The week before you take a vacation will have you wondering if you should bother leaving at all. There’s work to wrap up. Laundry to do. Dishes to wash. Bags you can’t pack until the laundry is done. And then there’s the fridge, somehow fuller than usual.
Can you tell I’m about to leave town? In my fridge, a wall of leftovers had distracted me from produce threatening to spoil: yellow summer squash, half a bag of snap peas, wilting greens and some onion and chile odds and ends. On the counter, wrinkly tomatoes and a bundle of basil mock me. I have my work cut out for me.
The key to stress-free, pre-vacation cooking is to plan each meal around one or two ingredients you need to get rid of, and let your pantry pick up the slack. So I started the week by whipping up Hetty Lui McKinnon’s basil and tomato fried rice (above) using some of the tomatoes, basil and onion, as well as a pint container of cooked rice that was pushing Day 6 on the shelf. It’s as delicious as it is efficient. I ate the leftovers as I wrote this, garnished with a little chile crisp I pinched from Priya Krishna’s desk.
Basil and Tomato Fried Rice
With the remaining tomatoes and basil, the solution is obvious: Ali Slagle’s tomato-butter pasta or Ham El-Waylly’s grated tomato pasta.
I try not to grocery shop right before I leave, but I must admit I did buy a fresh carton of eggs the other day. I used a few eggs in my fried rice, but I’m not too worried about blowing through all 12 — they’ll last three to five weeks in the fridge after you buy them.
And they’ll pay off in a new Kia Damon recipe I’ve added to my pre-vacation lineup: salt and pepper zucchini, a vegetarian spin on Cantonese salt and pepper shrimp. With staples like panko bread crumbs, garlic powder, sugar, vegetable oil and, of course, salt and pepper on hand, you need to open the fridge really only for zucchini — or in my case, yellow squash — and two eggs for dredging.
Kia garnishes the dish with onion and jalapeño, and would you believe I have those, too? But even if I didn’t, I’d make the zucchini anyway and eat it over my greens — or squished into a potato roll.
There’s alluring simplicity to Hetty’s recipe for snap pea, tofu and herb salad with spicy peanut sauce, in that it’s more a guide to assembly than it is a rigid set of instructions. I’d scale it down for one by feel: A knob off the tofu I found jammed in the back of the fridge (I’ll freeze the rest); that half bag of snap peas; the rest of the basil and a scallion, if I can find one.
But don’t bother scaling down the dressing. With just peanut butter, chile crisp and water, any leftover sauce will last in the fridge for the duration of your trip. When you return weary from a day in the car or at the airport, you’ll be glad you have it to drizzle over whatever you pull from the freezer that night.
Snap Pea, Tofu and Herb Salad With Spicy Peanut Sauce
One More Thing!
Don’t tell anyone, but as I wrote this newsletter at my desk, I may have been simultaneously watching Simone Biles whirl about the uneven bars during the women’s gymnastics team finals on Tuesday. Multitasking is the highest-difficulty skill in my routine, OK?
“What on earth does an athlete like that eat for breakfast?” I wondered. The nerves alone would squash most appetites. But “the road to the Olympics is paved with carbs,” wrote my colleague Tayla Minsberg last week. She spoke to a handful of athletes competing in Paris this year to learn about their breakfast routines. Come for the banana pancakes, stay for the Pop-Tarts.
Two programing notes: Our August Grilling Challenge with Wirecutter kicks off next week! Every Tuesday this month, you’ll get grilling recipes — and recommendations for the best grilling gear (with exclusive discounts on editor-approved gear). Make sure you’re signed up here!
And I’m away next week. Give Ali Slagle, who will be here in my stead, a warm welcome. See you soon!
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