The Monthly Menu: Lessons in Using What You’ve Got

And repurposing dinner for the next day's lunch.

Like a lot of folks lately—see FoodPrint’s “Eat Down Your Pantry” challenge—I’ve been trying to use what’s in the house until it’s empty. With the exception of the weekly farmers’ market visit for produce and eggs, as well as hitting the grocery store for tofu, we’ve been doing minimal shops. Right now, we’re out of peanut butter and hoisin sauce, and dangerously low on olive oil. That’s fine, because we head to New York tomorrow (with a brief trip to Milan in the middle—details on that experience to come).

Read on for what we went out for and what I was cooking last month, with a lot of recipe links and notes. It also includes a link to my San Juan restaurant map and culinary tourism itinerary for traveling within Puerto Rico…

Eating