"spring cleaning" news and stories

There are lots of packaged mixes at the store that can make cooking a meal for your family fast and easy after a long day at work. Generally speaking, these mixes are grains with spices and sometimes vegetables and include favorite brands include Rice-A-Roni and Zatarains. Hamburger Helper operates along similar lines, but calls for the addition of meat. These options are already a cut above precooked frozen foods, but there is still something commercial about them. Many new gourmet mixes, with fresher vegetables, original spice combinations and unusual grains are coming out, like the Trader Joe's Spelt with Red and Green Peppers mix pictured here, which make for a lovely change on the dinner table.

To add a touch of homemade flavor to what is essentially a meal from a box, without taking too many extra minutes out of an already busy evening, try sauteing some garlic in the bottom of the pan before adding the mix, or dicing an onion or a shallot and tossing it into the pot with the cooking liquid. Read the ingredients and see what might pair well. This spelt mix, for example, would be good with extra peppers or, since it was well spiced, a vegetable like sweet potatoes or squash to round it out. Or, for heartier fare, take an example from Hamburger Helper and heat up some sausages while the grains cook and toss them in before serving.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

Bisquick is buttermilk baking mix, a blend of shortening, powdered buttermilk, flour and leaving agents, which has a long shelf-life when kept in a cool, dry place. It is popular for everything from pancakes to dumplings, but when you usually make homemade versions of those things, a box of Bisquick can last you a long time.

I searched through Allrecipes.com to find a way to use it up and came across a semi-homemade recipe that was ideal for springtime pantry cleaning: bisquick cookies. The recipe also calls for boxed pudding mix – mostly sugar and cornstarch – to be used. Fortunately, I had a box of pudding mix remaining after I disposed of the packages that looked as though they were bought in the 1980’s. The only thing you really need to make these cookies that can’t be found in your pantry is an egg. And if you keep your eggs there, I strongly recommend using some fresh ones.

This bag of potato starch has been in my cupboard for about a year and a half. I know that because I bought it after seeing it used in a recipe for beef negimaki (scallions wrapped in seared beef and dressed with a soy-mirin-sake sauce) in the November 2004 issue of Saveur. Our Spring Cleaning day seemed the perfect opportunity to finally make use of it. There's a recipe similar to Saveur's over at Epicurious, one of the main differences being that Epicurious's sauce is thickened by reduction while Saveur's is thickened with the potato starch. In doing the latter, I was really impressed with how the two teaspoons of potato starch diluted in five teaspoons of cold water created beautifully thick glaze in a matter of seconds when I added it to the barely boiling soy, mirin and sake. There were no lumps, as I often find with corn starch, and no added flavors it seemed. There's a picture after the jump.

What do you have the most of in your pantry? Because I like to bake, I always have a fairly large supply of baking ingredients, including different flours, baking powder, baking soda, and yeast, among other things, like chocolate chips and sugar. I also always have cereal and oatmeal to give myself some breakfast options. But there is one thing that I almost have more cans of than I can count: tomatoes.

Granted, I do use canned tomatoes a fair amount, especially when making dishes like soups and pasta sauces. I love tomatoes and it is much easier to reach for a convenient jar of them, especially when they’re pre-roasted or diced, than it is to fuss with fresh tomatoes. For some reason, though, I buy them in groups of twos and threes with complete disregard to the fact that I have at least 10 different varieties already in my cupboard. Addiction? Paranoia? I am quite certain that the world would not end if I ran out of my favorite canned tomatoes, and yet I can’t seem to help myself. That’s my pantry-stocking secret. What’s yours? Beans? Cereal? Jarred salsa?

This bag of dried Peruvian corn or cancha also turned up as a result of some spring cleaning. Truth be told, I was cleaning my car. My girlfriend left it in the back seat a few weeks ago, after a visit to our local Hispanic supermarket. We've always enjoyed the small bowls of cancha that our favorite Peruvian restaurant serves, so making it at home seemed like a good idea. (As an aside, yes, I know that these are probably not all that different than the Popnots that I spoke less than fondly of a few weeks ago.) Basically, these large dried kernels get popped just like popcorn, except that they don't really turn inside out, they just puff up and turn golden brown. The Goya website has a recipe, but really all you need to do is heat a little vegetable oil in a pot with a tight lid, add the corn and shake it until it pops, then drain it on some paper towels and toss with salt. It's a great snack by itself, with some hot sauce and especially with ceviche.