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Last week I wrote about the conundrum so many of us face when we ask ourselves the age old question “What’s for dinner?” What a strange irony it is that even with our incredible bounty of food, at five o’clock we still stroll into the kitchen and wonder what to eat for dinner. If I don’t know the answer to that question in the morning, the question will repeat itself throughout the day like a woodpecker that hammers on my shoulder. Eating dinner is more than just eating dinner. It’s the period at the end of a sentence, or the note that ends a song.

An intelligent, organized person would solve the problem and make a plan. In an ideal world, they’d sit down with a cup of coffee sometime over the weekend and just figure it out. But for some reason, that’s never worked for me. I would make a plan and things would not go according to plan. Surprise! Or, what I was supposed to eat that day didn’t sound good and wasn’t what my body wanted to eat. Then I’d be left with a lot of fresh, uneaten food that went to waste.

Eventually I learned that for the most part, having a well-stocked pantry answered the “What’s for dinner?” question.  A well-stocked pantry invites you to go into the kitchen to cook. Imagine your pantry as a musical composition and every ingredient is a note on the scale. Think of it like this: an unlimited array and variety of music arises out of that finite set of musical notes. Likewise, the possibilities for food combinations and creativity are practically infinite with a simplified selection of food in your pantry.

A melody rises out of the pantry in complete and spontaneous harmony with the body’s requirements and the soul’s mood. While the food doesn’t exactly jump off the shelves and cook itself for you, it almost seems like it does. Ingredients naturally orchestrate themselves into nourishing, tasty combinations that suit the day. Since each ingredient has a perfect pitch, it doesn’t take much accompaniment to create symphonic flavor and aromatic crescendos. Having a plentiful supply of food on hand allows a nice food rhythm to develop. Sometimes you may run across a specialty food item or fresh, locally grown meat or produce. This special food item can be a guest artist in your musical repertoire of food. Once you get it home, you can combine it with what you already have in your pantry. Then the creativity really explodes. You may even have several “What’s for dinner?” questions answered then.

It’s amazing how much freedom you can find in a well-stocked pantry. Then you can just say goodbye to that pesky woodpecker, if you have one, that is.

A while back, my friend Lorraine Smith of Spray told me about her quick and easy cheesy crackers recipe and I finally got around to making them last week. They were dangerously delicious! I suggest you make these only if you can eat the whole batch in one fell swoop because they are like Fritos and potato chips that way – why stop before they are all gone? These crackers remind me of leveled up Cheez-Its. They are versatile, too. I crumbled some over a tossed green salad which made the salad seem quite fancy.

Kansas Cheesy Crackers

1 sleeve saltines
¼ cup melted butter
4 to 6 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Cayenne pepper to taste

Place the saltines salt side up on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush on melted butter then sprinkle them with cheese then dust with cayenne pepper. Broil about three minutes until just bubbly, not browned. Watch through the window or crack the oven door because they can get over-cooked in a nanosecond. Turn off the oven and leave them in with the door closed for two to six hours. Separate them with a knife, scissors or a pizza cutter. Recipes made with just a few things require the highest quality ingredients possible. I used Tillamook sharp cheddar cheese and Kerrygold Irish butter. 

I had never noticed that saltines have a “salt side”. With intense concentration I took a moment to look at the cracker like I was a microbiologist studying a specimen under a microscope. There were indeed small flecks of salt on the surface and the cracker had a definite front and back side. I heeded the instructions and watched the crackers like a hawk while they were under the broiler. Just as they started to turn brown I heard a sizzling sound, so listen for that as an indicator that they are done. The crackers definitely needed to sit for a couple of hours so the flavors can meld. As an experiment, I used smoked paprika on some of them in addition to the cayenne. Next time I will try them together.

By the way, in March of this year, Tillamook sharp cheddar cheese won the Best of Class award for cheese aged six months to one year in the prestigious World Championship Cheese contest. Twenty-five countries submit 3,300 entries that are evaluated by a panel of international judges. Tillamook sharp cheddar cheese scored an impressive 99.85 out of 100. An interesting tidbit: their creamery in Tillamook attracts more than one million visitors a year. Tillamook extra sharp cheddar sharp would work well in this recipe too. I imagine that you could use any kind of aged cheese. Thank you Lorraine for this awesome recipe!

Some of my very favorite pantry things are the two big boxes of glass jars and bottles that I’ve rescued from the garbage. I clean them up and remove the labels so they are like new. I noticed a long time ago that food lasts longer in glass than it does in plastic. I often decant food that is packaged in plastic into glass containers. Just say NO to random food clutter and all the mismatched packages that don’t seal properly. Those invite staleness and attract bugs, moths, mold, mites, and rodents. My pantry stays clean, organized, and fresh.

You can accumulate a nice collection of jars and bottles when you pay attention to what you throw away. Because we automatically discard these containers, we don’t usually stop to consider how useful a jar or bottle can be. Transforming a bottle or jar that was once destined for the recycle bin is very satisfying. You can outfit your entire pantry with recycled jars and bottles. Make sure to keep the original lids. Do remember to test the jar or bottle for airtightness first. Fill the container with water and shake it. If water droplets come out, it isn’t airtight.

To resurrect jars and bottles that were going to the trash, de-label, clean and sanitize them and put the lids back on. First, soak a bottle or jar in soapy water and use an abrasive sponge to scrub off the label. After the glass dries, apply a citrus-based solvent to remove any sticky residue. Peanut butter works well, believe it or not. If you have a dishwasher with a sanitizing cycle, run them through once or twice to remove odors. Or, you can fill them with boiling water. Let the jar or bottle completely dry before you put the lid on, otherwise it may mildew. Save only the bottles and jars that have airtight, continuous-thread, “screw-on” lids—lids that take almost a whole turn to tighten—and not those with lug-type, “quarter-twist” lids.

I must admit I am somewhat of a jar-o-holic. I admire my hodge-podge collection of rescued jars in the boxes. Some of them are quite beautiful, especially the bottles that once contained high-end liquor. This motley crew of mismatched yet similar containers arranged on pantry shelves looks like a work of art with many different shapes, sizes, textures, and colors. You can create matching labels for an orderly appearance. A set of similar jars has a pleasing presentation. I have a set of eight decorative sixteen-ounce honey jars, which I refill with the honey I buy in a one-gallon jar. A collection of resurrected airtight glass jars and bottles is a very handy and fun thing to have!

I love to eat granola for breakfast, the kind stuffed with goodies like nuts, seeds and dried fruit. That is really a crumbly, healthful cookie in disguise! However, the luxurious, loaded-with-nuggets granola typically sold at high-end grocery stores can cost upwards of $15-$17 a pound. A while back, I learned to make granola and after some trial and error now have a reliable recipe that is, of course, easy to make.

You can mix and match this recipe to suit your own tastes; make it with any combination of sweeteners, oils, seeds, dried fruit, nuts, spices and flavorings. Just follow the correct ratio of six parts dry ingredients to one part wet and it’s almost guaranteed to turn out right. You may need a few tries to find the flavor combination you like, but once you do, you can easily whip a batch. Bake the granola in the oven on a parchment paper lined jelly roll pan– that’s a cookie sheet with a lip around it. The secret to making those irresistible clusters is to add an egg white, pack the mixture down, don’t stir it while it’s baking and then let it completely cool before eating it.

Six n’ One Granola

3 parts rolled oats
3 parts nuts, seeds, dried fruit or coconut
1 part liquid – ½ neutral oil plus ½ liquid sweetener
1 egg white (per four to six cups total dry ingredients)
Spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger
Extract – vanilla, almond, maple, chocolate
Salt to taste

Half of the dry ingredients need to be rolled oats (don’t use quick cooking oats). The other half can be seeds, nuts, dried fruit, coconut and my favorite . . . chocolate chips! I use 2 cups oats, 2 cups dry ingredients and ⅓ cup oil and ⅓ cup sweetener for my 12” x 16” jelly roll pan. You can use six cups dry ingredients and ½ cup oil and ½ cup sweetener and bake it in two batches.

Mix the liquids – the oil, sweetener, egg white and extract in a small bowl. Combine with the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Spread the mixture on the jelly roll pan and use a spatula to pack it down. Bake at 300⁰ for 20 – 30 minutes until it starts to turn brown on the edges. Keep an eye on it because it overbakes quickly.

I stay away from canola and soybean oil preferring the more healthful coconut, grapeseed, walnut and sunflower oils. The sweeteners can be honey, agave, date or maple syrup. Any kind of nut works. I’ve used sesame, pumpkin and sunflower seeds. When you add dried fruit, add it after the oats have cooled. Now you can eat guilt-free cookies for breakfast too!

I love that the little town I live in invites everyone to lunch on Wednesdays at the community center. The home cooked food is so delicious that I almost always have seconds. And recently, even thirds on dessert! What on earth was in that cake, one of the best cakes I had ever eaten? The baker, Carla Hornbrook, just happened to have the recipe on hand and shared it with me. Surprise! The cake was made from Bisquick. Thank you, my dear Betty Crocker, for this simple-to-make cake.

Applesauce Spice Bar-Cake

1 cup unsweetened applesauce
⅔ cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 cups Bisquick baking mix
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
½ cup chopped nuts

Heat the oven to 350⁰. Grease a 13 x 9 x 2 baking dish. Beat applesauce, brown sugar, oil and eggs until all lumps disappear. Stir in baking mix, pumpkin pie spice and nuts. Bake about 25 minutes until knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool. Spread with browned butter glaze.

Browned Butter Glaze

¼ cup margarine or butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 to 2 tbsp hot water

Heat the butter or margarine over medium low heat until golden brown; remove from heat. Beat in powdered sugar and vanilla. Stir in water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency.

Watching the butter brown fascinated me. I wasn’t sure when the butter was brown enough, so I just stood there and observed it. The butter started to make a lot of bubbles and as it cooked, the bubbles became smaller and smaller until they frothed into big, puffy foam and the butter tripled in volume. Then the foam gradually turned golden brown in big patches and the fragrance went from sweet to nutty. Also, I wasn’t sure whether or not to sift the powdered sugar. I discovered that sifting the sugar increased the volume by 50%. In other words, one cup of unsifted powdered sugar became one and a half cups and that’s the amount I used. I added the vanilla last and let the mixture simmer a bit. This removed the alcohol taste in the vanilla. The bubbles got really big then!

Somehow, my bar-cake turned out differently than Carla’s. Mine had a more crumbly texture. Maybe that’s because I decreased the sugar to ½ cup since I don’t like things too sweet. Also I didn’t have pumpkin pie spice so I used a tablespoon of freshly ground Ceylon cinnamon which has a lovely hot, floral taste. I used a smaller baking dish. I liked my bar-cake just fine as did the folks I shared it with but Carla’s totally rocked. Thank you, Carla for sharing this delicious and simple recipe with us!

. . . unless it’s cooked the right way and my friend Randal Miller knows how to do just that. He fries it like onion rings and tops it with sweet and sour sauce. Delicious! Tofu gets a bad rap because some say that it’s like eating cardboard, but tofu doesn’t deserve this reputation. Poor tofu suffers from being misunderstood!!

As I mentioned before, I was raised by a mother who was a vegetarian during a time when most people didn’t know what that was. Vegetarians have to work a little harder than meat eaters to get enough protein in their diets. Tofu is the only plant based food that has all nine essential amino acids so it’s a complete protein source. In other words, you’d probably get along okay if you were stranded on a desert island and only ate tofu. Tofu is just curdled soybean milk and comes in soft, medium and firm textures. In addition to being a nutritional powerhouse, it behaves like a sponge and takes on the flavor of anything you add so it’s quite versatile.

Every Friday afternoon mother and I would go to Ota Tofu, a small factory in Portland’s old Chinatown. The storefront was a bright turquoise blue and the air was humid and loaded with an earthy, sweet fragrance. The folks who worked there did not speak English so mother would hold up three fingers and say “three please”. And out we’d go with three warm one-pound bricks of freshly made tofu which is entirely different than the kind you buy at the store – like the difference between loaves of fresh bread from a neighborhood bakery versus store bought bread.

Randall knows I don’t eat much meat so when he invited me to dinner, he bought some tofu. Despite my upbringing, I hadn’t eaten tofu in quite a while and I remember my mother used to bake it. But Randall had just fried some onion rings, so he thought to cook it like that.

Fried Tofu Crisps

1 pound tofu
½ cup cornstarch
½ cup breadcrumbs or panko
½ teaspoon salt or seasoning salt
2 eggs, beaten
Oil for frying

In a shallow bowl combine the cornstarch, breadcrumbs/panko and salt. Cut the tofu into rectangular cubes, dip them into the eggs and then coat with the crumbs. Fry them until they are that KFC golden brown color (I used rice bran oil, my favorite oil for frying, in my cast iron skillet). We dipped them in the apple bourbon sauce I wrote about a couple of months ago (please feel free write me if you need the recipe). Did I make a tofu convert out of Randal? I think so!

One time when I was housesitting, I decided to tidy up the fridge. The poor thing was about ready to explode, stuffed with too many jars, cartons, bottles and leftovers. Ironically, when I looked in there, it seemed as if there was nothing to eat. What an unappetizing mess it was! I was surprised about how many yucky unidentifiable things were living in the back of the fridge, covered with fuzzy, slimy, slithering stuff. I spontaneously coined the term “UFO”, meaning “Unidentified Food Object”.  You can find these inhabitants in freezers, too.

I set out to fix the problem. I started by taking each item out one by one and checking the expiration dates. Many variables determine how long food lasts, therefore, expiration dates are estimates only. I used a common sense approach to determine whether to save or toss each thing. Unopened containers near or just recently past expiration dates were kept. For open containers, I used “organoleptic” testing, a fancy word that means “the sensory assessment of flavor, odor and appearance of a food product”, which is another way of saying just trust what your senses tell you. If an opened item smelled and tasted okay, it was kept even if it was just past the expiration date, especially if it was not rapidly perishable. For example, I kept sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, pickles and capers. Foods that were rapidly perishable such as meat and dairy got tossed when past the expiration date. All the discards filled a big black trash bag two-thirds full. Since the fridge was almost empty, I took the opportunity to take it apart and thoroughly clean it. I used a solution of two cups water, one cup white vinegar and one teaspoon liquid dish soap (I use Dawn) in a spray bottle.

Maybe your fridge is in a similar state and just opening the door raises the fur on the back of your neck, so many aliens! You may feel overwhelmed and wonder how do I start? Where you start is by doing one section at a time. Chances are, once you get going, you will feel a sense of relief and accomplishment. Maybe you would even do more than you had intended and suddenly poof! You are finished.

If you need some inspiration, read the book “Fridge Love” by Kristin Hong. The book is full of lovely pictures. The author puts all her food in transparent food storage containers and that lends an orderly and uniform appearance. The book has many handy tips, especially on how to store produce to extend shelf life.

To avoid future UFO’s, remember to date each leftover item. How many UFOs do you have in your fridge? Truth and  Confessions!

I’ve been contemplating the same topic over and over for a couple of weeks now and my mind is stuck in a loop. That topic is “If there are 26 letters in the alphabet and they combine to make 275,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary, then how many recipes can a person make with just 100 foods in their pantry?” I don’t know why I am fixated on this question; maybe it’s because I want to know why, with so many food choices available, people still fret about “What’s for dinner?” Too many choices can be overwhelming! I also ponder on the different cuisines that exist in the world, some of them with foods that we probably would not want to eat.

Finally it occurred to me that I could discuss the matter with the AI. After all, “It” has more sophisticated mathematical skills than I do. Maybe if I knew the number of recipes I could make with only 100 ingredients, my mind could be put to rest. So I asked the AI my sixty-four dollar question. The AI informed me that my question was computationally intensive and showed me the string of calculations it used to get the answer; each equation was followed by an exclamation mark. So funny! And the answer is . . . 30 quadrillion. That’s a number with 15 zeros after it in case you didn’t know. The AI told me it was astonished. Well, that makes two of us. That was not the first time the AI has made me laugh.

Rather than put my mind at ease, the answer did just the opposite. I was haunted. When I discussed the matter with my beau, James, he added an interesting perspective. He said, “Think of all the different ways you can cook just one food.” For example, take a potato. You can bake, fry, mash, au gratin or scallop them; make hash browns, fritters, French fries, Jo Jos, tater-tots, salad, soup and gnocchi. There are dozens of varieties and many cookbooks about what you can do with just potatoes. Then I remembered my recent trip to a Safeway where I stood in a daze in front of a 10 foot long refrigerated case of just . . . yogurt. There were so many choices I almost forgot what kind I wanted.

The bounty we have here on planet earth blows me away and I behold the incredible generosity of Mother Earth. But there is a weird irony in her generosity because so many choices make it difficult to know what’s for dinner. Perhaps the answer to that dilemma is to ask the AI what it would make with just three ingredients from the fridge. But do I really want to know? I’m not so sure!

In my life I’ve done a lot of housesitting and it was fun to cook in different kitchens. I always took a good look at the herb and spice cupboards. Were the herbs and spices in airtight containers and closed properly? Often, they were half opened. Sometimes I was horrified to see that they had expired years ago; one was even decades old! It was cinnamon and it tasted downright nasty. Hmmm . . . how would cookies taste if I used this rancid spice? Overtime I referred to these old collections of herbs and spices as “Spice Mausoleum.” They just sit there year after year going stale and lose their vibrant colors and complex aromas. Why? Because most people don’t like to waste them since they are expensive and cooks do not understand that they have a limited shelf life.

One of the easiest ways to improve your cooking is to keep your herbs and spices fresh. When I developed the “Plenty Method” described in my book, I found a way to keep herbs and spices fresh without breaking the bank. I made a list of the herbs and spices I used on a regular basis. I found the perfect glass spice jar. It had a 100% airtight lid, contained two ounces, and fit nicely into my spice drawer. I located a company that sells bulk herbs and spices by the ounce and placed an order including labels. When they arrived, I filled the jars and labeled them.

I discovered that the solution to “Spice Mausoleum Syndrome” was to replace the entire collection every two years. I place an order and when it arrives, I empty out my jars, wash them, and refill. Doing this procedure guarantees the colors stay vibrant and the flavors are robust. The cost savings are dramatic so it’s easy to start over every two years.

Herbs and spices have different levels of quality and freshness. In the highest quality, the flavors and aromas are concentrated and multi-dimensional. I order my herbs and spices from Market Spice in Seattle. For example, I can buy bulk ground cumin for 92 cents per ounce. In the store it costs somewhere around $3.50 per ounce in a glass bottle. Basil is $1.38 an ounce and sells for an average of $10.00 per ounce. Buying basil in bulk is an over 7x savings. I found two ounce airtight hexagon jars with gold lids at Specialty Bottle in Seattle for $1.52 per jar including shipping.

Making the change to buy herbs and spices in bulk with airtight jars will keep your herbs and spices from becoming a spice mausoleum. Your herbs and spices will be fresh, flavorful, colorful, and alive. Your everyday cooking will transform into fabulous masterpieces.

Lately I have contemplated the excess in our society. Most people I know struggle with spare rooms, attics, basements, garages, outbuildings and storage units full of things they don’t know what to do with. They get caught in the indecision twilight zone and they want to keep the thing and dispose of it all at the same time. I call a good problem a champagne problem. Champagne problems are good things to have!

As I contemplated on the champagne problem of excess, I remembered when my horse Pete and I spent the winter of 2005 in Ocala, Florida. I shared a big house that was going to be gutted and remodeled with a bunch of northern Canadians who were also there with their horses. Apparently Old Mother Hubbard had gone to the cupboard and emptied out the kitchen. All that was left was a 12” frying pan, a six quart pot, a saucepan, a plastic colander, big and little mixing bowls, a cutting board and a few knives. The utensils came from the dollar store – a spatula, a big spoon, a grater. My riding instructor Tricia and I would burst into laughter every time we were in the kitchen saying “It’s all quite adequate”. You would probably have to be there to hear the humor in it.

A long table in the dining room sat 14 people. One night we were inspired to have a dinner party because someone delivered a basket of heirloom cherry tomatoes to the house; they were sweet, tart, and juicy and loaded with big flavor. Into the frying pan we tossed a goodly amount of chopped garlic and sautéed it in extra virgin olive oil. Halved cherry tomatoes sprinkled with Italian seasoning and chiffonade cut fresh basil were next. We sautéed those for just a few minutes until the tomatoes were soft and the basil was wilted. Then we cooked a pot of linguine and plated it. To add a bit of drama, we poured brandy on the tomatoes and flambéed it at the table for a touch of five-star restaurant flair. Onto the noodles the tomatoes went. Bowls of giant grilled prawns, toasted pine nuts, Parmesan Reggianno cheese and lemons circled around the table along with a salad and toasted garlic bread. Lemon sorbet and shortbread cookies cleansed the palate at the end.

To this day, I frequently think of that elegant, magical night and the simple yet splendid dinner we made with almost nothing. NO question about it, the lack of kitchen stuff was definitely a champagne problem. Champagne problems are lovely reminders of all the good things we have here on this big playground we call earth. Bring them on!