Background: Aioli was traditionally just an emulsion of garlic and oil. Where I live, we have pecan trees everywhere. I like to add pecans to my aioli to make a vegan spread that’s a mashup of a nut nut butter and a traditional aioli.

1. Make or pull out of the fridge some steamed garlic.
2. Get some shelled pecan halves.
3. Let everything sit on the counter for 15-20 minutes.
4. Add equal parts pecan halves and garlic cloves to a food processor.
5. Blend until it is the consistency of chunky peanut butter.
6. Slowly drizzle oil a few drops at a time into the spinning food processor until it is the consistency of warm creamy peanut butter.
7. Season to taste and pulse a few times.
8. Store in the fridge.

Why It Works:

1. You can also use roasted garlic, but the roasted garlic and the pecans together can be bitter.
2. I buy these when they are on sale and store in the freezer. If you do this, add extra time to the next step.
3. When you are doing an emulsion, everything needs to be at room temperature to emulsify.
4. You can adjust this later based on your tastes. You might find, however, that using half and half makes for an easy emulsion because the nut butter helps suspend the oil.
5. You may find that you want to skip the oil step if you like the consistency and there’s enough natural oil in the pecans.
6. When doing an emulsion, the oil has to be added very slowly so that it can be dispersed into the other liquids. Because there are natural oils in the pecans, you probably won’t need that much oil at all.
7. Salt to taste and, if you think it’s on the bitter side, consider adding honey or brown sugar. Blitz again.
8. This should keep for at least a few weeks.

Mods:

1. Add herbs de Provence just before step 6.
2. Add maple syrup at step 7.
3. Add roasted peppers at steps 3 and 4.

Background: I don’t remember where I learned about compound butter, but I think it was while cooking in an institutional catering kitchen that served beurre maître d’hôtel on it’s steaks for “fancy” banquets. Since then, I’ve tried many different combinations for compound butter but the move below is my favorite. I’ll give some alternatives in the mods:

1. Grow some summer squashes and harvest the blossoms before they hit the ground.
2. Grow some cilantro and harvest some leaves before the coriander seeds set.
3. Get a pound of white butter.
4. Get some waxed paper.
5. Let the butter sit for about 15 or 20 minutes.
6. Put the butter in a food processor and pulse it until it’s soft and smooth.
7. Chiffonade the cilantro and squash blossoms.
8. In a bowl with a thick rubber spatula, fold the chiffonade of cilantro and squash blossoms into the butter. Add salt if you want here.
9. Make a cilantro-squash-blossom butter log on the parchment paper, roll up, and twist the ends to compress the butter.
10. Put in the freezer to chill quickly.
11. The day before you are going to serve it, move it to the fridge to soften a bit.

Why It Works

1. Watch out for bees. One time, I found a bee trapped in a closed blossom when I cut into it. If you aren’t into growing squash blossoms, you can try any edible flower: citrus blossoms, clover, daisies, dandelions, hibiscus, honeysuckle, lavender, lilac, mums, nasturtium, pansies, roses, sunflowers and violets. If you aren’t into edible flowers or they are out of season, try a chiffonade of rainbow chard.
2. Cilantro is pretty easy to grow in Central Texas and it’s cheap in the stores. However, if you are one of those cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene people, then try another leafy herb like basil, tarragon, or yarrow.
3. Whiter butter works better than yellow because of the contrast with the ribbons of flowers and herbs.
4. You could use plastic wrap or foil, but these can be annoying to unwrap when frozen.
5. You want to soft enough to get processed by the food processor, but not soft enough to liquefy when blended.
6. Make sure that the food processor blade doesn’t get too hot and cause so much friction that it melts the butter.
7. A chiffonade is just cut ribbons of leafy vegetables or herbs.
8. Completely working the ribbons into the butter should create a pleasing pattern when the butter is sliced.
9. The butter should be still set enough to form into a log. If it’s too melted for that, you could try putting them in to silicon ice pop molds. The log should be the size of a stick of butter, but round. So you should have four them.
10. You can also store three of the four logs in the freezer and put the other in the fridge.
11. Unless you already have one in the fridge.

Mods:

1. Add a dash of lemon, lime, or vinegar for a little acidity.
2. Roll the outside of the log in black pepper for a different look and taste.
3. Try these combinations:
   • Garlic and chive (for potatoes)
   • Basil and oregano
   • Garlic, dill and lemon (for fish)
   • Garlic and tarragon (for chicken)
   • Chimichurri (for beef)
     • red wine vinegar
     • chopped parsley
     • garlic
     • red chilies
     • oregano
     • black pepper

Background: I use a ton of garlic. I use foraged wild garlic/onions. I also rely heavily on roasted garlic from the olive bar at the specialty grocery store for things like the No Cook Pizza Sauce. I use pickled garlic from a local international grocer that specializes in hard-to-find Middle Eastern foods. But I don’t use raw garlic. Unless I buy it from a farmer’s market, any Rocambole garlic, standard purple stripe garlic, or artichoke garlic that comes into my possession goes straight through this process and into the fridge.

1. Buy peeled garlic cloves or peel them yourself if you must. Whatever you do, make sure they are as fresh as possible. I used peeled garlic that is in a plastic container with a lid. Any bulging on the lid suggests that the garlic is past its prime and should be avoided. When you open the container smell the garlic and taste a bight of one. If it tastes off in any way, don’t use it.
2. Get a microwave-safe bowl large enough to fit all the garlic and add the garlic plus two inches of water at the bottom.
3. Microwave the garlic in the water until the water boils. This is about 5 minutes for my microwave.
4. Immediately cover with a lid.
5. Let all the steam naturally dissipate and let it cool down but get it into the fridge or freezer within the hour.
6. Put some in the fridge as is, pickle some with vinegar, and freeze the rest.

Why it works:

1. It’s actually hard to find excellent fresh garlic. I use the microwave, water, and the steam it generates to kind of pasteurize the garlic. This will stop the enzymatic process that makes the garlic go rancid.
2. It helps if it has handles and a lid. I use two small square vintage Corningware dishes with handles and use one for the lid. The handles and the lid are very important, but the move will work without them.
3. You kind of have to watch it until you get the timing dialed in. Every microwave is different. The carryover cooking from the lidded, microwaved dish is where most of the work is done.
4. If you go lidless, you can use a plate to cover. Just make sure it fits snugly and/or weight it down.
5. Once it is cooled, with gentle pressure, you should be able to mash the garlic with a fork in the bottom of the dish without water splashing everywhere. I like my steamed garlic the consistency of roasted garlic, but you can play with the timing to create a firmer result.
6. Use the refrigerated garlic first, then the frozen, then the pickled.

Mods:

1. If you want pickled garlic, skip the microwave and just cover the cloves with vinegar.
2. Blend up a stick of butter with some of the cloves to make garlic butter and preserve the garlic longer.
3. Toss with your favorite herbs before putting in the fridge.

Background: After shoving takeout food in my feelings hole for a couple years during the pandemic, I got curious about eating differently. My kids only ate beige salty foods at the time. Dinner time, which used to be my favorite time of day, became less about cooking something balanced and interesting and more about just slogging through. I needed a new challenge. So I decided to try to eat only plants between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., M-F. Veg stock became central to this challenge. I remembered a few tricks from my days as a restaurant cook and a learned a few new ones. Here are the steps:

1. Get two pounds of cremini mushrooms and chop them coarsely.
2. Put a small amount of oil in a stock pot and sauté the mushrooms.
3. Salt and pepper the mushrooms to taste and stir vigorously.
4. Cut veg for mirepoix or pull the already cut veg you prepped out of the freeze and add to the mushrooms.
5. Sweat your veg in the bottom of the pan for a while on medium to low heat.
6. Pull out all the veg scraps you have from the freezer and add them to the pot.
7. Add any veg you have that’s getting tired in the crisper of your refrigerator.
8. Look around your kitchen for that onion that’s been there a minute and add that.
9. Add your favorite modality of garlic.
10. Throw some bay leaves in there.
11. Cover the vegetables with filtered water and simmer until all the vegetables can be mashed with a chef’s fork.
12. Add a can of tomato paste and whisk until it’s dissolved into the stock.
13. Adjust seasonings.
14. Strain the stock.
15. Use right away or store in the freezer.

Why It Works:

1. Mushrooms are full of umami and cremini mushrooms have more of it than white mushrooms but aren’t as expensive as some exotic mushrooms or dried mushrooms.
2. Cooking the mushrooms brings our more umami.
3. The salt, pepper, oil, moisture, and bits of mushroom agitated by the vigorous stirring will create a fond in the bottom of the pan, which will give your stock more flavor.
4. If frozen, they might splatter a bit.
5. Sweating means you are drawing the moisture out of the veg by heating slowly.
6. While your veg is sweating, it’s a good time to clean out your freezer.
7. Avoid greens. They will make the stock bitter.
8. You are looking for anything that will add more flavor and use up a resource that would otherwise not be used.
9. This step is optional but encouraged.
10. Do bay leaves do anything? If they are fresh, yes. Dried bay leaves are not fresh and, over time, they will lose their flavor. Because every recipe ever only calls for one bay leaf, everyone has a spice jar of expired bay leaves in their spice rack. So it might take more than you think to taste it. Add one more bay leaf each time you make this until you think, “Hmm…That’s too much bay leaf.” Or “Hmmm…I wonder what fresh bay leaf would do.”
11. One way to use this time and energy efficiently is to throw some whole cleaned or peeled vegetables that you want to use cooked in another way. I throw whole peeled carrots in there and pull them out when they are fully cooked. I add garlic and habaneros to make a nice creamy hot sauce. You could boil potatoes in it or steam broccoli in a covered strainer on top. Dense root veg work well here.
12. Like mushrooms, tomato paste is high in umami. But if you add it too early, the concentrated sugars in the paste can burn.
13. At this point, depending on how you season, you could covert it form stock to broth. Stock can be used in anything. Broth is going to have a salt content and flavor profile that narrows its uses. For example, broth will get saltier as it is reduced for a sauce. The addition of Chinese five spice will take it in a different direction than Italian seasoning.
14. I use a chinois for straining. If the fine mesh one is dirty, I use a coarse China cap strainer and strain into another stock pot or pitcher.
15. I make beans with this right away and store the rest in labeled take-out containers in the freezer.

Mods:

1. Add dried mushrooms when you add the water. This will boost the flavor, but it can be expensive. Because I live in a place where it’s miserably hot most of the year, I sun dry mushrooms in the summer for this purpose.
2. Throw a bumper crops of summer squash, zucchini, and tomatoes in there during the summer, if you’ve got them.
3. Add miso paste at the end when you are adjusting the seasonings. This will boost the salt and umami, too, but go easy until you have it dialed in.
4. When I need veg stock but only have a few odds and ends, I use “Better Than Bouillon” vegetable base. Like miso, go easy. It will add umami, but also sodium.

Background: I grow peppers and sometimes I have a bumper crop. Like many moves, this is both a prepped ingredient and a preservation technique. Roasted peppers are a great ingredient to have on hand. It’s not complicated and the same techniques work with any pepper, regardless where it falls on the Scoville scale.

1. Get a bunch of peppers or grab one that’s about to start getting wrinkly.
2. Pick the method of heat that’s most convenient for you:
   • Electric stove
   • Gas stove
   • Broiler
   • Wood fired grill
   • Coals
   • Blowtorch
3. If indoors, turn on the hood.
4. Unless you are broiling or grilling, you want the pepper touching the heat source or the heat source touching the pepper. Turn with tongs until you get all sides of the pepper.
5. If using a thick walled pepper like a jalapeño or bell pepper, completely char the skin of the pepper so that it’s black and flaking off. If using a thinned walled pepper like a habanero, just blister the skin as best you can.
6. Put the peppers directly in a glass bowl and put a heavy plate on top of it.
7. Go about your other prep work.
8. When the peppers are cool enough to handle carefully, make a slit all the way up the side to the stem. You should be able to grab the stem and most of the seeds and remove them in one piece.
9. Open up the destemmed, seeded pepper and scrape the remaining seeds off the flesh with the back your knife.
10. Flip the pepper over to its charred side and scrape the skin off.
11. Leave in large pieces, cut into strips, or dice.
12. Cover with salt and vinegar to pickle or refrigerate or freeze them as they are.

Why It Works

1. It’s best to do this when the peppers are fresh. The flavor is better and the skin comes off better. But if my options were to throw away a pepper in a couple of days or do this move now, I’m going do this move now regardless of wrinkles.
2. The method doesn’t change depending on heat source
   • Place the pepper directly on the coil burner or flattop burner. (I haven’t tried this with induction burners.)
   • Place the peppers directly over the flame. I use a wire rack or grill grate to position them on.
   • Place the peppers directly under the heating element.
   • These last two will change the flavor in nice ways and are my favorite. Any time I fire up the grill, campfire, I use the time before the fire is ready to cook my main meat or veg to flame roast peppers, char corn, or blister tomatoes. Otherwise, I feel like I’m wasting fuel.
   • Put the pepper directly onto coals, caveman style. This is the messiest method, but it works.
   • The blowtorch method could work if you wanted both blistered skin and a fruity raw-ish pepper taste. It’s not going to result in a steamed pepper the way the other methods will eventually.
3. It’s going to get smoky, but I find the smell pleasant.
4. With an open flame on a grill or firepit, it’s ok if the flame touches the pepper. For most live fire applications, cooks want coals, not flame. This might be an exception.
5. If you go too far you will end up burning the flesh of the pepper and the skin. This will result in a pepper that cannot be peeled in that spot.
6. You are using the residual heat from the pepper to steam the skin off and steam the flesh.
7. I don’t think you can go too long on this step unless you leave it in the danger zone (below 140 degrees) for several hours. It can be done in as little as 15 minutes or you can wait an hour.
8. A few seeds left on the pepper is better than rinsing the whole thing in the name of being thorough. That’s washing away flavor. Sometimes I rinse anyway if it’s a really really hot pepper.
9. If you’ve done it correctly, the skin should lay in flat sheet on the cutting board and be easy to cut into strips.
10. Leave some charred skin on for character.
11. Large pieces will let you decide on your final presentation later. Diced peppers will limit you to, well, diced peppers.
12. I like to do refrigerate some, pickle some, and freeze some.

Mods:

1. Because this move is so versatile and simple, the method mods are mostly related to the peppers you pick and your heat source, but if you’ve done this move and you want to put a twist on it, think about one ingredient or seasoning you could add to it that would change the ingredient. Consider the following:
   • Toss in oil and use in a dish right away, maybe something with goat cheese.
   • Add salt and pepper or seasonings to the peppers before you freeze and see how that changes the applications you think of using them for.
   • This method is the basis for many other stuffed pepper recipes like chile relleno. In fact, I think it should be the first step on all stuffed pepper recipes. It doesn’t have to be fried like chile relleno, but if you can’t cut through a stuffed pepper with a fork, then the pepper just becomes a garnish and a vessel for the stuffing and that’s a waste of a pepper.

Background: I always have about a half a loaf of bread on my counter that’s about to go bad. Usually it’s sandwich loaf of sourdough. Usually going bad means getting moldy. Here’s what I do:

1. Unwrap the bread and save the plastic wrap to recycle at the grocery store.
2. If it’s just a slice or two or three, put the slices whole in the back of the fridge where it will dry out without molding. If you have a half a loaf or more, cube it and chill it on a sheet tray.
3. When you have enough for a good batch, or want to reclaim the fridge space, break it into irregular pieces with your hands, or, if cubed on a sheet tray, move to the next step.
4. On a sheet tray or foil or foil on a sheet tray, toss with grapeseed oil and kosher salt.
5. Bake at 350 until the perfect golden brown color, about 15 to 20 minutes. Keep an eye on it. Ovens vary.

Why It Works:

1. Leaving bread in plastic wrap will speed up the molding process by trapping moisture inside.
2. Putting bread in the fridge will actually hasten the process of staling by changing the structure of the starch molecules. This change results in the bread being less able to hold onto moisture, which is what you want in a crouton.
3. I like the rustic quality of hand-broken bread croutons, but I also appreciate a nice uniform batch of croutons. I let the shape of the croutons I have dictate the style of soup or salad I make with them.
4. Any oil will work. Any salt will work. Seasonings are welcome, but leave off the herbs.
5. The perfect golden brown color is subjective, but burnt tends to be more defined. You want it not burnt. And not too toasted. And not just stale bread.

Mods:

1. Play with different types of breads. Heartier nuttier seedier whole wheatier breads will yield a different result, but they also might inspire a different kind of soup or salad. The healthier the bread, the thinner the croutons should be. With a really cunchy granola hippie bread, I would go with sheets instead of cubes.
2. Try different seasonings, but keep in mind that garlic and dried leafy herbs will burn. If you want certain flavors in the croutons, look for those flavors in the bread.
3. You can add hard cheeses like parmesan, asiago, and manchego just before you bake them to form a latticework of cheesy croutons.