Bulk bins always evoke my childhood, when I’d accompany my mom to our local health-food store so she could stock up on brewer’s yeast and lecithin for the kooky energy drink she and my dad sipped every day (turns out, it wasn’t so kooky, but a nutritional powerhouse). It was the ‘70s, so shabby macrame shoulder bags, Birkenstocks, and the carob malt balls I got as a treat loom large in my mind.

But thanks to the stagnant economy over the last couple of years, I’ve renewed my acquaintance with bulk bins. It’s a trip down memory lane, yes, but things have changed. Yesteryear’s dusty, dim co-ops have evolved into clean, brightly lit–even chic–health-food supermarkets. Along with everything else in the natural foods market, bulk bins have gone upscale, baby.

If you, like me, have tended to avoid the bulk bins, here are four good reasons to give them another try:

You’ll save money. That’s the biggest appeal for budget-conscious shoppers. The retailer saves money by purchasing in bulk, so you save too. For example, quinoa flour–a notoriously pricey ingredient used in gluten-free baking–is $4.99 a pound in the bulk bins vs. $7 (or more) in its packaged form.

You can buy as much–or as little–as you like. This is my favorite feature of the bulk bins. I can load up on the stuff I use frequently–white whole wheat flour and various other grains–and buy less of items I only use occasionally. And it’s a low-risk way to try new-to-you ingredients.

There’s an amazing variety of stuff! It seems like something new turns up at the bulk bins every time I go to my local health-food store. There are bins of specialty flours (buckwheat, spelt, quinoa, and brown rice, to name a few), fun salts (Peruvian and Himalayan pink!), and groovy rices, like Indonesian Volcano, Madagascar Pink, and Bhutanese Red.

It’s more sustainable. Bulk bins mean less packaging, especially if you bring reusable fine-mesh produce bags to tote your finds. I’ve used these for grains, like rice and pearled barley, as well as bulkier items like nuts.

I occasionally cast back to my bulk bin roots and wear my Birkenstocks to the store (don’t judge), but when I crave a treat I pick up a handful of real dark chocolate malt balls. Carob needs to stay in the ‘70s, dude.

Related posts:

1. Natural Products Expo West: A world of organic
2. Dying Onion Easter Eggs – The Beauty of Imperfection
3. Flour Power: Think Beyond Wheat

When we wanted a great all-purpose, slightly lighter pie dough recipe for Nourish Network, we turned to food stylist Kathleen Kanen. She’s a home economist by training who worked in the Cooking Light Test Kitchens for 20 years and currently does freelance food styling and recipe developing for a variety of national outlets (including us!).

Her secret to great pastry? Keep everything cold. I asked her for other tips to ensure your pie turns out perfect every time.

What’s your definition of the perfect pie crust?

I love a crust that’s flaky and has some sugar for sweetness and some salt for flavor. I think many dough recipes don’t call for enough salt, and that makes them taste flat.

What’s your preferred fat for pastry?

A combination of butter for flavor and shortening for flakiness. Also, the shortening doesn’t harden, which makes the dough easier to roll so there’s less chance of overworking it.

What’s the best way to cut the fat into the flour–in a food processor, with a pastry blender, or with your fingers?

The easiest way is the food processor. Just pulse the mixture a few times so it doesn’t get warm and the fat melts into the flour. [Those little chunks of cold fat make the pastry flaky.] It should look like coarse crumbs.

What are your tips for working with a lower-fat crust?

Three things: cold fats, chilling the dough, and plastic wrap!

1. Chill the butter and shortening for a flaky crust. For an even flakier crust, chill the flour, too.
2. Add just enough ice water to moisten the dough. Add too much, and the dough will be soggy. Add too little, and it will be crumbly. Press a small amount of dough between your fingers to check the consistency. If it’s too crumbly, add another tablespoon of water.
3. Handle the dough gently. Overworking it develops the gluten in the flour and makes the crust tough.
4. Chill the dough to help relax the gluten.
5. Roll the dough between sheets of plastic wrap [a trick Kathleen learned in the Cooking Light Test Kitchens] to prevent it from sticking to the counter. Chill the dough again after rolling it to make it easier to remove the plastic wrap. It’s not a step to rush.

Any tips for rolling out the dough so it’s even?

Begin rolling in the center and stop about 1/2 inch from the edge so it doesn’t get too thin and crumble. I start rolling in the middle of the dough vertically, then horizontally, then diagonally.

Which camp do you fall in: top crust or lattice?

I love pastry, so my favorite is a top crust. Lattice is very pretty, but not enough crust for me! [If you prefer a lattice crust, check out Saveur’s instructions to weave one.]

Here’s Kathleen’s recipe for peach pie with a foolproof dough. Use this crust for pies made with whatever fresh, seasonal fruit is on hand. I can’t wait to try it with apples in the fall, and for savory pies like quiches too.

Related posts:

1. Kathleen’s Fresh Peach Pie with Toasted Walnut Crust
2. Strawberry-Rhubarb Crostata
3. Umbrichelli with Ginger-Chile Sauce

Remember the TV show “MacGyver,” in which the hero adapted whatever was at hand to save the day like using a paperclip to diffuse a bomb? At Nourish Network, we’re all about making full use of ingredients, and the same goes for equipment. Nothing brings out your culinary MacGyver like working in a professional kitchen, as Jennifer Schaertl, learned as a chef in four-star restaurants, where kitchens typically are cramped, and there never seems to be enough equipment to go around. Many strategies common to the restaurant kitchen can help space-strapped home cooks, too, and Shaertl shares her tips in her new book Gourmet Meals in Crappy Little Kitchens (Health Communications).

Shaertl puts a practical, cheerful spin on cooking in “CLKs” (crappy little kitchens), and her strategies can help even if your kitchen isn’t so tight. A well-organized CLK is a remarkably efficient and pleasurable place to cook–everything is close at hand, and you have less crap to clean up at the end.

The key is to pare down your equipment and choose items that can multitask. For example, Schaertl says you only need three knives: A good-quality 6- to 8-inch chef’s knife, a serrated bread knife, and a paring knife. (Though Kurt contends–and I agree–a boning knife is nice, too, but it’s optional.) One of Shaertl’s favorite tools is an easy-to-store stacking 12-quart stockpot with a strainer and steamer basket, which you can use to make stock, cook-and-strain pasta, and steam vegetables. The pot’s steamer basket also can double as a colander.

In the CLK spirit, here are five specialty tools you can easily improvise with items you probably already have:

Microplane/mandolin. A four-sided box grater as a versatile tool that can stand in for both a microplane and a mandolin, says Schaertl. Use it to grate cheese or veggies for slaw, as well as finely grate lemon zest, garlic, ginger, and chocolate, or thinly slice mushrooms. The more often you use it, the more uses you’ll find for it.

Meat mallet. This is one of Shaertl’s space-wasting “CLK Saboteurs.” Instead, pound that veal cutlet for scallopini with the bottom of a heavy skillet or saucepan, and use a fork to tenderize meat.

Panini press. These things are terrible space hogs. If you love panini, make them on the stovetop in a grill pan or regular skillet and weigh down the sandwich with another heavy skillet, saucepan, or Dutch oven.

Sifter. “This thing is the epitome of the one-trick pony,” Shaertl writes. I agree, and use the $5 fine-mesh strainer I bought years ago at Walmart to sift flour, sift powdered sugar over baked goods, and strain sauces.

Double boiler. This is a gizmo in which one pan nests inside another; the larger pan holds simmering water to gently heat whatever is in the top pan. It’s just a fancy version of an old-school bain-marie (water bath) that you can create with any saucepan and heatproof bowl, as we do here with our Kitchen MacGyver Lemon Curd.

Now that I think of it, making better use of fewer tools instead of cluttering the kitchen with lots of random gadgets is the very spirit of sustainability. How do you make your kitchen equipment pull double, triple, or even quadruple duty? Let us know!

Related posts:

1. Kitchen MacGyver Lemon Curd
2. Knife Skills 101: Choosing and Using a Knife
3. Relandscape Your Kitchen

No type of cooking inspires as much passion, competition, obsession, and plain old American hometown pride as barbecue. There are local, regional, and national ‘cue contests that bring together hundreds of pathologically devoted cooks and thousands of BBQ-scarfing chowhounds to debate about which wood to use and to lie about their recipes.

Barbecue may, in fact, be the original way to cook. Historians believe man’s ancestors first ate cooked meat by scavenging in the aftermath of forest fires. More recently, Spanish conquistadors “exploring” tropical islands were fascinated by the aromas coming from the small green-wood grills New World natives called barbacoa. From these origins came the huge variety of barbecue that exists around the world. No other country, though, pursues the ‘cue with such passionate abandon as the United States.

First thing’s first: Barbecuing and grilling are not the same thing. Grilling is done over high, direct heat for a short amount of time, and might even use heat from gas or electricity. Real barbecue requires patience. It’s done over low, indirect heat–usually 200 F to 300 F–and can take from two hours to a couple of days, depending on the size of the meat. True ‘cue also needs smoke from hardwood chunks or chips that have been soaked in water and which impart signature flavor to the meat. This is America’s true slow food.

Because good barbecue needs smoke and an indirect heat source, serious ‘cue aficionados use a smoker to take advantage of an adjacent fire. You can mimic this with a typical backyard grill. For a charcoal grill, pile the coals to one side, add the soaked wood directly to the hot coals, and place the meat on the unheated side. For a gas grill, light a couple of the burners on one side, place soaked hardwood chips in a smoker box or foil pouch over the flames, and set the meat over the unheated side.

While there are many talented barbecue enthusiasts here in Iowa, where I live, it is perhaps a bit surprising that Iowa does not have a rich barbecue tradition all its own. We have all the necessary ingredients: pork and beef, an abundance of hardwoods like oak and hickory, hot summers and hungry people. Still no one particular form is labeled as “Iowa ‘cue,” so we borrow nearly everyone else’s traditions and will barbecue nearly anything that moves and a few things that don’t; any excuse to play in the smoke.

Among the favorites is Texas-style beef brisket. Down there the wood would have to be oak or mesquite, but we have lots of different choices up here and I am especially fond of the fruit and nut woods, which produce sweeter smoke than oak or mesquite. I used cherry and pecan wood to smoke this Barbecued Beef Brisket.

For the beginning ‘cue chef, hardwood chips are sufficient for flavor and ease of use, and used with a smoker box or even a simple foil pouch they can convert any gas grill into a makeshift smoker. Wood chips are available in most grocery stores and anywhere grills are sold. If you want to get serious about your ‘cue, though, Iowa boasts one of the best resources in the country. Check out Hawgeyes BBQ in Ankeny for everything you’ll need and then some.

So here are my secrets to true ‘cue: Low heat, real wood, smoke … and hefty shot of patience.

Kurt Michael Friese is the founding leader of Slow Food Iowa, serves on the Slow Food USANational Board of Directors, and is editor and publisher of the local food magazine Edible Iowa River Valley. He’s also Chef and co-owner of the Iowa City restaurant Devotay, a freelance food writer and photographer, and author of A Cook’s Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland.

Related posts:

1. Barbecued Beef Brisket
2. Miso and Herb Rubbed Applewood Smoked Heritage Turkey
3. Grass-Fed Beef Bulgogi

As long as there’s a jar of arborio rice in the pantry, stock on hand, and a smidgen of leftover wine, I can bust out a hearty, comforting risotto for supper any evening. But because I’m expanding my repertoire of whole grains these days, I’m experimenting with different types of grains so I can have my risotto and eat it, too.

The term “risotto” refers to a method as well as a dish and involves gradually adding hot stock to a grain, which gently coaxes out the starch for a lovely creamy texture. It’s a technique that can be used to cook all kinds of grains, and the Italians have a long tradition of using the risotto method to prepare grains other than arborio rice. Heck, it even works with pasta.

The basic steps of risotto are simple and worth committing to memory so you can improvise:

Soffrito. Heat a little fat–olive oil, butter, lard (if you’re feeling decadent)–in a large, heavy pan (a saucepan, Dutch oven, or saute pan is fine) over medium heat. Add finely chopped aromatics (shallot, onion, carrot, and/or celery), and cook until tender. Add minced garlic, if you’re using it, and cook 30 seconds or until fragrant.

Riso. Add the rice or other grain, and cook it a minute or two, stirring constantly. White rice like arborio or carnaroli will turn translucent; whole grains will get a bit toasty. Arborio and carnaroli are both types of short-grain, starchy rice, which makes for particularly creamy risotto. When using whole grains, you’ll want something similarly plump and starchy, like short- or medium-grain brown rice, farro, barley, or even steel-cut oats. I even made a pretty risotto recently with Madagascar pink rice. Long-grain rice and non-starchy whole grains like quinoa don’t lend themselves to the risotto method. These grains will still cook using the risotto technique, but they won’t become creamy.

Vino. Next, add a generous splash or two of wine, and cook, stirring the grains constantly, until the wine is absorbed. White wine is traditional. In a pinch, I’ll use dry vermouth. Rose, sake, or even sherry or red wine also work.

Brodo. Risotto requires liquid, which can be hot water, stock (chicken, vegetable, beef, our Mushroom Stock, fish), or even milk. Whole-grain risotto requires more liquid than risotto made with white rice. The Whole Grains Council has a general guideline for grain-to-liquid ratios, and you can always supplement with extra water if you need more liquid. Add the hot liquid a little at time, stirring frequently, until it’s absorbed before adding the next ladleful. The risotto is done when the grain becomes creamy and al dente–tender, but not mushy.

Condimento. Risotto is a rich canvas to showcase seasonal ingredients–delicate English peas or asparagus in spring, grilled bell peppers and eggplant in summer, roasted butternut squash, and root veggies come fall. Mushrooms are a classic match for risotto; so is shellfish. A little grating of cheese is a nice finishing touch.

Five easy steps to risotto-style whole grains … great for any season.

A longtime editor, writer, and recipe developer, Alison Ashton is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and the Editorial Director for Nourish Network. She has worked as a features editor for a national wire service and as senior food editor for a top food magazine. Her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, and Natural Health as well as on her blog, Eat Cheap, Eat Well, Eat Up.

Related posts:

1. Pearled Barley Risotto with Peas, Pecorino, and Prosciutto
2. Get a New Grain: Farro
3. Gotta Get Your Grains

• Get Rid of What Doesn’t Work – When we first put our yard in, Christopher and I were on the lookout for groundcover. We saw some we liked—a euphorbia—and I bought a bunch of seedlings hoping they’d take root and spread. And oh did they spread. That particular type of euphorbia, it turns out, spreads by underground rhizome, and although the tag had promised it would max out at eight inches tall, most of our plants were bushy two foot monsters. What had seemed attractive at first ultimately threatened to choke out all the painstakingly placed plants in the yard. There’s a parallel here to our pantries. I used to pack my pantry with pretzels because they seemed attractive as a “low fat” choice. Over time, though, I discovered that I was always at battle with them. I wanted the pretzels to make me slim, but instead I’d feel sluggish and bloated after eating them. Sometimes, we just need to admit that something needs to come out.
• Move Things Around – My mom’s yard is always in flux; in a good way. If a hosta becomes stagnant, she’ll relocate it under another tree. If a clump of lilies becomes too dense, she’ll dig them up and replant them throughout the garden. The lesson I’ve gleaned from my mom’s technique is that location does affect whether or not something “takes.” I think of this every time I open my cupboard and see my grains on the shelf above my head. I say I want to eat more whole grains—both in quantity and variety—and yet they’re essentially out of sight and in a place that takes effort to get to. By moving my grains to a more accessible location (on my project list this week), they’ll have more of a chance to take root in my family’s daily diet.
• Try Some New Things – Some of my greatest triumphs in the garden have come from experimentation. One year, we became smitten with Padron peppers at a restaurant and decided to give growing them a try. Since then, they’ve been hands-down the most productive plant in the garden every year. Little delights like that can happen in your kitchen too, and you don’t even need to buy anything new. If you bought a jar of cardamom for a coffeecake recipe six months ago, give it a shot in a curry. If you have some dried chiles lingering on a shelf, throw a few in a pot of beans.

This week, seek out ways to relandscape your kitchen so it will better nurture you.

Related posts:

1. The Kitchen That Sings
2. Growing Beyond the Garden
3. MacGyver Moves in the Kitchen

But it wasn’t until later, when I was taking a course at the Culinary Institute of America, that I learned the technical name for that gunk was “fond,” and that it was the essential ingredient for making a quick pan sauce. Just add a splash of liquid—like wine or vinegar, or even a broth—scrape up the fond from the pan (called deglazing) and you’ve got the makings of a tasty sauce. Take it off the heat, swirl in a knob of butter or a tablespoon of cream and some minced herbs and you’ve just turned a simple supper into something special.

Here are seven simple steps to making a pan sauce:

1 – Heat your non nonstick pan over medium high heat. Heating the pan before adding fat or food allows the cells of the metal to expand, creating a nearly non-porous surface.

2 – Add your fat and let it get nice and hot. The heated fat—be it oil, butter or duck fat (ahhhh)—creates another barrier; having it hot ensures good browning when the food hits it.

3 – Add the main attraction to the pan … and then leave it be until it’s ready to be turned (be sure to leave enough room in between pieces to allow air to circulate or else the food will steam rather than sear). Be it meat or chicken or fish or tofu, if you move the food around too much, it won’t develop a crust. When it’s cooked through and nice and brown on the outside, remove it to a plate and keep it warm in a 200 degree oven.

4 – Sauté additional ingredients and aromatics. Nudge these around often, letting them get good and caramelized.

5 – Pour in liquid and deglaze. Wine, vinegar and broth are all great deglazing liquids. Use a stiff-edged spatula to scrape up the bits at the bottom of the pan.

6 – Take pan off the heat and swirl in a bit of richness. Just a tablespoon or two of butter or cream can enrich a sauce dramatically. Be sure the pan is off the heat, though, or they’ll separate and become oily.

7 – Adjust for acid and salt. Give the sauce a taste and adjust the seasoning: a squeeze of lemon for brightness, a drizzle of vinegar for punch, a dash of salt, a grind of pepper; add what makes you go “mmmm.”

To get you started, here are three different ideas for three completely different pan-sauces:

• Sauté minced ginger and garlic before deglazing the pan with a dry white wine like vermouth and swirl in a bit of vegetable or chicken broth, a tablespoon or two of cream, and a pinch each of minced fresh thyme and lemon zest.
• Sauté minced shallots before deglazing the pan with dry white wine, then swirl in a bit of vegetable or chicken broth and two tablespoons butter with a generous pinch of tarragon.
• Sauté minced pancetta and onion before deglazing the pan with dry red wine. Add a touch of red wine vinegar, two tablespoons butter and several turns of freshly ground black pepper.

Or keep it simple and make the recipe below. In any case, set your sights on making some flavor this week!

Related posts:

1. Veal Scaloppini with Shallot-Caper Sauce
2. Braised Rabbit with Easy Pan Sauce
3. All-Purpose Asian Dipping Sauce

These days, home is a second-story condo with no yard. Instead, we have a sunny, south-facing balcony and a sizable deck, which means our urban farming must be done in containers. Which is all right by me. Even when I lived in houses with yards, I was still more inclined to garden in containers because I’m horticulturally challenged and lazy. Overseeing a few containers just seemed…easier. And it is; even I’ve managed to cultivate pots of vigorous herbs and sweet cherry tomatoes.

You can grow anything, from herbs to apple trees, in containers, says C. Darren Butler, a Los Angeles-based University of California Master Gardener, arborist, and landscape designer who teaches small-space gardening workshops and other horticultural classes. “The only thing I’d caution people that they shouldn’t try in a container is corn,” he says.

Here’s all you need to get started:

Location. “You need sun–five to six hours a day,” says Butler. “That’s the number one thing.” But that sun can be on a patio, balcony, deck, or stairway. If horizontal space is limited, a sun-drenched wall is ripe for vertical gardening.

Choose a container. “I don’t think there’s any one perfect container,” says Butler. Size and water retention are the main considerations. He recommends sustainably harvested wood, UV-treated recycled plastic, or simply reusing 5-gallon plastic nursery buckets. Glazed clay pots retain water well, Butler notes, but they can be expensive and breakable. Avoid terra cotta, he cautions, which tends to wick moisture away from plants.

Evangeline Heath Rubin, who documents her horticultural adventures in the blog Farm Apartment, got her apartment garden started with a self-watering EarthBox ($59.95), in which she grows a variety of salad greens. EarthBox kits come with a container, watering system, potting mix, and casters.

The depth of the container depends on the plant’s root system. Most plants need at least 8 to 12 inches, though baby lettuces, radishes and arugula can thrive in as little as 4 to 6 inches. Tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and the like need a bit more depth–14 to 20 inches. You can even grow a lemon tree in a 5-gallon pot; you’ll just need to prune the roots every few years when the plant is dormant.

Soil. Butler recommends a mix of one-third coarse builder’s sand or washed plaster sand, one-third organic matter (compost or organic potting soil for vegetables), and one-third native soil (ask a neighbor to lend you some).

You’ll want to feed container plants to replenish nutrients that are washed away every time you water, says Heath Rubin. Compost or worm castings are ideal. Her solution for small-space composting has been vermiculture–using worms to compost kitchen scraps–in a compact Wriggly Ranch worm bin. “I give them the gourmet treatment,” boasts Heath Rubin, who purees vegetable scraps for her colony of red wigglers. “I think of them as my pets.”

Plants. “Don’t be afraid to start from seed,” says Heath Rubin. Butler recommends compact container varieties, which are available for just about any kind of fruit or vegetable. Organizations like Seed Savers Exchange and companies like Seeds of Change sell seeds for everything from bush cucumbers to cherry tomatoes to baby eggplant.

Hmm, with sun, decent soil, a hospitable container, and seeds even I can turn my concrete jungle into a verdant urban farm.

A longtime editor, writer, and recipe developer, Alison Ashton is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and the Editorial Director for Nourish Network. She has worked as a features editor for a national wire service and as senior food editor for a top food magazine. Her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, and Natural Health as well as on her blog, Eat Cheap, Eat Well, Eat Up.

Related posts:

1. No Room to Garden? Share a Yard
2. Failure to Cultivate: A Response to Caitlin Flanagan on School Gardens
3. Breaking the Plastic Addiction in the Kitchen

The urge to do some serious spring cleaning has hit, and I wondered how many others shared my crazy pantry dilemma. I’d buy something on a whim—a block of belacan (Asian shrimp paste), a bottle of green peppercorns, a stash of fenugreek—then tuck it away in the pantry and forget about it. So I took a survey of Nourish Network readers and Twitter followers and found that a theme emerged: The original inspiration to buy the now-buried-in-the-back-of-the-pantry-item was the desire to stretch in a new culinary direction. So I’ve put together a list of the three most common ingredients lurking in cupboards and included ideas for using them.

Lentils. These quick-cooking pulses are truly multipurpose. They can be used in soups and stews. They are terrific in cold salads for added protein and fiber. They can be cooked and mashed in veggie burgers or croquettes. They’re a lovely accompaniment to fish and poultry. If you have some on hand, try our All-Purpose French Lentils (it’s fine to substitute a different variety for the Lentilles de Puy in the recipe).

Dried black mushrooms. Dried shiitake, porcini, morel, and other varieties of mushrooms can seem daunting as they’re usually sold in large quantities. Fortunately, dried mushrooms are packed with nutrition and umami, and they last a long time. They add rich flavor and texture to soups, stews, risotto, and stir-fries. Soak them in hot water, and use the soaking liquid like any broth for a soup base or sauce. Use the stemmed and sliced mushrooms in all manner of recipes. Mushrooms are a perfect way to reduce saturated fat in dishes that call for ground or chopped meat; just replace some or all of the meat with mushrooms (try this with meatballs or substitute soaked and sauteed dried mushrooms for pork in Fumiko’s Gyoza).

Harissa. Two readers said they’d found a jar of harissa kicking around their pantries. Harissa is a pesto-like North African condiment made from chile peppers, garlic, olive oil, and spices. It adds a fiery punch to fish, grains, sauces, and dips. Think of it as revved-up ketchup. In fact, you can use harissa much like you would use ketchup, Tabasco, or Sriracha: on burgers, over scrambled eggs, in deviled eggs. Thin it with yogurt and serve it over fish, or as a dip for crudite. Thin it with olive oil for a rub for roast chicken.

Use your spring pantry cleaning energy, and these ideas, to rediscover the inspiration to try something new, whether it’s a new lentil salad, mushroom dumplings, or harissa-marinated fish.

Jacqueline Church is an independent writer whose work has appeared in Culture: the Word on Cheese, Edible Santa Barbara, and John Mariani’s Virtual Gourmet. She often writes about gourmet food, sustainability issues and the intersection of the two on her blog Leather District Gourmet. Currently, she’s at work on Pig Tales: a Love Story about heritage breed pigs and the farmers and chefs bringing them from farm to table.

Related posts:

1. Pan Seared Harissa-Rubbed White Cod
2. Early Spring Menu
3. Nourish Yourself in the New Year: Build a Healthy Pantry

“Profits are measured in pennies,” one of my culinary school instructors often repeated to remind us of the importance of maximizing our use of ingredients. Smart chefs–those who want to stay in business–do this all the time and now, thanks to a stagnant economy, it’s a practice budget-conscious cooks are bringing home.

Here are a few suggestions to help you make the most of what you already have for inexpensive, healthy meals.

Make stock. This is a prime example of stretching your investment, especially if you’re spending a bit more on organic, heritage food. You can make stock from almost anything–vegetables, bones, shrimp or lobster shells. Vegetable stock is the easiest; you can use the trimmings for anything from aromatics (onions, leeks, and the like) to tough mushroom stems (try those in our Mushroom Stock). Avoid cruciferous veggies or dark leafy greens, which impart bitter taste. To make different stocks, use our Most Versatile Chicken Stock recipe as a guideline and substitute the main ingredient. The biggest difference is how long you simmer the stock: 30-45 minutes for vegetable or fish stock, three to four hours for chicken, and six to eight hours for beef. Of course, you can use other varieties of poultry (turkey or duck, for example) or meat bones (lamb, perhaps), but these have distinctive flavors that make their stock a bit less versatile.

Think whole. Although the trimmings from fruits and vegetables are a fine addition to the compost heap or (in the case of veggies) stock, using the entire thing will add new flavors and textures to your cooking. Beets and beet greens are a good example. The sweet beets are delicious boiled, roasted, or steamed, while the greens are a delightful quick-cooking alternative to spinach. Try Mama Kourtesi’s Beet and Green Salad and you’ll be sold on this concept. You can use fennel in a similar way, using the bulb, along with the pretty fronds as a garnish (save the stalk for stock).

Even animal products can be utilized this way. Poultry is one of the few items home cooks can buy whole, and it’s likely to come with giblets (heart, liver, gizzard, and neck), especially if you purchase heritage birds. Use these (except for the liver) to flavor stock, soup, or gravy; the liver can go toward pate, like our Chicken Liver Pate. You can freeze the raw giblets for up to four months. Of course, you’ll want to save the carcass to make stock.

Smart leftovers. Thrifty cooks pride themselves on recycling leftovers in entirely new dishes. Day-old bread hanging around? Make it into breadcrumbs or, even better, bread pudding. Turn extra cooked rice into fried rice or rice fritters (try rice in place of quinoa in our Curry Quinoa Cakes).

Keep the fat. Home cooks tend to discard the fat rendered while cooking some dishes—like Revelationary Duck Confit and Carnitas de Lia. But that fat is full of flavor and worth saving (on the open market, duck fat will run you about a dollar an ounce). Use a tablespoon of duck fat in lieu of olive oil for a special spin on sautéed potatoes, or a touch of pork fat to crisp up leftover carnitas.

Those are just a few ways I’ve been making better use of ingredients lately. Now it’s your turn. What are your strategies? Share here.

A longtime editor, writer, and recipe developer, Alison Ashton is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and the Editorial Director for Nourish Network. She has worked as a features editor for a national wire service and as senior food editor for a top food magazine. Her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, and Natural Health as well as on her blog, Eat Cheap, Eat Well, Eat Up.

Related posts:

1. Have Your Risotto and Get Your Whole Grains Too
2. Most Versatile Chicken Stock
3. Forcing (Ends) Meat