When I saw this recipe and article in The New York Times, I knew it would be a good fit for my next post.

One, it uses the whole leek–whites and greens–in one recipe. Many recipes only use the whites and light green parts. Those who are committed to maximizing the value of their ingredients and minimizing waste will hang onto the greens for making a vegetable stock. I should be one of those people. We should all strive to be that person. The bag of vegetable scraps in my freezer that was started before my son was born and probably lasted well into his third year?….that showed that I have a bit of work to do to be that person.

Two, this recipe is vegan. And in 2021, I decided to incorporate more vegan meals into my life. After years of professional development and initiation into the world of goals and objectives, I decided to set a couple of personal goals in the New Year. Based on research and recommendations, I felt it was important to pick something measurable and truly achievable–even if the achievement would be modest. In this case, I want to make sure I spent one day each month eating completely vegan. To my credit, it’s common for me to have days without meat. And I certainly aim for more vegan days/meals. But for me, it is a true challenge to spend a whole day without dairy products. I want to face head-on the discomfort I feel when I see charts of the environmental footprint of different food categories, with cheese up toward the top.

Two caveats: 1) While I give this recipe a 5 out of 5 for meeting my sustainability goals, it only gets a 3 out of 5 for flavor–it needs a bit added to give it any zing. 2) I found the recipe a little difficult to follow, as written, in NYT Cooking, especially with all the elements and tools needed. I organized it differently below, including a list of supplies and incorporating the useful tips I found in the comment section from other readers as well. With some proper planning and staging, the preparation can go smoothly.

Vegan Leek Pasta
Adapted from The New York Times Cooking

Equipment:
Cutting board
Knife
Bowl (for rinsing grit from leeks)
Zesting tool
Large pot (for boiling greens and pasta)
Tongs
Blender
Colander
Measuring cup, scoop, or bowl (for reserving pasta water)
Frying pan or saucepan (one that will allow for the oil to be at a depth for frying leek whites in batches)
Slotted spoon
Plate lined with paper towels

Ingredients:
Kosher salt and black pepper
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, and additional seasonings to taste
1 to 1.25 pounds leeks (2 to 3 medium)
1/2 Cup olive oil
1 pound bucatini (fettuccine or linguine or even pappardelle are acceptable substitutes)
1 lemon, zested
Nutritional yeast, to taste

Here’s the gist: you’re boiling the leek greens, pan frying the leek whites, and boiling the pasta. Your sauce comes from a combination of the greens, the pasta water, and the fried leek oil. You can do each step at different times and in advance, but it can be a waiting game to get it all to come together and up to temperature. I recommend frying the leek whites while the greens boil (as it takes awhile). Boil the pasta last.

1. Prepare your leeks: remove the roots off the white ends, and cut to separate the bottom light green/white part from the greens.

Slice the greens lengthwise to make it easy to separate and clean. Submerge in cold water and swish a few times to remove the grit.

For the whites, you want to end up with small, roughly 2-inch matchstick-sized slices. You can arrive at those a number of ways, starting crosswise or lengthwise. I think lengthwise was probably the easiest.

Rinse the whites until they are clean, and get them nice and dry in a dish towel.

2. Cook the greens and whites in their respective pans — at the same time if you can mange it, but either step can be done in advance or independently.

Once the pasta/greens water is boiling, add the leek greens. Cook about 8 minutes, until the greens are tender. Remove them with tongs to a blender. Leave water on high heat to boil for pasta.

Meanwhile, get your frying pan ready with oil set over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the leek strips in batches (I did 3), cooking and stirring frequently until some of the pieces start to get golden. Remove them from the pan with the slotted spoon, leaving as much oil behind has possible. Drain on paper towel-lined plate.

One thing in the instructions I appreciated was when it said that the leeks won’t cook evenly and it’s not you! The leeks continue to cook a bit longer after being removed from the pan, so you don’t need to wait until every single piece looks brown–otherwise you risk burning some.

Season with salt. Set oil aside to cool.

3. Cook pasta. Add to the boiling water. Lower heat slightly and stir occasionally as you cook the pasta until it is not quite al dente (I went about 2 minutes less than the package instructions).

Before draining the pasta in a colander in the sink, pull out 1 Cup of pasta water. Return the pasta to the pot.

4. Prepare sauce. To the blender with the leek greens, add the leek oil, 2/3 Cup of the pasta water, a generous pinch of salt and pepper, red pepper flakes and other seasoning that fits the Italian flavor profile.

Blend ingredients together into a creamy sauce.

Pour into the pot with the pasta, stir, and taste. You may need additional pasta water and seasoning to achieve the desired texture and flavor (the toppings add a lot of flavor).

Serve in a bowl or on a plate, and top with a little lemon zest and juice, nutritional yeast, and frizzled leek.

Take pride in being that person, and enjoy.

Recipes in this post:

Wine Flour Dusted Kale Chips
One Pot Pasta with Sausage and Greens
Chicken Braised with Pine Nuts and Potatoes

I enjoy prepping vegetables for meals. I really do. Give me a sharp knife, a large, solid cutting board, adequate prep bowls, a compost bowl, and (ideally) sunlight streaming through the window and I will contentedly slice and chop away. I crave the activity even now, with two children, and seek to carve out the time for it at least a few days when someone else is caring for them. It’s a privilege, I know, to have access to fresh foods, resources and time to prepare healthy meals. I’m grateful. It’s another reason why I work to make the most of the ingredients and leftovers in my home.

As someone who prides herself on efficiency, I should get myself in the habit of doing bulk prep—processing produce for a series of recipes at one time. I’m disappointed in myself for falling short there. So last week, I buckled down, focused, and made a plan. I incorporated several languishing ingredients from my ample stock in a few various recipes. 

The plan centered around my bunch of red kale from my farm share. It was one of the more perishable ingredients remaining in my vegetable drawer (other than the herbs), though at the same time, I remembered I needed to jump on cooking the beet greens. So those were planned for the one pot pasta – along with the can of tomato sauce I sent tumbling and denting on the garage floor.

Some of the kale was used in a complex chicken dish (recipe below) that also used farm share potatoes. It was a welcome change in starch after over a week of rice dishes (which my husband never tired of). 

Side note: here’s a tip (that any good chef and kitchen manager knows) — label your prep! Because I skipped this step, I ended up mixing up one of the kale containers and beet green containers and swapped the two in the aforementioned recipes. (Fortunately, it wasn’t a critical mistake in this case. Nor was the barbecue sauce I poured over my salad last night, instead of balsamic dressing — I imagined it was a southwestern salad and it was entirely edible! No food waste…)

The last of the kale became kale chips, inspired by a recipe sent along with “wine flour” a friend sent as a gift. He knew well my penchant for delicious, upcycled ingredients. In the past, spent grain flour from RISE worked wonderfully in a chocolate bread. I’m a fan of Toast Ale and White Mustache Yogurt Probiotic Whey Ice Pops, to name a few. I hadn’t yet heard of Finger Lakes Wine flour. It’s made using the byproduct of wine-making. I was given a bag of Riesling wine flour.

Riesling Flour Dusted Kale Chips
Recipe provided by Finger Lakes Wine Flour

6 Cups (packed) Torn Kale
2.5 Tablespoons Wine Flour
¼ Cup Plus 1-2 Tablespoons Grapeseed, Canola, or other vegetable oil
Salt for sprinkling on top (I used Maldon flakes)

As you can see, “wine flour” is made up of leftover skins and seeds of grapes. When I opened the bag, I took a deep inhale. It reminded me of the scent of a multigrain raisin bread I recently had. Which make sense if you consider raisins are dried grapes, and the bread grains and seeds could be compared to the grape seeds!

The process for the kale chips is very straightforward:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 Fahrenheit
2. Mix seasoning ingredients

3. Add to and massage into kale

4. Spread on baking sheets

Bake until crisp but not burnt (around 15 minutes), rotating and switching around pans in oven every 5 minutes or so.

One Pot Pasta with Sausage and Greens
from New York Times Cooking

1 Tablespoon olive oil
5 to 6 ounces (2-3) sweet or hot Italian sausages, casings removed
1 (28-ounce) can tomatoes – sauce or crushed (you don’t want a lot of texture here)
½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon red-pepper flakes
Kosher salt
1 pound dried pasta (penne, or other tube pasta)
About 5 ounces greens, such as beet greens, kale, or spinach
½ Cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, freshly grated

1. In a Dutch oven or other large, deep lidded skillet, heat the oil over medium-high until shimmering. Add sausage, broken apart, and let start to brown in the pan for about a minute.
2. Continue to cook the sausage for another 5 minutes or so, taking breaks between stirring and breaking it up, until you have small, brown, crispy chunks. Drain any excess oil, leaving about 1 Tablespoon behind.
   

   

3. Add the tomato sauce in carefully, then incorporate the cumin, red-pepper flakes and 2 cups water.
   

   

   Add a generous pinch of salt and turn up the temperature to bring liquid to a boil.
4. Add the pasta, and mix in to coat with the sauce. Lower the heat to a simmer (I moved my pot to a different burner), cover, and cook until al dente (check a minute or two before the package instructions say). Be sure to open very few minutes to stir so that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. You may need to add in a few tablespoons of warm water.
   

   

5. Reduce the heat further, and season to taste with salt. Add your greens a little at a time and cook until wilted.
   

   

6. Serve in bowls, topped with cheese.

Chicken Braised with Pine Nuts and Potatoes
from New York Times Cooking

3 Tablespoons olive oil
6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (I only had 4 and it was not enough!)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 medium (or 5 small!) onions, sliced
1 fennel bulb, chopped (this replaced celery in the original recipe. Another CSA share item I had to use up!)
8 whole garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
⅔ Cup dry white wine
3 Tablespoons sherry vinegar, plus more if needed
3 Tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
4 dried bay leaves
4 whole cloves
Pinch of saffron (optional)
1 pound baby potatoes, washed and halved
About 1.5 Cups chicken stock, broth, or water (I used a combination of leftover chicken glace and water
~3 ounces greens (such as kale or beet greens), stemmed and thinly sliced
1-2 Tablespoons unsalted butter (depends on the richness of your chicken broth or stock)
¼ Cup Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped, plus more for serving

A note on this recipe: it was very helpful to have most of the ingredients prepared ahead of time. In terms of chopping, I really only reserved the parsley and potatoes for dinner time, since herbs should be as fresh as possible, and uncooked potatoes turn black if left cut (though they can be submerged in water.)

While I was working on the kale, fennel, onions and garlic in advance, my older son came over and, completely unprompted, picked up an onion and started to help me peel. My heart was warmed with pride and happiness!

Still, the recipe takes much longer than I prefer. It is a braise after all. It was challenging to monitor and taste and execute especially on a night when our 4-month-old decided to stay up until 10pm.

But I do recommend it as a special occasion meal or preparation for dinner guests (if we ever have those again).

1. Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper.
2. Add oil to a Dutch oven or other large, deep skillet that will fit all of the chicken pieces in one layer. Heat over high heat until shimmering so that the chicken pieces (skin-side down) will sizzle once added. Turn heat down if/when there is popping or burning. Brown skin until it pulls away from pan easily, about 10 minutes. Remove to a plate and set aside.

3. Add onions, fennel and garlic to the oil and fat in the pot, along with salt. Stir until softened, about 5 minutes. Deglaze with the wine and vinegar.

4. Stir in 1/2 cup water or chicken broth, pine nuts, bay leaves, cloves and saffron.

5. Add potatoes and as much water or stock it takes to come up to the sides of the potatoes. Place the chicken pieces back in the pan, skin-side up, and nestle them into the liquid among the potatoes.

Cover tightly and let cook with very low heat, checking after about 45 minutes to test the doneness of the potatoes. It might take 20 more minutes.

6. At this point, you can hold the dish until ready to serve; rewarm gently. Taste the liquid to determine how much salt, pepper, and vinegar is needed. I needed to add salt, and a splash more vinegar to balance the richness of the glace.

7. Stir in the greens (beet greens in this case) and cook through.

8. Add in butter and parsley and serve.

That’s a wrap!

Last month, I attended the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce of New York’s (SACC New York) annual sustainability summit. In its 10th year, this year’s theme was “Mad About Food.” The presenters in this fast-paced event were progressive thinkers from business, academia, and technology. Many were from Sweden, of course, and I learned some of the reasons why “Swedishness” and sustainability go hand and hand, and what Americans can learn.

1. Aim high

This year, Sweden signed a law that requires the country to reach net-zero emissions by the year 2045. They went beyond what they pledged under the Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015, setting their target date 5 years earlier than originally planned.

Nina Ekelund of The Haga Institute shared some of the impacts of Sweden’s earlier commitments. After the Paris Agreement, the portion of companies measuring their climate impact increased from 1 out of 4 from 3 out of 4– without any regulations. Their approach – including a high carbon tax – has been good for business. Since 1990, there was a 25% reduction in emissions alongside a 69% increase in GDP.

At Space10, an Innovation Center in Sweden, Guillaume Charny-Brunet’s team was considering the development of shower technology that managed water flow and use. The switched gears when they thought about what would save the most water: reducing meat consumption. The water required for 1 beef burger is the equivalent of 1.5 months in the shower. So they started experimenting with alternative agriculture, and set up an aquaponics system that grew enough vegetables for a building. The vision is to go well beyond that.

2. Start with the Individual

Michael La Cour, Managing Director of IKEA Food Services explained IKEA Food’s mission: Honest food for people and the planet. What do they see as the most important KPI? They serve 650 million people a year. They have 194,000 coworkers throughout the world, and counting, which gives them great opportunity and great responsibility.

The winner of SACC New York-Deloitte Green award was Sweden-based Whywaste: “Reduce food waste through data driven workflows.” Whywaste currently focuses on supermarkets in Sweden, using data to keep better attention to expiration date and control purchasing decisions. Like my employer, LeanPath, they empower employees to keep food waste at a minimum through knowledge.

3. Embrace Change, Keep an Open Mind

“Swedes are change-minded to the absurd.” Johan Jörgensen, founder of Sweden FoodTech. They run after new tech, Johan says, which is one of the reasons why he sees Sweden as leading sustainability efforts in food.

One of the trending concepts is the idea of individualized nutrition. Professor Robert Brummer from Orebro University explained the gut-brain interaction. He presented the idea that we need to be more proactive about designing for a healthy life versus reactive to problems — he called it a shift from an illness paradigm to a wellness paradigm.

Following that was a presentation by Eatit, a Swedish company that acts as digital doctor, dietician and chef by using a blood test and artificial intelligence to provide individualized food recommendations for improving health.

It’s no secret that a healthy diet is the ultimate form of prevention for many diseases. The idea of what is “healthy” is becoming more and more personal. This runs directly in parallel with the food waste in two ways: 1) the fact that of all food waste reduction strategies, prevention has the biggest impact and 2) different people have different ways of defining what is “waste.”

People are always looking for help making the best decisions when it comes to health and waste. I learned about Tellspec, a spectroscopy-based food sensor that aims to solve food fraud, food adulteration, food safety, and food waste, by taking some of the subjectivity out and looking at the chemical structure of food, an intriguing idea.

This summit reminded me that we can’t predict where technology is going, and there may be capabilities far beyond what we can imagine. In my afternoon workshop, Nina Ekelund gave the example of smart phones. How many of us could have known the capacity of these portable computing devices? I believe more of us in the US-based sustainability community can take a page out of Sweden’s book and keep an open mind about the options we have to tackle food waste.