Categories
Specific Ingredients & Dietary Restrictions
Contact, Media Access (PDFs & Videos), & Other
General Prep & Cooking
Question: How many people do your recipes serve?
Answer: 2 people! I cook for my husband, Tate, and myself 90% of the time—we’re 2 people with decent appetites come dinner time!
Question: How should I multiply the ingredient quantities if I am serving more than 2 people?
Answer: It will vary depending on the specific ingredient, as well as the types of people you’re cooking for. For instance, if you have kids under 10 years old, they’re likely not eating as much food, so you probably don’t need to triple the amount of ingredients you buy.
At the end of the day, you know your family’s appetite more than I do, so there will probably be some trial and error to get it down to an exact science. Thankfully, I will be repeating ingredients, so by weeks 6-8, you’ll know exactly how much you need based on previous weeks.
In terms of specific ingredients, if you have 6 people, you should probably buy 6 individual salmon fillet portions (or 1 half of a salmon, then portion it yourself). Whereas something like asparagus, you’d probably be fine with only buying 2 bunches instead of 3.
However, here is what some of the Restaurant Dropout community recommends:
Protein: Double, but marinade or brine recipes can remain the same.
Dough: Double
Sauces: DO NOT need to be doubled.
Grains & Produce (like greens or potatoes used as side dishes): Occasionally double depending on your household appetites, and if there are leftovers, they can easily be used for lunches.
Question: Do you get access to old menus when you subscribe?
Answer: Yes! You’ll have access to all Restaurant Dropout menus here.
Question: Do you cook with a lot of specialty ingredients?
Answer: All of the ingredients I have on hand and use consistently—what we refer to as Essentials—can be found here.
Keep in mind that you can substitute certain ingredients as needed. I embrace all creativity in the kitchen with wide-open arms!
Question: Do I have to cook all of the recipes for the week, or can I just pick a few?
Answer: You don’t have to cook anything you don’t want to! Understanding that life gets busy and 5 meals a week might feel overwhelming, our grocery lists and prep lists include a key to indicate which ingredient is used in which dish. This way, you can shop or prep according to the dishes you intend to cook (see example below).
Question: Will I have leftover ingredients?
Answer: I aim to have zero leftover ingredients by the end of the week! Everything listed will hopefully be used throughout the week; however, we might have weeks where ingredients with longer shelf lives, like cabbage, will get utilized the following week.
One of my personal goals upon launching Restaurant Dropout was to reduce food waste, so we’re working towards that each week we do this ingredient prep.
Question: Do I have to cook the recipes in order?
Answer: Of course not! I structure the week with prepped ingredient spoilage in mind, though, so if you plan to cook the menu out of order, be mindful of prepped ingredients or proteins that might need to be popped in the freezer until the night before use.
Question: Do I have to prep? I just can’t muster up the energy to prep for more than one hour a week…
Answer: Of course not! While prepping ingredients, like sauces and grains, ahead of time is efficient and will help you succeed throughout the week, it’s not mandatory. You can forgo the prep list and cook all the recipes daily, as needed.
Question: Will you ever expand to include breakfast, lunch, and/or dessert?
Answer: That’s the dream!! With more support for this newsletter, I hope to grow Restaurant Dropout into an all-encompassing source of inspiration for breakfast, lunch, and, of course, dinner and desserts!
Specific Ingredients & Dietary Restrictions
You can find more information regarding ingredient prep, storage tips, etc., in the Demo Index.
Question: Do you provide vegetarian menus?
Answer: While I don’t specifically cater to vegetarian diets, I provide substitution suggestions for proteins every week, including vegetarian suggestions.
Question: What do I do if I’m allergic to shellfish or peanuts?
Answer: I provide substitution suggestions for proteins, including shellfish. I don’t often use peanuts in my recipes, but when I do, I will also provide substitutions.
Billing & Subscriptions
Question: I’m a student and can’t quite afford a $6/month subscription quite yet. Do you offer any discounts?
Answer: Yes! I care deeply about making good food easily accessible. You can claim your student discount with your school email at restaurantdropout.substack.com/STUDENT50.
Question: Do you offer any discounts for Eligible government assistance recipients (like SNAP and Medicaid)?
Answer: Yes, I do!! Please verify your eligibility by emailing contact@restaurantdropout.com, and we’ll send you a special link to claim your 50% off discount.
You can verify your eligibility with the following materials:
SSI: Share an image or PDF file of a complete eligibility letter for Supplemental Security Income.
SNAP: Share an image of your EBT card.
Medicaid: Share an image of your Medicaid eligibility letter.
TANF: Share an image of your eligibility letter for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
WIC: Share an image of your eligibility letter for the Women, Infants, and Children program.
Note: The image should be legible and must show an issue date within the last 12 months, as well as the beneficiary's name.
Question: Is there any way I can test out Restaurant Dropout before buying a subscription?
Answer: Yes, feel free to try one of our free weeks (listed below)!
Restaurant Dropout x Carolina Gelen (published September 20, 2024)
Rotisserie Chicken Dinners (published October 4, 2024)
Flashback Friday: Embracing Fall (published February 7, 2024)
Since the end of last year, we’ve started releasing at least one free menu per quarter. To keep up with future (free) releases, subscribe below:
You can also claim your 7-day free trial here!!!
Question: How do I cancel my subscription?
Answer: You can find the step by step guide for canceling here.
Question: I accidentally forgot to cancel my subscription and was charged. Any chance you can give me a refund?
Answer: Yes, absolutely. We're sorry to see you go; we loved having you. Please email us at contact@restaurantdropout.com, and we’ll get you your refund ASAP!
Contact, Media Access (PDFs & Videos), & Other
Question: I’m having trouble opening the PDFs. Substack keeps taking me to a login page, and I don’t know what to do!!!
Answer: Trust me, this is my most frustrating pain point, too. The best advice I can offer is to download the Substack app and try it there, or try accessing everything through your desktop browser.
Often, when attempting to open Substack through a third-party website (like Instagram or TikTok), Substack has a bug that creates an ultra-frustrating loop of continuously logging into the app while attempting to access a PDF (it’s happened to me, too, *sigh*).
We mostly see this glitch when users are trying to claim their free sample post, if that’s the case, you can instead sign up for a 7-Day Free Trial, and that should resolve the issue.
If you’ve tried everything and it still somehow doesn’t work, email contact@restaurantdropout.com (from the email you signed up with), and we’ll send you all of the PDF materials you need to get cooking.
Question: The videos won’t play for me, help!
Answer: Sometimes, if you arrive too early, the videos haven’t been processed yet on the Substack servers, and they will appear not to play.
Try closing out the app completely (by swiping it up on your phone or reloading the page on your computer), and they should start working again. If they don’t, please email contact@restaurantdropout.com, and we’ll get on the issue as soon as possible.
For all other general inquiries (e.g., billing, PDF access, recipe questions), please email contact@restaurantdropout.com, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.