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.

Background: You could go your whole life making chicken stocks and broths from rotisserie chicken like I described in another move. However, if you want to make a richer, more flavorful stock, use this move. It’s still faster than roasting a bird and using its bones.

1. Add to your largest stock pot all the raw chicken thigh bones you’ve been saving in the freezer.
2. Add any raw wings, feet, and heads and that you have saved.
3. Sauté for a bit in fat you have saved for this reason.
4. Add mirepoix from the freezer.
5. Sauté for a bit more. There should be some fond, but no burnt bits.
6. Add two rotisserie chicken carcasses.
7. Cover with water and bring to a boil.
8. Reduce temp and simmer until any chicken meat left tastes bland.

Why It Works:

1. Raw chicken will impart more flavor and collagen into your stock. You know the gelatinous stuff that forms at the bottom of a rotisserie chicken container as it chills? That’s the stuff we want in our stock. The roasting process has released some of it.
2. These parts are rich in collagen. Avoid organ meats though. They change the flavor significantly.
3. You can use chicken fat rendered from raw chicken skin you took off the thighs. This is a good move to do after making chicken burgers from thighs. You can also use a little lard or bacon fat or whatever you have.
4. What do you mean you don’t have mirepoix in the freezer?
5. The fond will add flavor, but the burnt bits will add bitterness.
6. You can add the skin too, if you have it. But it is really salty. There’s some debate, at this point, if you are still making stock if you are adding salt. Stock traditionally doesn’t have salt in for maximum flexibility. Many classic French recipes will call for reducing stock down several times. Salting at the beginning stage will yield a final sauce that’s too salty. This distinction is usually lost once you leave the realm of classic French cooking. Many people and companies salt their stocks. Do what is convenient for you if you aren’t making demi-glace.
7. I bring to a roiling boil to ease my mind. Big bubbles, no troubles.
8. I like to clean our the fridge and/or freezer while I do this. I often find bags of carrots that came home leftover from lunches. I find onion tops or tomatoes or green onions that were about to go bad. Sometimes I find a pork shoulder bone or something. Throw it all in there.

Mods

1. Make broth instead of stock by adding seasonings and more raw meat to the mix. The chicken thighs you were going to use for burgers but didn’t get around to grinding would be perfect.
2. If you don’t have enough veg but you still want to get rid of some carcasses, consider using a vegetable base. I use Better Than Bouillon’s Seasoned Vegetable Base so I can make veg stock quickly.
3. Throw some other roasted meat bones to take it from a whiter stock to a browner stock.

Background: My kids love chicken burgers. I love making all kinds of things with ground meats. I don’t like buying pre-ground meat, however. The cheap stuff has serious supply chain questions and the expensive stuff is, well, expensive. I have a couple different meat grinder attachments for my stand mixer, one that can go through the dishwasher, which I use for delicate things like fish cakes, and another more heavy duty (hand-washable) one that I use for things like grinding beef. I might use either for this move that relies on ground chicken. Here are the steps:

1. Long before you want them (maybe when they are on sale), buy some chicken thighs on the bone with the skin.
2. Freeze them right away.
3. The day before you want to grind them, start to defrost them.
4. Debone and deskin the chicken thighs, but leave any fat. They should still be a little frozen, which makes this move easier. Save the bones for stock.
5. Cut the pieces of thigh into chunks that will easily pass through your meat grinder.
6. Pass through a meat grinder.
7. Add seasonings and mix with hands or spatula. Don’t add salt or pepper yet.
8. Make a panade and mix that into the ground meat.
9. Pass through a meat grinder again.
10. Use a mechanical ice cream scoop to make equal patties.
11. Salt and pepper the patties, to taste, right before you cook.
12. Cook in whatever manner your people like their burgers. For us, it’s on a cast iron griddle with a bit of oil or butter.

Why It Works:

1. Chicken thigh meat is the most flavorful, the skin and bones are good for other moves.
2. Freezing them will make this process a little easier because grinding meat is easier when it’s partially frozen.
3. If you want to make these the same day, I would still chill them in the freezer as long as possible. You can also chill the parts of the grinder if you are pressed for time.
4. The skins can be smoked and crisped up like bacon and the bones are great for stock.
5. For me this is about 1 inch chunks.
6. A first pass will make everything more uniform and easy to mix.
7. I only use roasted or blanched garlic for this part, but season to your tastes. However, salt–or any seasoning with salt in it–should be added at the very end.
8. The panade is a mix of old bread and milk that can be used to keep leaner meats moist.
9. A second pass through the grinder will further mix the panade and whatever other seasonings you added.
10. This will help keep your burgers uniform. Over time, this will help with purchasing and portioning. I use a scoop that creates the right size patty for a Martin’s Potato Slider Roll.
11. When you salt the meat and then mix it and then cook it, it changes the texture of the meat, making it more sausage-y. You want a loosey, juicy texture. That said, if you want to take a crack at chicken sausage, go for it. Just don’t put it on a burger bun, please.
12. This move benefits from a little browning, so the butter on cast iron helps with that.

Mods:

1. This also works great with turkey thighs.
2. You could make these into chicken meatballs, too. Either of the Superbowl Meatball moves would work here.
3. You could bread them and fry them for a crispy chicken sandwich.

If you’ve made a crudités platter lately and set aside some of the peeled, cut, and washed carrots and celery, you are already about half way to mirepoix. This move is a classic French one. I’ve outlined it below:

1. Buy 2 pounds of carrots, 2 pounds of celery, and 4 pounds of onions.
2. Peel the carrots. When you peel, hold the carrot upside down with the root end down and twirl as you move the peeler up and down.
3. Determine whether you will be making a brown stock, a white stock, or soup. Dice the mirepoix finer for a white stock than a brown, and finer for a soup than a white stock.
4. Dice the carrots. Save the ends for stock.
5. Wash and dice the celery. Save the ends for stock.
6. Peel and dice the onions. Save the outer peel for stock.
7. At this point, you can make your stock, soup, or sauce or you can freeze for a future stock, soup, or sauce.

Why It Works:

1. This is the ratio for mirepoix.
2. You don’t have to peel in only one direction and you don’t have to peel at a 45 degree angle. Lay down some pink butcher paper if you want to catch the compost.
3. Brown stock will be simmered longer, so the veg can be chopped more coarsely. A white stock (made from animals like chicken) doesn’t need to simmer as long, so you can chop finer. A soup will come together quickly, so you want the veg small enough to be cooked through by the time all the other components are at the desired level of doneness.
4. If you are unsure, search how to dice veg for mirepoix, but don’t think you have to dice like a French chef to make a usable mirepoix.
5. I like to separate the ugly odds and ends of the carrots and celery and the peels from the unions and mix those in with the course, ugly mirepoix for stock. I save the nice pretty stuff for soups. Everything has its use.
6. Might as well divert an onion to make Quick Pickled Onions.
7. I like to make stock at the same time and freeze the best mirepoix for a future soup or sauce.

Mods:

1. The holy trinity: Swap the carrot out for green pepper if you are going to make a bunch of Cajun and Creole cuisine.
2. Soffritto: cook the mirepoix down in olive oil and you have the basis for several Italian sauces.
3. Leeks can be substituted for onions.

Background: I love caramelized onions, but I don’t often have time these days to baby a pan for 40 minutes. Instead, I’ve turned to a quick sauté, followed by a quick braise. The results are slightly different than caramelized onions, but the applications for the two ingredients are similar. Here’s the move:

1. Buy a yellow onion or divert some onions from your Quick Pickled Onion move.
2. French cut the onion.
3. Heat up a skillet on high, add butter, and turn on the hood.
4. Throw the onion in the pan just after some of the butter starts to brown, but before it starts to smoke too much.
5. Turn down the heat to medium.
6. Salt and pepper to taste.
7. Stir the onions a couple times. Turn to something else for a bit, and check back on them.
8. When they are cooked and they are kind of sticking to the pan, but still kind of firm and there’s enough Maillard reaction going on in the pan–it doesn’t all have to be happening on the onions–add enough water or cooking liquid to deglaze the pan, getting all the fond off the bottom of the pan.
9. Reduce down to your desired consistency.

Why It Works:

1. It works great as a side project for the quick pickled onions. You are already French cutting the onions.
2. You can vary the cut of the onions. You could also dice for more surface area (and if that’s how you like them on a burger).
3. You could also use oil if you want these to be vegan. In that case, I would use a dark braising liquid if you want a richer color.
4. Browning the butter is a cheat to get the color of caramelized onions in half the time.
5. You can adjust the heat to multitask. If the other project you are doing at the time is very time consuming and requires your attention (cutting up a whole, raw, chicken for example), you might want to turn it down to medium-low.
6. You can adjust the amount of salt and pepper by considering the braising liquid you are going to use.
7. This move is forgiving, as are onions. Different outcomes will mostly have different applications. After, all, onion brûlée (burnt onion) is an actual thing with applications in the culinary world.
8. This move is quicker than caramelized onions. Unlike caramelized onions, this move gets its color (and much of it’s flavor) from the braising liquid and the fond. This also steams the onions quickly rather than cooking them in their own liquid and butter more slowly, which is also kind of a braise, if we’re being honest. This is a faster braise.

Mods:

1. The mods in this move are all about experimenting with different kinds of liquids for deglazing and braising. Of course water is fine. I use more butter and salt if I’m using water.
2. Add Herbes de Provence when you add the salt and pepper, especially if you are using water to deglaze, to make them come to life.
3. You can use stock–either vegetable or animal–for a richer, French onion soup kind of flavor.
4. You can experiment with any kinds of alcohols. Beer and wine work.
5. For a brighter taste without the alcohol, squeeze a lemon or lime into it and add a bit of water to keep the sugars from burning.

Background: I love mushrooms but no one in my family likes them. So when I have time to myself or I’m mad at them for yelling at me while I’m making dinner, I make these mushrooms. I use oil so it’s a vegan ingredient. I’m not a vegan but I love the challenge of putting together vegan dishes that taste good.

1. Buy some whole mushrooms. White button mushrooms will work, but all the other mushrooms out there are more interesting. I use crimini and blue oyster mushrooms.
2. Slice them thin or thick, but imagine scenarios for both thin dry sauteed mushrooms and thick juicy braised mushrooms. This recipe will make both.
3. Buy a can or bottle of stout beer.
4. Get a cast iron pan ripping hot and add oil.
5. Turn on the hood and add the mushrooms in a single layer quickly before the smoke alarm goes off.
6. Salt and pepper to taste.
7. Cook until the edges get brown (or more brown, anyway).
8. Take about half of the mushrooms out and save for another move.
9. Deglaze the pan with with some beer. You should have plenty left to drink.
10. Scrape the pan with a wooden spatula to get the fond of the bottom.
11. Simmer until the liquid is nappe (thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and stay separate when run your finger across the back).
12. Toss the mushrooms in the liquid a few times and serve or store.

Why It Works:

1. I add crimini mushrooms to whichever ones I pick (usually blue oyster mushrooms because they are the cheapest of the interesting mushrooms).
2. If you can imagine more scenarios where you’d want drier sauteed mushrooms, slice thin ones. If you like dishes with more chunky juicy.
3. You can try this with any beer you like. I like the deep color and sweetness of a stout. A porter would work. A brown ale would work. It should also be a beer you like to drink.
4. You could do this in any pan, but I find the high heat of a cast iron pan and hot oil leads to a great initial sauté.
5. If you want all the mushrooms to be a softer texture and you don’t want to pull any before adding the beer, then it’s not necessary to have a single layer. You can just do one big batch.
6. I like course ground black pepper and kosher salt.
7. You should start to see a fair amount of Maillard reaction.
8. I like to take some mushrooms our at this stage because I love the flavor and texture. Now I have a dry prepped mushroom for things like stir fries and a saucy mushrooms for steaks and pastas.
9. The deglaze step used to be a step I used after doing the 7 steps above to clean the pan. (Yes, I know it’s cast iron. You could do this in another pan if you are precious about your cast iron.)
10. This is where a lot of the flavor is. You are going to reduce it down.
11. You can pull your mushrooms out at any point here when you like the texture, but want to reduce the liquid further.
12. I like to eat the dry ones right away in eggs, stir fries, quesadillas and other dishes where moisture would make the texture weird. The saucy ones are great over meats or grains like brown rice or farro. Pizza would be a great choice for the dry mushrooms.

Mods:

1. Definitely try this with butter, making sure to note the smoke point will be lower. Even if you are vegan but cook for ovo-lacto folks, this could be worth trying. In that case, I might try to pull some of the mushrooms for the vegans and then monter au beurre at the end for those who eat butter.
2. Throw these on the grill or smoker in a perforated grill-safe vessel. (I use an old stainless steel, flat-bottomed colander.) The smoked version is even better.
3. You could add some onions to the mix at the same time as the mushrooms if you know that in every instance you’d serve these, you’d also want onions.
4. You could do the same move with red wine, white wine, or sherry.

Background: I love guacamole. How can you not? It’s made from fatty fruit. Is it a move? If you can bring it to a party, eat it out of the container with chips, or put it on a taco, it must be something. Here are the steps:

1. Buy 3 perfect small avocados, even if you only want one avocado’s worth of guac.
2. Pick the best avocado and slice in half around the pit.
3. Is this the best one? If not try another one. Keep going until you find the best one. Use that one and the second best one for guacamole. Keep the third best one for another recipe. If all three are perfect, congratulations, you have a lot of guacamole.
4. Pit the avocados using the chef’s knife trick.
5. Locate the little black base of the stem and remove it before it accidentally gets in the guac.
6. Scoop out the avocado into a bowl with a spoon and mash with a fork. Leave some different sized chunks.
7. Stir in pico de gallo until it looks like the kind of guac you like.
8. Serve with the strongest chips you can find or modify the Corn Crisp Strips to be triangles.

Why It Works:

1. Prefect avocados are the key to everything. I have weird proprioception, but somehow I can do this by touch. The trick I use is that they should be totally black but harder than I think they should be. You think guac, you think mashable. But it shouldn’t feel mashable through the skin. It should just feel, well, perfectly ripe.
2. Pay very close attention to your fingers as you press on what you think is the best one.
3. So the avocado picking thing is how you develop your avocado proprioception. If you grab the one you think is best and it’s not. Then you try again. If that’s not. Try again. Over time, you will remember what the best feels like.
4. This is when you hold the avocado in a towel and lightly tap the center of the pit with the blade of a chef’s knife. Obviously cover your avocado hand with the towel completely.
5. The best guac can be ruined by biting down on that bitter little sucker.
6. You want the texture to be varied. It shouldn’t be a uniform whipped thing.
7. This is your preference, but if it looks like salsa with avocado, you aren’t making guac anymore. That said, salsa with avocado is a great thing to do with the third best avocado.
8. I know my guac is the texture and density I like with the thin variety of tortilla chips break off in mid dip.

Mods:

1. Add chilled boiled or grilled shrimp.
2. Add chilled crab meat.
3. Add roasted peppers of your choice and heat level.

Background: My house is chaos. Someone is always having a meltdown in the kitchen. (Sometimes it’s me.) I want to make sure I can find quiet corners to watch the game and not be stuck in the downstairs. I have to have buttered noodles on hand at all times. My kids are all picky eaters and my wife and like to be adventurous. I’m trying to expand the things I serve without expanding the work and the dishes. I know the flavors and textures in this move can be recombined in many ways and there’s something for everyone. This might be considered a recipe except for the fact that it might result in buttered noodles for one, meatballs with no cook pizza sauce over noodles for another, soy marinated meatballs over rice for another. Here are the moves.

1. Buy a pound of ground pork.
2. Make some buttered noodles if you don’t have them on hand.
3. Get a big bowl and put two pieces of the heel of a loaf of bread. It’s fine if you only have 1 heel.
4. Pour milk over the bread and let it sit until the milk soaks in.
5. Mix in the ground pork.
6. Mix meat with garlic. I use garlic confit but you can use blanched granulated or raw.
7. Season the meat with a few pinches of salt. Go easy.
8. Take a 1-ounce ice-cream scoop and scoop out half the meatballs onto a foil sheet on a sheet tray or the tray of an air fryer.
9. Scoop out the other half on another sheet of foil.
10. Baste one batch of meatballs with extra dark soy sauce.
11. Roll the other batch of meatballs in your favorite dried Italian herbs and a little salt.
12. Cook on 400 degrees in whatever oven, convection oven, or air fryer you’ve got until the internal temp is 160 degrees.
13. Serve with No Cook Pizza Sauce, buttered noodles, and Parmesan cheese.

Why It Works:

1. I often grind my own but I used store bought 80/20 this time because three kids and Super Bowl. This muscle to fat ratio will help keep the meat moist if it stays in a bit too long because if a big play. Double it if you want to guarantee leftovers. This should make 16 meatballs. Adjust according to your crowd.
2. It doesn’t really matter what kind of buttered noodles you use. I would use something as sturdy or sturdier than Spaghetti. You know you aren’t in charge of the noodle selection.
3. Any piece of bread will work. I use the heel because no one will eat it.
4. You are essentially making a quick panade here. This is another line of defense (ahem) in case the game prevents you from pulling them out in time.
5. You want to kind of mash up the panade as you do this.
6. You could mix the garlic and the panade in at the same time, but because they are two different textures, I like to mix them separately for even distribution.
7. There’s going to be salt on the outside of the meatballs too.
8. Use one of those mechanical scoops. I just leave the bottom flat. So I guess technically they are more like meatwads or meatmounds than meat balls.
9. My air fryer has two shelves so I use foil on top of those. You could use the same sheet tray and do two batches or put each batch on its own sheet tray. It depends on how many dishes you want to do.
10. I use a silicone basting brush for even coverage. This also allows me to recollect soy sauce that has dripped onto the foil to reapply another coat.
11. I mixed basil, oregano, chives and salt.
12. I use this guide on cooking temps and I use a Thermoworks Thermapen to measure. But this recipe is very forgiving on both sides of the ideal temp.
13. The key to this move is that you are prepping for two meals (or a meal and a party).

Mods:

1. If you have rice ready to go, and you add leftover soy sauce meatballs to dry slaw plus mod 2, you have lunch or dinner for tomorrow.
2. If cover the leftover Italian seasoning meatballs in No Cook Pizza Sauce, they will keep for a few days and you have another meal (Meatball sandwich?) or pasta or pizza topping.

Background: So the big game is tomorrow and everyone is probably pumped about a new wing sauce or rib recipe. My contribution to a party is often the crudités platter. I love celery and ranch dressing as a snack, especially on big food days. Most people will eat a carrot or two. And hosts are usually grateful that someone is willing to bring a fresh vegetable contribution that’s not going to steal the show from any other dish. (Or, as Jim Gaffigan says, “Crudités is just French for ‘throwaway in a couple hours.”) I often make my own ranch or onion dip and sometimes I even make my own sour cream. Sometimes I put it in a bread bowl or even a hollowed out cabbage head when I know there’s a gluten issue. So there’s enough to keep me interested in the project. But that’s not why I do it. I do it because I like to stand there and get in the zone of just peeling carrots, washing celery, cutting up the sticks in a relatively uniform size, breaking the little florets of broccoli off the stalk, and arranging everything before going to a party. I find it calming. So it’s just a thing I do. It’s not a recipe. It’s just a series of moves, which I’ve enumerated below:

1. Buy 5 pounds of carrots and 5 pounds of celery.
2. Buy as much raw broccoli heads as you think people will eat (or more likely as much as looks nice and balanced on the plate, which is never the same amount).
3. Buy whatever other vegetables you want. I usually get radishes and maybe some multicolored grape tomatoes, depending on the season.
4. Get out a stock pot and something to put your compost in.
5. Start peeling the carrots into the compost container.
6. Cut off both ends of the carrots and throw them in the stock pot.
7. Cut all the carrots into even lengths. Halve them. Then quarter them. Rinse and strain in a colander.
8. Put however much will fit into your crudités platter and set aside the rest.
9. Cut the root end off the celery and throw into the stock pot.
10. Cut the celery into sticks the same length as the carrots, going straight through the whole bunch of celery.
11. Pick out all the leaves and put in the stock or compost. Pick out all the pieces that are less than perfect and put in the stock pot. Rinse and strain the good sticks in a colander.
12. If you aren’t making stock at the same time, put the contents of the pot in a freezer safe container and save until you are. If you are making stock, add onions and whatever meat scraps you have in the fridge or freezer.
13. Put however much will fit into your crudités platter and set aside the rest for mirepoix.
14. Break the heads off the broccoli and scatter or put in a pile or whatever. You know how vegetable patters work. Save the stalk and stems for other moves.
15. Take the platter to the party and take it home at the end. Your choice on what to do with the veg. How well do you know these people? I’d compost.

Why it works:

1. This is way more than you need. You are buying for the next move at the same time. Don’t buy baby carrots ever. They are the worst.
2. I always eat a few of these just to remind myself they they are only a vehicle for ranch dressing.
3. I always get two 3 pound bags of onions at the same time, but they don’t go on the platter. They are for mirepoix, which is the next move. Whatever else I buy is going to have as much color and as little prep as possible. That’s why I like multicolored grape tomatoes. A quick wash and they are ready to go. Radishes require more cleaning, but I think they are more satisfying and interesting.
4. Our city has municipal composting, so I just use the compost containers in our kitchen, ultimately. But I have a shuttle that I peel into.
5. I often put down a fresh piece of pink butcher paper to collect all the peelings and throw that into the compost (unless my own compost needs organic matter, which it usually doesn’t). When you peel, hold the carrot upside down with the root end on the paper and twirl as you move the peeler up and down. You don’t have to peel in only one direction and you don’t have to peel at a 45 degree angle.
6. I don’t know, physics?
7. There is much debate about the optimal length. I favor shorter sticks for a higher ranch-to-veg ratio. I feel like longer sticks just encourage double dipping.
8. My go-to platter is a large cheap plastic one with a lid and a nesting dip bowl that also has a lid. This is great for transport. I should probably invest in a prettier, more earth conscious one. Maybe I’ll do that when there is less breakage in our kitchen.
9. I mean, why is this even a step?
10. Trim the ends off the sticks that came from the end opposite to the root. They are usually the part exposed to the most air in transport and thus have started to oxidize more quickly than the rest of the stalk. They are fine for stock though.
11. Some people don’t like celery leaves in their stock because it can be bitter. I always throw them in, but I bet there are better things to do with them. Set them aside.
12. I mean, come on, if people can read this, don’t they already know all of this?
13. The real secret to this move is all the things you are prepping and setting aside. You now have 6 pounds of onions, peeled carrots, washed and chopped celery, celery leaves, a defloreted broccoli head or two, and a bunch of odds and ends in the stock pot. You are already well on your way to several quick healthy moves like bugs on a log, a broccoli slaw, mirepoix, and a pot of stock or broth, quick pickled onions, and caramelized onions.

Mods:

1. Use whatever fresh veg you like. The point is you are prepping ingredients for your next meals after the party.
2. Use whatever dip you like. But you know everyone really just wants ranch. Or maybe hummus, depending on your crowd.
3. Throw some daikon in there just to keep people guessing.

Background: I’m the only person in my family that likes bulb onions. (Everyone strangely loves foraging for wild onions and will eat the green bits in ranch dressing.) I really like all onions. So I have to find ways to preserve them so that I can garnish my meals with onions without putting them in everything. I have dried onions and caramelized onions and pickled onions and frozen onions stashed in a lot of places in my fridge. This isn’t cooking. It’s merely some moves I do when I’ve got some time in the kitchen (usually when I’m making stock). Here are the steps:

1. Buy a 3 lb bag of tricolor onions. I like the H-E-B Texas Roots Tri-Color Onions bag.
2. Buy a regular-mouth canning funnel if you don’t have one.
3. Buy a case of 16oz regular mouth mason jars if you don’t keep any on hand.
4. When you are making (or about to make) stock or broth, start this process.
5. Separate the onions into red, white and yellow.
6. See how many of each color you are working with. Look at the veg you’ve been saving for stock in the freezer and consider whether it has enough onions. If your stock veg has no onions at all, use all the yellow onions. If there are some onions in it, use one of the onions. You are going for mirepoix ratios, which are two-to-one-to-one onions to carrots to celery. Set aside any remaining yellow onions for caramelized onions, which is another move.
7. Cut the tops and bottoms off all the red and white onions and throw them in the stock pot.
8. Cut the onions in half and peel the outer skin and the outermost layer of onion and throw all that in the stock pot.
9. French cut the red onions.
10. Dice the white onions.
11. Get some glass canning jars and fill to the top as many as onions as will fit. You don’t have to pack them tight.
12. Pour white vinegar in about half way up the jar.
13. Add several generous pinches of salt.
14. Add water to just below the ring.
15. Put the lid on and agitate for a few shakes.
16. Adjust the salt and acidity to taste.

Why it works:

1. I like this because I don’t have use a bunch of plastic bags to get 3 kinds of onions. It’s also fun because they vary how many of each onions are in there so sometimes you are making more red pickled onions, sometimes more white, and sometimes more caramelized onions.
2. I have a couple of these because I keep tons of things in Mason jars in the fridge and it helps with filling them without a mess.
3. I have all sizes of jars for the fridge, but I like the 16oz regular mouth mason jars for onions. For quick pickles, I use plastic lids because I can run them through the dishwasher without rusting.
4. If you aren’t making stock or broth, start a stock or broth container in the freezer.
5. Obviously you could pickle all of them in the same way. I just like creating variety this way.
6. Caramelized onions can be done at the same time if you like.
7. The proper way to French or dice an onion is to leave the bottom (with the root fragments) on so that the onion stays together. I don’t do it this way because I want every spare bit of onion I can in the stock. Because all the onions in my house are preserved, I often don’t have a ton of onions that need to be used ASAP.
8. See no. 7.
9. I’ll get around to Frenching onions at some point. Google it until then if you don’t know.
10. You know how to dice.
11. A glass bowl with a plastic lid will work fine, too. I just don’t find that way as storage-conscious.
12. You can use whatever white vinegar you like. Just note the acidity level on the label. After you do this a couple times you will have adjusted the vinegar level to taste.
13. See 12.
14. See 12.
15. When you get into a good cycle with these, you can start saving the Duke’s lids from the Green Apple Tartar Sauce move. They fit 16 ounce regular-mouth mason jars.
16. See 12.

Mods:

1. Once you get in a rhythm, start experimenting with various combinations of seeds, herbs, and garlic. I’m not even going to suggest any. You are smart and have Google, the garden, and the wilderness for inspiration.
2. Vary the vinegar, if you like. I wouldn’t do balsamic vinegar with these, but any kind of red vinegar works with the red onions and any kind of white vinegar works with the white onions. I use white for both because the color leaches out of the red onions and turns it red anyway. People tend to give me vinegar as gifts so I usually have plenty of variety and will mix it up depending on mood.
3. Add sugar. I don’t usually add sugar to my onions because I am bitter and like my foods that way. But sometimes I like sweet things.