Pantry Cooking

[omly]

Sunday - a Meyer lemon & basil variation of this lemon spaghetti recipe
Monday - cintyber used the last of the wedding leftovers with mac & cheese
Tuesday - blts
Wednesday - vegetarian red beans & rice with plantains & corn bread
Thursday - minestrone soup
Friday - cheesy pasta bake
Saturday - lentil soup?

It is that time of year where I start really thinking about cleaning out the fridge and freezer. The freezer I am emptying out more on general principle, but I like to completely empty and bleach down the fridge at least twice a year.

Plus I have been really enjoying working from what is in the pantry and coming up with meal plans buying a minimum of ingredients. And as an added bonus I find we eat more creative meals and less meat when I step out of autopilot, both of which are important to me.

What sort of things can you generally make out off your pantry? What are your pantry staples?

Comments

[heinleinfan.livejournal.com]

I enjoy 'pantry cleaning out/cooking' but it's not at all balanced and healthy. Heh. We generally have 3-4 types of pasta, and maybe 2-3 types of rice but we're always woefully short on any veggies in the pantry.
David is a bit picky on his vegetables, and many that he will eat don't do well canned, and he doesn't do beans. Sooooo, our 'let's eat from the pantry this week' meals are usually some type of pasta with some garlic and olive oil.

However, we 'cheat' on our freezer and that's usually where we go when it's "let's not buy any groceries this week...what'll we have?" We regularly stock it up with things already cooked or mostly cooked, so that we can have easy meals without as much effort. Right now...off the top of my head we have 2 pans of mac & cheese, half an ice tray of pesto (2 types, even), grilled lamb and pork and chicken, chicken and dumplings, a pasta/pesto/chicken casserole and samosa makings (some assembly required.) I think about the only non-cooked things we have are more shredded zucchini than we'll ever eat and a lot of pumpkin puree. Heh.

We want to eventually do some canning so that we can have more of our garden goodies through the winter and not just in summer. Or save up and buy a small chest freezer. Or both!

[omly.livejournal.com]

Oh we definitely cheat in the same way, but honestly we have enough stuff in the freezer that I am just as concerned about using those things up as in the
"proper" pantry.

We have both a water bath canner and a pressure canner, which has helped our preserving quite a bit. Actually we just canned chicken stock last night in an effort to get 2 chicken carcasses out of the freezer. I find that we still use the freezer a lot though for CSA extras though as much of the produce is better later that way.

Also I have never made samosas, but I am quite intrigued by the idea.