creativity and cooking from the pantry

With 24/7 supermarkets, and the ability to buy what you need to cook and eat every day, it’s not that common these days to keep a well stocked pantry. While it may seem restricting to cook with only what you have on hand, if you keep a well stocked pantry, the variety of meals possible are endless.

There are several well known benefits to keeping a well stocked pantry:

1. You save time and petrol by not needing to go to the store everyday
2. You have food on hand in case of emergency
3. You can take advantage of bulk discounts
4. Having food on hand helps prevent the urge for takeaway
5. You can still eat plenty of good food in weeks where cash is tight

But a benefit that is often overlooked is that having a well stocked pantry enables you to be more creative and spontaneous in the kitchen. By having a variety of ingredients on hand, it is easy to mix and match to spontaneously create something beyond the ordinary.

Rather than being the vestige of half open packets of forgotten ingredients, think of your pantry as the foundation of meals to which you add whatever fresh produce you have in your fridge or that is in season.

What you stock in your pantry will depend on your personal tastes. But as a general idea you could stock:

• Grains and cereals: flour, pasta, oats, rice etc
• Beans and Lentils
• Herbs and Spices
• Tinned goods: tomatoes, tuna, coconut cream, beans etc
• Oils
• Vinegars, sauces and condiments

Even without any fresh ingredients in the fridge, you already have the makings of quite a few meals from just the above. A few frozen vegetables will make your pantry staples go even further.

If you’re standing at the door looking for inspiration, consider the following:

• Couple pantry ingredients with whatever fresh ingredients you have on hand
• Look at what you have on hand and think of ways you could use it. For example, if you’ve got rice, you could serve it as a side, make risotto, fried rice, paella, savoury rice, rice bake, mix it with egg to form a pie base, make rice salad, use it to bulk up other ingredients as with tuna rissoles or porcupine balls…
• For inspiration, Google your ingredients, then make substitutions and adjustments to suit what you have on hand.
• Add herbs and spices. How many half opened packets do you have in the pantry? Herbs and spices can really make a difference to a meal. Look for creative ways to incorporate them into a meal, or explore cuisines from different cultures to get the most out of your spice rack.
• If you have tinned tomatoes or tinned tuna, you can pretty much guarantee you have a meal on your hands. These are very versatile ingredients to stock for “what am I going to cook for dinner?” nights.

The other benefit of having a well stocked pantry is that it allows you to whip up something at short notice. The above photo is a batch of date scones I made for morning tea. They were on the plate in less than 30 minutes, no need to shop. The recipe I used is from All Recipes. I felt like something, and scones were the best use of the ingredients I had on hand. I just happened to have dates, if not I might have ended up with chocolate muffins instead.

Finally, I found this resource for using tinned food from the pantry. The table at the bottom provides a good overview of flavours for different cultural cuisines.

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Have you read these posts?

1. out of the pantry beef curry
2. tip tuesday – frugal pantry organisation
3. cooking in a small kitchen–and an announcement
4. cooking for one on a budget
5. cooking gourmet meals on a shoestring budget