Kristen Miglore - Food52 Simply Genius : Recipes for Beginners, Busy Cooks & Curious People [A Cookbook]

KRISTEN MIGLORE is the founding editor of Food52. Her writing has been published in the Wall Street Journal , Saveur , and The Atlantic , and she was nominated for a James Beard Award for Food52s Genius Recipes column. The column led to the Genius Recipes cookbook, which won an IACP Award and became a New York Times bestseller, and Genius Desserts , also an IACP Award winner. Along with the decade-strong column, Kristen now produces a Genius newsletter, podcast, and Webby-nominated video series from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives and cooks with her husband/cameraperson and favorite cooking teacher, her young daughter.

JAMES RANSOM is a food, still life, and interiors photographer whose work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal , Martha Stewart Living , and Corriere Della Sera . He has photographed all twelve Food52 cookbooks and lives in Washington Heights in New York City with his wife and four children.

ELIANA RODGERS is a Brooklyn-based illustrator and textile artist. She specializes in highly detailed narrative pieces and, when she is not drawing, she can be found quilting or exploring all New York City has to offer.

where to put everything

These recommendations are both to help your ingredients last longer and to help you find (and cook with) them without wasting a thing.

by the stove:

• pinch bowl of your favorite salt for seasoning

• pepper grinder

• modest amounts of your go-to cooking oils

on the counter:

• tomatoes (upside down to prevent moisture loss through the stem)

• bananas

• avocados

• any other fruit you want to eat at room temperature

• hard squashes

• bread you want to eat fresh (and quicklystick the rest in the freezer )

in a pantry drawer or cabinet:

• potatoes

• onions and garlic (not with your potatoes or theyll turn on you faster)

• spices (bonus if theyre in a drawer or container you can pull out, labeled on top, and organized alphabetically)

• everything canned

• dry grains and pastas and beans

• ice cream sandwiches (JUST KIDDINGif youre still reading, that little jokes for you)

• everything else from the not-freezing and not-misty parts of the grocery store (check labels to see what should relocate to the fridge after opening)

in the front of the fridge (where you wont miss them):

• anything that needs to be used soonest: berries, delicate lettuces, fresh fish, or raw meats (well-wrapped so they dont drip)

in the back of the fridge (the coldest part):

• eggs

• milk you wont use up soon

• anything else that you want to keep extra-cold (beer?)

in the fridge crisper drawers:

• any produce that wasnt stored elsewhere (tip: put the things that need to be used up fastest in a certain area and closer to the front so you dont forget about them)

in the fridge door (the warmest part):

• herbs standing up in jars with a little water

• condiments whose salt, acid, and/or sugar preserve them for a very long time (hot sauce, mustard, jams, olives, capers)

• technically, not milk and other things that spoil (but its fine if you go through them pretty quickly)

in the freezer, not necessarily all at once (see for freezing and thawing tips):

• ice

• ice cream!

• frozen fruits and vegetables, for quick meals and your smoothie library

• whole-grain flours, unless youll go through them within a month

• nuts and seeds, unless youll go through them within 3 months

• bread for toasting, sliced while its still very fresh

• stock

• soups and other saucy leftovers

• bread, cookie, and pie dough

• baked cakes and brownies

• back-up butter (wrapped in foil or a freezer bagthe package alone will let freezer smells in)

• leftover egg yolks, when a recipe called for the whites (and vice versa)

• citrus juice and zest

• ginger (makes it easier to grate!)

• bananas (whole is fine for banana bread, or sliced for milkshakes )

• grapes and kiwi, for snacking (delicious!)

• cooked grains, like farro and rice

• fresh tomatoes, if youll be using them for sauce later (theyll be extra juicy)

how to befriend your freezer

The freezer is an ally to us home cooksa magical box that keeps our ingredients and leftovers (almost) locked in time. Heres pretty much all you need to know:

• Freeze everything in a completely sealed container or freezer bag, squeezing out extra air.

• Label everything with the date and what it is (I use painters tape and a Sharpie). You think youll remember when that cup of chicken stock is fromI promise you wont.

• Leave an inch (2.5cm) or so of space clear at the top of the containerliquids expand (and, if given no other choice, explode) when frozen.

• No matter what the recipe recommends, the sooner you can get things out of the freezer, the better. Super-long stays lead to lost flavor and texture.

• The easiest way to thaw frozen food is to move it to the fridge overnight (unless its something big like a turkeythose honkers need days). But if youre in a hurry, put well-sealed packages in a bowl of cool water, leaving the faucet running the faintest trickle to keep the water in the bowl moving. Or get to know the defrost setting on your microwave.

• See for a list of ingredients and dishes that freeze especially well.

14 essential tools (& the full list to cook everything in this book)

If you have all of the equipment below and on the following pages, you can make everything in this book (and so much more). And you can make much of it with just the irreplaceable tools on this page.

Dont feel like you need to buy everything at oncestart here and build out as needed, depending on what type of cooking youd most like to do. Restaurant supply stores are great places to stock up on basics inexpensively (and we carry pretty much everything you see here in the Food52 Shop, too).