Shop Your Pantry

I've run across the injunction on several financial/frugal blogs to "shop your closet" instead of going shopping for new clothes. I'm not a clothes horse and but for one brief period in my life, I've never had much urge to buy fancy or expensive clothes. I wear casual, functional stuff. So controlling my wardrobe expenses has never really been a challenge for me.

But I realized that while I've been pursuing the monthly $50 Grocery Challenge, I've been shopping my pantry a lot. I've posted before about how to stock a pantry so that it serves as a springboard for a huge variety of meals. Well, now I'm taking full advantage of that. One way to look at this is that I'm cheating on my own challenge because I'm just using up stuff I've stockpiled. That was especially true in the first month, when I blew through a lot of our favorite shelf stable foods. But another way of looking at it is that we're making a concerted effort to reap the benefit of money we've already spent and to reduce waste. Is it an exercise in spending less, or an exercise in cleaning out the pantry? It's a bit of both, I suppose.

It's been a challenge to find uses for some things, particularly jars of spicy condiments. But it's also been very satisfying to come up with great meals that use up what we have in the pantry. Of course, right now we have the bounty of our garden produce. So we're also shopping the garden.

It seems like there's been a fairly significant shift in my thought process around cooking. Instead of sitting back and exploring my own cravings and whims as a starting point for meal preparation, the first thing I do now is take a look at either the garden or the pantry to see what's available. In fact, with the garden it's not so much what's available as what really needs to be eaten.

It may sound as though this stifles creativity, but it really isn't so. In fact, my creativity gets more of a work out when I try hard to come up with something new to do with cabbage, zucchini, or whatever we have in abundance. Creativity is an invaluable skill for anyone who wants to live a more frugal life, and not just in the kitchen but in almost all areas.

If anything, my impulsiveness is what gets stifled. It may be true that we limit our choices somewhat by imposing the requirement of eating what is fresh and in season in our own garden, or of building a meal around something out of the pantry. There's ample compensation though in the high quality of the food. What could be better than a meal of fresh, perfectly ripe garden produce? The satisfaction of eating what we've gone to such efforts to grow is enormous. Even building a frugal meal around pantry items gives me a sense of satisfaction in not letting anything go to waste. For me, that's more than enough to compensate me for not following a culinary whim that would necessitate a special trip to the grocery store.

Home Cooking & the Importance of the Pantry

Frugality is easy for me to practice in the kitchen because I am an experienced cook. With professional training as a chef, this isn't much of a boast. But I got to thinking about how frugality works in a kitchen the other day.

I'd picked up some ends of smoked ham at the butcher, planning to make either ham salad or deviled ham. I'd never made either of these before and didn't have any specific recipe in mind. When I got home, I surfed for a few recipes, got a rough idea of what the standard ingredients were and then headed into my kitchen. Dried spices came out of the freezer, condiment jars and half a red onion out of the fridge, and a few other things out of my pantry.

As I mixed the chopped ham with a variety of ingredients, I once again felt that familiar pleasure of creation in cooking intuitively. I marveled at what I was able to create, just from what I had on hand in my home, plus one ingredient that I picked up very cheaply on impulse. What struck me is that my pantry allowed me this creative freedom, and that my pantry is a reflection of my approach to cooking. I suspect that the home pantry, as much as the inclination and the skill of the cook, is what allows delicious meals to be prepared in any given home. Ingredients are as essential as skill when it comes to cooking. Even a skilled chef can only work with what is on hand.

So I wanted to take this opportunity to once again sing the praises of a well stocked pantry. Having fresh herbs on hand, as well as a large selection of shelf-stable items will allow you to be frugal with your food expenses. When the allure of your own home cooked meals outshines the convenience of a mediocre meal at a restaurant, it's very easy to economize. So practice good pantry management. If there's an ingredient that you really enjoy using, make sure you always have it on hand. You will find myriad uses for your favorite ingredients if they stare you in the face whenever you open the fridge.

My favorites include Italian parsley, heavy cream, and fresh ginger. Stored properly, these items will keep for weeks. And though they might not all go together, any one of them would make an excellent addition to soups, noodle dishes, meats, sauces, even baked items. Plus, they all have the ability to jazz up leftovers. There's never any risk of these items going to waste in my home.

When considering buying a perishable item, ask yourself if there you can think of a handful of ways of using it up. What's your contingency plan if it starts to spoil? Spoilage is less of an issue with shelf-stable items, but ask yourself how you're going to use something before you buy it anyway. If it's something so specific that you only know of one way to use it, consider carefully. Will you really use this item up? If not, think of something else to make for dinner.

The Pantry

When you're new to the frugal lifestyle and you're not used to preparing your own meals, the kitchen can be a daunting place. You should start to slowly and naturally build up a pantry for yourself. What you put in your pantry will depend on your family's tastes, your budget, your skills in the kitchen and the sorts of things you tend to cook. You should think of your pantry as a sort of dry goods store and as a foundation for all your meals. This doesn't mean that you must stock enormous quantities of your pantry items, nor that you need to have absolutely everything on hand at all times. The purpose of a pantry is to provide a steady supply of staples that you use to prepare a large variety of dishes. These items are often cheap, frequently on sale and also have a long shelf-life. With a well stocked pantry, you won't have to run out and buy every ingredient in the recipe when you want to prepare a meal.

All of your pantry items should be listed in your price comparison book. Because you know that you will be using them steadily, it's always a good idea to check for sales on these foods when you shop, even if you don't have immediate plans to cook with them. When these items go on sale, stock up!

Here's a list of things I commonly keep on hand in my kitchen. You do not need to replicate this list, but if you're totally new to cooking, it might be a good springboard for ideas. Take what's useful to you and ignore the rest. Add more items that make sense for your family.

onions
garlic
potatoes
mayonnaise
canned baby corn
canned bamboo shoots
canned chickpeas
honey
chicken broth
beef broth
vegan bouillon cubes
canola oil
extra virgin olive oil
canned tuna
canned salmon
Thai curry pastes, red & green
salsas
tomato paste
canned tomatoes
sweetened condensed milk
canned sliced pineapple
jams
tomato sauce
balsamic vinegar
white vinegar
distilled vinegar
baking powder
baking soda
all purpose flour
bread flour
pasta flour (tipo 00)
whole wheat flour
Splenda
lentils
dried chickpeas
yellow split peas
instant oatmeal
steel cut oats
popcorn
dried onions
powdered non-fat milk
raisins
dried banana chips
dried baby lima beans
whole spelt
dried cranberries
dried chestnuts
sundried tomatoes
kosher salt
corn meal
oatbran
dried unsweetened coconut flake
homemade granola
tea
several different kinds of dried pasta
brown sugar
turbinado sugar
white sugar
confectioner's sugar
cocoa powder
chocolate bars
flax seed
corn starch
bread crumbs
soy sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce
rice wine vinegar
mirin (Asian cooking wine)
shelf-stable tofu
gomasio
crystalized ginger
dried figs
dried dates
crackers
roasted peanuts
vanilla extract
almond extract
hazelnut extract

The pantry extends into the refrigerator, where I keep toasted sesame oil, prepared mustard, hoisin sauce, prepared horseradish, chutney, pickled ginger, salad dressings, and a tube of pesto. In the freezer I keep all my spices, raw nuts and seeds such as flax, pumpkin and sesame, which I also consider part of my pantry.