A great way to throw a bunch of ingredients together into a pot and make it delicious Often, I find that my fresh ingredients end up going bad because I don’t find a use for them soon enough. One simple method to reduce your food waste and make some easy leftovers, is to make this Choose Your Own Adventure Soup, using any ingredients you have in the kitchen. Why Is This Recipe Worth it to You? Inspired by my passion for reducing food waste, this recipe is a method of emptying your kitchen of all the fresh ingredients which would otherwise go bad. The unique flavours each time you make this will keep the recipe fresh and different, allowing some flavours to stay constant while others are seasonal. How Does This Recipe Benefit the Environment? Food waste is an incredibly big deal, I will be blunt. Leaving your fresh ingredients to go bad in your pantry or refrigerator does have an impact. But why? Even though vegetables decompose and are regarded as environmentally friendly, a single head of cabbage can take up to 25 years to decompose in a landfill (“Wasted!” The Story of Food Waste), while producing harmful GHGs. By using your leftover ingredients to make this soup, you are lowering your environmental footprint, rather than throwing fresh food out. To learn more about food waste and how to improve your kitchen sustainability, visit my Learn page! What Ingredients To Use?Based on the name of this recipe, Choose Your Own Adventure Soup, you can probably guess that it’s not going to be the same every time. So how do you know what to use in order to make it taste good? Surely throwing leftovers into a pot with some broth doesn’t magically make soup. Well, that’s partially true. In the recipe below you will find a list of options you can use for the soup, along with standardized ingredients. This is a flexible recipe, so feel free to use the recipe as a loose guideline. Experiment! To Add Protein…Along with the ingredient guidelines in the recipe below, you might also want some protein. If you are vegetarian, my favourite thing is to stir in some white or pinto beans before simmering. Or, you can add in some roasted chicken afterwards as a topping. Utilise whatever you like, and as many or as little ingredients as you prefer. After all, this recipe is meant to be something anyone can make with what’s in their kitchen. So, enjoy my self declared sustainable recipe, and bon appetit. Choose Your Own Adventure Soup
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Your Choice: See what you have in the kitchen, and choose from the examples below (or not) to have a total of 4-5 cups starchy vegetables and about 4 cups non starchy vegetables for your soup.
Two of my favourite combinations of vegetables are...
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Some optional toppings / sides include parmesan, bread, or chopped nuts
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Too tired to make your favorite paella? Want a simple and delicious one pan recipe? Try this Let’s just say it, we can all feel lazy at times. While I love making delicious mediterranean meals, I often feel like they take too much time and energy to make. After all, one reason many people don’t cook is that they feel they don’t have the time. So, this recipe is for the fellow lazy cooks out there, and I am offering a simple one pan dinner which will satisfy you and make it worth your time. Why Should You Make This Recipe? Did you know that you can get a full, nutritious meal from a single pan dish? Probably. Nevertheless, this recipe is worth it to you because of how using fresh ingredients and letting them all stew in one pan allows the flavours to combine in a fresh and classically mediterranean way, allowing you to experience the health benefits while not having to put much effort into dinner. What’s So Sustainable About A Skillet? One thing you may notice when looking at this recipe’s ingredients is how fresh they are. Vegetables and fresh ingredients scientifically cause less of an environmental impact, and use less resources, and this recipe prioritizes the locality of its parts. By supporting your local economy and farmers, you are reducing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission footprint of what you eat. I live in Lusaka, Zambia, and all but four ingredients of this recipe are locally sourced, so The Lazy Skillet is sustainable in my book. To learn more about food waste and how you can improve your kitchen sustainability, visit my Learn page! What About Alternative Ingredients? However, the most significant part of this recipe’s sustainability is not the health benefits or fresh ingredients. It’s how you can change it to your liking and what’s available where you live. Not everybody has access to the same resources, and to eliminate the power of large international grocery chains, here is a list of alternative options which you can use which will suit the recipe to your advantage.
What About Protein Substitutions? Alright so we’ve established that you can change the recipe to your liking. However, this only works for certain groups of people right now, because it’s pescatarian. For all you vegetarians and vegans out there, I support your needs as well. This is why I have even more alternative ingredients for you! Instead of crayfish to make this recipe meat and fish free, you can simply leave out the protein. If you require some extra nutrients, however, you can always stir in some white beans which add a creamy texture to the experience. To make this recipe vegan, leave out the crayfish and the parmesan at the end. If you are a meat lover and just don’t like crayfish, you can always substitute it with shrimp or chicken (here is my favorite chicken recipe which you can add on top of the skillet). With that, I leave you to eat. Enjoy my sustainability guideline approved and delicious Lazy Skillet! Bon appetit. The Lazy Skillet
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Some optional toppings could also be: parmesan, extra olive oil, almonds, or sesame seeds |
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January 2021
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