Every year we hike down to Florida
to visit with our clients who either live or winter there. I pack a cooler full of fridge food and take
bags of pantry groceries so we don’t have to shop as much while we’re
there. When we head home I invariably
have some goodies from Bayway and from Ted’s Smoked Fish and from the citrus
store. And, a few leftovers. This year the leftovers were pretty
sparse. A heart of romaine and a couple
of bell peppers and half a sweet onion.
Thanks to two days on the road and
consequently two days of crummy road food, both of us had grumbly tummies when
we finally got home. The first evening
we’d just gotten home and so we pulled out the Triscuits and the smoked fish
dip from Bayway along with the smoked salmon from Ted’s. Easy peasy.
Saturday we slept. And, slept.
And, slept. Then when I finally
got to the kitchen I really didn’t feel like cooking. One of the recipes I’d read was from a
Pampered Chef cookbook. It was for Greek
Lemon Chicken soup. That sounded like
it’d do really well with a grumbly tummy.
And it did. It was so easy to put
together. I even used a can of chicken! We had this for dinner and then I had it for
lunch for three days and was ready to make more when that was done.
Then, Sunday evening we felt
better but after working all day I just didn’t have the energy to cook a big
meal. Pantry stew was created! There’s a recipe for beef and noodles from a
gal who used to own a noodle making business.
It calls for a can of beefy mushroom soup. Something I’d never used until I wanted to
make that recipe. Then, I couldn’t find
it at the grocery so ordered a case from Amazon. You’re seeing what happened here, right? Use up the soup! There was also a can of roast beef from
Costco that’d taken a tumble on its way to the shelf. Dented cans should always be used asap as
long you know when the dent was created.
Otherwise, they should be discarded.
Too risky! Note please that I
didn’t measure, just dumped…
Pantry Stew
Ingredients:
Handful of carrots (par-cook til
al dente)
Onion
Garlic
Olive oil
Red wine – maybe a quarter of a
cup
Tabasco
Worcestershire
Consommé
Beefy mushroom soup
Can of beef
Handful of peas
Noodles
Directions:
Heat the olive oil to shimmering
in a sturdy saucepan. Once it’s hot toss
in the carrots and onions. When the
onion is translucent, add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Then, deglaze the pan with the red wine.
Add in a couple of good dashes of Worcestershire sauce and some
Tabasco. Then, pour in the soups and add
the noodles. You’re going to let the
broth in the soups cook the noodles. Finally,
when the noodles are about three minutes from being done toss in a handful of
frozen peas.
Greek Lemon Chicken Soup
Ingredients:
2 c chopped cooked chicken
2 t olive oil
2 medium carrots, coarsely chopped
½ c chopped onion
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 t lemon zest
¼ c lemon juice (I used double the
lemon)
2 T snipped fresh parsley (I
omitted this)
1 can cream of chicken soup
42 oz chicken stock
½ t freshly ground black pepper
2/3 c uncooked long-grain white
rice
Directions:
Heat the olive oil in a dutch
oven. Add the carrots and onions and
cook until the onion is translucent. Add
the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes. Add the lemon juice, zest, cream of chicken
soup, broth, and black pepper. Once this
mixture boils, add the rice, cover the pot and simmer on low for 15-20
minutes. If you’re using the parsley,
sprinkle it on top when serving.
