Tail-end meals

I have to confess that "no food in the house" in our case rarely means that we are anywhere near out of food, even when we've missed a couple of weeks' trips to the grocery store. We have a well-stocked little pantry next to the refrigerator with things like oatmeal and lentils and salt and flour, and usually there are some vegetables in the freezer, and condiments of fairly absurd variety in the fridge, as well as some kind of cheese or other.

There's usually onions or garlic or even both, and some odds and ends, like two carrots or a lone tortilla or something. So, when I start to feel like there's nothing in the house, what this usually means is that there's nothing left that I bought specifically to make anything in particular, and that this has been the case for some days.

And especially there is nothing that I made on a Sunday afternoon, all ready and inviting and easy to serve up even when it's the end of a long workday and it's too hot to turn the stove on for very long. This week, I've made oatmeal upma and eggs with onion jam (twice!), and I could easily make some spinach soup, but somehow soup doesn't appeal right now. I could also do something with this can of black beans I've got, but there isn't much to have with them, and again, not so interested in soup.

But aha! S. noticed that we've got some stale tortilla chips, and the verrrry last of the tomatillo salsa I made and froze last summer. Chilaquiles it is! Hooray. What do you make when it's been a while since your last trip to the grocery store, and you're tired and lazy?

Comments

[Kit O'Connell]

"Nothing in the house" means the same thing here -- we've skipped grocery shopping, I'm feeling too lazy to run down to the store, and there's nothing I can make very quickly.

I try to be efficient on these days, making fried rice, french toast, and other things from odds and ends leftover. We almost always have beans and rice around, so that's a staple anytime -- unfortunately we run out of tortillas too quick to count on them during the lean times.

How do you make something edible with stale tortilla chips?

[mrh]

We almost always have cans of tomatoes, which can be paired with rice and beans or even, sigh, pasta. Not too creative, I'm afraid. But generally the pantry and freezer come through.

[redfox]

Kit: So you take a cup of delicious salsa verde and you heat it in a big pan with a little oil, then you add a cup of broth or water and bring it to a boil. Then you add your tortilla chips, or stale tortilla chips, or stale tortillas that you fried in some oil and drained, and cook them for about three minutes, stirring so the salsa has a chance to get in contact with all of the chips. Near the end, you add some cheese and let it melt. You can add meat or a fried egg, too.

Oh! Here's a confession for you both, speaking of rice and beans: brown rice takes a long time to cook, but I try to stick with brown for the sake of S's pancreas, and for the same reason I try not to ever use too much rice in a single meal. So I have been buying flash-frozen cooked brown rice from Trader Joe's. Is that the height of laziness, or what?

[Kit O'Connell]

Thanks for the recipe tip, I love ways to use things which have gone "stale" and make yummy food. :D

I am all about the lazy cooking. I love to produce meals with complex flavors and spend way more time in the kitchen than my partner can understand (though she is very appreciative of the results :). At the same time I have a health condition which puts limits on my energy so I will cut corners when I can or have too. Lately I've been addicted to the rice maker, but if you aren't using rice more than every few days the flash frozen stuff sounds better (I wish we had Trader Joe's here, too :( ).

On the laziness front we bought a bread machine at goodwill. I let the breadmachine do the dough kneading then bake the results in the oven. Hand-kneaded bread is probably better, but now we have fresh bread all the time when we had it basically never before.

[lindy (a/k/a Mum)]

Recently abetted pantry and laziness options by extravagently purchasing an entire case of Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes. I think these guys make the simplest of tomato sauces taste special, but I use them up so fast, and the supermarket organic section is often all out.

Also, I can almost always make mudjaddarah, as I pretty much always have rice, lentils, and onions.

[heebie-geebie]

I keep trying to comment and participate, but really, my food habits are dismal. No food in the house means grits, oatmeal, or popcorn, but that's also what "I just went shopping!" means, so. Sigh.

[redfox]

Well, grits, oatmeal, and popcorn are all pretty healthy as these things go, at least.