This is part of an ongoing series on how to cope with high food prices and lack of time to prepare and cook a healthy meal which fits nicely on WfD?. The last two editions are here and here.
Note that these diaries are only meant to suggest, they are in no way didactic and serve merely as pointers for those who are interested in this subject matter. I posted a piece on kitchen implements a couple of weeks ago and some clever wags mistook the list as gospel. Well, nothing is written in stone, take these diaries with a pinch of salt, so to speak.
In this one I'll concentrate on listing grain ingredients, condiments, spices and bottled sauces. The next one will deal with easy and quick to prepare & cook stir-fries, as they can be tasty, inexpensive and full of goodness, suitable for for carnivores, omnivores and strict vegans. Make sure you bookmark this series. Onwards!
I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick, not wounded... dead
- Woody Allen
Cross-posted at our other site.
The secret to successful eating is planning ahead. Try to work out a rough outline of a menu for the following day. For instance, if it involves rice, then make sure the rice is cooked by the time you get home from work. It can be done by cooking it in the morning while you prepare your breakfast, or via a timed rice cooker (or crockpot), or someone in your household might be able to look after this task while you're out. The point is to have the main filler such as grain or pasta, legume, pulse or rice ready for use by the time you're ready to cook.
Someone had asked me the difference between pulses and legumes: pulses are legumes that produce seed. They are harvested when dry, then cooked accordingly. They are high in protein and can easily substitute for meat in the diet. More than forty species and countless varieties of grain legumes are cultivated throughout the world: peas, soyabeans, chickpeas (garbanzo), pinto, black bean, red kidney bean, lentils (all kinds: Puy, red, yellow and green), adzuki bean, cowpea (also known as black-eyed pea), mung bean (also called Oregon pea), lima bean (broad, fava or butter bean), cannellini bean and many more. All make excellent stir-fries and can be easily stored.
Dry beans will keep indefinitely if stored in a cool, dry place, but as time passes, their nutritive value and flavor degrade and cooking times lengthen so make sure you rotate your dry goods on a regular basis if you keep a large supply.
A word on rice: I don't store much rice except for Basmati which can keep for a long time, in a dry area. White rice can last but brown rice has a shelf life of just a few months, because it still has a bran layer.
Rice is an excellent source of folate, and a good source of iron, niacin and thiamin. And the choices are amazing: black rice, red rice from Camargues, Louisiana rice, Jasmine rice, arborio (for that earthy risotto!), wehani, then you have short grain rice, enriched rice, instant rice, converted rice (riceroni), it's endless. Oh, and there's the native American rice, the fabled wild rice...but it's a grass, not rice. Still, I buy it whenever I can, great with just about anything you care to cook it with.
Grains: not everyone can eat wheat. Wheat has become dominant in the diet of the modern world not because of its nutritional value but because of its convenience commercially. The opposite is the case with spelt, amaranth (which can be used as a high-protein grain or as a leafy vegetable) and quinoa (whose green leaves can also be eaten though commercial availability of quinoa greens is severely limited). These grains have a much higher nutritional value than wheat but lack the commercial convenience of wheat and therefore have become less prevalent, which is a pity.
Other grains I use: couscous, rye (possibly because I have kept a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" by my bedside for the last 40 years) polenta (cornmeal) I could rhapsodize about polenta endlessly, barley (great grain, very useful in soups, stews and stir-fries), buckwheat, bulgur wheat (both great in tabouleh), and oats for breakfast and crusty breads.
Pasta: it comes in all kind of shapes and forms. My favorite is tortiglioni followed closely by orecchiette. Kids love spaghetti and farfelle (butterflies). I keep a supply of linguine, penne, squid ink tagliatelle, papardelle (glorious pasta), fusilli, lumache, casarecci, and of course alphabet pasta which looks good floating in soups & broths.
I have a really old wok pan, one that has blackened over the years and is immensely suitable for quick stir-fries. I use a steel spoon with it, handy for mixing and cooking furiously when needed. You'll need one of those for next week's recipes (or something similar, like a wok)
Here is a list of spices and condiments that I store and can be used towards next week's stir-fries recipes. There will be omissions, to be sure, since I don't keep every single bottled sauce or spice.
Bottles sauces: Tamari (a must for the health conscious), Kepchip Manis (a wonderful adjunct to any stir-fry, made in Indonesia with soy extract & molasses), Korea's green chili sauce, Tabasco (always comes in handy), Nam Plah (for Thai stir-fries), hot garlic sauce (from Huy Fong), Sambal oelek, from Malaysia. I make my own chili sauce and I might impart with that recipe, one day.
Condiments & seasonings: there's always a jar of Dijon mustard in the refrigerator, right next to a tube of Wasabi and a jar of horseradish. And a jar of salsa, in case a packet of blue corn chips makes its way into the household. In the larder there are numerous oils & vinegars. Olive, walnut, hazelnut and sunflower oils are present. Balsamic vinegars, white and red, as well as raspberry, aged red wine and a new arrival which a friend turned me on to: walnut vinegar. Call me elitist!
Spices are personal. To each its own. I run the gamut from black peppercorns, celery salt to the humble nutmeg. In between I use, I suppose, pretty much the same as everyone: cloves, ground pimento, ground cumin, saffron, coriander seeds, star anise, ground ginger, galangal, fenugreek seeds, cinnamon, caraway seeds, sesame seeds (both black & white), Kaffir lime leaves, tamarind paste, turmeric, curry leaves, vanilla, cardamon, paprika, ground allspice and quite a few dried herbs. Here are the usual suspects, in little jars, handy in the winter when we can't grow our own: thyme, marjoram, rosemary, lemon grass, oregano, sage and I think that's about it. I can't stand dill for some reason so I don't use it. In two weeks I'll give you a rundown on cooking methods and a slew of easy/peasy recipes.
Next week's edition of WfD will be brought to you by the affably wry EK Hornbeck, so expect the unexpected! As for me I'll be hitting the tiles for the weekend to celebrate the only birthday so far I've allowed myself to indulge in.
What's going to be on your plate tonight and how did you come about it?