Gamoran - Cooking scrappy: 100 recipes to help you stop wasting food, save money, and love what you eat

This book is dedicated to Mom and Dad.Scraps are simply trash without you. When I was growing up, my mother made sure my siblings and I were dedicated members of the Clean Plate Club. Lets be honest: I am still a tried-and-true member today. She instilled in us a sense that food was sacred, something to be grateful for; something to savor. My mother taught me that a good meal could be a gathering tool; a prompt for good conversation and companionship. But above all, she taught my brother and sister and me to respect food: to understand where it came from, how it was prepared, and the magical way it somehow nourished both our bodies and hearts. From the moment I met Joel, I could tell he cared for food with the same warmth and reverence my mother had.

He is one of the most enthusiastic and passionate people Ive ever met... but its his love for foodand food scrapsthat makes Joel one of the most forward-thinking chefs in the business. That youve picked up this book means you might already be aware of the staggering economic impact of wasted food: 40 percent of the food in the United States is wasted and 20 percent of the food we buy never gets eatenfor the average family of four, thats $1,500 a year in the trash. But the environmental impact is perhaps even more devastating. Food is the biggest contributor to landfills, and the methane gases that are released contribute more to climate pollution than all the cars in the state of Georgia combined. Our food system is a complicated and global problem, but an alarming 42 percent of our wasted food occurs at home.

That means the at-home chef has a lot of say in this fight against food waste and, frankly, a lot of power to change these statistics. From the tops of your strawberries to the stalest slices of bread, inside this book youll find one hundred recipes that will remind you of the power food has to comfort us and nourish us, as well as the power we have to see a little differently, make a few changes, and have a lasting positive impact on the food sources we love. My mother taught me to respect food, and Joel taught me to save it... so Im inviting you to join a movement that makes real change by getting scrappy. Whos with me? Katie Couric Contents

So, there I am, freaking out on the F train. Not that that is unusualits absolutely normal for me to have massive anxiety on a packed sweaty subway from Manhattan to Brooklynbut tonight is different.

Im cooking to celebrate my fiancs new job. Im an hour and a half late, and there is no way that I am going to beat her home. But, hell, Im a man in love. I am determined to make this work. I jet out of the subway, jump on my scooter, and head straight to the butcher to grab one of his rock star racks of lamb. (Butchers either throw the unsalable stuff they trim from steaks, chops, and roasts into ground meat, or they sell it to a renderer.) Theyre usually happy to give it to their good customers. Back on the scooter, I hop over to the cheap market on Court Street to snag some Yukon Gold potatoes and a handful of dandelion greens. (Butchers either throw the unsalable stuff they trim from steaks, chops, and roasts into ground meat, or they sell it to a renderer.) Theyre usually happy to give it to their good customers. Back on the scooter, I hop over to the cheap market on Court Street to snag some Yukon Gold potatoes and a handful of dandelion greens.

I dont really have a plan. I just figure lamb, potatoes, greenshow can this go wrong? Crashing through the front door, I barely hit every other step on the way to our third-floor walk-up, completely forgetting that our oven is on the fritz. Also, out of olive oil! Dang, its too late to go back to the store. Ive got just thirty minutes to whip up something spectacular. I season the lamb with a little cumin, then salt and pepper, and sear the meaty parts in a dry cast-iron skillet. The most versatile pan you will ever own! I move the lamb to one side of the pan and throw in the lamb scraps. The most versatile pan you will ever own! I move the lamb to one side of the pan and throw in the lamb scraps.

In a few minutes, I have a slick of lamb fat for frying the potatoes. I am making Angiolinas favorite crispy Hasselback potatoes, which call for fanning the taters. No sweat. Got a hack for that. Just put a wooden spoon on a work surface, lay a potato in the hollow of the spoon, and slice. The edges of the spoon stop the knife before it cuts all the way through.

Now, normally Hasselbacks are baked, but remember, no oven. No problem. All I need is another pan. I brown the potatoes all over in the lamb fat in the first pan, scatter on salt, pepper, and nutmeg, throw in a fist of water to create some steam, and invert a second pan over the top. Instant stovetop oven. Now all thats left is to saut the greens and Ive made it. Oil!?! What the hell am I going to do for oil? When in doubt, stare into the fridge.

And once again the fridge gods deliver. There in the back corner of the top shelf is a single anchovy, slippery in its can of oil. Perfect. Anchovy and oil go into another pan along with some garlic and red chile. Greens in, and I still have ten minutes left before Ang comes home. I line the kitchen table with some brown parchment paper and scribble CONGRATS! down the middle with a marker.

I grab some candles left over from Chanukah, melt the bottoms, stick them on a little petri dish, and place them on the table. I dont have speakers, so I stick my phone in a coffee mug to project the sound and click to whatever is first on my playlist as I poke the potatoes to check for tenderness. The doorknob turns. I give Angiolina a bear-hug and let out a huge sigh of relief. We still talk about how good that meal was. I think about all the meals Ive cooked and how the best ones are never overthought and overplanned.

They just seem to sort of happen. Im a trained chef. Ive worked in amazing restaurants where Ive had access to cutting-edge equipment and stellar ingredients that came together into meals worth hundreds of dollars, but those are not the meals Im most proud of. Cooking scrappy celebrates perfection that can be made from the imperfect, the neglected, and the underused. When making the most out of what you have is your only option, you can almost always come up with something gorgeous. Why not cook like this all the time? Cooking scrappy is about expanding your mind, the way you cook, and the way you live.

A stockpot can be a mixing bowl, but so can the produce drawer from your fridge. Being scrappy is using every resource you have to get from point A to point B. Think outside the recipe box, and be open to using your kitchen, your cooking equipment, plus the stuff that you never thought to cook on and all of your ingredients to their absolute max. I am the National Chef for Sur La Table and I have taught thousands of cooking classes to every level of home cook. In one class I noticed everyones scrap bowls filled to the brim. A bunch of garbage! Then I took a minute and realized this would never fly in a restaurant. A bunch of garbage! Then I took a minute and realized this would never fly in a restaurant.