Let’s say you dumpster a ton of vegetables. Let’s say you can’t eat them before they start to make your house smell like the dumpster you pulled them out of. Well, kid, I’ve got the perfect solution, and I am offering it to you completely free of charge. Just like the veggies you dumpstered!

We happened to find a couple bags of fancy schmancy pre-sliced carrots, three boxes of mushrooms, a green pepper, and an onion – all of which are perfect for making veggie tempura.

I had some tempura batter mix that my mom gave me, but it’s super easy to whip up your own all-purpose batter.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• water, broth, beer, or soymilk (add a dash of vinegar to make ‘buttermilk’)
• 1 tsp salt

Just mix together flour and salt then slowly add liquid until you reach a pancake-like consistency. Double or triple recipe as needed. You can also add a few splashes of hot sauce if you like. Batter your sliced veggies and deep fry.

But, wait, I said I could tell you how to solve your ‘too many veggies’ dilemma. Now you just have a ‘too much tempura’ problem. That doesn’t really solve anything.

This is where your freezer becomes your best friend. But you can’t just throw a bunch of steaming hot tempura in a bag and freeze it. Then you’ll just have a big tempura ice cube on your hands. First you have to let the tempura cool a little (while you’re stuffing your face) and spread them out on a plate or cookie sheet. Put them in the freezer for about an hour. This way they’ll be partially frozen when you wrap them up and won’t stick to each other.

Problem solved! Now whenever you want fatty fried food you can just pop these in the oven for a few minutes and reminisce about the night you dumpstered the veggies you’re now eating.