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.
