Kitchen & Bar

On this phone

How to get around

The bar under the name is the map. Swipe it sideways if a destination sits off-screen. On Tonight, the button pinned to the bottom cooks the lead dish.

  1. Tonight — What you can cook first, plus drinks that fit the same shelf.

  2. This week — Five dinners from the shelf, urgent things cooked first.

  3. Shelf — Edit what you actually own.

  4. Written methods — Every dish and drink with a method somebody wrote out.

  5. The pantry — Start from one ingredient: what it does, and everything built on it.

  6. Out of it — What to use instead, judged by the job the missing thing was doing.

  7. Photo review — Review a demo shelf photo and confirm every item before adding it.

  8. Flavor Lab — Pairings with a track record: classic matches and the mixology behind them.

  9. Wild cards — Combinations with no tradition behind them, only shared aroma notes.

  10. Send to Occasion OS — Prepare confirmed shelf availability for Occasion OS.

  11. The field — The gap this layer owns.

Keep it on the home screen

  1. iPhone — tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
  2. Android — open the browser menu, then Install app or Add to Home screen.

After that it opens as Kitchen & Bar, not a browser tab. Inventory stays on this device.

Substitutions · 148 dishes here use it

Out of tomato

Sweet, sour and savory at once, which is why it holds up so many dishes with no meat in them. Out of season a canned tomato beats a fresh one, and it is not close.

Everything below is judged against that job. A swap that covers it is a swap; one that only looks similar is not.

5 of the 148 dishes here that mention tomato list it as optional — 3% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

canned whole tomatoes, drained and torn

one 14 ounce can for three medium fresh

What it gets you
In anything cooked, more than the fresh ones would have. Canned tomatoes are picked ripe and fresh ones usually are not.
What it costs you
Texture and any claim to being a salad ingredient.
Not here
Raw applications. There is no version of this that works in a caprese.

Instead · 2

tomato paste loosened with water

a tablespoon of paste in a quarter cup of water per tomato

What it gets you
The savory depth and the color, concentrated, and it browns in the pan in a way fresh tomato never does.
What it costs you
All the acid and all the freshness. Add a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar or the dish sits flat.

Instead · 3

roasted red peppers from a jar

one for one by volume

What it gets you
Sweetness, body and a red color, which covers the visual job and most of the textural one.
What it costs you
The acid again, and a completely different sweetness — softer, smokier, less bright.

Where you can just leave it out · 5

These dishes list tomato as optional. They were written to work without it, so no ratio is needed and nothing has to be bought.

Where the swap will be tasted · 30

These need it and are short enough that nothing hides: 4 required ingredients or fewer, which makes tomato a quarter of what is in the pan. Make the swap a decision rather than a repair.

Check what else is in the pan

The company tomato keeps in this library, counted off required ingredients. A swap that argues with the top two is the wrong swap, whatever a chart says.

What to make with tomatoRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions