Hello friends,
Two weeks ago I mentioned that you can make a basic pasta dish out of a few basic pantry items that you should keep at home at all times. A few of you have asked about some suggestions or recipe so here we go.
Before we start:
This recipe is best to be considered as a guideline. While it is created from ingredients that are listed on the list of essential ingredients to keep at home, this recipe is *very* customisable. Carrot does not have to be a carrot, and parsley does not have to be parsley. You know what I mean.
Want to add tofu to it? Go ahead. Different seasoning for the sauce? Up to you. Also, any pasta shape will work with this one. The chickpea sauce is very universal and can be used in many ways, so if you don’t use it all there is nothing to worry about.
This is, obviously, not a fancy dish by any means.
This is the type of a dish I cook when I forgot to go to the shop (yes it happens to me as well), have barely anything in the fridge (yes this one is also common, we are all just humans), and I want something quick to eat that is also delicious. Cooking from ‘nothing’ DOES NOT have to compromise on the flavour.
The basic pasta dish cooked from ‘nothing’:
Serves 4
Ingredients:
500 g Pasta (any shape)
For chickpea sauce:
230 g Chickpeas, cooked
200 g Plant Milk or water
10 g Soy Sauce
1 g Garlic Powder
Fried onion:
150 g Onion sliced
50 g Vegetable Oil
Salt, to taste
Other:
100 g Carrots
sprinkle of Fresh herbs, chopped
drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Instructions:
1. Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packaging.
2. For the chickpea sauce, blend everything together until smooth.
3. Slice the onion and pan-fry it on medium heat until crispy.
4. Coarsely grate the carrots and add them to the sauce. Bring the sauce to a boiling point and mix with cooked pasta before serving. Add a sprinkle of chopped fresh herbs and a drizzle of olive oil.
This dish is pasta+sauce+some veg+something crispy+fresh herbs. Let that be the template for all your basic pasta dishes made from basic ingredients that you have at home. You might not have the fresh herbs all the time, so feel free to replace with something bright, such as lemon zest, chilli flakes, or herbs frozen in olive oil in the ice cube tray from the freezer.
The recipe can be downloaded below.
And this, my friends, is how you cook zero-waste at home. By using it all and of course eating it all. We have to get the basics done before we can move onto bigger things.
As always, cooking without food waste at home is less about eating every bit of a carrot peel or stressing about citrus peels, and more about cooking sensible dishes from ingredients that are on hand. It’s not that I will never give you a recipe using peels and leaves and stems and stuff, but those things are not the pillar of ZW cooking at home.
The vast majority of domestic food waste happens because of
Unreasonable amount of shopping
Unreasonable amount of cooked food
What I aim to help with is to show you how to use up all the bits in the kitchen and how to cook good food with limited amount of ingredients, so you don’t need to buy ton of stuff to let it rot in your fridge. Also, all of my recipes will tell you what to do with leftovers and how to store the food.
So if you find this helpful, feel free to share this newsletter with your friends and as always, your feedback is very welcome.
You can reply directly to this email, or leave a comment here.
Until next time,
Vojtech
P.S.: Is there anything particular you would like to read about? Let me know.
That dish that you can cook from nothing
White beans work nicely in a sauce, as well.