Hi friends,
I’m hitting your inboxes this week with a slightly different format! Instead of sharing my usual recipes, I will be answering a few questions from my cooking hotline.
Looking for a few weekend project ideas? Try this recipe for Roberta’s pizza dough, mushroom farrotto, or whole-roasted harissa cauliflower with garlic yogurt.
Cooking Hotline
If you’ve been following along, my last cooking hotline covered how to pair dishes. This week, I’m answering a couple more questions from Summer on grocery shopping:
How do you personally grocery shop? Not much of an active cooking question, but I’m super curious about how other cooks balance planning and creativity.
Where do you think is worth saving / splurging when buying food items (ie. Fish / good produce / olive oil etc etc?)
How I Grocery Shop
Let’s start with the first question. I have a bit of an unusual method for grocery shopping because I have to purchase groceries for my job (i.e., recipe development) and personal cooking.
Before I started cooking for work, I’d probably wing 75% of my dinners and rarely go into the grocery store with a list. Over the last few years, though, I don’t have as much creative spark during dinnertime. After cooking all day, I don’t always have the energy to brainstorm ideas.
So, my solution has been to plan for the week ahead. This has really been working for me, especially because I’ve been trying to limit how much I’m eating out and focus on having more complete meals with veg, grains, and protein.
My Current Method
Here’s how things break down:
1/3 - Recipe development: About 1/3 of my planning involves ideating and researching recipe ideas for my work. This is when I get to play around, experiment, and be creative. Since these are business expenses, I purchase the groceries for these ingredients separately via Instacart delivery.
1/3 - Personal planned shopping: Another 1/3 is planning recipes from other recipe developers and bloggers. Sometimes, I get sick of my own ideas, and it’s a great way to branch out and try new techniques. Whenever I see something exciting to try online, I save it to Spillt*.
Over the weekend, I review what I’ve saved from Spillt, add a few options to my weekly meal plan, and generate a grocery list. Then, I’ll head to the grocery store with my list.
1/3 - Personal unplanned shopping: I love going into the grocery store and browsing and looking at new products, so I try not to over-plan.
In addition to my “planned” ingredients, I pick up any pantry ingredients we’re low on, fruits and vegetables that look good, a couple of proteins for the week, and some fun extra goodies. For example, last week’s goodies included a whole grain pancake mix, popcorn, lemon skyr, frozen sour cherries, and green goddess dip.
Recently, we’ve also been heading to New Deal Fish Market for a weekly seafood run. The quality of the seafood is exceptional. They always have the most buttery, velvety sushi-grade salmon, and I’ve even seen sushi-grade scallops, too!
*Spillt is a wonderful free recipe app where you can save content from anywhere (newsletters, social media, cookbooks, blogs, etc.). You can make meal plans and generate grocery lists, and it has an automated feature that converts the grocery list to an actual shopping cart in Instacart and other shopping apps.
Seasonal changes: Seasonally, things also shift a bit. In the summer (and sometimes the fall), I sign up for a CSA, which provides more than enough produce for my small 2-person household, even on the small share.
I still have to grocery shop for work, but the other 2/3 of my cooking is centered around my CSA veggies. I actually like this change in patterns throughout the year because it gives me the opportunity to get plenty of creative time in the kitchen.
Splurging vs. Saving
Where do you think is worth saving / splurging when buying food items (ie. Fish / good produce / olive oil etc etc?)
This is a great question! I like to consider what factors might lead me to “splurge” for a specific item. Let’s assume ingredient A is the “splurge” and ingredient B is the cheaper product.
Taste: Does ingredient A taste significantly better than ingredient B?
Ethical/Environmental reasons: Is ingredient A produced in a significantly more sustainable way than ingredient B? Is ingredient A made by a company that treats its employees humanely, while ingredient B has had major ethical violations?
Price: While more expensive, is ingredient A reasonably priced for the value? With shrinkflation/skimpflation, this has recently become a much more significant consideration.
For some products, the superior taste leads me to splurge; for others, it’s environmental reasons. Now, I don’t always make the right call here, and I’ve definitely been guilty of buying something just because the packaging is very cute or trendy. But generally, this is the way I like to think about splurging.
My splurges:
Note: I understand that we each have different budgets, and I acknowledge the privilege I have of being able to choose the foods I spend my money on. These are the items I personally find value in, considering my own financial situation.
Animal proteins: I don’t eat meat often, so I don’t mind splurging when I do. For example, I’ve been buying Labelle Patrimoine chicken recently at Whole Foods, and the texture and flavor are much better than your average grocery store chicken (especially when half of the chicken nowadays is woody and unpleasant). And even though they’re more expensive, I always have a jar of Ortiz anchovies in my pantry; I love their clean, salty flavor!
Produce: I love my summer CSA; it’s such a treat to receive high-quality fresh produce. As the seasons change, I’m less picky about the produce and more concerned that I eat adequate amounts of fruits and veggies.
Spices: This is probably unconventional, but I buy a lot of high-quality whole spices and grind them fresh. Considering how frequently I use spices in my cooking, this investment is definitely worthwhile for me. You can even purchase them in bulk for more cost savings. Freshly ground spices are vibrant and alive; old spices are stale and bitter.
My saves:
Olive oil: In lieu of higher-end brands, I opt for California Olive Ranch olive oil, which is moderately priced and great for everyday cooking. I rarely use higher-end oils, save for a special salad here and there.
Plant proteins: I don’t splurge on canned beans, lentils, or tofu. They're cheap, easy, and soak up flavors like a sponge!
Everyday pantry items: You'll rarely see me splurging on pantry items like oats, soy sauce, nut butter, tomato paste, white vinegar, or neutral oils.
That’s all for this week! Thanks again to Summer for sending in these questions. Have a question yourself? Submit them to my cooking hotline!
-Karishma