Klatsch: a week without shopping

[LizD518]

Tonight I used yet another variety of noodles that have been sitting in the pantry for far too long - rice sticks such as the kind you would find in pho. I stirfried a carrot, bell pepper, and half a chayote, along with garlic & ginger in a sauce I created out of some homemade tamarind chutney, oyster sauce, a dash of soy and sesame oil to finish and tossed with the noodles. It wasn't too bad! And since I am trying to use up what is on hand, I actually am actively trying to use up the vegetables instead of just having pasta with bolognese and forsaking the veggies!

Tomorrow I'm going to make a pot of my favorite black bean and veggie soup using the chayote, bell pepper, celery, carrot, onion and a can of diced tomatoes from the pantry. There will be plenty left to freeze for next week as well.

[Lauriux]

I am so thrilled by this challenge. I read about this on the weekend, but am only now getting to post my story. First, last week I bought 4 avocados and milk on Friday. Atypical, as that was my only food shopping all week. Ordinarily I would have shopped since then, but decided to embrace this without pre-mediation or special provisions, going with what I have now. Since the new year, I've been trying to buy less and use things up, but I end up missing one or two ingredients for something that sounds good, head to the store for those 1-2 things, and come home with at least $30-40 of additional groceries (and sometimes much higher!). So I'm not allowing myself any special exceptions for at least 2 wks, no shopping for food, not even milk (meaning I may have to give up coffee unless I find a parmalat box milk tucked away in there).

Now, my pantry story - - its ridculous. I know. I live in a 1 pp household, so beyond ridiculous. (I have 3 pix to upload so that you'll see this is no exaggeration, but am not seeing an intuitive paste or upload image prompt). I've decided that I need to challenge myself to use as much pantry and as little freezer supplies as possible. I hope to prolong the challenge and then work down the freezer stuffs if I am successful in Phase I. Have noticed others acknowledge this 1 wk challenge might not dent their stockpiles either.. . .

So, my progress so far is nothing exemplary. I had enough stuff prepared from last week to have leftovers with not much cooking yet. I did splurge on breakfast this morning, using 2 eggs, 1 piece of toast from the half loaf of bread, and a grapefruit (1 0f 4). I had book group meeting @ lunch (took a turkey sandwich from home), and then tonight had to take advantage of IHOP's free pancakes. Not terribly nutritious day, but have had far worse.

Need to eat or freeze more leftovers before I can start whittling down all the drygoods. Will soon be looking for suggestions of how to use some of more interesting ingredients I've gathered over time.

[Jujubee]

For dinner today I used up a whole chicken from the freezer. I cut it up into parts (throwing the back and wing tips into the chicken scraps bag in the freezer) and baked it in a marinade of olive oil, the juice and zest of a lemon, the last of a bottle of mustard (I just shake it up in the bottle, saving myself the aggravation of trying to get every last bit out), garlic, fresh oregano (leftover from another recipe last week), and a squirt of honey to encourage browning. The parts that were close to the surface were pretty tasty, but this particular bird had proportionally enormous breasts so most of the interior meat was kind of bland. I peeled and thinly sliced a little pile of annoyingly small potatoes and stuck those under the chicken. On the side I braised half a head of savoy cabbage and some sauteed onion in vegetable stock. Not a bad meal, but color-wise it was pretty boring on the plate.

I'm currently cooking a pot roast in the oven for tomorrow night's dinner. The recipe (Balsamic Braised Pot Roast with Tomatoes, Lemons, Raisins, and Black Olive-Pine Nut Relish) is one from How to Cook Meat that I've been meaning to try for a while. I'll need to substitute a few things, but nothing major: canned tomatoes for fresh, yellow onions for red, some other nuts for pine nuts. Maybe walnuts, since I have the most of those to use up.

[petite tête de chou]

Same meal as last night- soft shell carnitas tacos, beans and rice. I'll freeze the remaining carnitas and use them in a future enchilada supper. There wasn't any leftover rice or beans. That single batch of rice (1 1/2 cups dry) lasted us for four meals. I'm liking that!

I'm defrosting a couple chicken breasts to make oven-fried chicken (Cooks Illustrated recipe), baked potatoes (or mashed with gravy), steamed cauliflower and a green salad for tomorrow evening. This meal will finish the off the chicken, potatoes and cauliflower.

Also, I found a batch of spaghetti sauce with ground chicken (I grind all of my own meat) with mushrooms in the freezer so I'll probably bake a loaf of bread either tomorrow or Thursday so that we can have garlic bread with our meal. I might have enough sauce to last two meals but I don't know about the salad makings. I really prefer to have spaghetti with a salad. With a fresh loaf of bread I can then make tuna salad sandwiches with homemade tomato soup because lord knows I have enough canned tomato products to feed a village.

[Fat Guy]

Today was one of those lost days where I'm on the move all day and, since I know I'm going to have a huge dinner out, I basically fast save for an orange, a yogurt and a handful of M&Ms. It was also a hectic day, with a plumbing issue kicking in just as I started to photograph the preparation of PJ's egg for breakfast:

That's as far as I got. I then had to rush back and forth between the stove and the plumbing problem, stopping to wash my hands each time I needed to tend to the egg. It was crazy. The egg got overcooked. Etc. Later in the day I discovered some evidence that Ellen made herself oatmeal for breakfast. I had an individual serving of Chobani Greek-style yogurt.

PJ boycotted lunch, because he had a whole mess of snacks (almonds, walnuts, pretzels, raisins, chocolate-chip cookies) in the stroller on the way home from school. I had an orange and some M&Ms (plain) for lunch.

For PJ's dinner I made him cheese ravioli before we went out for our big dinner:

Those are cheese ravioli that I buy in boxes of 100 at Borgatti's on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. Last time I was up there I bought 2 boxes and froze them in small zipper bags of 25 each. Of course I didn't make 25 ravioli for a three-year-old kid. I made maybe half that many, all of which he ate, followed by an ice-cream pop.

Our evening involved a steak event. If I can get those photos up soon I'll link to them. I'll be back to cooking interesting stuff from the pantry tomorrow.

[SobaAddict70]

I've been laid low the past couple of days with a headache. Sorry for the lack of updates.

Very light, soothing dinner tonight.

Congee

1 cup of rice, 9 cups of Chinese chicken stock (essentially chicken poached in water with sliced ginger, a few cloves of peeled/smashed garlic and a couple of star anise, with the resulting liquid strained and reserved), a few slices of ginger and a dash of white pepper. I added three eggs lightly beaten towards the end. Garnishes include chopped scallions, chili paste, shredded ginger, sesame oil and white pepper.

[JAZ]

Last night I used up some lentils I've had in the pantry forever. I braised them along with a small package of short ribs that I bought a while back. A carrot and onion went in as well, leaving me only two onions (but a bunch of carrots). I'd made beef stock recently, so that was the liquid for braising. I now have a lot of lentils and a couple of short ribs left; I froze half and have half in the fridge. To go with the lentils, I made sweet and sour cabbage with some shredded coleslaw mix I had in the fridge. It was a little old for coleslaw, but it worked fine cooked.

For lunch today, I thawed some roasted red pepper soup and used one of the pieces of bread I found in the freezer to make an open faced grilled cheese sandwich. Luckily, I had a three-pound can of cheese from the dairy at Washington State University that I opened not too long ago, so I'm okay on cheese.

Tonight's dinner was pasta carbonara with the rest of the pancetta and spaghetti, and one of my remaining eggs. I used about half of the romaine I have left in a salad, and drank the last glass of wine I had left.

[Milt]

The exercise is one my wife has encouraged for some time. Now she is pointing out that I will do this for eGullet, but not for "you know who". Unfortunately, she is quite correct. I have been working (very slowly - two steps forward and one back) toward reducing the amount we have on hand. Somehow, this provides a discipline - a time frame - some bond with fellow travelers. It has been interesting to look at the photos posted. Our pantry, freezer, and refrigerator are much less full than some and much more full than others.

Last night's dinner was even better than I had anticipated. The Korean-Style Flank Steak was excellent. This was a new recipe that I will definitely be using again. Today's lunch finished off the cucumber salad from last night, and I ate a Nutrisystem dinner entree that my wife didn't want - along with some blue corn chips and fat free onion dip (also items my wife doesn't care for). This is my first day without any bread in the house, so I am eating a much different lunch than I normally have. It also allowed me to take on item off of the pantry shelf. In the past, when I have run out of bread - I have bought another loaf and continued making my sandwiches.

Tonight will be leftover flank steak, leftover brussels sprouts, leftover watermelon, and our last two sweet potatoes will be baked. I also made a large batch of cole slaw this morning using most of our cabbage (and all of the rest of our sour cream and mayo). Tomorrow evening we will have dinner at church and on Thursday evening Janis has class so I will eat whatever is still on hand.

I made another batch of oatmeal mix this morning. Each batch last me about three weeks - and all of the ingredients were already on hand. The same is true for the cold cereal that Janis eats every morning. No changes or adjustments in our morning routines have been made.

We were talking last evening about how easy it has been to not go to the store. Tomorrow is my normal grocery shopping day - and I make quick stops at Trader Joe's in between Wednesdays. The second week will be much more challenging, but right now I want to continue. I think that I will need to buy some bread, milk, and fresh vegetables while endeavoring to continue consuming the great surplus already on hand with meat, pasta, grains, canned goods, etc.

My long term goal is to defrost our basement freezer this spring. This was a goal I first set in summer 2007. I almost made it that summer, then when I was down to two packages of meat (and nothing else), I went on a shopping spree - and the rest is history.

[SobaAddict70]

The neat thing about congee (besides it being cheap) is that when you make it, there's so much of it left over. I had two heaping bowls last night and I think I barely made a dent in the pot. It freezes well. I imagine this will be dinner on some night when I don't feel like takeout -- as long as I don't forget about the container in the back of the freezer.

Heading into the office today. We have a breakfast buffet so that takes care of the early morning. Lunch will be more problematic. I'm temporarily breaking the rules of this challenge for today and the rest of the week (at least during the time I spend at work). I usually spend about $7-$10 for lunch. Thank god for the chicken over rice carts.

Not sure what dinner will be. I have half a kielbasa leftover. I didn't use all of it for the soup. Or I could thaw out the chicken. Hmmm...

[Fat Guy]

A recap of last night's disgustingly gluttonous, but wonderful, dinner: the ninth annual Beefsteak at Beacon NYC. Maybe I should just not eat at all for the rest of the week.

[pants]

Very sorry not to be able to participate as I am between homes for a few weeks. However as we have just moved out of an apartment and are moving countries, we have spent the last few weeks trying to use up absolutely everything in the cupboards, fridge and freezer - so a quasi participation in this challenge. We were relatively successful, but there was one thing left that really bugged me - a jar of tamarind paste, bought I don't know how long ago for a specific recipe that I can't even remember. Two questions 1) does tamarind paste go off? 2) any ideas on how I could have used it? Seemed such a waste when there must be some good easy uses for it.

[Milt]

Very sorry not to be able to participate as I am between homes for a few weeks. However as we have just moved out of an apartment and are moving countries, we have spent the last few weeks trying to use up absolutely everything in the cupboards, fridge and freezer - so a quasi participation in this challenge. We were relatively successful, but there was one thing left that really bugged me - a jar of tamarind paste, bought I don't know how long ago for a specific recipe that I can't even remember. Two questions 1) does tamarind paste go off? 2) any ideas on how I could have used it? Seemed such a waste when there must be some good easy uses for it.

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I just did a Google search for "tamarind paste recipe" and the first item linked to 424 recipes which include tamarind paste. Surely there is something there which you will find appealing.

Good luck on the move. My wife reminded me, when she learned of this project, of how she had worked very creatively to consume all that we had on hand before our moves from Kansas to New Mexico and New Mexico to Georgia.

[JTravel]

It's been almost a week and nothing much happening as I was so well stocked. But, for a change, I am planning uses for some things that have been hanging around. I have lots of flour and grains, canned tomatoes, salsas etc., and of course chick peas.....though not much tahini. I could bake breads for a long time, and cook pasta and put something tomato like on it. The next couple of weeks I should be dipping into those jars.

On the topic of using up bits and pieces may I recommend my favorite bread/snack food. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw...1104/taste.html

I never thought I could make these scallion pancakes until I came acros mamster's article. IF you have scallions in need of use, and toasted sesame oil (quite common on this board ) you can make these and dip them in an Asian style dip, or spread them with cream cheese. You could wrap most anything in them. They get tough , but a brief time in the toaster oven brings them right back. They look a lot like breads I saw in Morocco, you could use onion and tomato and cumin instead and change the locale.

A good "user-upper" as my mother would have said.

[David Ross]

Tuesday, February 24, Day Six, Dinner-

Dinner last night was an example of a dish I would call a “Cupboard Classic.”

Spaghetti is a wonderful example of a satisfying, nutritious dish using ingredients that most of us always have in the cupboard-canned tomatoes, canned spaghetti sauce and dried pasta. Those few ingredients alone make for a delicious dinner plate.

And I think spaghetti is a good example of a dish that precludes having to make a daily trip to the green grocer for fresh vegetables. I didn't miss having fresh basil for the sauce. I'm out of fresh bread, so I didn't have a nice toasted-buttered slice to serve with my spaghetti. I survived just fine.

The tomatoes in the sauce provided the vegetable component, the ground veal served as the protein and the pasta the carbohydrate/grain. I could have added a dairy element had I remembered to sprinkle some cheese on top of the spaghetti.

I added a variety of dried herbs to liven up the pasta sauce, including bay leaf, oregano, basil, parsley and fennel seeds. I also added some tomato paste to thicken the sauce and give it a deeper flavor.

When I bought the veal weeks ago, my original plan was to use it to use it in a Veal Merguez sausage dish. Well I certainly wasn’t going to toast spices, make harissa and turn out sausage last night at 7:30 p.m. The veal would find its fate in a delicious spaghetti sauce.

Spaghetti with Veal “Bolognese”-(a “cupboard classic” type of “Bolognese”)-

[David Ross]

Tonight is the last night of my challenge, dinner on day seven. I'm ending the week with the realization that I really don't need to shop for at least another week, maybe longer. I still have a bounty of wonderful products.

Over the course of the past week, my tastes for fresh foods have waned as I've shifted my thought process to crafting dishes out of what I've got in the cupboards.

The ingredient list for tonight includes-

-Elk loin given to me from one of my employees who harvested the beast in the mountains of Eastern Oregon. (Frozen).

-Huckleberries from the ranges of Mount Spokane, about 20 miles from my home. (Frozen).

-Washington Russet potatoes. (From the cold storage warehouse).

-Butter from Darigold dairy of Spokane, Washington.

-Ice Cream from Tillamook Dairy, Tillamook, Oregon.

-Walnuts from a local orchard in Spokane, Washington.

-Canned Apricots, (origins unkown).

Photos to come.

[Special K]

I just ran into this thread yesterday, but since the last time I remember shopping is Friday (the 20th), and that was just for snacks for friends who called at the last minute and announced they were stopping by, I figured I could start today. Normally I do shop every day or every other day (good excuse to get in a walk), but I'd been trapped at my desk for a few days at least before that and I honestly can't remember when I shopped before Friday.

So. Yesterday's breakfast was the second half of a can of spam, sliced and lightly fried, topped with eggs and Frank's sauce, accompanied by a couple of the buttermilk biscuits I made Sunday morning (wasn't paying attention to quantities in the recipe and turned out two dozen of 'em).

Lunch was a boiled egg for each of us, and we got into the mixed nuts later.

Dinner was catfish, rolled in flour, dipped in the last of the buttermilk and then rolled in heavily spiced (cumin, chili powder, cayenne, etc.) cornmeal. Let them rest for about 15 minutes and then fried them in 2 T corn oil. Delicious. Served with some peas from the freezer and the last of the cottage cheese and a couple more biscuits.

Breakfast this morning was leftover steak with scrambled eggs folded into pita bread (turns out we like that a lot better than our usual tortillas, eureka!).

I was going to cheat at lunch and pick up some fruit or something at the market (I had to go buy cookies for the after school study hall - we have to lure the kids in with food), but I forgot to get anything for us, so we dipped into the bag of pistachios that we keep here next to the mixed nuts (as you can tell, we're not really big lunch eaters. Nuts are nutritious and filling and easy to eat on the go).

For tonight's dinner, I took out some of the turkey pot pie filling I made and froze a few weeks ago. I'll either make a pie crust topping for it or use up some more biscuits.

Tomorrow for breakfast will be cheese omelets, I think, and eggs in some form for the rest of the week, with diced sliced ham and/or cheese. I'll boil some more eggs for lunches (for some reason I happen to have an excess of eggs - I think I bought 18 last time I did shop, and DH must have done the same thing.) I might get fancy and make egg salad and bring in a couple of the pitas.

For the rest of the week's dinners the freezer has yielded a ton of stuff: a nice small beef roast (which will give us leftovers for lunch or maybe dinner another night), some chicken tenders (I'm thinking Morroccan chicken with preserved lemons - I just started on a kick and I have all kinds of fresh spices to use. I'd rather use bone-in chicken thighs for that, but I'll use what I've got), more catfish fillets, an unopened bag of very large shrimps, some sausages and a couple of nice thick steaks from Costo and oh, boy! some spaghetti sauce (enough to use as spaghetti one night and doctor up as chili another night). I have so much to choose from I may continue past the one-week experiment, just so I can see what the bottom of the freezer looks like.

In the cupboard there are plenty of onions (always), a few potatoes (one meal's worth of fingerlings), lots of canned tomatoes (but no fresh ones, alas), a jar of minced garlic, a couple of boxes of spaghetti, tons of rice and lots of various flours (Fred's had a sale on those great two-gallon glass jars with covers recently, and I bought a half-dozen of them and filled them with staples), and all of the basic baking necessities, and in the fridge there are some dried fruits, some carrots, some celery (which I should use soon), my beloved - and extensive - mustard collection, lots of different kinds of cheese, a bit of bacon and some sliced ham, some sour cream and some plain Greek yogurt (technically that belongs to the cats but they let me raid it sometimes), and even a large container of cream for DH's morning coffee (and he lets me raid that).

Really, I don't think this is going to be too hard for me, but I will enjoy the exercise and I'm certainly enjoying everyone's posts here. The only thing I will miss and might be forced to go out and buy is my seltzer - I need a little bottle of seltzer by the bedside for middle-of-the-night sips. Plain tap water just won't do (I need to look into getting one of those do-it-yourself siphon bottles). I'd normally buy some salad greens, too, but I can get by on frozen veggies for a week.

This is fun! Thanks, Fat Guy.

[FoodMan]

Monday's dinner (day 3):

- For the kids, leftover lamb and beans with rice (from the night before). Right before bed time they decided they wanted some peanut butter and Jelly. So, they split a snadwich with a glass of milk.

- My wife had the last two pieces of a homemade pizza I had left in the fridge from Friday! She declared it still very good.

- I'm trying to eat a lot more whole grains and such, so I had a salad of wheat berries with olive oil, cubed cheddar cheese (I wish I has some Feta or something, but this was ok), salt, pepper and a large hadful of those dandelions I picked up from the backyard.

Tuesday's dinner will come up shortly...once I get the pictures uploaded.

[Fat Guy]

Today I had to do a cooking demonstration on camera. When the director/producer/cameraman (this was a low-budget thing) asked me what I'd be cooking I had a number of ideas but ultimately decided that I needed to remain faithful to the week-without-shopping concept.

I knew I had to do something with Dave the Cook's smoked trout.

The butchering of the trout wasn't pretty.

I extracted a goodly amount of flaked flesh in the end, though.

I originally thought maybe I'd mix it with rice, as suggested, but I didn't feel a high comfort level with that process. Then I thought about potato puree but didn't want to use my last potatoes. Salsify puree would have been nice but I don't have any salsify. Then I thought about grits, which I thought I had but turned out not to. But I did find some medium-ground cornmeal from Bob's Red Mill in the back of the fridge. I figured medium-ground cornmeal pretty much equals polenta.

So I made some creamy polenta with salt, pepper, butter and a little Parmesan (I know lots of Italians refuse to do cheese with fish but a little Parmesan with smoked fish made sense to me). Then, off the heat, I folded in the flaked trout.

Then I spooned some of the trout-polenta mixture into two Le Creuset mini cocottes. On top of each I cracked an egg. Sorry I don't have a lot of process photos but we were taping so I couldn't stop. Here's a photo of the eggs, though.

I covered the cocottes and cooked them in a water bath for about 5 minutes. Then when the egg was set but still runny I garnished with smoked paprika (to pick up the smokiness of the trout) and citrus salt (to add a little acidity).

And in the end:

All from the pantry. Very exciting. I didn't feel that in the end I had to compromise on the quality of the dish at all. In fact the no-shopping challenge forced me to innovate a little. If I'd gone shopping I'd have bought some predictable chives or another fresh herb for garnish. But I had to dig deeper and I found that paprika and salt, which in the end were I think better, more appropriate and more creative garnishes. I'm not sure I'd say the polenta came out better than potato puree would have, but it was good and interesting this way.

[David Ross]

And in the end:

All from the pantry. Very exciting. I didn't feel that in the end I had to compromise on the quality of the dish at all. In fact the no-shopping challenge forced me to innovate a little. If I'd gone shopping I'd have bought some predictable chives or another fresh herb for garnish. But I had to dig deeper and I found that paprika and salt, which in the end were I think better, more appropriate and more creative garnishes. I'm not sure I'd say the polenta came out better than potato puree would have, but it was good and interesting this way.

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How delicious! Bravo. This is a wonderful example of why I find the challenge so exciting. And in what is a reversal in how we typically create new dishes, rather than start with a shopping trip, you began with ingredients from the pantry.

Now I've got an idea for breakfast this weekend.

[petite tête de chou]

I stuck with the supper I had planned for tonight. It was a chicken breast marinated in Braggs sauce (husband loves it. me? eh.) baked in the convection oven along with a baked potato (topped with butter, yogurt, p+s, cheddar cheese, green onions), steamed cauliflower and a green salad with parmesan-herb dressing and homemade croutons. Tonight finished off the chicken, one of the two potatoes, cauliflower and made a huge dent in my fresh vegetables.

I'm planning spaghetti with the (still frozen) chicken n- mushroom tomato sauce for tomorrow but the conundrum is do I bake the loaf of bread needed for garlic toast tonight or tomorrow before I leave the house? Either way I'm gonna be tired. OR do I select another meal altogether? Nah. I'm an eGulleter. Tonight it's bread!

[FoodMan]

Tuesday's Dinner (Day 4)

I decided to use some of the sausages I made a month or so ago. I picked twe different types to cook, a chicken one flavored with shawarma spices (the longer of the two) and a pork one made in the style of Lebanese Makanik sausage with spices and pine nuts.

I gently panfried the links and served them wrapped in pita bread with lettuce, sauteed bell pepper (I had half of a pepper in the fridge drawer), pickled turnips and pickled cukes. I had hoped to make some sort of potato, like oven fries, but was short on time. It was still delicious anyways.

Wednesday's Dinner (Day 5)

This is one of my family's favorite quick dinners. Everyone loves it and is crazy quick. Chopped frozen (defrosted in the microwave) spinach sauteed with olive oil and garlic. Then a can or two of good tuna is tossed in off the heat. Season and add lemon juice. I do this in less time that in takes to boil the water for some spaghetti. Toss in the cooked pasta and serve. I like lots of black pepper on mine.

[Fat Guy]

A few other quick food notes from today. For breakfast I made PJ some oatmeal with raisins in it; I'm not sure what he had for lunch because he was at my mother's; for dinner he had pasta with Parmesan and a side of cucumbers and tomatoes (the last of those). Ellen had the remaining salad and some lentil soup for dinner, and I don't know what for her other meals. The only actual meal I ate was that egg and its assorted components. There were also some California rolls and such on set that I snacked on. I hurt my leg getting off the M96 bus, so my dinner consisted of Advil and M&Ms. Going to try to sleep it off now.

[snowangel]

Time for me to get caught up (sorry, no photos!). This has been a good week for this experiment as Heidi is home sick -- really sick -- which means constant seizures, so a trip to the market would have been out of the question even if I'd intended to go. To set the record straight, the only purchase has been yogurt, which seems to be the only thing she'll eat.

So, Tuesday night, inspired by this post by Bruce, I made thit bo kho. I saw this post, realized that I own the cookbook, and actually had annatto seeds, purchased for some unknown reason. I have plenty of venison, so pulled out a package of neck meat. I did have some leftover Thai basil which needed to get used, and a handful of increasingly sad-looking cilantro. This dish was outstanding, served over jasmine rice with a side of stir-fried broccoli.

While I was digging in the freezer for the neck meat, I recalled an article in Fine Cooking about ragus made with bone in meat. Simple braise. I also espied the last of last summer's tomatoes (frozen), so browned up those shanks, removed them, and sauteed a carrot/celery/onion mix, before deglazing with some white wine (leftovers from a party a while back that I'd frozen), and adding the food-milled tomatoes and the shanks. Oh, I think there was some chicken stock in there, as well. I must say that I used the last of the celery, and it was the most languid looking stalk I'd just about ever seen. It would have looked nice propped up in a lawn chair sipping a pina colada.

So, tonight. Chicken thighs. The package that fell out of the freezer last night and just about broke my toe. When they're on sald, I lay them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment and freeze them before sticking them in a ziplock. Inspired by the Paprika topic, I'm going to do the dish mentioned at the beginning of the topic. I found a bag of unsprouted onions in the basement, and I have paprika. I also have potatoes and egg noodles, and my stash of salad greens is still going strong. Gotta love those mongo Costco packages of organic baby greens.

Breakfasts for the kids have been cereal, and toast for me. I'm working on a loaf of Acme sourdough that my sister brought and I had frozen. Well toasted, with butter. My lunches have been leftovers; the kids either buy at school or take from home. Take from home is generally PBJ and an apple; perhaps a cookie. I laid in a stock of the limited edition Hydrox when they were available.

[snowangel]

My languid last two stalk of celery remind me that I also have a beautiful hunk of ginger. How best to store it? It's more than I can use in a month of Sundays. (Let's not even talk about planting it; I'm struggling to keep my Kaffir Lime tree alive this winter.) Whiz in the Cuiz Mini-Prep and freeze?

Since Heidi and Peter (he's also home sick today) are sort of half napping and watching Kung Fu Panda, I went through the veg bin, and I do have a head of napa, and a mess of ground pork, as well as wraps, so am doing potstickers. This whole experiment is giving me a lesson in "it's not a good deal if you aren't going to use it." I did have to discard quite a few of the outer leaves. The scallions looked nice and plump when I bought them (when?), but by the time I got rid of the ick, I realized I need to add some shallots to the mix.

[Chris Amirault]

This whole experiment is giving me a lesson in "it's not a good deal if you aren't going to use it." 

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Please don't say that.... You (and this whole Klatsch, in which evening meetings all week have prevented me from participating) are violating one of my most sacred shopping oaths: "If it's cool and a good deal, buy it! You'll use it someday!"