(Nearly) Nose to Tail Cooking

Chef John from Food Wishes (on YouTube and BlogSpot) has become a permanent presence on my laptop and in my kitchen over the past 6 months.   In addition to being an award winning chef, he is a gifted educator and my go-to guy for recipe ideas for farmer's market finds, cooking techniques and new takes on old dishes.Recently I have made two of his recipes that were particular standouts for me.  They were easy, delicious and used parts of the vegetable or animal normally thrown away without a second thought.I have been cooking with broccoli stems for years, but it is not often I see them in recipes.  For his broccoli angel hair pasta recipe he calls for simmering the diced stems until soft as part of the garlic sauce and for his paella recipe, he calls for sauteing the shrimp shells to add extra flavor and body to the sauce.Briefly my results followed by Chef John's fantastic recipe videos: