Haley Nahman's Dinner Tetris

Maybe Baby, maybe broccoli.

Hi everybody and welcome to Dinner Tetris, an advice column at 40 Ingredients Forever where a reader shares the ingredients they always have on hand and I (Ali Slagle) dream up three dinners using those ingredients. If you’d like your ingredients Tetris-ed into dinner, head here.

Cooking is a high-effort task for Haley Nahman, the writer behind the always spot-on newsletter Maybe Baby. So when I found out that crispy gnocchi was one of her favorite things in all of 2025 — “insane texture, could write a poem about it” — and that many of my recipes land on her meal plan, I wanted to Tetris her 40 Forever Ingredients into (not-too-high-effort) dinners.

Haley Nahman’s 40 Forever Ingredients

• Proteins & starches: Gnocchi, mezze rigatoni, pearl couscous, bucatini, ramen/egg noodles, short-grain rice, crispy tofu, chicken thighs (boneless, skinless), pork sausage, ground beef, chickpeas, eggs, pine nuts, almonds (chopped)

• Produce: Butternut squash, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, bell peppers, Tuscan kale, arugula, green apples, oranges, pineapple, lemon, shallots, sage

• Flavorings: Parmesan, Manchego, ricotta, goat cheese, ghee, olive oil, flaky salt, chili crisp (Lao Gan Ma), hot honey, miso, soy sauce, chicken broth

  

Three Dinners Using Haley’s Ingredients

Sheet-pan vegetables with hot honey ricotta

Butternut squash, Brussels sprouts, chickpeas, sage, shallots, ricotta, hot honey, olive oil

Arrange a rack in the bottom of the oven and heat to 425°F. Cut a pound of squash into 1-inch pieces. Halve 1 pound of brussels sprouts. Thinly slice 1 shallot. Drain, rinse, and shake dry 1 can of chickpeas. On a sheet pan, toss the squash, brussels sprouts, shallot, chickpeas, and 4 sage sprigs with enough salt and olive oil to coat. Roast until golden and tender, 20 to 25 minutes.

Add spoonfuls of ricotta on top of the sheet pan of vegetables, then roast until the ricotta is warm and slouchy, just 2 or 3 minutes. Drizzle with hot honey. If you have some vinegar, or a lemon wedge, a little drizzle would be nice, but it’s not essential.

Fried rice with pineapple & chile crisp

Short grain rice, kale, oil, pineapple, crispy tofu, chile crisp, tofu

Boil some short grain rice, then drain and shake dry. Remove the stems from a half bunch or so of kale. In a large nonstick skillet, heat some oil over medium high. Add the rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp and sizzling all over. Add the kale and crispy tofu and stir until softened and warm, then drizzle with chile crisp and soy sauce and stir until the rice is coated red. Stir in chunks of pineapple and taste for chile crisp and soy sauce.

Picked out the tofu and pineapple and then took the picture.

Sheet pan sausage, broccoli & orange

Pork sausage, broccoli, oil, orange, Parmesan, almonds, arugula

Arrange a rack in the bottom of the oven and heat to 425°F. Score some sausages and place on a sheet pan with the florets of 1 broccoli head. Coat with S&P and oil and roast until golden brown and cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut an orange or two into bite-size chunks. When the sheet pan is out of the oven, transfer the sausages to plates. To the sheet pan of broccoli, add the orange, arugula, almonds, and some shavings of Parmesan. Toss to coat in the sausage drippings. Taste for S&P.

Thank you for playing, Haley, and thank you for reading, you.