warm, you need to refrigerate the beans in order to avoid fermentation. I always refrigerate to be safe.
ALTERNATE QUICK SOAK METHOD: Instead of soaking that pot of beans for 8 hours, you may heat them over high heat until they come to a full boil. Then, boil for 3 minutes, remove from heat, cover, and let them sit for an hour. This method is great for when you forgot to soak the beans overnight, but a slow cooked bean produces the most easily digestible result. Also, when I do this, I often get distracted and end up boiling the water all over the place. I only do this when I have to.
DRAIN AND RINSE soaked beans.
COOK: Place beans in a 6 quart or larger stock pot. I fill with water to about 2/3 full. In order to avoid over boiling, to which I am prone, I heat the beans over medium to medium-low heat (number 4 on my electric stove) with the lid tilted on, and simmer for about an hour or until the beans are at the desired tenderness. Most, however, bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for about an hour until cooked. I have never found that the initial boil significantly speeds up cooking time.
MUFFIN TIN: A 6-cup jumbo muffin tin works best for this. Distribute a pound of cooked and drained beans among 6 muffin cups. For 2 pounds of cooked beans, you'll need 2 of these muffin tins.
ADD COOKING WATER: Cover beans with cooking water to about 3/4 full.
FREEZE: Put in freezer overnight or until completely frozen.
REMOVE: Flip tin upside down onto cutting board and run hot water over the bottom of the tin. Frozen beans will start to dislodge from the pan. You can lightly twist the pan or press on the bottoms to help the pucks release.
BAG AND FREEZE: If desired, label and date your freezer bag. Toss your frozen pucks in and freeze until needed.
REFERENCES: Choate, Judith. "Introduction." The Rediscovered Bean. N.p.: Fairfax, 1992. 15-19. Print.
