Rethink Food Unveils Its Commissary Kitchen’s Holiday Recipes E-Cookbook

Rethink Food is always cooking up new ways to engage with local communities. Its debut Holiday Recipes E-Cookbook is an ideal way to discover sweet and savory recipes with a sustainable twist while giving back to those in need at the same time.

The e-cookbook is available for a suggested donation of just $10, and 100% of that goes toward providing meals to vulnerable communities. It’s downloadable at rethinkfood.org/holiday-season.

“This holiday season, our commissary kitchen is beyond proud to launch its first Holiday Recipe E-Cookbook,” states Ken Baker, Rethink Food’s culinary director. “This special edition is a celebration of our vision of mindful eating inspired by simple classic comfort recipes … with a sustainable twist. We hope you join us this holiday season in embracing sustainability without compromising on flavor and knowing that you're making a difference for your local community.”

Mindful Cooking: Reducing Food Waste and Maximizing Ingredients

Rethink Food’s commissary kitchen is where the real magic happens. Receiving roughly 11,500 pounds of donated food from various partners each week, creativity is the secret sauce in the more than 1,150,000 meals the commissary kitchen has prepared since it launched in 2017.

“At Rethink Food’s commissary kitchen, we cook for a higher purpose every day — transforming excess food into meals and working to build better connections across our food system to support our local community,” Baker added. “For us, a meal is not just a meal — it's a conscious culinary experience meant to serve our neighbors with dignity and respect.”

Spreading Joy and Good Food: Rethink Food's Vision for a Festive and Inclusive Season

Acknowledging the power of a nourishing meal and how it fosters unity is another driving factor behind the creation of Rethink Food’s e-cookbook. In the downloadable resource, you’ll find beloved holiday recipes from Rethink Food’s team members, including holiday cranberry relish, fresh corn polenta with quick jammy tomatoes, Puerto Rican rice and beans, and purple sweet potato coconut pie. Executive Chef Michael Marcelli oversaw the recipes compiled for the cookbook.

The recipes are meant to inspire and open the conversation on food sustainability. The reality is everyone can do more to be less wasteful regarding excess food. Rethink Food’s commissary kitchen has mastered the art of upcycling random ingredients into gourmet cuisine to delight the senses.

The kitchen receives several hundred pounds of donated food each week from Whole Foods, Manhattan West (Brookfield Properties), Chelsea Market (Jamestown Properties), Great Expectations Catering, JP Morgan Corporate Dining, and others. Impressively, 2.3 million pounds of food has been rescued to date.

Rethink Food is so grateful for its partnerships, the cookbook gives special thanks to collaborators such as Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Eleven Madison Park, Driscoll Food, Hall Street, Rhubarb Catering, Handsome Brook Farms, Cozzini Bros, and others.

Each recipe is explained in easy-to-follow instructions. Rethink Food’s sous chef, Arturo Griffith, shared a recipe for meatloaf that serves 10 to 15 hungry diners and can be prepped and in the oven in just 15 minutes. The cookbook even includes pro tips and sustainability hacks.

Rethink Food’s Culinary Team Playbook

While Rethink Food’s Holiday Recipes E-Cookbook was a natural progression for the New York-headquartered nonprofit, it’s not the first time it has released a resource chronicling the adventures of the commissary kitchen.

Earlier this year, the entity, which is also feeding people in Chicago, Miami, and Nashville, Tennessee, released the Culinary Team Playbook celebrating the labor of love that pours into each meal before it hits the community.

Says the website, it’s “an interactive guide to the processes, considerations and operations of the team. In this playbook, we dive into the details, helping you understand the depth of thought and intention that goes into our kitchen processes. We believe collaboration is the key to growth, and invite your input, questions, and thoughts.” It’s one of many ways Rethink Food is demonstrating the difference it’s making, one meal at a time.

“The Rethink Food commissary kitchen is one of the most inventive and thoughtful culinary groups that you will ever meet,” Baker explained. “Everyone is a hands-on doer, finding creative and practical solutions to deploy excess food and create lasting change. We are full of heart.”

The commissary kitchen receives fresh ingredients and whips them up into flavorful gems such as pesto sauce made from kale, cilantro, basil, parsley or arugula, and overripe bananas are easily baked into bread.

Meals are intentionally culturally enriching to reflect and celebrate the diversity of recipients, and there’s a tremendous amount of emphasis placed on making dishes that are packed with protein, vitamins, and energy-boosting carbs.

Like most restaurants, Rethink Food’s commissary kitchen team works on a cold line and a hot line. On the cold line, fresh seasonal produce is cleaned and prepped for cooking. The Robot Coupe processor can quickly process 250 pounds of carrots, and beet scraps can be repurposed into a fresh meal. On the hot line, veggies, carbs, and proteins are cooked. After the food is made, it’s carefully placed on delivery trucks to be distributed to community-based organizations.

The commissary kitchen maintains a preservation program for ingredients that are better suited for jams, sauces, purees, soups, and other pantry-type products. The culinary whizzes have morphed cinnamon banana puree into barbecue sauce and turned herbs and vegan mayo into a tantalizing green goddess dressing. And the sauce sorcery doesn’t end there. Rethink Food’s commissary kitchen has churned out chili garlic spiced oil, black tea and jujube jelly, spiced mushroom paste, garden beet hummus, toffee coconut oatmeal, broccoli cheddar soup, and six-bean chili.

Since Rethink Food started, the organization has directed more than $65 million to over 150 local restaurants and food establishments, providing more than 15.5 million meals through over 170 community-based organizations, and used 2.3 million pounds of excess food — saving 5.7 million pounds of CO2 and 52 million gallons of fresh water from being wasted.

“We hope you join us this holiday season in embracing sustainability without compromising flavor and knowing that you're making a difference for your local community,” Baker said. “Every $5 of your donation provides a nutritious meal prepared by our culinary team using donated excess food.”

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes