Remember the story of “Stone Soup“?
I’ve always been a little conflicted about that story. Sure, the villagers were miserly with their food stores. So you can read it as the story of how a traveler convinced them to open up and be a community.
But can’t you also read it as the story of someone who entered a town, tricked everyone into eating the last of their food, and then left a starving village behind?
Fortunately, one of the main points of the story doesn’t involve trickery at all. It simply involves using what you have available.
The other night, I wanted to make soup. In the freezer, I found chicken stock and a variety of frozen vegetables–peas, corn, and spinach, in this case. And in a jar on the counter, I found what I think was linguini (I’m not sure why we had it, since we tend to buy capellini, and since I am not terribly well-versed in pasta varieties, it might have been something other than linguini).
Now, if I’m shopping to make vegetable soup, I might include carrots and bell peppers. But I didn’t have time to go to the store, so I used what I had on hand.
I put the stock in a pot and added some water (I hadn’t thawed enough stock, I realized after the fact). When it came to a boil, I added the vegetables and broke the linguini into smaller pieces. Once everything was hot and the pasta had softened, I added some salt and pepper–you could, of course, add any other spices you want, but I kept it simple this time.
What have you got on hand? And what can you do with it?
I love meals from what’s on hand. In the soup department, I just did an edamame/leek and a carrot/beet because that’s what we had a lot of from the CSA and all the other ingredients were already in my pantry or fridge. We also had a head of cabbage (also a CSA goodie) about to take a turn for the dark side and a small amount of homemade egg noodles to use so I made my own version of halushki the other night. Awesome. A while back, I realized how much food we were wasting either from surplus that went unused or simple lack of effort to make sure that didn’t happen. So for quite some time, I really think about meals based on what I have rather than what looks good on a recipe. It’s working well…and our waste is WAY down. Win.
Win, indeed! I’m trying to do the same thing. In fact, I stopped getting a CSA box because too much of it was going to waste. Right now we have so many things in the freezer–I’m not even sure what’s in there. So we’re working our way through it, and when we restock, we can focus on things that we actually eat.
Most of my meals are made with what is on-hand. I go grocery shopping once a week and buy whatever I know I have run out of, and whatever I have been craving that week, and then make something with it. I have been known to make pizza with beef and peaches, because that is what I happened to have when I felt like making a pizza. (It was delicious). A few weeks ago, a friend gave me some tomatoes from her garden, and I decided to make tomato soup. Halfway through the process I realized I didn’t have any heavy cream. So I turned it into tomato-sauce instead. I frequently make pasta dishes from whatever happens to be lying around. I think it’s way more fun to cook this way than to follow recipes!
I tend to use recipes as a starting point, anyhow, although I’m beginning to think that I should make things as indicated one and then adjust. But when I don’t have a plan, it’s good to have raw materials. Even if it’s not exactly how I’d make it if I started planning from the beginning, it’s usually still pretty good.