The Well-Stocked Pantry

When my oldest children were small, I used to travel far and wide to get the best deals at all the area supermarkets. I was well-known in the family as the "Coupon Queen", toting a large plastic shoebox full of neatly clipped and categorized coupons every time I went shopping. My goal was to get as close to zero dollars for my shopping trip as possible.

I found that I did very well in the "dollars off" department, but my selection of items included many of those items that stores use to lure you in with their "buy one, get two free" specials, things that were tasty and convenient, but that I really didn't need, and that were really more expensive than their home-prepared counterparts: granola bars, juice boxes, snack packages of crackers, pricier boxed cereals. Don't get me wrong: there is nothing wrong with these items. It's just that they might not have given my family the biggest nutritional bang for my buck.

I still love a good coupon trip, but I probably use fewer now, since I have honed my grocery list to things that mostly live in the outer circle of the store, where you don't find as many coupons and specials: bakery, produce, meats, dairy and the organic foods section, plus what Nathalie Dupree refers to as the "bomb shelter basics," food items that enable you to whip up something delightful without making that mad dash to the store for an exotic ingredient. These are usually items that can be repackaged in my flour and sugar bins, stored in the pantry, or divided into meal-size portions in my deep freeze. I tend to buy them in bulk when they are on sale and I have a lot of coupons saved up, so my cart looks odd some weeks, with eight packages of smoked sausage, but it makes my overall food bill shine when they are buy one get one free, and my coupons make them $0.50 each.
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Here is a list of nonperishable and perishable items that Nathalie insists all of us should have on hand for quick, easy, delicious cooking at the drop of a hat. The list is from Nathalie Dupree Cooks Everyday Meals from a Well-Stocked Pantry. I have converted it into an inventory/shopping list, also. If anyone is interested, email me and I can send you a copy to use and adapt as you need.

Non-perishables

bacon, ham or sausage
baking powder
baking soda
broth, stock and soup
canned evaporated and condensed milk
canned fish and seafood
canned or dried beans
canned vegetables
chocolate or cocoa powder
chutney, relish, salsa
coconut
cornmeal or corn muffin mix
crackers
dried fruit
dried or canned mushrooms
extracts/flavorings
flour
herbs and spices
jam or jelly
mayonnaise
nuts and seeds
oats
oils
pasta
peanut butter
pickles
powdered milk and buttermilk
rice
shortening
spirits and wine
sugar and sweeteners
tomatoes and sauce
vinegars
wrappers (such as tortillas)
yeast

Fresh/frozen foods
beef (one big cut, one pound of ground beef)
butter or margarine
cheese (one hard, one soft)
eggs
fish
fruit and seafood
garlic
heavy cream
milk
onions (yellow & red)
potatoes
poultry (one whole bird, and a pound of boneless cutlets)
vegetables (including emergency frozen veggies)
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Mardi Gras has come and gone, but here is a family favorite that reminds us of the season. All of the ingredients can be found in the well-stocked pantry described above.

Dirty Rice
(Serves 8)

1 pound ground beef
1/4 c. seasoned bread crumbs
Red pepper flakes, to taste (1/8- 1/4 tsp)
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup red bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 cup green bell pepper, finely diced
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
Mrs. Dash Fiesta Lime seasoning, to taste

1 cup white rice, uncooked
2 cups water
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp olive oil

Salt & pepper to taste
Hot sauce to taste

In a medium mixing bowl, combine ground beef, seasoned bread crumbs, and red pepper flakes. In a large skillet, heat olive oil over med-high heat. Add beef mixture. Brown thoroughly, breaking meat into very small crumbles. Add red and green bell peppers, onions, and garlic; continue to stir until meat is cooked thoroughly and vegetables begin to brown. Season liberally with Fiesta Lime seasoning. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, prepare rice. Place uncooked rice in a medium saucepan with the water, salt and 1/2 tsp olive oil. Bring to boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer until rice has absorbed all the liquid and grains are tender (about 15 min.).

Add cooked rice to meat mixture and return to heat, stirring all until blended and heated through. Pass hot sauce, salt and black pepper. Serve with a mixed spring greens salad and your favorite dressing.
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The Spirituality of Spring Cleaning

I love having a clean house. The problem is, while I don't mind cleaning (in fact, I really enjoy some tasks, such as laundry, mopping and rearranging accessories... a lot...), I am terrible at starting. I make task lists then actively avoid anything hard, because I don't know where to begin.

Enter my wonderful, cleaning husband. I've already told you how much he loves power yard equipment. He also loves cleaning products. The man doesn't just clean around the edges of things -- when he's done, everything looks like it was just freshly moved into the room. He is usually my jumpstarter. He will start out anywhere, and let it tell him where to go next. Once, before we rehabilitated our first floor, he went downstairs with a friend to find a tool. That led to moving boxes, which led to hauling out old furniture from previous tenants to stripping off old wallpaper. When I got home from work, the whole first floor was gutted and ready for me to prime and paint. What fortune!

I love working alongside him, because his love of cleaning is so contagious.

Last Sunday was our anniversary. My mom sent us money to go out for lunch (she always does that for us, and we appreciate it so!). Unfortunately, our littlest one was coming down with a cold, so we had to put the dinner plans on hold for a few days. Instead, we started our spring cleaning.
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Pamela Kristen, in her book, The Spirit of Getting Organized, talks about the sets of skills we use when we begin to exert our presence on our chaotic surroundings. First we need to decide where to begin and end, whether the task is the pantry, our desk, or the whole basement. Then we need to look at all our "stuff" and sort it, set up a staging area for our work, store what we want to save for later, and shed the things we don't. Finally, we need to sustain the progress we make -- no good doing all this work just to let chaos sneak back into the mix.

She goes on further to describe how the outward manifestation of our cleaning reflects inward changes, a spiritual shift. So while we are going through the clothes in our closet, we are observing the pants we have hung on hangers and acknowledging several pairs have not fit us in quite awhile. We begine to imagine how we could add two or three key accessories to pull together all those neutrals into several wonderful outfits. We choose which items are our "mainstays" for our wardrobe this year, and decide which ones no longer fit our authentic selves. For instance, I have a couple of very lacy dresses in my closet. Nice ones, but I am more a tie-dye, batik and Birkenstock kind of girl. It is time to choose. Finally, as we are sorting and organizing, we begin to engage fully with the task, connecting the mundane to deeper meaning.  Sound funny? Just note what goes through your head as you look at each clothing item: "Oh, this is a pair of flipflops I took to Hawaii... sigh... [long pause as I listen to surf sounds in my head]" -- "Oh, Mommy gave this purse to me. I miss Mommy..." See what I mean?

Need a practical way to start? Try this. Mark your calendar for 6 months from today. Then, turn all the hangers in your closet backward, so the bend is in the back of the closet. Each time you wear something, put it back with the hanger facing the proper way (bend toward you). At the end of six months, pull out anything that is still on a "backward" hanger, meaning you haven't worn it in six months. Get a big box, neatly fold all these items, and put them in it. Give the box to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Things that are no longer in good shape can be scavenged for spare buttons and rags. Your closet will now make you happier, as the items there will be "you". And you have practiced the sustainable practices of reduce, reuse and recycle by giving away or repurposing the items that you have discarded. Celebrate by shopping for that special clothing item that you always wanted.

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Here's an economical way to purchase meat. Wait until large cuts are on sale, then have the butcher custom cut it for your needs. For example, I frequently buy a whole boneless pork loin (6-9 lbs) and have the butcher slice some into thick chops, and leave a piece as a pork roast. This is much cheaper per pound than purchasing the chops and roast separately. I also prefer leaner ground beef than can be purchased inexpensively, so I will ask the butcher to grind up roasts instead. If you have the freezer space, give this idea a try.

Roast Pork Tenderloin and Vegetables with Mustard Vinaigrette

(Adapted from the Hartford Courant, 2/18/2010)
Serves 4

1/3 c plus 2 T olive oil
1 1/4 lbs of boneless pork chops
1/2 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 small zucchini, sliced in 1/4 in. slices
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup each of red and green bell pepper strips
2 T white vinegar
1 T brown mustard

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Heat 1 T of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season pork with 1/4 tsp of salt and pepper to taste. Cook in hot oil, turning until browned, 5-6 minutes. Transfer to 9 x 13 baking dish, and place in oven. Roast until pork is cooked through, 12-15 minutes. Let rest 5 minuts while you prepare the sauce.

Meanwhile, on a rimmed baking sheet, toss vegetables with 1 T of oil, remaining salt and pepper. Arrange in single layer on baking sheet. Roast, turning once, until tender, 12-15 min.

Whisk together vinegar, mustard and remaining 1/3 c of oil. Serve pork with vegetables; drizzle all with vinaigrette.

Serve with white rice.
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The Joys of DIY

I love being part of a family that doesn't mind rolling up its collective and individual sleeves and fixing things.

My mother grew up amongst farmers. When you're a farmer, you ARE the electrician, plumber, carpenter, gardener and, many times, the veterinarian. If you could hold it together with a piece of baling wire, you might get another season's use out of it. If a piece of farm equipment finally died beyond fixing, you scavenged all the parts to fix its replacement. If you didn't grow it (or aren't friends with someone who did), you didn't usually eat it. And so it has gone since the first Garden, I'm sure. My father, for his part, was famous for keeping every scrap of lumber, old doors, panes of window glass, and other construction items, and passed on this "DIY" gene to his children. I can vividly remember helping him hammer out nails to reuse  for minor projects, such as the play kitchen he made for my sister and me out of old cabinets and an old radiator cover, all repainted cleverly to resemble real appliances.

My husband's folks, although city dwellers, were equally frugal and resourceful. The elderly "grandpa" who lived downstairs, affectionately nicknamed "Poppy" and adopted by my husband and his siblings, had a workshop in the basement of the house where we now live. When we moved in, the place was full of all kinds of lamp bases, a Cadillac front end, coils of wire, cans of nails and other oddments that might be useful for fixing things. My mother-in-law was also a woman who was not afraid to try her hand at home fix-it projects. And when Ruth fixed things, she aimed for permanence. When we moved into the house, we found a great number of things fastened to last for eternity: phone cords superglued into phone jacks; windows puttied, plastic-covered and taped shut (to save on energy costs); and a plethora of items nailed into place. Mommy's favorite nails were more like railroad spikes.I must say, though, she was an independent woman, and I can imagine her driving that last nail into a reluctant carpet or floor tile, stating, "Well, that oughta do it."

So we found ourselves today pondering an impending winter storm and our year-old snow blower, which, alas, was wintered with some gas still in the tank, and wouldn't start this season. My husband loves a good fix-it project (when I shop at Home Depot, he often emerges from an aisle to stand in front of me, with a puppy dog look, clutching a piece of power equipment to his bosom like a young child with a toy. I can rarely resist...). So he headed off to purchase Gum-Out, starter fluid, new spark plugs, oil and gasoline. Changing the spark plug led to cleaning the carburetor which led to an almost-running snowblower. Alas, even the most avid fixer reaches the point where professional help is needed. Good thing we have a shovel and salt.
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This spicy chicken dish will warm up your insides on a cold, wintry day. You can adjust the spiciness by decreasing the red pepper flakes, if you wish.  I served this with a salad of mixed greens to counteract the zestiness of the meat.

Teriyaki Chicken Tenders
Serves 4

1/4 c teriyaki sauce
2 T red wine vinegar
1 1/2 T canola oil, divided
1 tsp sesame oil
2 T honey
2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp minced garlic (1-2 cloves)
1 lb boneless chicken breast tenders
1 tsp cornstarch

In a small mixing bowl, combine the teriyaki sauce, wine vinegar, 1/2 T of canola oil, sesame oil, honey, red pepper and garlic; mix well. Add chicken; stir to coat. Set to one side to marinate for 20 minutes.

In a wok or large skillet, heat the remaining canola oil over high heat. Add the chicken tenders, reserving the remaining marinade. Cook over high heat, turning frequently, until cooked through and browned on all sides.

Add cornstarch to reserved marinade; stir well. Add marinade mixture to skillet, stirring until thickened. Remove from heat.

Serve with soba noodles and a mixed green salad.
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A Jarful of Summer...

I find this a kind of in-between time at the produce department of local grocery stores. It's well after the fall harvest here in Connecticut, and a bit before the fall harvest in the Southern Hemisphere, so the best we can hope for, produce-wise, is items that store. Unfortunately, many fruit and vegetable varieties that store (and ship) well don't taste like what we get at the farmstand during our local growing season. We can rely on traditional New England veggies, such as potatoes, onions, root crops and the like, for locally grown items, but we long for the tastes from our vegetable gardens of August.

Here is where canning comes into play. I love canning. I love the production of it, the gathering of bushels of veggies, the cleaning out of the kitchen to make room for all the equipment and the cooling jars, the laughter and messiness. Plus, to crack open a jar of bread and butter pickles, or dump a quart of September tomatoes into a saucepan, is like sneaking a peak back through the calendar to revisit summer days. I can almost hear the crickets chirping and sprinklers hissing when I arrange the dilly beans into a nice serving dish. And there is that feeling, when you pull those canned goods off the pantry shelf, that "I did this myself," the pride of taking time and pennies to put away enough food to feed my family through the endless New England winter. Re-using the year's pasta sauce and jelly jars makes it a very "green" venture, too.

Our oldest son, Evan, is in his own apartment, with our middle son, Christopher. Evan, like his mother, loves a good bargain at the store, and enjoys collecting wild fruits and berries to put up for later enjoyment. Last summer, he and his grandmother canned jelly that they made from Autumn-olive, an introduced species that grows unchecked along many highways and country roads. We are already planning several seasonal foraging and canning ventures to supplement our winter pantries and create some high-quality family time for ourselves.
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I promised my littlest one some homemade tomato soup the other day, when it was near zero outside and we needed a lunch that reminded us of summer breezes. Grilled cheese and hot chocolate completed the trifecta of comfort foods. I used store-bought canned tomatoes that I had stocked up on through coupon shopping, but your own home-canned tomatoes would make a tasty alternative. If you don't want so many seeds, you can run the homemade ones through a food mill before putting them in the soup.

Fire-roasted Tomato Soup
(adapted from www.bettycrocker.com)

1 T olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 cans (15 oz each) fire-roasted tomatoes, undrained
1 T chicken bouillon granules
2 cups water
1 T dried basil
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup whipping cream

1n a 3-quart saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; cook 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly, until onion is crisp-tender.

Stir in tomatoes, bouillon granules, water, 1 T. of the basil, sugar, and red pepper flakes. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat; cover and simer 15 minutes. Remove from heat; pour mixture into a large, heatproof bowl and cool about 15 minutes.

Place half of the tomato mixture in the jar of a blender. Cover; blend until pureed. Return to saucepan. Repeat with remaining mixture. Heat over medium heat until hot. Remove from heat; stir in cream and remaining basil.
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