I’ve shared a few entries in my Mom-Friendly Meals series (you can also follow #MomFriendlyMeals on Twitter, and please feel free to join in the hashtag fun). One of the things that makes these meals easy is having ingredients available.
That sounds obvious, but it’s not necessarily. I like a lot of different kinds of food, but that doesn’t mean I can stock all of the ingredients required for a particular recipe, much less cuisine.
It’s not that we don’t have storage. We have a regular refrigerator and freezer in the kitchen, along with dedicated pantry space nearby. In the garage, we have a chest freezer.
All of this space is full. The problem is that it’s full of things I bought a while ago and forgot about, or random bits of leftovers. So one of my goals is to eat what we have in the freezer, and in doing so, determine what we want to make more of going forward.
I’m sure I’ll share those meals as they emerge from the icy depths. But what I want to talk about right now is staples.
As you may have guessed, one of my staples is steel-cut oats. After all, I eat them at least five times a week. Eggs, clearly another staple. But what else?
Macaroni, for Baguette’s Macmomee Cheese (technically not mom-friendly, but come on, of course it is). Egg noodles. Flour tortillas. Capellini.
Dried beans, for when I have time to soak them the night before. Low-sodium canned beans, for when I don’t.
Coconut milk. Walnuts. Reduced-fat milk. Plain, unsweetened, whole milk yogurt.
Every other week, we get a box of fresh fruit grown on local farms; I also visit our nearby farmers’ market on Sunday mornings, where I get lemons, tomatoes, eggs, and berries.
I buy just about all of my spices from Penzeys. I recently cleaned out my spice rack, because it was overflowing, and there were too many impulse buys that I just wasn’t using. I like it so much better now; I can find what I need, and I’m using what I have.
And I make my own chicken and vegetable broth. Stock. What have you. This is so much easier than it sounds.
For vegetable broth, I buy a bunch of vegetables, scrub them, cut them up, cover them with water, and simmer for an hour. Do not peel! It takes too much time, and you lose the nutrients that are in the peel. After an hour, just strain it.
Chicken broth is just as easy; it takes more time, but it’s all slow-cooker time. I use a carcass, chop up an onion, throw in a few garlic cloves and celery and carrots, cover everything with water, and add some peppercorns. Then I cook on low for at least 12 hours and strain.
Having stock in the freezer means I can make soups at a moment’s notice (well, maybe a little more than a moment). And I can pick the ingredients, which means it has more flavor than packaged broth, and a lot less sodium.
I may have just used the last of my stock. This is why I need to clean out the freezer.
