Tips for Cooking From Your Pantry

Dedicate pantry space: setting aside an area, a cupboard, a shelf, or a closet, for pantry goods is important if your goal is to keep a stock of non-perishables. I'd encourage this for anyone no matter how small their budget as it allows for adding a variety of flavors to otherwise basic and "plain" ingredients. You want those ingredients to be easily accessible and organized, however, or you will forget to use them. No matter where you choose to store them, make sure the area is out of direct sunlight, cool, and fairly dry. Avoid the cupboards above the oven, or a shelf directly opposite a window. For accessibility, it's nice to use shelves rather than a cabinet with a door, but if your kitchen happens to be like mine - facing southeast with lost of windows - you may want to make that sacrifice to keep the temperature down. The best case scenario is a closet area off of the kitchen.

Containers: store opened packages of sugar, flour, rice, beans, noodles, cereal, etc. in airtight containers rather than in their original packaging. Not only will this keep your dry goods from going stale before you can use them, it makes an appealing visual display. If you use transparent plastic or glass containers, you'll be able to tell immediately where your desired ingredient is and how close you are to needing to restock.

For plastic containers, consider Tupperware Modular Mates, Click Clack Canisters, Lock 'n Lock, and then of course there's The Container Store.

Crate & Barrel has an excellent selection of plastic and alternatives as does World Market.

Expiration Dates: you may want to label containers with the date of purchase and/or the date of expiration in black marker on scotch tape so that they are visible (and removable for reusable containers). At the very least, go through every once in a while and check dates and throw away items that are bad, use items that are going to expire soon, and rearrange items if necessary so that the things that will go bad soonest are most accessible.

Here are some sites from around the web with guidelines as to how long pantry items stay fresh:

comprehensive list

Spices

Veggies

2. Use Evaporated, Powdered, and Condensed Milk

You'll very seldom find milk in our refrigerator anymore. We love granola and every once in a while we'll make some (recipe coming!) and spring for milk, but we discovered that oatmeal (yes, this recipe is coming, too!) is cheaper and just as good for us so we have switched to that or eggs and toast most mornings.

At first, even though I hated having milk sour before we went through it all, I couldn't let go and stop buying it. What if I wanted to bake something that called for milk? Or wanted to make cream-of-something soup? Or needed some for my coffee or tea?

Somewhere along the line I had an aha! moment and picked up a box of non-fat powdered milk to have on hand. So cheap and lasts for so long!!! You can control the consistency to match your recipe by adding more or less water. And the best thing about it in my opinion is that it can be added to other dry ingredients to add water to at a later date. Like for instance in my homemade instant oatmeal or in the cafe mocha mix that I often gift for Christmas.

I just recently started experimenting with evaporated and condensed milk too. What's the difference, you ask? Well, the short and simple answer is that condensed milk is sweet - used almost exclusively for baked goods. Evaporated milk, however, is almost as versatile as powdered milk. The rule of thumb is 1/2 evap. milk, 1/2 water to substitute the canned stuff for the real stuff in recipes. As Carnation's website says, it's "the creamier milk" and "the slimmer cream."

3. Utilize Your Blender or Food Processor

Add variety and nutrition to your pulled-together pantry meals by trying some of these ideas:

*Blend 1/2 your prepared soup before adding it back to the pot and dishing it out for a "cream of" texture when there's no milk or cream to be had. Works best with veggie and bean soups - especially lentils!

*Puree canned veggies and add to most any recipe for extra flavor and vitamins without changing the texture too much. Try a drained, pureed can of mixed veggies in meatloaf or chili.

*Ice blended with canned fruit makes a refreshing Summer snack beverage