The classic spicy Levantine sandwich is made meat-free with hearty baked mushrooms

Reviews and ratings are very much a part of our daily lives. Most of them I disregard, but occasionally something cuts through and it feels as if people have truly voted with their hearts. That was the case when I stumbled across Sam Sifton’s New York Times recipe for chicken shawarma with 19,624 five-star ratings. I had to try it, but there were two problems: I didn’t want chicken (I wanted mushrooms) and, being a serial tinkerer in the kitchen, I tinkered with it. With thanks and apologies to Sam, I’m happy to report that I’d give this five stars, too.

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The use of bean water in your baking makes use of a miracle ingredient and saves money on expensive eggs, too

Today’s macaroons are easy and fun little treats using just a few store-cupboard ingredients. Whenever I use a can of beans (which, frankly, is most days), I try to include the aquafaba, or bean water, in whatever it is I’m making. Inevitably, though, I sometimes end up with a bit left over, which means I have to get creative to find a way to use it up. Sometimes, I’ll include the liquid in a soup or stew, or use it to make mayonnaise , caesar salad dressing or a whisky sour. When my sweet tooth kicks in, or when I want to bake with my daughter, however, I often use it to make a simple sweet snack such as today’s macaroons. Using aquafaba in baking saves money, too. Good eggs are expensive, so I’d rather save them for when they’re essential to a recipe.

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Let the oven work its magic on fennel wedges, then add some blood orange for a refreshing lift

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Snap the feathery green fronds from 3 heads of fennel and set aside for later. If your fennel doesn’t have any, no matter. Slice the fennel in half from stem to root, then cut each half into 3 or 4 segments. Put them into a roasting tin or baking dish, trickle over 3 good tbsp of olive oil then season lightly with salt . Bake for 30 minutes or so, turning them over once or twice so the cut edges colour to pale, toasted gold.

Scatter 3 tbsp of flaked almonds in a dry, shallow pan and place over a moderate heat. Let the almonds brown lightly, taking care not to let them darken beyond a pale gold, lest they turn bitter. Remove from the heat and set aside with the fennel fronds.

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It’s the citrussy, zingy, spicy coconut broth that makes this joyful bowl of noodles really sing

The other day a friend asked me how writing this column had changed the way I cook and eat. I said that I now eat from the store cupboard a lot, and that rice, beans, tinned tomatoes, and the universe of condiments and sauces are a bigger, more important part of my kitchen – in part to create a foundation but, crucially, to add flavour to my meals. Of all the store-cupboard ingredients, peanut butter reigns supreme. It adds a rich, velvet fattiness, not to mention a lovely savouriness (which is not too overpowering), and is a delicious, natural thickener, as in this ramen.

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In this week’s newsletter: I lost my love of food following a breakdown, but making dinner each night helped me recover – and led to a cookbook that is my most personal and my most useful

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A year after my last cookbook, East , came out, I told my editor that I wanted to write another one. But then I had a baby and a breakdown, and things were put on pause while I shattered into pieces and painstakingly put myself back together again (in a much better, stronger way – breakdowns are great for that).

One of the most bewildering things that happened was that I lost my love for food, both cooking and eating. But cooking was how I made a living, fed my family and navigated the world. I knew I had to find a way back to it, and fast.

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This nostalgic, fragrant pot of curry smells and tastes as authentically Saturday night as a favourite TV show

When I was growing up, our family treat on a Saturday night was a Chinese takeaway. We’d drive 15 minutes to our nearest town to get it and the way back was agony . The smell of the curry and rice was so mighty, it penetrated the car upholstery and sent us flying down little country roads in anticipation. At home, no one talked while we ate like beasts, slinging spoons into the foil containers until, finally sated, we stopped to watch Blind Date . Twenty-six years later and now with my own family, we still love Chinese food on Saturday night, but with no local takeaway, I make it at home (and we’ve swapped Blind Date for Gladiators ).

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Nearly 40% of all food grown annually in the US goes unsold or uneaten. These companies are getting salty about food waste

When Kaitlin Mogentale was studying environmental science at the University of Southern California, she watched a friend juice a carrot and noticed the waste it produced – and wondered what was happening to all of the pulp from Los Angeles’s juice shops. She later learned that most of it was being sent to landfills, where food waste contributes to more methane emissions than any other landfilled matter.

“I was a college student, very young and naive, and I think that’s the recipe you need to get into the business,” said Mogentale, who founded Pulp Pantry , makers of fiber-filled Pulp Chips, which are created from the leftover pulp from cold-pressed juice. Mogentale said the company goes to juice-production facilities and collects 10,000lb (4,536kg) of pulp at a time – one day’s worth of leftovers – then transfers it in temperature-controlled trucks back to its manufacturer to make the chips.

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Owner of Nomas Gastrobar in Macclesfield says business has to add non-vegan dishes to survive

A vegan restaurateur who announced he was going to have to start serving meat to avoid closure says vegan “fanatics” have bombarded his cafe with bad reviews to try to punish him.

Adonis Norouznia, the owner of Nomas Gastrobar in Macclesfield, said “fanatics” had begun “defame” him with one-star reviews since he announced the “difficult but necessary decision” to add meat and dairy to his plant-based menu.

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A Chinese-style winter warmer of tofu, cabbage and spring onions

I have always loved the vivid language used to describe Chinese food, from the bewitching “ants climbing a tree” (a mince and noodle dish) to “Buddha jumps over the wall” – a dish that’s reportedly so delicious that Buddha apparently would. There are many dishes called “treasure” dishes, from four-treasure duck to eight-treasures soup, and I’m often struck by how everyday some of the ingredients in them are, though they may perhaps have been more celebrated centuries ago. This soup is my own attempt to celebrate the three main ingredients in the dish, all of them simple, but all much treasured in my kitchen: tofu, cabbage and spring onions.

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