Cooking Resolution #2: Resourcefulness

While I suffer from a peculiar condition called Grocery Store Rage (my friend Clay, also a longtime sufferer, and I are considering petitioning to have it added to the DSM V) when people mindlessly BLOCK THE ENTIRE AISLE WITH THEIR CARTS AND BODIES, I do love grocery stores.

And gourmet shops and specialty stores and ethnic markets and the like. When I went to Iceland in 1998 (you know, cuz of the Bjork and the road-building around elves and all), sure, I found the Gullfoss Waterfull beautiful...

...and the geysers interesting...

...and the craters impressive...

...I’m not a geologist, so let’s face it, it was the grocery store that made the biggest impression on me. (I was too shy to take pictures inside though.) All of the different products, the interesting labeling, etc. I always recalled some news story on literacy talking about how without being able to read, it could be hard to distinguish juice from a bottle full of lemon-scented cleanser. Being in an Icelandic grocery store really drove that possibility home.

Anytime I travel to a foreign place or just make a visit to an ethnic or specialty market, I am fascinated by the product, and being a rather impulsive person, I tend to make a lot of impulse buys.

So I now have a kitchen that is very VERY well-stocked with a lot of random stuff. Some of them were just pure impulse, some were odd or uncommon ingredients for just one recipe. Many are expiring soon (marked with an asterik).

I took an inventory and started compiling a list of possible uses. My goal is to fulfill my need for novelty this year NOT through additional shopping, but instead to try to find recipes that focus on using up what I already have. Below is the list and some ideas on what I can do with the items.  More to come, with reports on how well I am doing shopping from my own pantry.

• Old Bay Seasoning
• *Self-rising flour- Buttermilk Biscuits with Green Onions, Black Pepper, and Sea Salt 
• *Almond Flour – Pear Butter Shortbread (recipe forthcoming)
• Sambal – Shrimp Sambal; Halibut with Sambal Vinaigrette and Wasabi Cream
• Red curry paste – Coconut Curry Lentils (recipe forthcoming)
• *Whole wheat pastry flour – Butternut Blondies, Butternut Blondies, Butternut Blondies
• Evaporated milk
• *Oat Flour - muffins
• Mango chutney
• Raisins
• Cake flour – Rosewater angel food cake 
• Rosewater – see above
• Soba noodles – Soba Noodles with Vegetables, Soba Spinach Soup
• Canary beans – Peruvian Quinoa Stew + Peruvian Canary Bean Stew for some kind of combo?
• Quinoa (see above)
• Rosemary mint sauce – some kind of shrimp like this recipe for shrimp on rosemary skewers?
• Rice flour
• Miso paste – Soba Spinach Soup (above)
• Tandoori sauce – maybe with pressed tofu or shrimp?
• Dried apricots
• Sriacha sauce
• Dried apple rings - Granola
• Corn grits (above biscuit recipe)
• Gumbo File – er Gumbo
• Tapioca pearls
• Seedless raspberry preserves – Fudgy Chocolate Raspberry Bars; Jam Cumb Cake; Raspberry Hazelnut Brownies
• Toasted sesame oil – Soba Noodles with Tofu listed above
• *Whole grain mustard – SuperPower Salad Dressing (recipe forthcoming)
• Oyster sauce
• Sweet red chili sauce
• Worcestershire sauce 
• Lemon curd – Lemon Curd Ice Cream
  
• Pickles jalapenos
• Candied orange peel
• Capers
• Carob molasses – gingerbread (got some additional help from the ChowHound)
• Pomegranate molasses – use in salad dressings, sauce for seared scallops
• 11-year old mysterious Icelandic schnapps – ????????????