Friday, November 4, 2016

Falling Into My Pantry


As fall is here I am doing two things: reading new cookbooks and restocking my pantry which was decimated by the holidays. With the colder weather comes my favorite type of food, comfort food. What could be better than a big pot of chili, soup, cholent, a good roast chicken or some stew on a cold, dreary day?

Cooking is about either doing so because you need to or because you want to, love to and there is just the day that you feel like making a big pot of something. When that urge strikes, you want to make sure you have on hand what you need to satisfy it, so time to think and restock. Here are some of the things I am checking in my pantry:

Beans – I like canned as I do not always have the time to soak them first and these days you can get low-sodium canned beans. I keep chickpeas, black, kidney, pinto and cannellini. Stews, soups, chili and cholent all use them. Mashed or pureed cannellini beans make a quick dip if you need a last minute something and beans and rice or any kind of starch are good veggie/no meat options. While they are not quite in the same category, I always keep some lentils and split peas on hand as well.

Tomatoes – I like a variety of canned ones, paste, whole, crushed, diced, pureed, finely chopped and fire roasted. The fire roasted ones come with garlic, adobo and chili and can add a lot of flavor to a dish without a lot of fuss. Fire roasted tomatoes with artichoke hearts over chicken are a Shabbat favorite in my house and it takes minutes to make.  

Pasta – I always keep this on hand: penne, elbows, spaghetti, fusilli, rigatoni, orzo, ditalini (something small to go into soup), or the ready to bake lasagna noodles. Add some cheese, sauce, veggies or tofu scrambles and you have a quick and hearty meal.

For other starch option I keep faro, quinoa, all sorts of rice, barley and both the regular and Israeli cous cous. I am a cous cous fiend, I can always eat it and there is nothing quicker to cook.

Sauces – I like to keep a broad range of these as you can always mix or toss them over pretty much anything. I have Dijon, whole grain, deli and honey mustard, red and green salsa, your basic tomato/pasta versions, chili sauce, shiracha, olek sambal, ketchup, soy, mirin hoisin or chimichuri (I have found a good Kosher ready made one that over turkey is really tasty). The Oxygen brand makes a variety of sauces that are really good. Walk the aisles of your grocery store and look, you will be surprised by what you find. Just read the labels for both sugar and salt content.

Since I mentioned that I do read cookbooks, I wanted to talk about the two I am reading now:

Ina Garten’s cooking for Jeffrey - This is all about her husband, their life together and what she cooks for him. Cooking is love and what says love more than cooking for the person you love the most. Beyond that her recipes are simple and easy to make. A lot of them are “make ahead” or slow cooking, perfect for Shabbat. Yes, some of them you may need to adapt as they have milk and meat or other non-Kosher items but that sometimes is the fun of cooking; you take something, it inspires you, you tweak it and make it your own. If for nothing else, the brisket recipe is reason enough to buy this book.

Alton Brown’s EveryDayCook - His approach to food and cooking includes thinking about the ingredients, tools and techniques. The book breaks it all down, listing equipment (who else would think to use a whip cream siphon for pancakes), ingredients, his ratio for spice blends and how to make the prefect tomato soup in a pressure cooker. While it not may be not your everyday, he certainly covers a few of mine.

As I make my way through my pantry there will be more staples I check, cookbooks and TV shows that inspire me. The clock changes this week and that means it’s time to change the way I cook for Shabbat as well. I will post about how I use my pantry, make it work for me and actually cook.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Pantry Staples

There is nothing you can't cook as long as you have the following on hand when you ask yourself the question, "What should I cook?" Not to mention that many recipes call for these ingredients.

Oils
  1. Olive
  2. Vegetable or Canola
  3. Sesame
Vinegars
  1. Balsamic
  2. Red Wine
  3. White
  4. Apple Cider
  5. Rice Wine
Citrus Juices
  1. Lemon and/or Lime
  2. Orange and/or Grapefruit
  3. Tomato
  4. Pomegranate
Sauces
  1. Soy
  2. Worcestershire
  3. Tomato
  4. Duck
  5. Hoisin
  6. Chili
  7. BBQ
  8. Steak
Grains
  1. Rice (white, brown or basmati)
  2. Couscous (instant or Israeli)
  3. Pasta (a variety)
  4. Quinoa
  5. Bulger Wheat and/or Taboli
  6. Polenta
  7. Barley
  8. Lentils
Others
  1. Honey
  2. Ketchup
  3. Dijon Mustard
  4. Mayonnaise and/or Miracle Whip
  5. Stock and/or Soup-In-A-Box
  6. Pickle Relish
  7. Jam or Jelly
  8. Sesame Paste and/or Peanut Butter
  9. Salsa
  10. Dried Soup Mix or Powder (onion, etc.)
  11. Fresh Chopped Garlic
  12. Tomatoes, Sun Dried and Canned (or Boxed)
  13. Horseradish 
  14. Tunafish
  15. Beans (red kidney, black, cannelloni, chick peas)
  16. Crackers (Saltines, Ritz, Carrs)
  17. Coffee & Tea
  18. Cocoa Powder
  19. White Sugar
  20. Brown Sugar
  21. Sugar Substitute (Sweet & Low, Splenda, etc.)
  22. Agave
  23. Hearts of Palm
  24. Artichoke Hearts
  25. Canned Mandarin Orange Slices
  26. Preserved Lemons
  27. A Jar of Roasted Red Peppers
  28. A Jar of Marinated Mushrooms
  29. Olives
  30. Pickles and/or Cornichons
  31. Water Chestnuts
  32. Bamboo Shoots
  33. Baby Corn
  34. Flour
  35. Cornstarch
My kitchens feels empty without any of the above. You never know what culinary challenge you will face and like the proverbial boy or girl scout, you always want to be prepared.

You can walk into my kitchen right now and all of these items will be there.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Spices I Can't Live Without

I tried to make a list of the spices I cannot live without and keep it to just ten, but in reality, there are sixteen of them (if we count the three varieties of salt as one).
  1. Salt
  2. Pepper 
  3. Garlic (fresh or dried)
  4. Basil (fresh or dried)
  5. Oregano
  6. Cumin
  7. Chili Powder
  8. Cinnamon (ground and sticks)
  9. Ginger (fresh or dried)
  10. Rosemary (fresh or dried)
  11. Tarragon 
  12. Dill (fresh dried)
  13. Thyme
  14. Red Pepper Flakes
  15. Curry Powder
  16. Nutmeg
Many of the recipes I will post use one or more of the above spices. It is amazing what chili, cinnamon, cumin and garlic can do to a piece of london broil or chicken. Having these in your well-stocked Kosher kitchen will enable you to become your own creative cook.

We will be talking about each of these spices and the different ways they can be used, both sweet or savory, in the coming weeks and months.

P.S. If you don't already know, the three varieties of salt are Kosher, Sea and Iodized.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Sides and Leftovers for Any Time or Temp

The point of the Well Stocked Kosher Kitchen is to be able to walk into your kitchen and take what you have and put it into a creative, simple, quick and delicious dish (or dishes) that can be used to feed your family and friends on multiple occasions, whether it’s Shabbat lunch, Sunday dinner or a quick weeknight meal.

So in these recipes, I took chicken, potatoes, string beans and a variety of condiments and put them together to make a meal that can be served hot or cold. Leftovers can be used creatively to make a second meal.

I made the string beans by bringing a pot of well-salted water to a boil, putting the fresh string beans in for 2-3 minutes (until they turned bright green), draining them and then running them under cold water to stop the cooking and make sure they stay bright green. This is something that can be done before Shabbat (Thursday night or Friday morning) and then served for lunch Saturday.

To make the potato salad, I cut up red, yellow and purple potatoes into equal-sized pieces one-quarter to one-half an inch in size, placed them in a pot of cold, well-salted water, brought it to a boil and let them cook for 15-20 minutes until fork tender. I then drained the potatoes, placed them in a bowl in which I had already mixed two tablespoons of Miracle Whip, a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, lemon juice (to taste), along with salt, pepper, a little olive oil and dried tarragon. I tossed the still warm potatoes in this mixture so they soaked up the flavors of the dressing. This too, makes a great “make ahead dish” to serve cold for Shabbat lunch.

Hint: After you cook the string beans, just take them out of the pot of water and put the potatoes in the same pot. This way, you don't have to bring two pots of water to boil or, more importantly, wash two pots!

As for the leftover chicken (which was even better cold the next day), it can be shredded and put in a green salad, used to make chicken salad, added to the potato salad or you can get really fancy and put some in soft tortillas with some salsa, guacamole, beans, shredded lettuce or other greens and roll them up and eat them!

In future posts, I will talk about what you should keep in your kitchen pantry, cabinets, fridge and freezer so that when you ask yourself “Oh my gosh, what am I going to make for __________???” you will be able to answer that question quickly and simply and throw together something delicious.

WSKK: The Trailer!

While editing our first test movie, we played around a bit with iMovie's trailer feature and put this together for fun!