making due

I love cooking. Not so much the preparation or the process or the cleanup. I love the results. I have never been a fan of prepackaged or processed. I am deeply suspicious of any product that contains more than five ingredients or that includes "foodstuffs" I cannot pronounce, much less identify. Plus, homemade just tastes better. So much better.

I used to think that made from scratch also meant made for less. But often I happen upon a recipe that sounds like the perfect dinner but I lack an essential ingredient or two. For a while I'd been making a grocery run nearly every day. That wouldn't be so bad if I didn't leave the store with the two items I needed for the dish and ten other items that were on sale/could really use/looked fun to try/would be a good snack for the drive home. The biggest problem with this way of shopping and cooking is that other perfectly good items, with plenty of recipe potential, slowly go bad on the countertop or in the veggie drawer.

This week - in honor of Earth Day and in response to limited cash flow - I am trying an experiment to make due with what we have and see what kind of creative dishes I can pull out of our fridge and cabinets without running to the store every other day. Yesterday, I noticed three bananas well past their prime (can we say, rotting) on the counter and quickly searched my favorite cooking site for a quick and easy transformation. Smitten Kitchen's Jacked-Up Banana Bread looked like the perfect afternoon snack and, lucky me, I had all the ingredients (although I substituted dark rum that I bought seven years ago for a rum cake for the bourbon). I gave myself an extra pat on the back for making use of that obscure ingredient taking up space in my cabinet (albeit just a tablespoonful). Hands down this was the best banana bread I have ever put into my mouth, and the smell was enough to drive the neighbors half insane with jealously that they didn't have rotting bananas on their counters, too.

The other had-all-the-ingredients recipe I made that is worth noting is carrot soup. I know, ugh. Who eats carrot soup and likes it? Well, we do. This is a recipe that has been passed around my extended family and I have no idea where it originated. It is chock full of powerful nutrients, kind to the pocketbook, surprisingly easy and unusually delicious. It's one of those dishes that doesn't look like anything special but you just can't stop eating it. And, chances are you have all the ingredients in your kitchen right now.

Carrot Soup

2 T oil
1 1/2 lbs sliced carrots
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 c. diced potatoes (peel if they are russet)
1 clove garlic, sliced
4 whole cloves
1/2 t. sugar
1/4 t. ground pepper
4 c. chicken or veggie broth

Heat oil in a big pot and add all the veggies. Stir often for 8-10 minutes. Add cloves, sugar and pepper and stir another minute. Add broth. Bring to boil; then reduce and simmer 20 minutes. Very important: Remove and discard cloves.* Use an immersion blender to puree 3/4 of the soup. Serve with dollop of sour cream.

*Once I forgot to remove the cloves and they were pureed. Not good. Carrot soup became clove soup. It did not go over well. Definitely remove the cloves!

::
One quick note about grocery shopping. I detest it. If I spend too long in a big box store, I start to get queazy, hyperventilate, that sort of thing. Because I have long been on the search for the perfect food store - one with a pleasant environment, not too large, natural lighting, bargain pricing - I have been to nearly all of them. Here's what I discovered if you're looking for the best deals on any of the items above:

:: rotting bananas :: Meijer sells them for next to nothing. So if you are craving that jacked-up banana bread right now and you have no bananas, run to Meijer. Just go straight for the rotting-produce cart and then straight for the register or you might end up with a cart full of groceries rather than what you came in for - a pile of speckled bananas for 20 cents.

:: butter and eggs :: Costco reigns here. A dozen and a half of organic, free-range eggs costs less than just a dozen of the same in any other store. Butter, too. I freeze the extra boxes and they thaw perfectly fine.

:: produce :: An overwhelming store for a capitalism wimp, Caputos does have great produce at great prices. I won't give up my organic vegetable delivery - also a bargain - but in a pinch, I know where to find my onions and berries.

:: broth :: I used to buy the quart-size boxes of broth that you can find at just about any food store these days, but I hated to do it because the boxes aren't recyclable where I live and what a lot of waste for four measly cups of broth. Then Trader Joes introduced little tiny packets of condensed broth that, when added to boiling water, each make a cup of broth. For the price of a one-quart box of prepared broth (equal to 4 cups of broth) you can get one box of 12 packets (equal to 12 cups of broth). Much less waste, much less expensive, much more sense.