the Waste-Not Blog

White, all-purpose flour.  It's inexpensive, readily available, and foundational to a whole host of delicious foods. It's far from deeply nourishing, even with the trace amounts of nutrition the factory adds, but can a case be made for using more of it? I believe so, and I intend to make it. Think of the foods that you buy most frequently. Not raw ingredients, mind, but finished foods. What comes to mind? For many, item one on that list would have to be bread. This includes sliced bread, hotdog and hamburger rolls, and Italian bread for spaghetti nights. Speaking of spaghetti nights, pasta is easily a close second to bread as far as regularly purchased staples of Americans. Including macaroni and cheese, egg noodles for soup, and of course spaghetti, pasta is a crucial part of even the most frugal of American diets (not to mention special occasion stuffed pastas like ravioli, pierogies and tortellini). We can't forget biscuits or their close relatives, scones and American...

15 grams of protein. 6-12 grams of insoluble fiber. 4-5 g of soluble fiber. Plus vitamins and minerals, particularly potassium. These all come from a one cup serving of cooked dry beans. The amounts of different nutrients vary based on the type of beans under discussion: black beans and kidney beans are very rich in iron, while lentils are a very good source of molybdenum and folate. But we all knew this, right? Beans are healthy, beans are cheap, we should all eat more beans. Clearly nobody needs to hear any of this information again. Remind me why I thought this post was a good idea? Oh. This is why. On average, a given American eats less than six pounds of beans in a year . That's about forty cups of beans annually, significantly less than a cup per week. We're all concerned about the burgeoning problems with cardiovascular disease, obesity, living wage, you name it--and we eat maybe a cup of beans in a week? Nonsense, I say! Balderdash, I proclaim! We can all do bet...

With five hungry eaters in our family, lunch time can turn into a straight up emergency if I re-discover clocks around 11:40 AM. I don't spend enough on bread to permit us to eat sandwiches every day, and if the leftovers in the fridge are earmarked for dinner I'm in a real pinch. Beyond this, sometimes we just crave something that feels like snack food. Enter: nachos! I use the term in the loosest possible sense, as this recipe does not involve liquid orange pasteurized processed cheese food, with or without tiny pieces of something that resembles jalapeño. The main ingredient in the dip is salsa (I use the amazing fire-charred salsa that I can every summer), plus a meat component and a bean component, and then as much cheese as I feel I can spare (often a combination of grated aged cheese or perhaps mozzarella and my homemade labneh--though the labneh does beautifully by itself in a pinch). It's easy to make additions like pickled jalapeños or refried beans, and I almos...

Eating out. It used to be an obsession of mine, you know. If my husband and I were in the car together, and we drove by a restaurant within an hour or so of meal time, I would be on the verge of praying that he'd decide to stop and treat me. It wasn't that I didn't like cooking, I loved it! And it wasn't that I didn't have perfectly good food at home waiting to be cooked, either. For me, eating out was a novelty I hadn't experienced much growing up; while I was getting better at cooking, I wasn't yet to the point where I could say with confidence, "I could cook that better at home"; and meal prep, while fun, took mental energy that as a pregnant newlywed and then first time mom I didn't have much of to spare. These days, it's safe to say the novelty has worn off, and with it the youthful confidence that we can afford a dinner out has worn off a bit too. I am at a point where, in most cases, I could cook it better at home (at least w...