wtf do i feed you #23

scraps for dinner

It’s me, Ed! I’m on newsletter duty this week, and it’s a fun one.

First, some updates: our zines are available on bookshelves in Toronto and in Dublin. How exciting! You can also still order a copy online, if you’re not able to pop into the shops. We are also slowly planning issue #2, if you have any theme ideas or requests, let us know!

Now onto business: The two of us were facing pantry overflow this week. After a short whatsapp exchange, we challenged each other to see what dinner we could make from the jars that hadn’t been touched in months, the sauces sat on the top shelf of the fridge and the veggies that have been crying to be used up. Bonus: we had fun doing it. That’s what it’s all about folks.

We hope this newsletter inspires you to do your own pantry clean-out. Make it a game! Challenge your friends and families! If you do, please tag us on instagram - we want to see what #scrapdinner you come up with.

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Scrap Dinners: A tale of two pantries.

Ed’s Scraps

X1 roast veg (eg sweet potato, aubergine, carrot - these all taste good covered in dressing)
X1 side salad (could be a slaw, a green salad, crudité)
X1 grain (try rice, couscous, bulgur…whatever is your household go to)

I’ve found that basing your dinner around this simple formula is a great way to use up bits in the fridge. It’s especially a good way of getting through the jars and condiments sitting on the top shelf of your fridge. The beauty of it is, the stripped back plain version of this dinner “should” please the kids and a spruced up version of the dish “does” make you feel like a chef again. “What did I do for dinner last night? Oh, just a honey miso glazed sweet potato thing…don’t worry about it”.

This time around I wanted to attack the asian section of our pantry. It’s been getting a bit out of control lately. That tub of miso really needs using up, the amount of shaoxing wine in the bottle never seems to go down (who even am i?!) and what am I going to do with that can of shallot sauce I bought because it had a funny cow on the label?! I pulled out the tray from the pantry and here’s what we made… 

promise it tasted better than it looked

• Honey Miso Roasted Sweet Potato

• Brown rice dressed in shallot sauce

• Asian style slaw with pickled red cabbage, carrot, red pepper and peanuts

1. The sweet potato was chopped into chunks and roasted on high for around twenty minutes. Just as the edges start to blacken you know it should be nice and caramelised.

In the background I threw together a dressing, using up the remains of the miso tub mixed with ginger paste, a squeeze of honey, sesame oil and some warm water to loosen it. Once the sweet pots had roasted, they were tossed in the dressing and ready to go.

2. Ok. We need to talk about shallot sauce. I was not aware of shallot sauce. Why has no one told me about this? Purchased on a whim based on the funny looking cow on the label, but this condiment is a game changer. It elevated a bowl of rice within seconds, making the whole thing moreish. In essence this is a jar of confit shallots, which - let’s be real - no one has the time to be doing, so I’m delighted it’s something I can grab off the shelves at the asian store. If I’ve not sold you on it yet, please just go hunt this one down and give it a go.

3. Cabbage seems to knock around in our kitchen for a lifetime. In this case we had one fresh cabbage to use up and one pickled cabbage. Mixed with some shredded carrot and thinly sliced pepper, this was then dressed with a mixture of soy sauce, pinch of caster sugar, ginger paste, mirin, shaoxing wine and chinkiang vinegar. Whether those last three ingredients added anything a simple vinegar wouldn’t have, I’m not sure, but I got to use them up and that was the whole point of this thing, so I was delighted.

Rowan had a stripped back version of this without the dressings on the sweet potatoes, a few of these delicious seaweed snacks and the slaw. And to be honest, all he ate was peanuts and seaweed lol. 

All in, this took about an hour to prepare and cook which felt pretty good going. And this simple formula can be used again next time to use up a different corner of the pantry.

Scrap Stats

• Fridge clean out: 7 jars, 4 veg, 1 pack of peanuts and 1 pack of seaweed snacks

• Leftovers: Yep, lil bit of slaw for next day lunch

• Meal Review: 3 stars out of 5. Rowan didn’t touch much of this tbh but we did learn that he loves a roasted peanut and has a strong preference for white rice over brown. On the other hand we discovered shallot sauce! It’s a formula we’ve used before and sweet potato is normally a safe bet with Ro, so will certainly be rinse repeating this.

Katie’s Scraps

My fridge/freezer/pantry is in desperate need of a spring cleaning, so this scrap dinner theme was perfectly timed and I had a lot of fun figuring out what to make, especially because I immediately started pretending that I was on an episode of Chopped. 

• Shake & Bake Tofu Nuggets

• Garlic Butter Yogurt Flatbread

• Pickle/Cabbage Slaw

• Garlic Butter Edamame

Here’s how I made everything: 

1. Shake & Bake Tofu Nuggets: Our recipe remains great, please give it a try if you haven’t already. I had 2 blocks of extra firm tofu that were taking up space, so I used up the last of my chicken bouillon paste & let them marinate in that for our shake & bake tofu nuggets. Empty jar count: 1.

2. Garlic Butter Yogurt Flatbread: In our group chat, Ed shared a pic of some yogurt flatbreads he was making, and I was inspired to do the same thing because I had an almost finished tub of greek yogurt. I mixed about a cup of yogurt with 2ish cups of self rising flour and a big pinch of salt and kneaded it together until it made a really soft dough and put that aside to rest. 

I decided the flatbreads needed some garlic butter, so I mixed the rest of my jarlic (garlic in a jar) with a big knob of softened butter and put that aside. I divided the flatbread dough into 16 portions because I thought my kids would prefer small flatbreads. Mini sized things usually go over better with them. I rolled them out, and cooked them over really high heat on a dry skillet for a few minutes a side - and they worked out great! I brushed the garlic butter over each of them and stacked them in a towel while the nuggets were finishing up. Empty jar count: 2.

3. Pickle/Cabbage Slaw: A thing about me is that I have a cornichon problem, and one jar in particular has been taunting me for months. So I decided to let the 5 leftover pickles & ¼ cup of remaining brine fulfill their destiny and become something greater: salad dressing. Well, more specifically, slaw dressing. 

I still had a few tablespoons of yogurt left in the greek yogurt container that I used for the flatbreads, so I put the remaining pickle brine in there, a spoon of dijon mustard, some salt & pepper, a spoon of the tofu marinade, a big spoon of mayo, the cling-ons of garlic from my jarlic container, a little scoop of some random pesto I found in the fridge, and I chopped the 5 remaining cornichons really tiny and added them too. I mixed all this together and it made a zippy, creamy dressing that was perfect for the old head of green cabbage that lives in my fridge. Empty jar count: 3 (the yogurt container became the dressing container, it’s still in full use).

Sidebar: Now that I think about it, it’s kinda wild that Ed also made a scrap slaw! Great minds think: slaw. That, or we both just have a thing for cabbage - which also tracks, because we met in Germany which has a very cabbage-heavy food kultur. 

OK, back to business. I chopped ¼ of a head of cabbage up into little dices, so it became more of a spoonable side that might be more palatable for my jr. roommates. I made sure not to dress the slaw too much so my kids didn’t get mad at me, but enough so that it wasn’t just plain ol’ raw cabbage. There’s enough leftover dressing for me to use up the last of my cabbage for lunch or another dinner sometime this week.

4. Garlic Butter Edamame: I warmed up the last of a bag of frozen edamame in the microwave, with a pat of the leftover garlic butter (1 minute increments until it’s all done). Empty freezer bag count: 1

Final verdict? This was a perfectly fine dinner. My 7 year old ate his meal with only minor fuss (of course he gave us shit for the cabbage). The 4.5 year old had to be woken up from an easter candy induced sugar crash on the floor and only wanted to eat “3 nuggets then bedtime”, so he had an abridged version of dinner.

he was fully asleep in this photo. lil’ easter egg.

I served a “cabbage bowl” for the grown ups. There was enough of everything for leftovers and lemme tell you, cabbage slaw and edamame that’s been marinating in the fridge is so good, and the tofu nuggets cold from the fridge are delicious. A perfect leftover lunch. 

Scrap Stats 

• Fridge clean out: 3 jars, 1 bag of frozen veg, 2 tofus that were taking up space. 

• Leftovers: Yes.

• Meal Review: 3.5 stars out of 5. There was whining AND “eat your veggies!” bribery involved in this meal, so automatically I lose a star. One half star taken away for making a lot of spoons dirty. 

pictured: don't look at the top of my fridge, kids plate, adult bowl, my overflowing pantry.

until next time,
ed & kt.