Shortcuts are Good, or The Thrifty Cook

"Shortcuts are good" and "who's got time for that?" These are common expressions adopted from a friend of my sister. She must be a practical, busy woman.  I use it to explain why, despite my cooking hobby, I do not make everything from scratch. I use commercial pasta sauce,  canned beans, bagged salad greens, frozen potato croquettes, bouillon blocks, jarred fond, and lots more convenience foods.

But I also make some of my own convenience foods, usually just trying to be less wasteful. Or I try to prepare things in the weekend ready for lunches and quick suppers in the rest of the week.

• The skin of every lemon that comes into my house is scrubbed and grated before it is squeezed for its juice. The lemon rind goes into a little jar in the freezer, and every time I need some, I just scrape out the amount I need.
• Extra lemon juice is saved in another little jar, or frozen into ice cubes containing a tablespoon each. They defrost in no time, ready for use in salads, sauces, or baking.
• Chicken, beef, and lamb bones are simmered in some water, maybe with some vegetables and parsley stems, before being discarded. I freeze the resulting broth in ice cube bags or small containers for use in soups, salads and sauces. This reduces the need for bouillon cubes.
• If I have a largish bunch of basil, I'll make pesto and freeze it into ice cubes, ready to be defrosted and used on crackers, pasta, or tomato salad.
• I clean and save handy-size glass jars so that I can save extra dressings, sauces, and odds and bobs of dried goods. My favourites are peanut butter jars (for broth and blanched vegetables), Bonne Maman jam jars (for nuts, seeds, rice, sugar, orzo), Conimex sambal jars (for dressings, lemon juice, and lemon zest), and AH fond jars (for everything).
• Canadian milk bags are also a great way to save foods. They are sturdy plastic, in a convenient size, perfect as lunch bags or freezer bags. I never buy plastic lunch or freezer bags. (Thanks Mom, for saving these for me!)

So what are some of your tips and tricks for shortcuts and thrift?

Meal Planning and the Pantry for One

Unlike my mother, who usually plans meals for the whole week and mostly sticks to the plan, I tend to have only the vaguest ideas about what I will eat during the week. Often I'll make some kind of dish in the weekend that lasts me for multiple meals through the week. Too frequently, I end up with some forgotten vegetables and fresh herbs wilting their life away in the fridge. I hate throwing food out so some may end up in a soup pot, but too often some of it hits the trash.

I wouldn't feel so bad if we had a decent composting program here, but that went the way of the dodo. To be fair, I think a green waste collection program is pretty tough in a city where most people live in apartments. There is no garage or outside bin where you can store the stuff until it gets collected.

Anyway, that's a side issue. The real issue is that I want to do a better job of planning my eating so that I can reduce waste, make better use of the things I have, reduce the amount of food I need to store in fridge, freezer and cupboard, and ensure that I eat balanced meals throughout the week. Many of my Dutch friends manage with only one small cupboard as the pantry, a small half fridge, and no freezer. I assume the only way they can do it is to cook with a very limited variety of things (no jars of Thai curry paste, hoisin sauce, and harissa accumulating in the fridge). That would be difficult for me. My spice cabinet and pantry are ready for almost any cuisine.

Ah yes, the pantry. My pantry would be do for a family of 4! But a family of one still needs the same basic things on hand. Even when I plan a pasta dish, for example, I still have 2/3 of the pasta that needs to be stored and used up. And perhaps the next past dish I cook uses a different kind of pasta (whole grain instead of white, lasagna instead of penne).

This is of course, a luxury issue. We have so much choice in our supermarkets, and as an individual cooking for one, I can indulge almost any whim, trying out new products and brands, spontaneously deciding what I want to cook or eat, almost whenever I want. But sometimes it nags me that this behaviour seems to be lacking in respect to those who produce the food, and to those who can't afford what I can.

So this year, I want to make better use of my pantry and reduce its size. This should be an inspiration to creativity!

Pantry items to be used up

Beans	Pasta and Rice	Condiments
Aduki Navy Chickpeas, dry Chickpeas, canned Black beans, canned Yellow split peas Green split beas Brown lentils Le Puy lentils Urid dal Cappucijners, canned Black beans, canned	Canneloni Lasagna Penne Penne, whole wheat Macaroni, whole wheat Vermicelli Mihoen Soba Couscous Thai red rice Risotto rice Pandan rice Brown rice	Thai red curry paste Thai green curry paste Mango Chutney x 2 Tahini Sambal manis Sambal badjak Sambal brandal Red pepper paste Ajvar
Meat (Freezer) and Dairy	Vegetables	Other
Lamb kidneys (fresh) Entrecote (defrosted) Biefstuk Rosbief Stewing beef Ground beef Ground beef, lean Cottage cheese Old gouda Culinary cream Cream cheese	Potatoes Yellow onions Shallots Leeks Carrots Celery Celeriac Green pepper Red pepper Butternut squash Mushrooms Corn, canned Spinach, frozen Pumpkin soup	Falafel Puff pastry Rice wrappers Tortillas Wonton wrappers Dried apricots Dried figs Raisins Sultanas Currents Pecans Coconut

Meals for week of 31 January 2011

Morocaan Roasted Vegetables, for week-day lunches
Celeriac soup for lunches, freezer
Low-fat Falafels for pre-dinner nibblies
Sunday:   Lamb kidneys in mustard sauce with mashed potato-celeriac
Monday: Pepper steak, with stir-dried green pepper. tomato, onion, mashed potato-celeriac
Tuesday: Vegetable dal and rice
Wednesday: Beef stir-fry with red peppers, Pandan rice
Thursday: Steak and kidney pie, spinach, mashed potatoes
Friday: --Plan a mostly vegetarian week of meals for next week!