Cooking Good Food Before Ingredients Go Bad

If you have stone fruit that is starting to get soft, it’s time to make cobbler!

Dearest food friends,

If you ever look in your refrigerator and think about how it seems like every vegetable, fruit, and piece of meat in there is about to go bad, this is a newsletter issue for you.

I am not so much an overeater as an over-shopper. I am CERTAIN I will end up cooking more than I actually cook, that my salad will contain a wider range of vegetables, that I will purée more fruit for breakfast smoothies. I don’t throw out a lot of aging ingredients from my fridge, but I DO make a lot of things at the last minute to make sure I WON’T waste food.

This is the week where the college semester started for me. I don’t just cook; I teach at a university. Over the summer, I was able to work from home. I consequently had more time to cook. Now I am returning to in-person work at the university, and consequently, I won’t be around my kitchen so much.

I took a look in my fridge this week and realized to my horror that I had a lot of food that was still good but was likely to go bad before I could get back into the kitchen to make elaborate meals. I therefore cleaned out the raw ingredients and cooked like a maniac to get all the food into prepared dishes that I could reheat when I get home for us to eat.

There are actual cook books that present nothing but a one-afternoon-a-week strategy for preparing food in your kitchen. I did that this week, even though it is not quite my habit.

Here is the list of things that I made:

1. A meatloaf with a soy-ketchup glaze.

2. Cinnamon-glazed carrots

3. A stone fruit cobbler

4. Banana bread (a recipe I have already given here — see the previous issues)

5. Ratatouille (a recipe I have already given here — see the previous issues)

6. A few boiled eggs. (You can already boil eggs)

7. Some baked potatoes. (You can already wrap a potato in aluminum and stick it in the oven).

I am therefore only giving you the first three recipes, knowing you can handle the rest, food friend.

I observe that I am not so much an overeater as an over-shopper. I am CERTAIN I will end up cooking more than I actually cook, that my salad will contain a wider range of vegetables, that I will purée more fruit for breakfast smoothies. I don’t throw out a lot of aging ingredients from my fridge, but I DO make a lot of things at the last minute to make sure I WON’T waste food. I just get seduced, my friends, by the shiny fruit in the bin, the smell of the fresh vegetables, the sale that gets me two for one of anything in the store. Except for specific meals on special occasions, I tend to imagine my sauntering into my kitchen, not feeling tired at all but creative and ready to make innovative meals, and finding myself a little popped out in reality, especially when I have so much to do, so much more than I imagined when I stared at that fruit bin in the supermarket. My cooking is more neurotic than I imagine it will be, but I hope it is no less delicious.

This is when I started stirring in the steak sauce, the ketchup, the mustard and the Italian bread crumbs.

I took out a package of ground beef that was still good but not for long, found not-quite-ready-to-wilt celery, some baby carrots that were just fine but not in the prime of their carrot babyhood, a big onion, and some parsley that was wilted ever so slightly. I put the meat aside, and I put the other aforementioned ingredients in my food processor. I added a large onion and a bunch of minced garlic. I chopped it all up, poured it in a big bowl (see above), and mixed it together. I stirred in Italian bread crumbs, steak sauce, ketchup, a little whole milk, mustard, beaten eggs, and a bit more garlic. I patted the mixture into a baking dish.

The glaze here actually soaks in quite a bit as it cooks, something I don’t mind. If I wanted it to be shiny, I would add the glaze a few minutes before i took the meatloaf out of the oven.

Before I popped this meatloaf in the oven, I mixed some ketchup and soy sauce together in a tea cup, and I brushed it over the top of the raw mixture. I stuck it in the oven for an hour. It came out looking like this:

Again, if I wanted this meatloaf to be shinier on top, I would have glazed it 15 minutes before pulling it out of the oven.

To accompany the meatloaf, I glazed (I seem to have been in a glazing mood) some baby carrots in cinnamon with brown sugar. I boiled the carrots for 20 minutes in salted water, then for the last ten minutes of cooking, I poured out most of the water, added a half stick of butter, around a third of a cup of brown sugar, and quite a bit of cinnamon, salt and pepper. They were delicious and comforting!

I thought these carrots would taste good with meatloaf. I often prepare them as a side dish on Thanksgiving.

Once I had savory dishes squared away, I decided to go through the fruit drawer in my fridge. I had found a great sale on nectarines, plums, and peaches while shopping with excessive culinary ambition. My husband and I had actually eaten most of them, but I had a few left of each. I cut up the fruit, which was slightly squishy, hence perfect for my plans.

Fresh fruit is great to eat raw. Overripe fruit is wonderful in desserts.

In a separate bowl, I combined in equal measure, self-rising flour, brown sugar and milk. I melted a stick of butter and added this to the mess. I had some vanilla syrup (for coffees and such) in the fridge. I added 3/4 of a cup of it to the already-gooey, sweet mess. I also added a dash of cinnamon. I poured out the doughy mixture into a baking pan. I put the cut fruit on top of this mixture, sprinkling them with cinnamon and powdered sugar. I put it in the oven for an hour. It came out looking like this:

This cobbler isn’t the most elegant dessert I have ever made, but it is a simple down-home dish.

I may or may not have eaten more cobbler than meat loaf. If you need to know whether this is so, you’ll have to subpoena me.

I went off to teach this week with a refrigerator full of good food that I didn’t have to prepare in a rush when I got home. It was already done. Tonight, I will eat some meatloaf and a potato left over from a couple of days ago, along with a salad. I feel more peaceful knowing that when I get home, two minutes in the microwave, and my food is ready to eat.

May your cobblers be cobbled, your meat be loaved, and may you waste, not want not, even if you over-purchased that which was on sale, food friends. May you break bread without breaking too much of a sweat.

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Shopping List

Notes: This is a newsletter issue devoted to what you have LEFTOVER in your house, so you could adjust anything you find on this list, based on what you find in your house already. Note also that for the amount of soy sauce, catsup and mustard needed for the meatloaf, a person could actually use leftover packets of these condiments from take-out meals, thus further economizing.

MEAT

1 package of ground beef

DAIRY

Whole milk

Butter

Eggs

PRODUCE

3 apricots

3 plums

3 nectarines

1 package of baby carrots

1 celery

1 onion

Parsley

GROCERIES

Vanilla syrup

Self-rising flour

Minced Garlic

Italian Bread Crumbs

Brown sugar

Powdered sugar

Cinnamon

Catsup

Mustard

Soy sauce

At my supermarket this week, these groceries would cost about $65, but it is likely you have some of these ingredients already in your home and consequently would spend less money.

Recipes

Anne’s waste-not-want-not meatloaf

1 package of ground beef

3 celery stalks (slightly wilted is fine)

2 oz (or so) of baby carrots

1/4 (or so) of a bunch of parsley, that may be slightly wilted

1 large onion

1/2 cup of Italian breadcrumbs

3 tbsp whole milk

3 eggs

Minced garlic

3 tbsp mustard

3 tbsp steak sauce

4 tbsp catsup

2 tbsp soy sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Set the oven to 350 degrees

2. Put the celery, carrots, onions, and parsley in a food processor, and chop until finely diced.

3. Pour the diced vegetables into a large mixing bowl. Add the beef. Mix either with a wooden spoon or your hands until evenly mixed.

4. Add the milk, eggs, breadcrumbs, mustard, steak sauce, garlic, salt, pepper, and half the catsup. Stir until evenly mixed.

5. Place the mixture into a baking dish.

6. In a small bowl or tea cup, mix the rest of the catsup with the soy sauce and brush over the top of the meat mixture in the pan.

7. Bake for an hour.

Glazed Baby Carrots with Cinnamon and Brown Sugar

About a package of baby carrots (I added some of a package to the previous recipe and had plenty for this one).

1/2 stick of butter

1/4 cup of brown sugar

2 tbsp. Cinnamon.

1. Put the carrots in a pot. Fill with water. Boil for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat.

2. Empty most of the water, leaving around an inch in the base of the pot.

3. Add half a stick of butter to the pan with the carrots and water, and sautée over medium heat. Until almost all the water is gone.

4. Add cinnamon and sugar and saute for around 5 minutes more until the sugar is melted and the cinnamon coats all the carrots.

Leftover Stone Fruit Cobbler

3 nectarines, sliced and pitted

3 plums, sliced and pitted

3 peaches, sliced and pitted.

1 stick of butter

1 cup of brown sugar

1 cup of whole milk

1 cup of self-rising flour

1/4-1/2 cup of vanilla syrup (alternately, make a syrup of your own flavoring by boiling water and sugar and adding any flavoring you believe would be tasty with these ingredients; I had vanilla syrup on hand and thought it would be delicious)

1/4 cup of powdered sugar

3 tbsp cinnamon

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees

2. In a small saucepan, melt the stick of butter.

3. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, milk, brown sugar, syrup.

4. Add the melted butter to the flour mixture.

5. Pour the flour mixture into a baking pan.

6. Add the slices of fruit on top of the flour mixture.

7. Sprinkle with the powdered sugar and cinnamon.

8. Bake for an hour.