February 27, 2008
BY LEAH A. ZELDES

What a long, cold winter it's been! And, lucky us, we get an extra day of it this year. If you're tired of coping with boots, hats and gloves and are tempted to hibernate until spring, don't let grocery shopping force you outdoors.

Chances are, if you look through your cupboards, you have the makings of good meals without having to make a trip to the store.

These days, fresh foods are so easy to come by, we forget how creative cooks of yesteryear, who didn't always have such ready access, turned out delectable cakes without eggs and hearty casseroles made from canned goods.

Cooking from the pantry doesn't mean you have to rely on canned soup. Canned and dried foods, just as nutritious as their fresh counterparts, can make delicious meals.

Chef Adam Schop of DeLaCosta notes that corn, artichokes and beans are among the foods that hold up well to commercial canning.

Schop has access to whatever he needs at the Streeterville eatery, but he was up to the challenge of creating a pantry recipe.

He says he'd make a soup by simmering a large can of drained corn with half a can of water and a 14-ounce bag of tortilla chips, pureeing the mixture and stirring in ½ cup of sweetened condensed milk, chili powder to taste and canned black beans for texture.

When cooking with pantry staples, "You lose some of the fresh crispness," says chef Charlie Socher of Cafe Matou in Bucktown, so amp up seasoning. Spice things up with chilies and don't be afraid of acid, he says.

If you don't have lemon juice, use vinegar. Socher advises keeping a stock of different types -- balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar, cider vinegar, sherry vinegar and so on. Flavored vinegars and oils can stand in for the flavors of fresh produce.

Socher first learned the value of improvisational pantry cooking as young man.

"Before I started cooking seriously, the only spaghetti I'd had was in red sauce," he recalls. That is, until he visited a friend who pulled together a pasta dish out of kitchen odds and ends, "whatever he had in the fridge," Socher says.

Jennifer King, a Lake View marketing consultant who says she shops for groceries at least three or four times a week, recently spent a few weeks working on her pantry-meal skills after she issued a challenge to fellow contributors to LTHForum.com, a local Web site, to "eat things in your kitchen."

"One of my bad habits is that I indiscriminately buy things at the grocery store," King wrote. "This looks good, that looks great, let's throw it all into the cart, regardless of whether I have a plan to use it."

During her challenge, King used frozen shrimp in a basil-laced pasta dish and whipped up a tuna-farfalle casserole.

"One thing it really taught me -- it's fun to spend more time planning," she says. "You have to look outside of your normal repertoire of dishes. Just look at what's in your cabinets and find new and creative ways of combining them."

Concerned with the plight of carless folks who live far from a supermarket, another contributor, Michele Hays, an Evanston community activist, was inspired to create recipes that do without perishable items.

"A lot of my neighbors are on Section 8 [government housing subsidy for low incomes] and I've noticed it's a real struggle for them to get to the grocery store," she says.

A cook who enjoys a challenge, Hays says she's been agreeably surprised at her results with dishes such as samosas filled with boxed dehydrated potatoes and pissaladiere (Provencal flatbread) using canned fried onions.

She also adapted a family recipe for Cuban-style beans without fresh garlic, onions or peppers.

"I think it's actually better," she says.

Leah A. Zeldes is a local free-lance writer.

In the fridge

A favorite trick of mine, dating back to my impoverished college days, is to substitute long-keeping sour cream for small quantities of milk in recipes. It adds a tangy quality that's often an improvement, too. (Canned evaporated milk works well in cooking when sour cream won't do.)

Unopened packages of hard cheeses keep two months or more; if opened, they'll store longer if you replace the wrapping every few days. For best results, buy cheese in wedges to slice or grate as needed. (Cheese can be frozen but suffers in texture, so use it for cooking.) Unopened packages of cream cheese also keep well.

Uncut, dry sausages, such as hard salami, keep indefinitely in the refrigerator and six weeks in the pantry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture guideline for storing cut sausage is three weeks in refrigerator, "or until it turns rancid."

In the freezer

You can keep most meats in the freezer for four to 12 months. Items like individually wrapped chicken breasts and frozen vegetables make pulling meals together easy.

Bread keeps for three to six months in the freezer. Take out slices as needed and toast or thaw a few seconds in the microwave.

Butter freezes up to nine months.

To add zip to foods, tuck a knob of fresh ginger, tightly wrapped, in the freezer. It keeps indefinitely. Peel and grate off what you need while it's still frozen.

And buy lemons to zest, juice and freeze. A jar of frozen lemon zest and a bag of lemon juice ice cubes do wonders for perking up flavors.

In the pantry

Keep a supply of items like these and you'll always have the makings of good meals:

Pasta

Rice

Couscous

Crackers and tortilla chips

Sun-dried tomatoes

Canned diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and paste

Canned or boxed broths

Canned fruit

Evaporated milk

Sweetened condensed milk

Canned tuna, salmon and chicken

Anchovies

Canned and dried beans

Canned and jarred vegetables such as corn, artichoke hearts and roasted peppers

Canned or jarred vegetable mixtures such as caponata and ajvar

Oils and vinegars

Olives, capers and pickles

Canned and dried chilies

Boxed and bottled juices

Dried onion flakes

Dried herbs and spices

Hot sauce, Worcestershire and other condiments

Cocoa powder.

Leah A. Zeldes

Pates a la Languedocienne
(Catalan-style spaghetti)

February 27, 2008

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

1 pound spaghetti

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil or oil drained from sun-dried tomatoes

2 anchovy filets, rinsed and chopped

1 tablespoon chopped garlic (optional)

1/4 pound hard salami (or other hard sausage), cut in 1/4- inch cubes

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon dried oregano

3 ounces drained sun-dried tomatoes, cut in matchsticks

1/4 cup pitted Kalamata olives, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat a large pot of boiling water and cook the spaghetti according to the package directions.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the anchovies and saute for 30 seconds. Add the garlic, if desired, and saute for 20 seconds. Add the remaining ingredients and the drained pasta.

Toss well, season with salt and pepper and top with grated parmesan.

Chef Charlie Socher, Cafe Matou

Nutrition facts per serving: 724 calories, 26 g fat, 6 g saturated fat, 32 mg cholesterol, 98 g carbohydrates, 26 g protein, 1167 mg sodium, 6 g fiber

Moros y Cristianos
(Cuban-style black beans and rice)

February 27, 2008

You can make this recipe in a slow cooker; extras freeze well. To make it more kid-friendly, Hays often omits the red pepper flakes and seasons individual portions with hot sauce.

MAKES 12 SERVINGS AS SIDE DISH

1 pound (2 cups) dry black beans (see note)

6 to 10 cups water at room temperature

4 bay leaves

1 tablespoon whole cumin

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon crushed curry powder

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes or to taste

1 tablespoon dried onion flakes

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

2 teaspoons salt

1 (12-ounce) jar roasted red peppers, drained and diced

12 cups hot, cooked white rice (from 4 cups raw rice)

Pick over the beans, rinse and combine in a large pot with 6 cups of water. Cover and let soak overnight, 6 to 10 hours. (If you have trouble digesting beans, drain and discard the soaking water. Rinse and combine the beans with 4 cups of fresh water.)

Stir in all the spices, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 5 to 6 hours.

Add the peppers. If the beans don't seem saucy enough, add a little more water. Simmer another 30 minutes. Taste, adding additional salt, pepper or cumin as needed. Serve over rice.

Note: Dry black beans are also called frijoles negros or turtle beans. You can find them in Latin groceries and in the Latin section of some supermarkets. Long, slow cooking gives these beans their flavor, so don't substitute with canned beans.

Michele Hays, Evanston

Nutrition facts per serving: 376 calories, 1 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 76 g carbohydrates, 13 g protein, 518 mg sodium, 7 g fiber

Cockeyed cake with sour-cream frosting

February 27, 2008

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

CAKE

1½ cups flour

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa (not Dutch-process)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup sugar

½ teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons cooking oil

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup cold water

SOUR CREAM FROSTING

1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

× teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup sour cream (approximately)

For the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8- or 9-inch square pan. (If you want to be fancy and unmold the cake, line the pan with foil and grease the foil.)

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, sugar and salt into the pan. Make three dents in this dry mixture and pour the oil into one, the vinegar into the second and the vanilla in the third. Pour the cold water over it all. Mix with a spoon, making sure to get into the corners, until it's nearly smooth and you can't see the flour. Bake for 30 minutes, until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

Let cool in the pan (or, with the aid of the foil, remove from the pan to a wire rack while still warm). Frost or sprinkle with confectioners' sugar.

For the frosting: In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients and vanilla. Whisk in sour cream, a tablespoonful at a time, until it is spreadable.

Adapted from the I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken

Nutrition facts per serving: 354 calories, 10 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 2 mg cholesterol, 63 g carbohydrates, 3 g protein, 344 mg sodium, 2 g fiber