A great time to start new habits is when you move into a new home and to some degree that's some of our motivation for this blog and all the content in it. We both want to be better cooks, we both want to eat healthier meals, and we would both appreciate saving money and creating less waste in the process.
One of our problems in the kitchen has been buying new ingredients -anything from oyster sauce, to cilantro, to fruit- using these ingredients once, and then completely forgetting about them. We have been trying to make this into an opportunity to both use up the veggies, fruits and other ingredients we already have, as well as create a challenge to find delicious ways to prepare these items.
As an example, I bought a large bag of apples and ate only a few of them. Before they could go bad, Carol got on the web and found two recipes. One for some apple slaw and one for a butternut squash and green apple casserole. Not only did we use up the rest of the apples, this was the first time for either of us making a slaw or a casserole. The slaw turned out to be very refreshing and clean tasting. It had a strange almost foamy texture with the crunch of the apple, but it's flavor was enough to make you want to keep trying it over and over again. The casserole was really simple and we cooked both the squash and apple just enough to get them soft. That creaminess with the crunch of the breadcrumbs and crushed pecans was the best part of the dish.
