I couldn't WAIT to get back to you this morning with an update on day 2 of the pantry project. We had spaghetti with some frozen leftover sauce, the last shavings of some nice Parmesan I'd bought awhile back, and carrot and celery sticks. Yum.
My plan was to make enough pizza dough last night for tonight's dinner, with a portion to freeze for another night. Proofing the yeast revealed that there would be no pizza dough last night. With an expiration date of October 27, 2010, my yeast had bit the dust early. Putting the ingredients aside, plan B went into effect. (Whether it's cooking or travel, I ALWAYS have a plan B.) In the back of my mind were some lovely dried mushrooms from Slovakia that had been on the shelf for years - since about 2002. We had visited my dad's cousin Alzbeta in Kosice, Slovakia, with my niece Jenna, and this was Alzbeta's gift to us. Seeing those mushrooms in the empty instant Nestle's coffee jar brought back the memory of my dad receiving a package in the mail when I was a young girl - Alzbeta's gift to him, her American cousin. I marveled that any mushrooms remained in the torn and tattered box. But I digress.
With a recipe for dried mushroom soup from one of my tried and true soup books, I made a yummy-smelling, simple soup with onions, milk, evaporated milk in place of light cream, and the mushrooms. Since buttermilk is one of my staples, we'll have homemade Irish soda bread with it - how international. Looking forward to tonight.
You know, this is proving even more interesting than I thought it would be. It appeared at first that I'd just making boring old stuff with what's on the shelves. But I'm finding that it's spurring creativity, and that's a lot of fun.
There's another side to this experiment. It is keeping me mindful of those who don't have the luxury of being creative with interesting things on hand, but are forced to create the bare subsistence minimum with not much at all on hand, and no extra anything. My heartfelt thanks and admiration go to organizations like the Interfaith Food Shuttle and Meals on Wheels, who care about food getting to those in need.
Picking up yeast today - pizza dough tonight - more on how it's going, when I see you tomorrow.
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Ailsa! I just found your wonderful blog and am intrigued. Must read back issues to discover your goal, looks interesting. Yeast stays fresh if you keep it in the freezer. I buy big 2-3 cups worth from King Arthur and use for years, with no problems.
ReplyDeleteWhoops! Just read your goal of cleaning out the freezer, now I'm REALLY impressed.
ReplyDeleteBea, I keep it in the fridge and that's always done the trick - seems to me I don't use it often enough, though, as I have NEVER had it go out of date early...must have had it for nearly a year, I guess. Your trick sounds great - I will try that myself.
ReplyDeleteGoal? Um...I got tired of looking at the same old things in the same old place on the same old shelves...how's that???