My CSA farm has a Facebook page for members to share recipes and ideas for how to use up what we get in our basket. Last week we got shiso, so I asked what everyone was making with theirs. The only two members who responded must have thought I meant shishitos because they said they roasted them, pickled them and ate them raw. Hrmph. (In all fairness, they probably get their baskets on a different delivery day and hadn’t gotten any shiso yet, but still…).
Cowpeas, or southern peas, are something I had never heard of until just a couple of years ago. I started seeing them sold fresh at the farmers’ markets and high-end grocery stores, where they go by names like purple hull peas, lady peas or cream peas, depending on the cultivar. Continue reading “Cowpeas”→
Back in January, I decided I wanted to formally track the usage of the items in my pantry. I was feeling like I was a hoarder who had purchased more items than they would actually use. I photographed every item (except for spices and teas and stables). I have blogged about all my usage of these items.
I started with 105 catalogued items. Along the way I have added a few more items, and even replenished some.
So, what did I make?
I made 52 dishes that included my pantry items in half as many weeks:
Dish #1: Thai Green Curry, with gloriously big shrimp
Dish #2: Homemade linguine with yellow arrabbiata
Dish #3: Spicy cold celery salad
Dish #4: Dry-fried green beans
Dish #5: “Szechuan Eggplant”
Dish #6: Rava upma
Dish #7: Indian-spiced eggplant
Dish #8: Silken tofu snack
Dish #9: Seasoned fried cashews
Dish #10: Takeout rotisserie chicken with Toronto-style churrasco chicken sauce
Dish #11: Chopped Greek salad with hard boiled egg
Dish #12: Matcha soba
Dish #13: Vegetable tempura
Dish #14: Spicy mushroom ratatouille on toasts
Dish #15: Challah
Dish #16: Challah French toast
Dish #17: Grilled Greek Salad
Dish #18: Alkaline noodles AKA ramen noodles
Dish #19: Miso ramen
Dish #20: Out-of-season pumpkin pie
Dish #21: Korean pancakes
Dish #22: Salt & pepper shrimp
Dish #23: Dry-fried green beans with Taiwanese rice
Dish #24: Vinegar pie
Dish #25: Sauce gribiche on string beans
Dish #26: Nước chấm
Dish #27: Sesame rice crackers
Dish #28: Thai red curry
Dish #29: Experimental noodles
Dish #30: French toast
Dish #31: Udon
Dish #32: Small-batch brownies
Dish #33: Spicy cold celery salad
Dish #34: Shiitake and cabbage wontons in homemade vegetable broth
Dish #35: Roasted eggplant, zucchini, and red pepper wraps with hummus, caramelized onion, fresh basil, and hot sauce
Dish #36: “Breakfast poutine” with homemade curds and gravy
Dish #37: Sardines on crispbread
Dish #38: Fish curry
Dish #39: Chili oil
Dish #40: Radishes in chili oil
Dish #41: Dry-fried salt & pepper vegetables
Dish #42: Sweet potatoes and rice
Dish #43: Fish curry
Dish #44: Basmati rice with dried lime
Dish #45: Mango pickle
Dish #46: Mustard leaves with paneer
Dish #47: Pandan pudding
Dish #48: Chipotle-glazed pork ribs
Dish #49: Vietnamese sticky rice breakfast with mung beans
Dish #50: Not-cornbread
Dish #51: Chipotle-glazed pork ribs, again
Dish #52: Homemade ravioli with quail egg yolks and blood sausage
So, what items did I use?
From my original pantry of 105 items, plus a few I added along the way, I used pantry 62 items. Here are the 56 items I have photos for, in the order I first used them:
Thai green curry paste
Coconut milk
Fish sauce
Thai short grain rice
Yellow canned tomatoes
Kikkomon soy sauce
Sesame oil
Rice vinegar
Spicy chili crisp
Sambal oelek
Taiwanese rice
Coarse semolina
Black mustard seeds
Raw cashews
Red wine vinegar
Furikake
St Lawrence Market churrasco chicken sauce
Matcha soba noodles
Panko
Peanut oil
Tsuyu sauce
Nori
Black sesame seeds
Spicy sesame oil
Dried limes
Dry yeast
Maple syrup
Sodium carbonate
Miso paste
Red bean chili paste
Canned pumpkin
Sticky rice powder
Korean chili flakes
Shrimp paste
Long pepper
Sesame rice paper and rice vermicelli
Sesame rice paper
Thai red curry paste
Chinkiang vinegar
Dutch cocoa powder
Dark brown sugar
Palm sugar
Chickpeas
Tahini
Rennet
Sardines with lemon
Fish curry masala
Basmati rice
Mustard leaves in curry sauce
Pandan pudding mix
Cider vinegar
Sticky rice
Split mung beans
Raw peanuts
Italian durum wheat flour
Not pictured, because I added them along the way: mustard oil, asafoetida, oyster sauce, Crazy Bastard hot sauce, cornstarch, raisins. Plus I threw away the cheese culture.
These are the items I used more than three times each:
Kikkomon soy sauce
Sesame oil
Fish sauce
Red wine vinegar
Maple syrup
So, what did not use, yet?
By category, these are the items I still did not use at all in six whole months:
Chinese cuisine
Chili bean paste
Black bean paste
Fermented black beans
Chinese dried chilis
Shaoxing rice wine
Black fungus
Hoisin sauce
Hrmm. I did use all of these but the Chinese dried chilis at least once in something I improvised, but I think the dish I made was so terrible I didn’t blog about it.
Japanese cuisine
I used everything in this category!
Thai cuisine
Red sticky rice
Holy basil seasoning paste
Laab seasoning mix
Tom Ka paste
Nam prik ong paste
Thai chicken curry sauce
Pork rinds
Tamarind
Basically, I need to have people over for a Thai sticky rice meal. For another meal, I could serve a chicken dish, tom ka soup, and a red sticky rice dessert.
Indian cuisine
Dried mango powder
Panch phoron
Mixed hot pickle
Hrmm, okay, so I should find out what to do with the mango powder, at least.
What do I do with this? Make more kimchi?
Coarse sea salt
Oh! I forgot to say that I did use this when I made pickled radishes, and in general, I do find it useful. I managed to use the other items in the category for things like chili oil and Korean pancakes.
Things I put in drinks
Preserved lemons
Chinese salted plums
Salted apricots
Thai pickled limes
Instant matcha ginger latte
Powdered lemon peel
Celery salt
Matcha tea
Oh! I have used all of these except the Thai pickled limes for drinks. I guess I just never blog about drinks I make.
Ready-to-eat
Sardines with white wine
Roasted red peppers
Baked beans
The peppers turned out to be past due, the beans have been eaten and replaced, and the sardines have been superceded by new sardines and are best before next week, so I’ll put those on the “eat NOW” list.
Just use already
Instant tapioca
Soybean paste
Ancho chiles
Clam bouillon
Flattened rice
Cheese culture
Wild rice
Pectin
Pumpkin butter
Amanda cod roe
Oh man. I threw away the cheese culture, I made tapioca pudding last week, and other than that … I have no excuses.
Unique flavourings
Hot mustard powder
Cinchona bark
Kecap manis
Pomegranate molasses
Hrmm. No comment.
Staples & Condiments
Balsamic creme
Golden syrup
Jasmine
Popping corn
Basmati rice
Thai red chili sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Vanilla extract
Sugar beet syrup
I’ve actually used six of these, just not in anything blog worthy, or I just forgot. Like, I used the vanilla in pancakes but didn’t mention it. I have used the jasmine as a tea a few times.
Tally
Items used: 62 blogged about + 20 others in drinks and casually
Items thrown away: 3
Items catalogued but not yet used: 28
What’s next?
For the next six months, I think it only makes sense to give updates when I use things from the above list of as-yet-unused items. Anything I have not used by December (which seems so far away! I’ll devote myself to using over the holidays. Sounds fun?
At least a year ago, maybe two, I was sitting in a park and I imagined a “pop-up picnic” vendor that would roll up with a cargo bike and sell full picnics complete with a blanket and a bottle of wine. In my fantasy, picnickers would get a tote bag filled with tasty food, plus all the things they’d need to enjoy them, like glasses and cutlery. I realized though that in reality you’d have better luck, financially, if the picnics were pre-ordered, the way one reserves and pre-pays for a supper club. Continue reading “A fully catered picnic”→
I’m writing this down for myself to remember. It was an experiment worth repeating. I used black kale aka Tuscan kale aka Italian kale for this. Here is the process for making two sandwiches, which we ate as a side dish to a steak that we shared.
In a 250 ml glass, combine the juice of one lime (about 20 ml) and the same amount of pandan syrup (recipe below). Fill the glass to the top with ice cubes. Stir the ice cubes vigorously until the liquid from melting ice is halfway up the glass. Top with chilled strong green tea, ideally sencha. Stir again to mix in the tea.
