Cooking from the Pantry (merged)

[Malawry]

So I have started my new job as chef for a sorority house. I took a full inventory yesterday. There's some things I regard as real crap left in dry storage. About a case each of foodservice cans of cream of celery and cream of chicken soup, some dessert mixes (I noticed chocolate mousse and strawberry jello). Some baked beans.

I talked to the departing catering guy for a few minutes. He said these products predated his tenure, and that he never found a use for them. He also suggested that it might be handy to keep some such things around for the rare snowstorm or other culinary crisis. But still, this guy was there a year and a half, and I normally try to use canned goods within two years...who knows how old they were when he started. And there's way too much of it sitting around to be justifiable.

I detest waste. I pride myself on not throwing out food. And I do want to keep a little bit of this stuff around, particularly baked beans which are the easiest thing in the world to heat and eat, but most of it I want to use up. My idea is to try to put one thing on the menu each week that uses one of these products, so by the end of the semester we won't have much of it hanging around taking up space and developing botulism. I think broccoli, rice and cheese casserole isn't bad so there's one idea to use one or two cans of the soup. Other suggestions? What would you do with the dessert mixes? I wonder if powdered chocolate mousse might be salvaged by layering in parfaits with real whipped cream and some decent kind of chocolate cake. Ideas? Should I just get over it and pitch this stuff?

[Suzanne F]

As long as the cans are in good shape -- no bulges, no breaks, no rusting -- the food in them is probably "fit for human consumption" (as they say, even if we disagree ) I would only toss high-acid foods in cans, because those are REALLY suspect -- the acid eats right through the lining and the can.

Your idea of using the stuff up bit by bit sounds reasonable. Are they #10 cans of "soup"? And do they hold as much as you would need for a given dish? If not, how about augmenting it with some REAL bechamel or veloute? That way at least you'll cut the yucky taste some.

Strawberry Jell-o is so retro. Maybe the girls will like it as is?

As for the mousse mix: if it's the Nestle European-Style stuff, it's only about half bad. It would work all right as a cake filling. Is there any way you can make up a small sample? Then you could determine just how usable it might be, and deal with it on that basis.

[Malawry]

The cans look good. Adding to a real bechamel isn't a bad idea but I don't want to kill the girls with saucy, gloppy food. We'll see how the soups taste. I think a #10 can is the usual "foodservice size" container, a can about 8" in diameter. These are smaller than that. I think two of them would make plenty of a hotel pan of casserole for 34 girls...probably would need only one and a half cans now that I think of it.

The mixes are Sysco brand and they're preportioned in large bags. I guess I could make the jello and just put it on the salad bar...I bet most of the girls would enjoy that as an occasional addition. As for the chocolate mousse, I guess I'll have to taste it anyway so I'll probably take your advice before committing to using the whole bag. If it's totally unpalatable, es basura.

[Mudpuppie]

If the food is just unpalatable, not past prime, you could always donate it to the local food bank. Kill two birds with one stone and feel good doing it. It might as well be appreciated.

[Suzanne F]

Re canned soup + real sauce: oh, I didn't mean you should do it all the time No, I was building on your "once a week" idea.

Standard food-service can size is either #10 (weight varies) or 46-ounce (usually only juices, though). Occasionally odd sizes for things like roasted peppers, clams -- and maybe your soup. You can calculate the volume of the can in cubic inches, then convert that to quarts if you know the conversion factor (I don't offhand, but maybe I can find it). That way you'll know for sure how many cans you might use.

Then again, mudpuppie has a great idea!

Edited January 17, 2004 by Suzanne F (log)

[Mottmott]

You could check out the Sandra Lee cookbook.

[Fat Guy]

You might get some respectable ideas from the Campbell's site. Most cream of X soups are interchangeable. Although many of the recipes are 70s-ish and awful, Campbell's has also expended a lot of effort getting some of the recipes up to date. You might be able to find some worthy advice.

http://www.campbellsoup.com/index.asp

[Jason Perlow]

Hell, right on the home page of the Campbell's site you got your "classic" tuna casserole, which uses up some of your Cream of Celery right there:

http://www.campbellkitchen.com/recipe_view.asp?rec_id=24383

And what about these other wonderful uses for the Cream of Chicken and Cream of Celery soup? Some of these don't sound so bad, actually.

http://www.campbellkitchen.com/search_resu...ream+of+chicken

http://www.campbellkitchen.com/search_resu...cream+of+celery

[MRX]

Sorority house? Jello? Why haven't you made vodka jello shots yet?

[Malawry]

It's a "dry campus."

(covers ears as raucous laughter ensues)

[marie-louise]

I hate to wate food too, but it won't go to waste at a shelter. If you want to do a real mitzvah, make the ingredients into a dish and donate THAT to the shelter. This is a new job; you should start off on the right foot, with your own ingredients to make your own signature dishes. If these ingredients aren't part of them, pass them along to people who might go hungry otherwise.

[Raynickben]

Why don't you have a contest among the girls as to who can develop the best use of the products. Edible use that is. They would probably all at least try the winning recipe and you would be off the hook if it's bad. The winner could pick the next night's menu i.e. her favorite foods.

[Mayhaw Man]

You could make those lucky young women a mainstay of potlucks and covered dish suppers all over Texas, King Ranch Casserole. It would lend itself pretty readily to multiplying and would get rid of that Ceam soup all on one shot. I love the stuff.

[jsolomon]

It's a "dry campus."

(covers ears as raucous laughter ensues)

Oh, dear. That reminds me of the triumph of my senior year of Chemistry on a drug and alcohol free campus. I had a research project to do, for which I had a $~50 budget (from departmental funds) and was working at a BREWERY

Needless to say, I parlayed my project toward food and alcohol. I devised a project that needed approximately 100 mL of beer, but my boss conveniently only sold in 1/2 gallon quanitites. So... I talked my U into buying 3 1/2 gallon bottles of different offerings from my boss which I then took my samples from, locked the lab door, and "disposed" of the rest with my T.A.

Best "A" I ever got.

[Malawry]

These are great ideas. Keep them coming!

Actually I plan to survey the sisters and see what they want me to cook for them. Maybe I'll put in a question about "cream of" soups and see what kinds of dishes use them that they'd like to eat.

[Cusina]

The sorority will require their women do a certain number of community service hours per semester. (Unknown to most of the modern world, sororities and fraternities do a LOT of good things for communities.) Why don't you encourage them to help you plan and cook some meals for a local homeless shelter with those staples and deliver and/or serve them? Find out who their foundation Vice President is and work with her on the project. It would set a GREAT example and I'll bet be a pretty fun afternoon too if you are willing to donate the time.

[hillvalley]

If any of the girls are doing the lowcarb diets the jello might be a big hit.

I like the idea of donating it better though.

Will you keep us posted on how the job is going? I feel like we have a spy on the inside! How many meals a week do you have to prepare?

[Malawry]

Sure, I'll try to post occasionally about it. I'll also be writing about it in my LiveJournal, I am sure. I feed the sisters lunch and dinner Monday through Thursday, and lunch only on Friday. I serve my first meal at lunchtime next Thursday. I'm going in Tuesday as my first full day, to finish cleaning and setting up the kitchen, organize things, and receive and put away my first food order. If I'm lucky I'll have time to make stock while I'm doing these things.

[JAZ]

For some reason, the title of this thread gives me visions of old, rancid bottles of oil lounging in the back corners of the pantry, smoking cigarettes and drinking fortified wine out of brown paper bags.

[Malawry]

Maybe I should get a sign that reads "no loitering" for my pantry.

[hwilson41]

It's a "dry campus."

(covers ears as raucous laughter ensues)

Malawry; You're at U of MD, right? That (dry campus) is borderline hysterical. But I love your sense of humor .

Making stock for sorority girls? Blessings on you. Methinks these girls are going to be eating better than most of them have ever experienced up to now. We can only hope that the artificial pearls don't go unappreciated by the genuine swine .

THW

[Malawry]

Don't get all excited. The only meats I ordered were chicken breasts, ground beef, and pork tenderloin. (Well, and some whole chickens for stock and for an Indian style dish I want to try on them.) I bet they can all be combined with "Cream of" soups inventively for tasty combinations.

I'd rather not say where this sorority is. However my esteemed partner is a doctoral candidate at UMD and agrees "dry campus" policies are not reflected by the conversations he overhears among undergrads.

[agnolottigirl]

A "cream of" casserole that's pretty good is chunks of chicken, grated onion, celery, water chestnuts, and cooked rice. If you want to be fancy (!), cover with sliced almonds. Freezes great, and I've never met anybody who didn't like it. Makes no difference what kind of mystery soup you use, either!

[SobaAddict70]

Thought I'd start a separate thread off the Dinner topic, that seems appropriate regarding RSincere's dilemma which you can read about here, and which I quote below:

  

I did buy his book "How to Cook Everything"

Rsincere - i have that bittman book - and it's great. i think his process for adding new things to a recipe is a really great way to figure out what flavors go together.

i think the dinner doctor should go on sabbatical.

seriously - tell us what you have around and we can help you make meals that are much tastier, probably less expensive and genuinely homemade. if you save the dinty moore and soup packets - you can turn to them in emergency situations for meals.

edited to add: dinner last night was 6 gross waffle fries, and too much bud light. shhh 

I hope you really meant that, because I'm screwed for the rest of the week. I stubbornly kept cooking my preplanned recipes from that cookbook, but after a beef stroganoff that tasted like onion dip, and turkey hash that tasted like prison food, I gave up!

The two recipes I had left were "Mock Chicken Marbella," so I have a pound of chicken breast strips, and "Cuban Picadillo" which called for a pound of ground beef round but I have chuck.

For my pantry, I have most spices and staples, along with fresh basil, parsley, tarragon, and thyme. I have canned vegetable stock and tomato sauce/diced tomatoes/tomato paste. I have a ton of garlic and a knob of ginger and 3 shallots and 3 onions and two scallions and four tomatoes and two turnips and a bag of Yukon Gold and some baby red potatoes and some oranges and a lemon. I have an open bottle of red wine and also dry sherry. I don't have milk or cream but I have powdered dry milk and butter and a cup of sour cream. I have vinegars and seasonings like soy sauce and worcestershire. I have tortillas and frozen green beans and frozen peas. I have frozen shredded mozzarella, cheddar, Parmesan. I have arborio rice, jasmine rice, converted rice, and many different kinds of pasta.

For plain meat in the freezer besides what I mentioned above, I have 12 oz. tilapia filets, a slab of mystery meat, a round steak, some chicken thighs/legs, some kind of pork butt roast thing, 2 lbs stew meat, 2 lbs chicken breast strips, and I have about every kind of dried bean they have at Walmart.

I also have $7 to last until Friday, but this should be plenty to eat. Anyone care to help me with my pantry challenge? If this is hijacking the thread, feel free to PM me!

I guess we should start out with what you DON'T like and work from there.

As for the rest of us, got any suggestions to help Rachel out?

Ok, discuss.

Soba

[Anna N]

Brilliant idea! I will be following with interest and will try to put my thinking cap on and see if I can come up with any reasonable ideas but I suspect I will learn more from this than I would like to admit. I am no JINMYO.