telophase | Recipe ideas...

What we have:

thin pork chops (frozen)
2 lb hamburger meat (frozen)
2 lb round steak (frozen)
loaf of rye bread in slices (frozen)
spiral-cut ham slices (frozen)
half a bag of frozen green beans
half a bag of frozen french fries
pound of ground turkey (frozen)
bag of frozen lima beans

a neverending supply of baby carrots
half a head of iceberg lettuce
a lemon (We won't die of scurvy today!)
shredded cheddar-jack cheese
mayonnaise
soy sauce
jar of roasted red peppers
box of cream cheese
butter

a random assortment of spices
half a box of shell pasta
a box of lasagne noodles
brown rice
medium-grain white rice
sticky rice (needs overnight soaking)
tuna in a pouch
3 cans of different-flavor baked beans
can of cannellini beans
can of chicken noodle soup
can of tomato soup
can of pineapple chunks
can of bamboo shoots
can of lobster bisque
box of couscous
dried shiitake mushrooms
a neverending supply of potato chips
peanut butter
a billion different vinegars
Thai fish sauce
Chinese oyster sauce
flour
sugar
cornmeal
yeast

What we do not have:

milk
ability to purchase more stuff today as the roads are covered in ice

There's some other random stuff, too, but listing it requires me going back into the kitchen again and I don't wanna move again. :D

So: ideas?

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Hmm. For a quick meal today, you might slice up the pork chops and stir-fry them with the bamboo shoots, some carrots (sliced into discs or matchsticks) and either the pineapple or the (soaked) shitakes.

For tomorrow-- turkey meatloaf with a layer of roasted red peppers in the middle?

Oooh, interesting.

I've also realized that we have yeast and molasses, so Anadama bread is looking quite good at the moment.

A reasonable teriyaki sauce is about 1/3c soy sauce, 1/3c rice vinegar, about 1T of sesame oil, and 1T of brown sugar. If you don't have sesame oil, but do have sesame _seeds_, crush and use instead. If you don't have either, eh, it won't be as good, but needs must. Beef + green beans + carrots + bamboo shoots + mushrooms = yummy stir fry. Plus you have rice; cook as per normal, use this as a sauce.

Pasta sauce: tomato soup + ground turkey or hamburger + usual Italian spice mix turned up a bit + red peppers (if that's your taste). Serve over pasta, green beans on side. (Suggestion: extend your lasagne by cooking partway through, then slicing to make reasonable sizes, then finishing to cook.)

Possibly take the teriyaki I describe above, add red pepper, add mirin if you've got it, add an extra T of sugar maybe, add lemon from the lemon, result is a semi-reasonable salad dressing. (god damn I wish you had an onion... it makes a better onion dressing, but if you have a yellow or something you have to soak the onion shreds for like two days...)

Damn, I can't believe you have so little pasta and so little veg. What do you eat? (This, apparently! But I digress.)

Okay, okay. Spiral cut ham, stacked back together, coated in brown sugar plus some juice from the pineapple can to make a glaze. Surround in a baking dish with pineapple from can, and roast.

Do you really not have any bread? That eliminates a fleet of sloppy-joe like options, as well as tuna melts. (tuna + cheese on bread of some sort. Plus mayonnaise if you like it that way.)

Tuna salad? Damn, you don't have enough for tuna salad? Well, you have tuna and mayo, you could try carrots instead of celery and maybe green beans.

Tuna or Hamburger ~~Helper~~Casserole, made the old way: some of the pasta, the tomato soup, LOTS of garlic, some rosemary, the... damn, you lack important things. Is there any chance you can convert that shredded cheese to any kind of thin sauce? You'll want that as a sauce combined with the pasta, then with added tuna, or hamburger, with the hamburger stir-fried separately, preferably with spices to help it along.

Chicken noodle soup can become chicken noodle and brown rice soup, easily enough, to extend it.

Damn, I can't believe you have so little pasta and so little veg. What do you eat? (This, apparently! But I digress.)

The week previous to the ice storm, primarily restaurant leftovers since we hadn't gotten out to shop. :) We also tend not to have a lot of pasta on hand, because while Toby could eat pasta with red sauce until the cows come home, I burned out on that long ago, and my standard starches tend to be potatoes, rice, and beans instead of pasta.

Toby's also of the sort who decides what he's going to cook, then goes to the store and purchases exactly enough for that recipe instead of stocking up. Before we moved in together, his fridge and freezer mostly contained a couple of meals' worth of leftovers, frozen pizza, and frozen waffles. His pantry contained cereal.

We had no bread (other than the frozen rye) because on Sunday the RPG group Toby's in came over and had a character-creation session in prep for their next game, and I finished off the dough that had been sitting in the fridge (see previous post on the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day) by baking three loaves of bread for them, which got inhaled. :)

Also, do not forget the crockpot.

Is there something special about the sticky rice? I only soak mine for about twenty minutes or so, IIRC. (I'd have to consult my recipe book.)

The sticky rice I use needs to be soaked at least 8 hours or it's too hard to eat after cooking. This is the glutinous stuff used in Thai cooking and used in Japan mostly as dessert, not the short-grain Calrose-type rice.

That explains it! I was going, 'but my rice seems to turn out okay...'

Well, in this house, the hamburger meat or ground turkey, some limas, the cannellini beans, the can of tomato soup, and spices become chili (served over brown rice, if I'm eating it!) I'd serve with shredded cheddar-jack.

That might work - I just realized that we have molasses and yeast, so I could make some Anadama bread. :D

I would make porcupine meatballs with salad and green beans.

Another good possibility. (We've got molasses and yeast ... Anadama bread is looking good right now!)

Pity you don't have yogurt - you've got all the other fixings for ziki sauce, which would probably go well with the pork chops if you spice 'em right...

I'm mostly a "throw it a the pot & see what sticks" cook, but I find lots of great ideas at www.supercook.com - you plug in what you have & it gives you a list of recipes that incorporate those ingredients.

Cool, thanks!

Are cannellini beans the big white ones sometimes called Great Northern Beans? Those go well with tuna, olive oil, onions, and basil, in a kind of Italian tuna salad. Although it is fragrant, to say the least, and Sora and Nefer would insist on testing it first.

Alas, no onion, no basil. :)

Stir fry? With the baby carrots, bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms and pineapple? With brown rice? And seems like you have all the makings of a sauce , but I wouldn't know because I usually just cook everything in sesame or olive oil and let the pineapple juice do the talking.

Hee. :D That's a possibility, also.

Recipe ideas...

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