rzta made a Lemongrass Beef and Noodle Salad with part of their collection of take-out soy sauce packets, a withered chili found in the fridge, and the last dregs of a bottle of sesame oil and some rice noodles. Bravo!
Cure-takers, how is Week Three going? You have started cooking, using what you have, and perhaps experimenting with using some seasonal ingredients, if, lucky you, there is anything local available in your area.
Did you sassy over-achievers who had already done much of the assignment already get to the special weekend edition assignment?
There, I spoke about the importance of one good knife and one good pan. Of course, anyone can cook with any level of equipment, and , but having these two items really helps. I asked you to buy, beg, or borrow these items. And make sure the knife is sharp.
Check out the comments for some great tips on finding inexpensive, but high-quality, kitchen supplies.
sarahbestused up a bag of frozen red raspberries last baking a batch of Marion Cunningham's berry muffins for her boyfriend's birthday. They turned "a scary color of blue" and she realized "that in my bleary morning fog I'd switched out baking soda for baking powder. We had a good laugh about it."
In the comments on the Week Three post, several Cure-takers shared recipes for dishes they'd made using ingredients left in their kitchens. cmcinnyc posted two favorite red lentil soup recipes.
So much material here. Go ahead, dig deep.
The usual reminders:
• Upload your before and after photos to our Kitchn Cure Flickr page, making sure to label them with what they feature and whether it is "before," "during," or "after." There are over 600 tantalizing photos of kitchens and cooking!
• Each week's assignment is given on Thursday, with related posts throughout the week (look for Kitchn Cure in the post title). We do a check-in on Tuesdays.
• Leave comments, questions and tips in the comment section. If you have a private question, email us.
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Some of my "use what I have" recipes have created really delicious dishes: apple-onion-chicken-five-spice stirfry and bacon-potato-chicken-stock soup.
How exciting to see my pics on the main page! It's been going pretty well for me, especially now that we're on the cooking part. I just posted the last part from my cupboard-cleaning meals, and I have a fridge bursting with farmers market produce (I picked up more than 3 items). I took a pic of the haul and it looks like some kind of strange still life. No photos of my boring supermarket staples, though.
It's only the 2nd time I've been to the market, and I really think I'm a convert now.
And I didn't buy any new pan or knive. But I did buy a metal steamer basket, since I'm saying goodbye to the electric one.
I used to think a well stocked (probably over stocked) was the key to successful off-the-cuff cooking. Now I'm discovering that it's easier to throw things together when I have fewer choices in the pantry.
ah-ha, you have hit on my philosophy as well! It is much easier to make a decision and also use items at their freshest when you have less. Of course there are staples that shouldn't be ignored, but I tend to get stressed and feel guilty when my fridge is overflowing - how can I use everything before it goes bad? Something always gets overlooked.
Yes, ah-ha! I am STILL cooking through what I've got, just buying dairy and produce. I'm making tomato sauce tonight with the cans of puree, and then? I'm not quite down the "cupboard challenge" level but I will get there. Whenever I find I have evaporated milk and/or condensed milk in the back of the pantry, I know that I'll be scanning my brain, my cookbooks, and the Internet for some sort of baked good to use it up. Right now, I've got both. I agree that less might be more in the pantry (to a point).
I just got off the phone with the farm that we do our CSA with: they have space in the spring program left over, so I get my first box of veggies this afternoon! Yay!
I also got a wall mounted pot lid rack from Ikea, which replaced the flat one and freed up a bunch of counter space, and some better hooks (Kroker, I think) for the wall mounted wire grid--the hardware store S-hooks I got kept falling off. The Ikea ones have one narrow bent end and one wider end, so they stay on the grid better. I've got a couple more organizational things to catch up on
Food has been a little uninspiring so far this week. Spring allergies have left me a little groggy, so it's mostly been tried and true staples: vegetable soup, pasta with jarred sauce, and using up some of the packaged stuff. Maybe some lovely fresh greens (and possibly greenhouse tomatoes) from the CSA will help!
One recipe on my list to try is this one from 101 Cookbooks:
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/baked-pasta-casserole-recipe.html
Even more than the original recipe, some of the variations in the comments sound great.