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Book: Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food by Jeff Potter
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Authors: Jeff Potter
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teaspoons (14–20g) honey, to taste
2–3 teaspoons (10–15g) lemon juice, to taste
½ teaspoon (1g) fresh ground black pepper, or more to taste
In a large stockpot, place the squash, onion, and olive oil. Over medium heat, cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is translucent and the edges of the squash are starting to soften. Add the apples, and cook two minutes more. Add vadouvan and curry powder and cook, stirring constantly, for two minutes, until the spices are lightly toasted and fragrant. Add the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook for 20 minutes or until the squash is quite soft.
Remove the pot from heat and, using an immersion blender, purée the soup until smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, purée the soup in batches in a blender or food processor and return the soup to the pot. Stir in honey, lemon juice, and black pepper. Return the pot to the stove, and cook over low heat for five minutes. Taste, adjust seasoning, and serve hot.
RECIPE USED BY PERMISSION OF LYDIA WALSHIN
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Cooking for One
What about us geeks who eat dinner solo? Cooking for one presents a number of challenges, especially if you don’t want to spend too much time or money. Without someone to help share in the cooking and cleanup work, more complicated recipes become less attractive. And the cost of ingredients doesn’t scale down linearly, meaning that recipes with longer ingredient lists become less affordable. On the plus side, cooking for yourself has the great advantage of allowing you to truly experiment and improvise without worrying about what others think. Pasta and fish? Chicken in a red wine sauce? Chocolate and beets? The sky’s the limit.
Preparing a batch of a particular common ingredient can also save you a lot of time over the course of a week. If you’re trying to save money or watching what you eat, try cooking a large batch of chicken breasts or stir-fried tofu on the weekend. Having a batch of precooked ingredients can help challenge you, too. This can be a great way to play with flavors and learn about new combinations as well, since chicken or tofu day-in, day-out by itself can get pretty darn boring. You’ll end up being driven to experiment with seasonings!
One way you can reduce the price of ingredients is to amortize it: plan a number of meals in a row that use common perishable ingredients. Unused tomatoes and parsley purchased for a chicken dish can be used with eggs the next morning or in a lunchtime salad. Sticking to specific types of cuisine such as Italian also increases the amount of overlap in ingredients between recipes, since the regional variation in ingredients is much smaller. Another trick: if your grocery store has a salad bar, you can sometimes find the ingredient you’re looking for. If I’m making a pizza for myself, I’ll sometimes skip buying a whole red bell pepper and yellow bell pepper and snag just the amount I need from the salad bar at my grocery store. The best part? Presliced and already roasted. And because of the “buffet” pricing at the salad bar, I’ve sometimes found things to be cheaper!
Look for oven-safe plates and bowls. You can cook items like chicken tenderloins directly in the bowl, meaning fewer dishes to wash. Be careful with the hot bowl, though!
Leftover sauces, and sometimes entire dishes, can be recycled as components in entirely new dishes. (School cafeteria food!) Chicken and vegetables from one dinner can be recycled into chicken noodle soup. Tomato sauce made for a pasta dish can be reused in lasagna the next night, and the lasagna can be reused as an unexpectedly delicious filling in omelets. Leftover cake scraps or bread can be turned into bread pudding. Sandwiches are a great vehicle for odds and ends. Using dinner leftovers for breakfast can be a huge, untapped resource for creativity as well. A slice of pizza can be turned into a breakfast pizzaby cracking an egg on top and putting it under the
2–3 teaspoons (10–15g) lemon juice, to taste
½ teaspoon (1g) fresh ground black pepper, or more to taste
In a large stockpot, place the squash, onion, and olive oil. Over medium heat, cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is translucent and the edges of the squash are starting to soften. Add the apples, and cook two minutes more. Add vadouvan and curry powder and cook, stirring constantly, for two minutes, until the spices are lightly toasted and fragrant. Add the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook for 20 minutes or until the squash is quite soft.
Remove the pot from heat and, using an immersion blender, purée the soup until smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, purée the soup in batches in a blender or food processor and return the soup to the pot. Stir in honey, lemon juice, and black pepper. Return the pot to the stove, and cook over low heat for five minutes. Taste, adjust seasoning, and serve hot.
RECIPE USED BY PERMISSION OF LYDIA WALSHIN
----
Cooking for One
What about us geeks who eat dinner solo? Cooking for one presents a number of challenges, especially if you don’t want to spend too much time or money. Without someone to help share in the cooking and cleanup work, more complicated recipes become less attractive. And the cost of ingredients doesn’t scale down linearly, meaning that recipes with longer ingredient lists become less affordable. On the plus side, cooking for yourself has the great advantage of allowing you to truly experiment and improvise without worrying about what others think. Pasta and fish? Chicken in a red wine sauce? Chocolate and beets? The sky’s the limit.
Preparing a batch of a particular common ingredient can also save you a lot of time over the course of a week. If you’re trying to save money or watching what you eat, try cooking a large batch of chicken breasts or stir-fried tofu on the weekend. Having a batch of precooked ingredients can help challenge you, too. This can be a great way to play with flavors and learn about new combinations as well, since chicken or tofu day-in, day-out by itself can get pretty darn boring. You’ll end up being driven to experiment with seasonings!
One way you can reduce the price of ingredients is to amortize it: plan a number of meals in a row that use common perishable ingredients. Unused tomatoes and parsley purchased for a chicken dish can be used with eggs the next morning or in a lunchtime salad. Sticking to specific types of cuisine such as Italian also increases the amount of overlap in ingredients between recipes, since the regional variation in ingredients is much smaller. Another trick: if your grocery store has a salad bar, you can sometimes find the ingredient you’re looking for. If I’m making a pizza for myself, I’ll sometimes skip buying a whole red bell pepper and yellow bell pepper and snag just the amount I need from the salad bar at my grocery store. The best part? Presliced and already roasted. And because of the “buffet” pricing at the salad bar, I’ve sometimes found things to be cheaper!
Look for oven-safe plates and bowls. You can cook items like chicken tenderloins directly in the bowl, meaning fewer dishes to wash. Be careful with the hot bowl, though!
Leftover sauces, and sometimes entire dishes, can be recycled as components in entirely new dishes. (School cafeteria food!) Chicken and vegetables from one dinner can be recycled into chicken noodle soup. Tomato sauce made for a pasta dish can be reused in lasagna the next night, and the lasagna can be reused as an unexpectedly delicious filling in omelets. Leftover cake scraps or bread can be turned into bread pudding. Sandwiches are a great vehicle for odds and ends. Using dinner leftovers for breakfast can be a huge, untapped resource for creativity as well. A slice of pizza can be turned into a breakfast pizzaby cracking an egg on top and putting it under the
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