I freeze the rest of the can of tomato paste in a "roll" on plastic wrap then twist into segments. Works great

Half a clove of garlic?? You bet I'd throw that away! But I'd be far more likely to use the entire clove.....just picking a rather small one.

I also buy tomato paste in a tube - like toothpaste. Use as much as you need and the rest waits in the frig until you need more.

And I also buy boneless, skinless chicken pieces and then reapportion them into a single serving size. I also freeze leftover cooked chicken in smaller packages and have found that for many recipes, cooked chicken works just as well as raw, needing-to-be-cooked chicken. Just adjust the recipe accordingly.

I have never encountered a recipe that called for half a zucchini but I probably wouldn't pay much attention and use the whole thing.

Recipes like that go in the trash or deleted. A recipe is just a foundation to be adjusted to your likes/dis-likes. Especially the minor players like garlic and onion, etc. I prefer recipe developers that add "to your taste". Half an onion drives me nuts. They are all sizes.Chopped, minced, sliced will always have different volume if a cup or 1/2 cup is needed.

I braise 18-20 boneless/skinless chicken thighs every 2-3 months. Dinner that night, different next night....roasted with bbq or miso glazed. Chicken salad...then into the freezer in three thighs portions for super quick meals like curry or stir-fry or soup or...so many uses for it.

My kitchen freezer has a small tid-bit drawer I use for parmesan rinds, frozen ginger/turmeric, whole Meyer lemons(to grate), ice cube herbs, etc. Tomato paste should be frozen in cubes. Just have a bin or freezer container for the 'smalls' so they do not get lost.

All winter 'fresh' additions are in that drawer.

I second the tomato paste tube. I also use the jars of bouillon paste.

A half a garlic clove would be a small one. Two is sometimes one if they are huge. tomato paste gets frozen on wax paper in a big scoop of a tablespoon and then twisted and put in a Ziplock or a container. Lots of my recipes use just a tablespoon of tomato paste for some reason and if I don't have fresh tomatoes, that works. Onion and bell pepper gets chopped and frozen on a sheet pan, then put in a plastic Ziplock freezer bag. If you freeze first, then put in a bag, they don't stick together.

There are so often recipes that call for a tablespoon or two of tomato paste, that I keep a tube in the fridge. The stuff in the tube is "double concentrated" so it gives a lot of flavor.

I've not used any recipes that call for half a clove of garlic. Garlic cloves in any case vary in size so much with the largest ones being more than twice as big as the smallest ones so it seems strange to try to be very exact in calling for a number of cloves. Perhaps the recipe called for a quantity like a tsp of minced garlic and a clove made more than that? In that case, unless it is something where I want the garlic flavor to be very background, I would just put the whole clove in.

For vegetables, I generally round up or down to what I have - it usually isn't that exact a thing. With COVID limiting our shopping, I've becoming even more comfortable with adjusting recipes to what I have.

I do wonder what it means when a recipe calls for a shallot. When I buy shallots, they usually come in a bulb that has two sections/cloves. Is 1 shallot the whole bulb or just one of the sections?

There are some pretty absurdly specific recipes out there. I recall one recently that wanted a cup of San Marzano tomatoes crushed up. The cans they come in at my usual grocery store are 28 oz. It was a bit player in the recipe (a bean dish with lots of spices) so no way would the tomato variety be detectable in the result. I just used a can of diced tomatoes (and I may have thrown in the whole 14.5 ounces). It's just calling for San Marzano because that's "in" now. Or all the recipes that call for EVOO in something that is going to be cooked a lot and have other strong flavors that hide any difference between that and regular olive oil.

I think if something called for one half of a chicken breast, I'd either make a double recipe of I'd cook up the other side to use for sandwiches or a small meal.

Oh, yes, the freeze the extra tomato paste in 2 T blop proportions. I did that about three times, then promptly forgot about it. Found months later in a freezer clean out. So, now I purchase the tubed tomato paste; a great decision. Also use the jarred Better than Bouillon in several flavors, so easy. I have been using jarred minced garlic, but when it is gone will probably not buy another jar; prefer the taste and texture of microplaned garlic. Oh, and I started buying the tubes of ginger because it would get lost in the freezer; love that ginger in the tube.

I used to freeze canned tomato paste but now it's always from the tube.

For half a zucchini, I might grab a small one or use what sounded right to me.

I think experience and familiarity factor in and you know what will work best for you. Years ago I probably would have used just 1/2 clove of garlic. Now I just use whatever I feel works for me. A half zucchini does sound odd. I'd use the whole thing or grab a small one.

This is another topic, but I find poorly written recipes in cookbooks irritating. An experienced cook or baker will likely figure it out, but the lack of editing can be annoying. The absence and/or misuse of commas in the ingredient list can make a difference, particularly with baking. Sometimes it's just silly, such as "2 cups apples, chopped."

I use tomato powder instead of tomato paste, and I have found that I like the flavor even better - it is a bit sweeter. If you do buy tomato powder, you should decant it to a glass jar for storage and add extra desiccant packets to it and vacuum seal it, if possible. The same would be true if you bought garlic powder, which I do keep on hand for rubs, although I use fresh garlic much more often.

This is what I thought of first:

This recipe business is necessary I suppose if you want to become a really good cook but quite honestly, I'm more of the look at the picture, peruse a list of the proposed ingredients, see what I actually have in the pantry then try to put what I actually have together to make a tasty dish.

In my mind, what you do is what makes you a good cook. My mother taught me that cookbooks were for reading, not cooking. If I can't tell the exact outcome by reading the recipe, but it still sounds good, or at least intriguing, I'll make it as stated the first time. Otherwise, I'll just use it as a guide for proportions or whatever, and do my own thing (and not make claims about the original). Often I come up with unique and interesting things to make, based on what I have that needs using--that's where the other half of the tomato paste and the rest of the head of garlic go. Some can't be replicated, like the quiche that was declared best ever but was invented as a way to use up a tuber salad that was not so great. I do have some recipes that are really good and I follow exactly, but most of the time, my idea of a recipe is a list of ingredients or a general method.

I've read a lot of recipes that called for silly things like your half a clove of garlic, like it were some precious thing that one dare not use more of. I grew up using saffron, which really is that dear, but where a little makes a big impact. Being that precious with garlic is just silly. "Half a clove" is silly too, given that one head has big and little cloves and one could just say a small clove. .... Unless? I've heard people on TV--not cooks--say "clove" when they meant head. Do you think it could have meant half a head of garlic? I have recipes that call for a head or a half.

My "famous" chocolate cake recipe came from a cookbook years ago called "Half a Can of Tomato Paste" which was ways to use up those odd bits left over from other recipes. In the case of the chocolate cake, it was to use up leftover coffee.

I usually make up another recipe to use up the odds and ends.

Recipe said “half a garlic clove” and “one minced onion”, neither of which had even the faintest inkling of how big or small those two items are to start with. So... I guess that means the cook can choose for themselves as to original size.

"So... I guess that means the cook can choose for themselves as to original size."

And chances are it will be even better. :-)

Lars - you beat me to it!!!

Some people don't have a good sense of cooking and some have no real experience and maybe need a recipe to do just about anything.

Most experienced cooks can work around those things, as so many others have said.

I freeze lemon juice in cubes, and lemon rind and also cubes of heavy cream. Husband thinks that I make the best chocolate pudding from that skim milk that he buys. All of these years it has not occurred to him what I do with that carton of heavy cream that I put in the grocery cart. He thinks that I am a genius at making his favorite dessert and thinks that I have a magic with it. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. I always throw in a couple of cubes of frozen cream into his pudding. He loves it but he has no idea why. The secret is those frozen cubes of cream.