Learn to Truly Love Your Leftovers With Christine Flynn

The chef’s advice for cooking on a budget starts with looking deep into your fridge.

Christine Flynn has worked as a chef in places like Nantucket and Toronto, but these days, she’s mostly feeding three kids at home in Nova Scotia: “I have to get dinner on the table with a limited budget, very quickly,” she tells me in this week’s podcast conversation.

But she’s into the challenge.

When Christine surveys the produce on the counter and in the fridge, she tries to see it as a little puzzle: when you look at a mess of ingredients “like a Sudoku, you reframe it” as something enjoyable, she says.

She’s careful to reach back into the fridge and rotate older things forward. “You need to be reminded what’s there,” she explains, especially if “you bring home a tub of cottage cheese that was on sale, and then all of a sudden you reach into the back of the fridge and you find, yeah, like some pizza dough.” Buzz up the cottage cheese in the blender, and turn it into a white sauce for pizza. Everyone’s going to love it.

If you let food go bad in your fridge, Christine says that “you’re kind of missing out on that springboard to creativity. Leftovers already have great flavor. You’ve already done a bunch of the work. So you may as well leverage them and make something new and delicious.”

In her new book, Easy Does It, there’s a chapter dedicated to these second acts; today’s peperoncini-braised pork (scroll down for the recipe) is tomorrow’s cheesy, crispy pork tacos. Tuesday’s cod becomes Wednesday’s golden potato and cod cakes.

“You just kind of have to think like a grandma a little bit,” Christine says, “which is a great way to think, in my opinion.”

Tune in to the full conversation to hear all of Christine’s budget-friendly tricks for making the most of ingredients that many folks waste—and how she gets away with buying a lemon only once a month or so.

Win a copy of Easy Does It

I love when chefs share their real-life meals, and this book really does it well. So I really think you’re going to want a copy of your own. There are two steps to enter:

STEP 1:

• Hit “follow” on The Dinner Plan podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. (On Spotify, you’ll see “follow” just under the show logo, on Apple, you may need to click the … at the top right of the main show page to find the option to follow.)

STEP 2: You have two options! Pick one of the below.

• The simplest way to enter this week’s book giveaway is to sign up as a paid subscriber to this newsletter by end of day Sunday, March 29, 2026. Paid subscribers also get access to this handy list of spring dinner ideas.

• Or, free subscribers can enter the giveaway by sending in a “what’s in my fridge right now” voice memo for us to play on the podcast. We’ll come up with a dinner idea just for you based on what you have around. Follow the full instructions here by Sunday, March 29, 2026.

Winner will be alerted by Substack DM and email. 18+, U.S. and Canada addresses only. Giveaway not sponsored or administered by Substack. Ends March 29, 2026. This send includes affiliate links; a commission from your purchase helps to keep this newsletter going.

Christine mentioned:

• A Generous Meal (Books-A-Million / Barnes and Noble)

• Vinegar infusions (video)

• Honey Harissa (excerpted on House & Home)

• Dough knife

• Dill pickle poached cod

• Haan Palcu-Chang’s second book isn’t out yet, but here’s the first one.

• Joe Woodhouse’s cheesy fried semolina

• Joe’s new book, Weeknight Vegetarian (Bookshop)

• Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking (Bookshop)

• Edna Staebler’s Food That Really Schmecks

• Article about Edna Staebler

• MFK Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf (Bookshop)

• The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (Bookshop)

• Ricotta recipe—note that using a cream with stabilizers won’t work

From the ad break:

• Tastemade Cooking: Go to tastemade.com/dinnerplan and use promo code DINNERPLAN for 40% off an annual membership. Be sure to redeem promo code online before downloading the app.

• Made In Cookware: Head to madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.

• Nice Cans: Use code DINNERPLAN20 for 20% off Nice Cans sardines.

• Find The Joy of Cooking podcast wherever you listen.

Maggie mentioned:

• Sheldon Simeon’s sweet and sour chicken meatballs from Ohana Style

• Maria Kalenska’s The Cuisines of Odesa

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Photo: Suech and Beck

Pepperoncini Braised Pork Shoulder

Excerpted from Easy Does It by Christine Flynn, copyright © 2026. Published by Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.

Pork shoulder is a great cut of meat because it’s inexpensive, has lots of marbling and therefore flavour, and can easily feed a crowd. You don’t need a huge portion to feel satisfied, and that is especially true when it’s swimming in a rich, brothy, vinegary sauce laced with spicy pepperoncini. As with all good braises, there’s really not much active work here-you can let it bubble away without having to babysit it too much. Serve this dish next to some roasted sweet potatoes or fried plantains to sop up all that good braising liquid, or pair it with the like­ minded flavours found in dishes like a crunchy brussels sprout and raw corn salad.

Tip: To make this even lower-effort, you can skip cubing the pork and just heavily season and then sear the pork shoulder in its entirety. You’ll need to add about 1 to 1½ extra hours to the braise time.

Serves 6

2 pounds (900 g) pork shoulder, bone removed and reserved, cut into 3-inch (8 cm) cubes (see Tip)
2 teaspoons (10 ml) salt, more for the braise
Fresh cracked black pepper
1 tablespoon (15 ml) ground cumin
1 tablespoon (15 ml) sweet paprika
2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil
1 cup (250 ml) water
¾ cup (175 ml) white vinegar
2 tablespoons (30 ml) sugar or pure liquid honey
1 small yellow onion, quartered 4 cloves garlic, smashed
1 jar (17 ounces/500 ml) pepperoncini, plus the brine
2 guajillo chilies (optional)

To serve
½ bunch fresh cilantro, stems minced and leaves roughly chopped
Juice of 1 lime
½ small yellow onion, thinly sliced

1. Line a large plate with paper towels.

2. In a medium bowl, toss the cubed pork with 2 teaspoons (10 mL) of the salt, a few cracks of black pepper, the cumin, and the paprika.

3. Warm the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over high heat until it starts to shimmer. Carefully add the pork in batches, spacing the cubes out so it browns and does not steam. Reduce the heat to medium-high (lower as needed if the oil starts smoking), and cook the pork for 3 to 5 minutes, turning it so that it is more or less evenly browned on all sides. Use tongs to transfer the seared pork to the prepared plate. Once the pork is browned, turn of the heat, discard any oil in the Dutch oven, and wipe out the rest with a paper towel.

4. Return the pork and the reserved bone to the Dutch oven and place ti over high heat. Add the water, vinegar, sugar, onion, garlic, pepperoncini and brine, guajillo chilies (if using), and a big pinch of salt. Bring the mixture to the gentlest of boils, give it a stir, then reduce the heat to low to maintain a simmer. Cook, covered, for 2 to 2 1⁄2 hours, lifting the lid every once in awhile to give everything a poke and a stir, until the meat is fork-tender. Remove and discard the bone.

5. Serve hot, garnished with a sprinkling of cilantro, a drizzle of lime juice, and a few slices of crunchy onion.

6. Store leftovers in an airtight container or the Dutch oven in the fridge for up to 5 days. If you’re looking to invigorate your leftovers after a day or two, try repurposing them by making pepperoncini pork tacos.

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