Cook Your Cupboard

What food are you holding onto in your pantry that you can't quite figure out what to do with? Show us your dregs, the surplus, the exotic, the overly-ambitious.

[cookyourcupboard]

Other than on the side with turkey dinner I have no clue what to do with this, I only eat cranberry sauce once a year at thanksgiving. some help would be appciated, although im not sure how I wound up with three cans?

— Leticia Adames

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR's Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

I thing I bought this for a recipe but now I don't know what to do with it.

— Meg

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR's Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

Katharyn Head in East Lansing, Mich., wasn't sure how to use canned chop suey veggies, chickpea flour and rose water. So we called up Brooklyn-based chef and cookbook author Louisa Shafia for some advice. She offered some tasty Asian- and Persian-inspired suggestions. As a bonus, she also addressed pomegranate molasses — the subject of several other "Cook Your Cupboard" queries. Listen to Louisa Shafia's advice and read more at NPR.org › (Photo Credit: Sara Remington)

[cookyourcupboard]

I usually put rotting bananas in the freezer to save for banana bread. Now I don't think I will ever be sick of banana bread, but that being said sometimes I just have too many for bread. Any other ideas of what to do with a frozen mushy banana?

— Marie

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR's Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

This is a a bag of Spanish-style sauteed almonds with rosemary and sea salt. They're great alone. But using in an appetizer might be fun ... if there are any left. I bought them from a vendor at our local farmer's market.

— Dawn Bonker

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR's Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

We are growing basil and try to use it in almost every meal we cook but we can't keep up with supply. We need something creative that uses a lot of basil.

— William

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR's Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

That's a 1-gallon Ziplock bag, with one frozen ostrich egg in it. We have a friend who has 6 ostriches, and during egg-laying season he gets a LOT of eggs, and gives them to anyone he can. They are delicious, but each egg is the equivalent of 2 dozen chicken eggs, which is why I haven't used this yet. Any ideas how to use it up all at once? Once I thaw it, I have to use it!

— Frank O.

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR's Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

This time on Cook Your Cupboard, things are getting spicy. We take on saffron, which is actually the dried stigma of a saffron flower. "It's exotic, it's expensive," says The New York Times columnist and cookbook author Mark Bittman, but "it should be used." Listener Lennet Radke of Marshfield, WI, who submitted an unused jar of saffron from her pantry, got some ideas of how to use it from Bittman. And, as a bonus, he suggested some mouthwatering ways to work cardamon in to various dishes.  Listen to Mark Bittmans's advice and read more at NPR.org › (Photo Credit: Clarkson Potter)

[cookyourcupboard]

I make quinoa pretty often and read on some food blogs that a handy thing to do is cook up a bunch at once and then freeze it so you’re got a head start on a dish. But now with this bag of frozen quinoa in the fridge (for I don’t remember how long) I’m not sure what to do. Slash I’m slightly afraid. Think it’s still fair game?

— C. O’Neill / NPR

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR’s Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

Your coworker brings in bagel bites for a snack, but you don’t finish them all and now they’re taking up space in the precious shared freezer. Any way to class them up and eat them up? Or just go for it?

— RW / NPR

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR’s Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

I love love love pupusas from my local Salvadoran restaurant, but I’ve never tried to prepare them at home. How would you make a meal from these frozen pupusas? Fry in a pan or just heat in the oven or what? Maybe if I had some ideas I could start working them into my dinner rotation…

— SSD / NPR

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR’s Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

I picked this up at an Asian supermarket thinking it sounded good, but then wasn’t sure what to do with it. Beyond a simple stir-fry or a gumbo (and assuming the contents aren’t freezer-burned all to hell), how can I use this?

— AH

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR’s Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

We're almost afraid to ask what you've got in your freezer. But we're doing it anyways! Homemade chicken stock you never think to use? Veggies for a rainy day? Game from hunting season or a jar of chipotle peppers in adobo? There's probably no shortage of weird stuff — but maybe there's something in there that you've been waiting to use. Let's see it! Take a photo, click the big blue button to submit, and leave some suggestions on other photos. You might even get the chance to get some ideas from a chef on the radio! (Photo credit: Hayley Bartels/NPR)

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR’s Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

Ever heard of chow chow? Samantha Lunn of Chatanooga, Tennessee was slightly stumped by the pickled southern staple. For our latest Cook Your Cupboard radio segment, we challenged celebrity French Chef Jacques Pepin to come up with some delicious things to make with it. While we were at it, we also asked him about currants and pickled onions. (I hope you're hungry.) Listen to Jacques Pepin's advice and read more at NPR.org › (Photo: Courtesy of Greg Habiby/KQED)

[cookyourcupboard]

Dinner guests have come to expect a specialty cocktail upon arrival at our home. Consequently, we have received numerous bottles of liquor to try. These three bottles remain the least utilized as recipes are scarce and small amounts required for mixing. Interested to learn how to better incorporate each into more mixed drinks so that these bottles don't have to stay at the back of the liquor cabinet!

— Liz

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR's Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

it was a gift from one of my husband's customers

— Lisa Doyle-Bell

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR's Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.

[cookyourcupboard]

I have a couple things Zwack was something I would force down when I was a you exchange student in Spain. Bought it for nostalgia only. The Malort .... Is horrible. My brother lives in Chicago and bright it for Christmas, it literally says on the label that it it savor end by two fisted drinkers. The Mephisto and hoodoo are remnants from byob parties .... Not sure what to do .... The hoodoo was bought by recent NEw Orleans transplants .... I have no idea where, when or from whom the Mephistopheles came from.

— Peter

With a little help, your strange and surplus food could be dinner. NPR's Morning Edition wants to help you Cook Your Cupboard.