Simmer to Dinner

sauces on standby so you don't have to stress

The days are finally getting chilly in LA but we’re all still busy as hell. The mental load of changing schedules, school breaks, holiday parties, affording gifts, decorating, the news cycle, grocery shopping, and still getting dinner on the table is A LOT. Instead of spending December creating yummy cookie recipes to celebrate the holidays with, this year I’m keeping it practical. We all need help getting through all the bullshit right now. Dinner shouldn’t be stressing any of us out.

Years ago, I got approached to create branded food products to sell right to consumers. Since my whole schtick is to get people to cook at home more and buy less shit, I didn’t want to make frozen meals, canned soup, or anything else that I wouldn’t buy. It wasn’t worth selling out my principles to make a lot of money. I’m dumb like that. The best I could come up with was a line on simmer sauces that could help home cooks get dinner on the table faster but still actually cook and eat fresh vegetables. They’d be like delicious training wheels for people learning to cook and a solid shortcut for people who only had 30 minutes every night to make dinner. It felt like a no-brainer to me. This was immediately shot down but hey, I still sleep fine without selling out by pushing cheap, branded cookware or flavored mayos that no one asked for. So this month, I’m sharing some of my recipes for the simmer sauces and how to use them. Fuck the man.

not pretty but delicious

First up, this Sweet and Smokey Bell Pepper Simmer Sauce. You make a big batch, and keep it in your fridge for up to 10 days or freeze it in ¼ cup portions so you can use it for meals over the next 3 months. It helps so much. You can use the sauce to replace some water when you are cooking rice, add it to a pot with some coconut milk and veggie broth of a quick soup that tastes like it simmered all day, or toss it over some pasta with nooch and olive oil for a satisfying pasta. The flavor goes with so many veggies that you can pick and choose what to add based on your own palate and what’s in season where you are. You could add a little more fat to this simmer sauce and use as the marinade for the torn tofu skewers I was making all summer. It’s extremely versatile, as intended. I’ve kept the spicing broad enough that the flavors would be at home in southwestern chili as much as they would be in a tagine or pasta. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do with it. Now let’s get cooking.

Sweet and Smokey Bell Pepper Simmer Sauce