Tofu Stir-Fry

Surprisingly enough, I made this 4 or 5 times before I was able to nab a picture of it. Why? Probably because I eat it so quickly.

So, the cool thing about stir fries is that they are really easy to make and you can use basically any protein (I dumpster tofu most often) and any vegetables that you have on hand or froze.  It's especially good for mixing frozen veggies with fresh, since it hides the freezer taste that sometimes accompanies veggies that have been in the freezer a little too long. It's a dumpster diver's paradise.  The stir fry below features marinated tofu, previously frozen green beans, orange bell pepper, corn, zucchini, and red onion.

TOFU (or meat) MARINADE

<u>Ingredients:</u>
- 1 block extra-firm tofu - best when previously frozen, thawed, and then pressed to get out all the liquid with paper towels (I'll cut it up first and then squeeze it to get out even more moisture before marinating it)
- 4 Tbsp soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp Mirin (find it in the Asian section of your supermarket - it's pretty much a dumpster chupacabra.  Don't hold your breath for this ingredient)
- 2 Tbsp Rice vinegar (same as the mirin)
- 1 Tbsp honey (vegans can use agave nectar or some other sweetener)
- 2 Tbsp grated ginger
- 2 tsp toasted sesame oil (I've dumpstered this once)
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup onion, chopped
- 1 tsp sririacha sauce (or other hot chili sauce you have - more or less depending on how spicy you want it)
- Scallions (optional)

Thoroughly mix all these ingredients, then fold the tofu into it so it's liberally covered with everything.  Let it sit for a minimum of 20 minutes (time to cut your veggies) or overnight in the fridge.

ACTUAL STIR-FRY

<u>Ingredients:</u>
- 2 tbsp canola, safflower, or vegetable oil (I like using veggie oil the best)
- VEGGIES

Put oil in a pan or wok.
Get your pan or wok super-hot.
Put in your marinated tofu - you want a browning sear on the outside, but you don't want it to burn.  Stir fry for about 2 minutes, making sure each side gets browned (otherwise the tofu is in danger of falling apart).  Then, push it up to the side of the wok (if you're using a pan, just shift it to the outside edge). 
Add your veggies in the order of which take the longest to cook (carrots, mushrooms, peppers, bok choy stems, etc.) to whichever take the shortest (frozen pre-cooked veggies, corn, bok choy leaves, etc.). 
Once they cook up a bit, add the remainder of your marinade for extra flavor.  Keep cooking until the veggies are cooked, but still have a bit of crunch (taste testing is a great way to tell if they're ready).

You can eat a stir-fry straight (I do this), or make it last a little longer by putting it over rice or pasta.  It's a large initial investment of buying ingredients from the grocery store, but once you buy those basics (which are all pretty cheap), they last you MANY, MANY more meals, so it's worth it.

Items not dumpstered or donated: Ginger, garlic, sesame oil, mirin, rice vinegar, vegetable oil

Mushroom Compote and Bounty

Ingredients:

- 3 tablespoons butter or olive oil (if you want it to be vegan) - 1 onion, thinly sliced

- 1 bell pepper (I used yellow) - 1 pound mushrooms, sliced (I used baby portabella and white button mushrooms mixed in together) - 2/3 cup red wine vinegar - 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard - 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (substitute soy sauce if you want it to be vegetarian) - 1 dash Tabasco sauce - 3 tablespoons brown sugar - 3 tablespoons seedless raisins
- 1-2 potatoes (if you want to serve the compote over something to make it a heartier meal instead of a side dish)

- Bread (if you want to serve the compote on toast instead of potatoes)

- Salt & pepper to taste

Melt butter in a pan. Add onions and sauté over medium-low heat until soft. Add mushrooms and sauté until mushrooms begin to soften. Mix remaining ingredients together and add to the pan. Bring to a boil over moderately high heat and cook, stirring often, until mixture becomes thick and syrupy. Season with salt and pepper to your liking!

While you're doing this, boil water and boil some potatoes until they're soft and smash up the potatoes to serve the compote over. Either that, or toast some bread and serve the compote over that!

Items not dumpstered: Butter, vinegar, worshteshire, tabasco

I went dumpstering alone on my way home from work on 2/7 and came up with enough food to last me 2 weeks!
- 1 pound 93% lean ground beef
- Brew-n-Brats (made with beer)
- 3 pkgs strawberries (2 large, 1 small - gave small one to Kevin, one to Steve)
- 1 pkg baby portabella mushrooms
- 1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 4 ciabatta rolls
- 1/2 loaf sprouted flourless whole wheat berry bread
- 1 pkg pomegranate seeds
- 1 small bag English peas
- 1 gigantic eggplant
- 1 pkg chives
- 7 kiwis
- 1 baby watermelon
- 8 gala apples
- 7 granny smith apples

Peach-Mango Salsa & Ginger Mojitos

Recently I had the pleasure to go through Hurricane Irene. It didn't hit us very hard in Maryland, but everyone was told not to go out of the house. So, while I waited for the power to go out with a friend (it never did), we made some peach-mango salsa, guacamole, and ginger mojitos, then sat down and watched Royal Tenenbaums as the wind and rain raged outside.

PEACH-MANGO SALSA


Ingredients:

- 3 small peaches, diced (from a large bushel given to us at work by a customer bought from a local farmer's market)
- 1 mango, diced
- 3-5 cups diced (fresh) tomatoes
- 2 cups diced white onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 - 1 jalapeno pepper - with seeds (depending on desired spiciness)
- 1/2 yellow bell pepper, diced
- Juice from 2 limes
- 1 bundle of fresh cilantro, chopped
- Salt (we needed quite a bit), black pepper, & cayenne to taste

Place tomatoes, onions, jalapeno, and bell peppers in a large pot over medium heat for 10 minutes, allowing the tomatoes to release their juices.
Add peaches & mango, then cook for an additional 5 minutes.
By this time, there should be a LOT of liquid accruing in your pot. Depending on how watery you like your salsa to be, drain as much off as you'd like. I ended up draining off about half the liquid (but kept enough to use as canning fluid for a few jars).
Add lime juice, cilantro, and extra spices.
Cool down the salsa before serving.
Can it if you'd like so you can bring it to a BBQ or pot-luck or give it as a gift to a friend. Plus, if you can it, you can enjoy the salsa in the winter when none of the ingredients are in season anymore! But BEWARE: There's not a whole bunch of acid in this recipe, so I wouldn't use the salsa after a few months - 6 at most (even if it's been properly sealed the whole time). If you want to keep the salsa longer, just add some apple cider vinegar to your mixture and it should make it last a little longer.

Items not dumpstered or donated: Garlic, cilantro (from garden), salt, black pepper, & cayenne

GINGER MOJITOS

This is my favorite drink in the world. I first encountered a ginger mojito when I was living in Prague going to film school (which is funny, since the drink is Cuban in origin). Plain mojitos were all the rage in Prague when I lived there, and the ginger spin on the drink was on the menu at this really awesome lounge/club named Radost FX (Rihanna notably shot one of her music videos there). If you're ever in Prague, I'd highly recommend hitting it up.

They make a way better ginger mojito than I ever could, but this is my meager attempt at trying to recreate it. You can also do a virgin version (that actually tastes almost exactly the same as the alcoholic one and is delicious) by just omitting the rum.

I feel badly that this recipe uses a lot of ingredients not dumpstered, but when you have SO many limes and ginger (which we had), it's a good way to use them when you're tired of using them in other ways. Plus, when there's a natural disaster, everyone seems to want a drink...

Ingredients:

- 2 shots white rum (optional)
- 1 cup club soda (add slightly more club soda for the virgin version)
- 1+ tsps minced ginger (I put in way more since I love ginger - think like 4 tsps for that extra bite to contrast the sweetness)
- 10+ fresh mint leaves (Again, I like way more for freshness, but most other recipes call for 10-12 leaves)
- Juice from 1 lime
- Lime slice to garnish
- 2-4 tsps sugar or simple syrup if you're more patient/making a big batch
- A bunch of ice (crushed for more of a tropical feel)

Muddle (basically mash together) ginger, mint, and halved lime (with rind) with a mortar & pestle or a muddler (if you don't have either of these, just put the ingredients in a small bowl or cup and use a spoon or similarly blunt object like the top of your rum bottle to mash them up).
Add this mixture to your ice, rum, and club soda.
Add simple syrup (or sugar).
Mix and enjoy!

Items not dumpstered or donated: Mint (from garden), rum, club soda

Pizza

Pizza is one of the easiest dumpster food options EVER.

Why?

1. It's super-easy to dumpster or make pizza dough.
2. If I get a huge haul of tomatoes I'll make and can tomato sauce (which stays good for a long-ass time). Voila! Tomato sauce for your pizza whenever you want. (p.s. I'll put up my recipes for a few sauces I make soon). Tired of tomato sauce? Use homemade pesto instead!
3. Pizza toppings are endless. Types of cheese are endless. Therefore, whatever you get from the dumpster automatically becomes a pizza topping! One of my favorite dumpster pizza concoctions involved pork loin (still cold when we dumpstered it and used that night), 3 types of goat cheese, fresh basil, tomatoes, onions, baby portabella mushrooms, & dumpstered whole wheat dough. Not things I'd necessarily put together, but it tasted great! You can also get creative - why not have black beans, cilantro, and hot sauce on your pizza? Or Indian pizza made with dumpstered naan as the crust and curries or chutneys as the sauce? The pizza world is your oyster!
4. Pizza is really easy to make - put dough down, put olive oil/pesto/tomato sauce/whatever down on the pizza. Put toppings on the pizza. Bake at 425 in the oven until your pizza looks like pizza. Eat the pizza.

The pizza I made in the picture above was a little too packed with toppings (beware!), which made it kind of feel like a quiche, but otherwise it was yummy too. GO PIZZA!

Items not dumpstered or donated: Olive oil, oregano (from garden)

Shrimp Burrito Taco Thingies & Guacamole

The meal I had the other night was perfect. PERFECT! It was filling and delicious and fresh and (other than the 2 avocados), pretty low on calories if you care about that sort of thing. It was one of those magic moments where you realize all the ingredients you have on hand are exactly what you need to make something awesome happen.


SHRIMP BURRITO TACO THINGIES

I'm just writing down what I made. If you're vegetarian or vegan, things can be substituted or removed and you'll still have a pretty hearty meal at the end of the day.

Ingredients:

- 8 raw shrimp (or protein of some other sort - black beans, black eyed peas, chicken, whatever)
- 1 clove garlic
- Guacamole (see recipe below to make at home)
- 2 tbsp red onion, diced
- 2 tsp green pepper, diced
- 2 tsp red pepper, diced
- 2 tsp mango, diced (previously frozen and thawed)
- 0.5-1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese (optional)
- Juice of 0.5 lime
- Lime zest (CRUCIAL)
- 1 tbsp butter (or olive oil)
- 1 cup cooked wild rice (or whatever kind you have on hand - I just love the flavor and texture of wild rice)
- 2 wraps
- Salt, red pepper flakes, pepper, and cilantro to taste

Cook your rice. With about 10 minutes left to go, start cooking everything else.
Marinate raw shrimp for 5 minutes in lime juice with lime zest, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.
Melt butter in a pan on medium-high. Throw in your shrimp to cook. At the last moment, throw in 1 clove of minced garlic. While you're waiting for the shrimp to cook, start cutting your other ingredients and make your guacamole.
Once the shrimp is done, cut it up and put it aside.
Clean your pan or get a new one. Put one of your wraps in it on medium-low heat.
Shred as much cheddar as you want on the bottom of it and spread a liberal amount of guacamole next to it. Add your shrimp (so it stays warm). Sprinkle the other ingredients and fresh cilantro on top and cook until the cheese is melted (maybe 2 minutes or less).
Remove from the burner and make a second burrito taco thingy.
Wrap it up and enjoy!
You can now add hot sauce, sour cream, or whatever else you might want. I personally love how fresh all the ingredients were in this, so I didn't want to sully them with any extra nonsense.

After I was finished, I had extra guacamole left over. Luckily, I still had some tortilla chips from a BBQ at my house a month or two ago, so I polished off the rest of the guac in no time! Honestly, I would have eaten it straight, though...

GUACAMOLE

This is the simplest guacamole I know how to make. You can always jazz it up with cilantro, tomatoes, lime juice instead of lemon, jalapeno, and other spicy stuff. You can blend cheese into it...the options are limitless. This is my Mom's really easy recipe that always tastes awesome and takes about 1 minute total to make.

Ingredients:

- 2 ripe avocados (if you get them the day before you eat them, put them in a sealed brown paper bag overnight and they'll ripen faster).
- 2 tsp lemon juice (some acid is necessary if you plan on keeping it more than 1 day - the acid is what keeps it from going brown)
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- Salt to taste

Quarter the avocados and put them in a bowl. Mash up with a fork (you can also use a food processor for this part, but it takes more time during cooking and clean-up, so I forgo it).
Mix in minced garlic and lemon juice.
Mix in salt to taste. Beware - if you're using the guacamole with chips, most tortilla chips are already super salty and can ruin the guacamole experience if you've over-salted it. This needs to be synergy in your mouth.
DONE.

This makes a great snack or pot luck item OR YOU CAN SPREAD IT ON ANYTHING (sandwiches, burritos, bagels, pizza...it's pretty easy to get creative with it).

Items not dumpstered or donated: Butter, bell peppers (from my garden), cilantro (from my garden), rice, garlic, shrimp

Stuffed Green Peppers

I dumpster bell peppers a lot. The red, orange, and yellow peppers are all a little more flavorful, so you can use them to spice up a dish. Green bell peppers, on the other hand, are a little more bland, so you need to get creative in using them.

This is a very hearty meal that you can tweak depending on what you have in your pantry.

STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS

Ingredients:
- Bell peppers
- Rice (optional)
- 1 can of black or kidney Beans (or a few handfuls if they're dry)
- Cheese (a taco/TexMex blend or sharp cheddar works best)
- Sriracha Sauce
- Salt & Pepper to taste
- Whatever extra veggies you want

If you're using rice in your stuffed peppers, start by cooking your rice (this will take the longest). Some companies make rice and beans combos that are already spiced and take a little less cooking time than traditional rice.

If you're starting with dry beans, remember to soak them!

Cut your green peppers in half - remove the tops and seeds.
Place them on a tin foil covered tray.
Fill the peppers with your cooked rice and beans. At this juncture, you can also put other roasting veggies into the mix for added flavor, along with salt & pepper.
Sprinkle shredded cheese on top.
Put in the oven at 375-400 degrees until the cheese melts and the peppers roast up a bit.
Squeeze sriracha sauce on top for extra spice!

In my rendition pictured above, I left out the rice because I was in a hurry.

Items not dumpstered or donated: Cheese, black beans (from the (sadly) now-defunct Beet Food Co-op)

Spicy Chipotle Cream Sauce + How to Roast a Pepper

If you dumpster often, you know that you find bell peppers (and various types of peppers) a lot.

Pickyourown.org has pretty exhaustive tips and instructions on canning, and roasted peppers are one of my favorite things to can (you can also can raw bell peppers on their own, you just need a crapton of vinegar and canning salt to make it work).

Even if you don't want to can your peppers, roasting them will still make them last about 2 weeks longer in your fridge.

You incidentally also need roasted bell or chipotle peppers for this dish I'm about to lay down:

HOW TO ROAST A BELL PEPPER

It's actually uber simple! When you roast bell peppers, they unlock the pepper's sweetness. Just take your pepper, de-stem/seed it, then stick it in your oven or toaster oven (to save power) at about 400-500 degrees until the skin turns black (rotating it from time to time so it cooks evenly). Let it cool down, and the skin should come off easily with your hands or a knife (but be careful - the pepper will be smokin' hot). Slice it up and you've got yourself some roasted bell peppers.

You can use these for canning, puree them for an amuse bouche, pasta sauce, pizza, whatever. Get creative.

And now:

SPICY CHIPOTLE CREAM SAUCE (w/ Pasta and Stuff)

Ingredients:

- 3 tbsp butter
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup of fresh or canned corn (about 1/2 a can)
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1/2-1 portabella mushroom cap
- Pasta of some sort (I used rotini)
- 1/2-3/4 cup of heavy whipping cream
- Cumin, nutmeg, basil, rosemary, red chili powder (hot), and salt & pepper to taste
- 1-2 roasted peppers (I used 1 orange pepper and a small red pepper from my garden):
Melt the butter in a medium pan.
Throw in the onion and mushroom on medium heat. Allow for the onions to become translucent and the mushroom to become soft. When they're almost finished, throw in the garlic, roasted red pepper, and corn.
Set your water to boil for the pasta and boil pasta as you finish the next steps.
Turn heat on veggies to medium-low.
Add cream (make sure the pan isn't too hot, or it will scald the cream). Continue stirring often while the sauce thickens so it doesn't coagulate.
Add red chili powder, cumin, and nutmeg. The nutmeg is what rounds out the creamy flavor of the sauce (pretty much every cream sauce in French cuisine will have some nutmeg in it for this reason), so don't be shy with it.
Add rosemary (fresh), basil (fresh), salt, & pepper to taste.

Once you've found a nice balance for your sauce, throw everything over your pasta and enjoy.


Items not donated or dumpstered: 1 red pepper (garden), whipping cream, basil (garden), rosemary (garden), butter, spices