The strange things I can make from my pantry

So what do you do on the first snowfall of the year? I like to make something yummy and homey so it's usually something I can whip up fairly quickly from stuff in my pantry. In my case it's something I love to eat once winter rolls around - Yakbap.  Sweet sticky rice cake with dried fruits and nuts.  When I made this batch I used dried cranberries and dried red dates (Jujubes).  Normally chestnuts would go into it but I couldn't find any with those nasty sulfates in it (my mother swells just at the word) so I found some slivered almonds I had almost used up. I say sweet but it's really lightly sweet - not cloyingly sweet like alot of other deserts I like to much down on.  Anyone who knows me knows I have a REAL sweet tooth.


The cake came out great but the point I am trying to make is that I heard a good kitchen has to start with a well stocked pantry of staples. Well there's staples and there's staples.  I have the normal stuff, flours, pasta, beans, sugar, chocolate chips, etc. But then there's stuff that my Mom's side f the family would consider necessities - red pepper flakes (the stuff you make kimchee with), fermented bean paste, sheets of nori, rice (three different types in this house), dashi stock - well you get the picture.  Like a little, tiny Korean embassy behind my stairs.

I found most of the stuff to make the rice cakes siting in there. The only things I had to buy for it was 1) the sweet rice because I had run out, only had the brown glutinous stuff left which I can make cakes out of too but just wanted white for this batch, and 2) the red dates. I do try to keep a lot of dried fruit around but that one just slipped my mind. I have enough now to fill a 2 quart jar - you never know when a red date emergency will pop up.

 

Keep stuff you think of as staples in your pantry.  Add more things as you think of your life wasting away without and don't restock on thing you haven't touched until it goes bad.  I have a friend of mine who keeps fried, crispy and salted onion pieces in a jar for just such an occasion.  My life wouldn't be complete without little dried anchovies kept at hand.  It's your boat, you float it your way.

2 cups sweet rice (rinse it a few times first)
2 3/4 cups water
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp honey (or maple syrup, corn syrup - something sweet and liquid)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup dried cranberries (or raisins or any chopped dried fruits)
1/2 cup dried red dates (or different dried fruits)
1/2 cup slivered almonds (I usually also throw in 1/2 cup cooked halved chestnuts)
optional 2 tbsp white wine or saki or other liqueur of choice

Mix all ingredients in rice cooker then cooker according to the cookers instructions (Gotta love a 1 pot desert).  Oil a 9 x 9 cake pan and spoon cooked mixture in to cool. I put mine in the fridge afterwards because I love it cold.  Comes out chewier that way.

Pic for Ham & Black Bean Soup

Here it is as promised.  I will try to get a digital camera this weekend from Wallymart.  Wish me luck.

Practical Beans and Things

I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend.  My thoughts go out to those that are here after being there, those that are still there, and those that are gone.


I had a pretty fun and uneventful weekend myself  - boyfriend had a birthday and we celebrated by throwing our heads back and yelling "Meat! And Fire!" and a grand old time was had by all here, but I have friends and family going through tough times right now.  I am down to pennies in my coin jar but that's normal for me so we'll survive.  Some advice for them - I learned that in tough times it's good to get back to basics. 

For those that are stressing about things a good hearty bowl of soup, even in the middle of hot summer day, can be soothing. If you don't have one, I suggest picking up a crockpot at your local discount store.  Long and slow really defines a thick soup or a good broth and in summer you REALLY don't want to be using that oven or stove if you can help it.  If you have a grill, that can also be used with a good old fashioned cast iron Dutch oven to pull this off. Even consider an electric hotplate. 

If you have pressure from other stuff don't add to it by filling your house with unnecessary heat if you can help it.  Of course if you're poor and in need of one it can make for a good cheap sauna substitute.  Wrap me in a terrycloth towel, put in my earphones and shimmy while stirring and singing to Bananarama, but then I'm OK with scaring the neighbors.

My crockpot started to do it's thing around nine this morning.  I was looking through my freezer and spotted the last of the ham I had stuck in there.  It seems that when I buy a ham that sucker lasts forever unless I force myself to use the last bits.  I have so far made ham and navy bean soup, ham casserole, ham and eggs, ham salad and ham sandwiches out of it.  I try to stretch that out over a long period of time though.  I can get hammed out pretty quick and it seems to do very well in the deep freeze.

I decided to make soup again and even add more beans, but this time I used my dried black beans. I wash them and then just throw them in.  I never parboil them or soak them over night and the soup comes out just fine. You prep them however you want but I don't have time to be intimidated by a bean.  In goes tons of onions, bell peppers, celery and chives (I have tons of chives from my mom's garden.  They are free and extremely tasty.)  Add beef broth, 1 dried chipotle pepper, oregano, black pepper, cumin, chili powder and the shredded ham.  This simmered all day on high for about 14 hours.  The beans are tender, the vegetables are completely soft and melded in flavors, the ham has worked it's way in ready to caress your taste buds and scented it's way through my kitchen like a ham fairy's kiss.  It's magic time.

I didn't add tomatoes this time around but after the beans are tender you can add a can of diced or crushed or chop up some fresh, however you want to do it.  It's your refrigerator and your leftovers.  Have fun with necessity.


Milton has gone to sleep.  I'm about to.  I'll post a pic in the morning, for now you can just have that image of me scaring the neighbors burned into your mind's eye for the night.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

These days I find myself totally stressing out (and yes, totally means I had my best years in the '80's).  When I find that I want to scream because my AC is out, or that my kids are going out of their way to break the laptop, or the dog smiles at me while pooping in the house, I break out a big plastic mixing bowl and bake something.  The other night it was cinnamon raisin bread.  I absolutely love the stuff and have never really made a good loaf of it.  I found my good loaf-muse it seems.

I have been making the "No Knead" bread lately for a couple of reasons. 

1st: it's cheap.  You really cannot get cheaper than home made bread at the cost per loaf - pennies, even with eggs and butter and cream (read brioche) vs store bought loaves which are considered a bargain if you can find one at the dollar store.  Specialty breads, like said brioche and cinnamon raisin, well, add at least a dollar or two per loaf.  God help you if you want something with icing or braided, etc.

2nd: I know what goes into it.  No "ites" or "ics" or viscous unpronounceable fluids. At my most basic the recipe has yeast, flour, salt and water.  I can even pronounce all of that without taking an extra breath!  Maybe it won't last on an open shelf for a couple of weeks without turning that lovely turquoise color but it doesn't have a funny chemical aftertaste and if I need it for that long I have storage bags and a freezer.  But the bread never lasts more than a couple of days without disappearing into ravenous maws anyway.

3rd: I can get as goofy with the ingredients as I want and I don't have to justify anything to the marketing guys.  If I want to throw in curry powder and bacon pieces (it's mighty tasty by the way) I can do so without fear of upper management reprimands.  I am upper management in my kitchen.

Cinnamon and raisins - the concept doesn't sound tough does it.  Mostly it's not but I want it to taste of more than just bread with raisins and cinnamon thrown in.  My mind flew back to being a kid and scarfing up warm cinnamon rolls.  Steaming from the oven, soft and fresh with the spiciness that was damned near intoxicating.  Cinnamon evokes images of both far off exotic lands and homey holiday gatherings all at the same time.  It's a phenomenal spice encompassing the magical and and the every day - gotta love it.

The rolls became my foundation for my bread.  I made my normal bread recipe.

1 1/2 tbsp yeast
1 1/2 tbsp salt
3 cups water
6 to 7 cups flour.


Mix the salt and yeast into the water.  Doesn't have to be a specific temperature, just make it as close to room temp as you can get.  In addition to the ingredients above I also throw in 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 3/4 cup of raisins.  This plumps up the little suckers - do not need crunchy bits on the inside of my bread unless it's nuts.  I also add in 2 cups of the flour.  Stir until blended.  Now walk away and let nature take it's course for about an hour.  You'll be amazed if you've never done this before.  Looks like something out of a bad post apocalyptic movie.  Smells like one too.  Stir this down and add in the rest of the flour - depending on the humidity of the day you may need more or less flour. 

It's not supposed to be a stiff dough, it should be loose, not watery. It'll look not mixed enough and have dry bits here and there - that's OK.  Cover with whatever will keep the flies out and the moisture in and walk away for abut 2 hours.  This will fill up an 8 quart dutch oven so make sure you have a large mixing bowl.  No need to knead - I love this recipe.  Came in handy when my shoulder got injured.

When you come back and it's finished trying to take over the earth and mix it down.  Flour a board, don't skimp on the flour, and do your best to flatten it out to a rectangle.  Cut that into 3 pieces.  Take each piece and get that as flat as you can without tearing anything.  Mix 2 sticks of softened butter with 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 tbsp cinnamon.  Take 1/3 of mixture and smear over the flattened dough. Roll up from the long end, pinch both ends and fold under and bake in bread pan at 350 deg - I bake it usually for about half an hour to 40 minutes in my oven but I would suggest doing a test run in yours.  This makes 3 loaves but you can always freeze the other 2 unbaked loaves in freezer bags until needed.  Just take out and let come to room temperature then bake as normal.

The first time I tried this recipe, about 2 days ago, I think I had one of those out of body experiences.  I was hovering above myself looking down at a very happy Debie.  She was chewing soft, spicy and slightly sweet heaven, with a little butter.  The ghosts of ancient spice merchants and Coca-Cola Santa Clause were smiling in satisfaction.

Dinner from a dollar store

I've been haunting my local dollar store more lately.  They now have a freezer and cooler section in the back.  You'd be amazed at what they stock in there.  I have gotten everything from tater tots to thin-cut rib eyes.  Frozen berries, frozen lemonade, frozen peas, and well, whatever else comes off the truck that week.  It seems to change every week too, I'm guessing these are closeout offers.

More than a few times I have grabbed stuff out of there and made dinner, dessert or whatever else comes to mind with things.  Sometimes it's great and other times not so good.  The berries were a great example of not so good.

I was saw a bag of frozen blueberries so I grabbed them.  Let me fully explain this to you so you understand how rabid I was when I saw this bag.  I LOVE blueberries.  I have made a meal out of an entire grocery bag of blueberries I got once at a pick-your-own place.  I washed them, picked out the little bits of grit and stems you always find in with them and ate them.  All of them.  By myself.  I paid for it horrible the next day - I think that was my recommended fiber intake requirement for the entire year at one sitting.  I would be tempted to do it again.

Heck, to this day when I watch Willy Wonka (the old one with Gene Wilder) I still have an urge to see what the little purple girl would taste like in a turnover.  It'd be OK as long as it's sprinkled in sugar - right?

The contents of the bag looked and smelled pretty good.  When they thawed out however the little blue round things turned out to be leather pebbles.  That's the only way I can describe the sensation when I popped one into my mouth.  I was so sad, my blue berries that looked and smelled great had the texture of little soggy mummies.  I ate every one of them right out of the bag, but I'll never get them again.

Tonight's experiment came out quite tasty.  I grabbed a box of tri-colored rotini, kielbasa sausage, canned mushrooms, frozen spinach, condensed cream of chicken soup, shredded cheese and half & half.  Cook the noodles to al dente, simmer the soup, add a can of half & half, the canned mushrooms (undrained).  Cut up the kielbasa into bite sized pieces, throw the spinach into the pot while it's still frozen.  Technically the only thing that has to be actually cooked is the pasta.  Everything else just has to be heated threw so this was kinda like an instant dinner.   Sprinkle whatever seasonings you like, I added black pepper and garlic powder.   Just before serving add 1 cup of shredded cheese and let melt through - stir gently.  Serve over the pasta.

You can imagine this goes good with any easy meats - meaning leftovers, canned stuff like chicken and tuna, frozen cooked shrimp, almost endless in variations and I am all about the variations.

So dinner tonight was easy, nothing fancy, filling and of course cheap.  I made it and served it to five people and my total cost, not including the seasonings which I had on hand, was around $5.  Makes my budget happy.

Because it was easy it gave me plenty of time to daydream while putting it together.  What about you may ask?  Why, being reincarnated as a bear cub in Alaska, in an open sunny field with wild blueberry bushes as far as the eye can see.

Pefect Bacon

One of the best reasons I have of keeping around a big jar of bacon grease is because I use it to deep fry bacon.  Seriously.  And it makes perfect bacon every time.

Now being from my dad's family, bacon grease is a staple for good breakfasts.  Bacon grease to fry eggs in, bacon grease to fry waffles and pancakes on, bacon grease in my gravy, etc.  I have always used it.  Heck any other meal makes it makes things oh so wonderful too.  Chopped veggies thrown into soups and stews, the small pieces of chicken when I make soft tacos, et cetera et cetera.

A while ago I had a bunch of friends over for breakfast and I picked up a ton of bacon.  I figured if they didn't eat it all I could always use it for other stuff so I dragged out my favorite cast iron frying pan and went to work.  What I forgot to do was to grab one of my metal bowls to dump the grease into as I was cooking so it wouldn't fill up the pan.  After a while I noticed that the bacon that was being cooked in the deep part of the fat (my burner tilts to one side a little bit) was straighter, more evenly cooked and had better color.  I pulled a few pieces out, let them cool slightly and then bit into bacon heaven. The pork gods gave me the greatest of gifts that day.  I have decided to not cook bacon any other way if I can help it.

Don't get me wrong.  If it's a crowd I am cooking for bacon in the oven still comes out great.  But I can get distracted and if I don't stay on top of it they tend to burn on one side, I have to rotate the cookie sheet for the good results.  This is wonderful for the breakfast hordes, or for BLT's at gatherings. 

But if I have any kind of a choice it's the deep fried stuff.  Take your deep fried snickers bars, your fried chicken, your tempura and other crispy offerings and just know in my heart of hearts they come in a close second place.  As my Dad is always saying (and as I am always quoting him) "You have to be thankful for the things that work out, and you have to be especially thankful for the things that don't."

Seriously Cheap Steaks

I have a local grocery store that I invade about once a day.  Sometimes I hit other stores when I see a good sale or if I find a great coupon, this Bottom Dollar, this haven of frugality, this heroin of bargain hunters - sigh (told you I sigh a lot).  It used to be a Food Lion but it has since been split into two chains here in Northern Virginia.  Bloom for the above average earning crowd, and Bottom Dollar for those of us willing to pick lint off of found pennies and use them.  In other places I hear it's still Food Lion - I'll have to figure that one out some day.

I wandered in there today after I got off of work and went straight to the meat cooler.  They have meat clearance sales every day and every day it's something different - which for me is excellent since I like variety.  I also like a challenge.  Try making something fun and cool out of beef cheeks for picky kids.  I'll give you a few pointers if you ask nice.  Tonight I "Found the Beef", hit the bovine jackpot.  They had a package of six, I repeat SIX, Now York strip steaks for $6.  I blinked a few times then grabbed them to looked them over.  If I had a pocket microscope I might have been tempted. I mean come on, this was a buck a steak.  What trick were they trying to pull on me?

The color looked good with no greying, no funky smells emanating from the package, no weird looking liquid.  I did see some pretty good marbling of fat, good sign.  I took a chance and bought the lot of them.  If they didn't come out good I could always cut them up and mutate them into something else, watch me.

I took out the frying pan, lit up the stove to medium heat (we literally have to light it up as it's a gas stove with a broken igniter) and when the pan was ready threw the steaks on.  The steaks had a nice sear and cooked to medium rare......and then the taste test.......slice.......spear........grunt of happiness.  Yah, these were great steaks.  I wasn't about to look this gift horse, or cow, or whatever in the mouth.  I cooked up the rest of them, made buttered peas and brown rice and fried fresh mushrooms in the pan after deglazing with chicken broth.  Add garlic, onion and soy sauce, serve over rice.

Everyone is stuffed to the gills.  The great thing is I bought enough of the steaks I can enjoy another night of meat nirvana soon.  I have to figure out who the Saint of Carnivores is and say thank you.