This story is part of On Repeat, a series in which we ask top chefs, cookbook authors, and other famous foodies about the dishes they just can’t quit.
In a perfect world, our pantries and fridges would be stocked with the fixin’s for myriad fast, fun, flexible dinners—ones we could whip up with zero planning. “While this type of low-lift, high-reward meal has recently been refreshed under the ‘girl dinner’ trend, snacking dinners have always been the secret weapon of busy people,” writes Georgia Freedman in her new cookbook entitled, yes, Snacking Dinners.
One such meal, which Freedman makes On Repeat, is her Grown-Up “PB&J” Rice Crackers, a pantry-raiding dish that mixes and matches nut butter with dried and fresh fruit. “I sort of forgot about peanut butter and jelly as I got older,” she says. “And then when I had a kid who was the right age, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, amazing flavor combination. Why don’t we eat this?’”
Why I love it
“It has all those nostalgic childhood flavors, but it’s not quite as sweet because it’s made with fresh ingredients. It’s that thing of rediscovering how great a peanut butter and jelly sandwich really is—and the genius of those crunchy rice crackers. They’re a great vehicle because they stay very crunchy and they have a nice flavor. And because I’m using dried fruit and fresh fruit [instead of jelly], you really can use whatever you have.”
What I’ve changed
“I like to use ingredients that most people have in their kitchen, and most people have apples—or some kind of fruit—sitting around, and some kind of dried fruit. I like it with apple, but it would be great with pear or a crunchy persimmon. It would be great with figs. Grapes are great too; it changes the flavor profile, and you’ve got to chop them up a little bit, but they’re wonderful.
“Dried mango is also something we often have in our house, and that’s a really good one to add in. I’ve made candied fruit for a holiday season treat and then have extra lying around, like citrus peels.”
What else I’m into right now
- Eggs as blank slate. I have a spread in the cookbook about jammy eggs, which are essentially hard-boiled eggs that are still velvety in the middle, and it has a bunch of different ways of adding toppings to them. There’s one that has chili crisp and scallions and sesame seeds; if scallions are starting to turn, I’ll make that one so I can use them up. There’s one that’s minced sundried tomatoes and green olives; I did that after I’d used sundried tomatoes for something else, and I had them sitting in the back of my fridge.
- Kitchen sink salads. I tend to make a big salad as a way to use up leftovers, and I will often plan my dinners based on what I want to have left over for my salads. If I have roasted onions that were under something in a roasting pan, I will save those separately and throw them into my salads. If I’ve steamed some leeks and served them with vinaigrette, or if I’ve done a French-style carrot salad, grated with vinaigrette, I can add them. It’s how I use up a lot of extra proteins and the ends of vegetables.
- Produce swapping. Winter produce swaps have been a big thing this winter, because we’ve had a really strong citrus season in the Bay Area where I live, and I have way more Meyer lemons than I can use. You don’t want to waste that citrus. I have a friend who has a Bearss’s lime tree that was going crazy, and I saw that she posted about it, so I messaged her and said, ‘Let’s swap some.’ We both ended up with these big bags of someone else’s citrus. Someone had a kale plant that was going really strong, so we swapped for some lemons. It’s nice to share the abundance and keep things from going bad.