Like Mark Bittman’s, my pantry is an embarrassment of riches. He writes that he started on a buy-fresh-food-only plan six weeks ago and still has a full pantry.
I can outdo that - I started the same plan in September! True, I spent November and December out of town, so it has really only been four months, but I still have a LOT of food in my freezer and pantry. In my defense, the impetus for this plan was that Tim and his roommate both moved away in September; there was a lot of packaged food left in the apartment and I didn’t want to waste it, so I took it. So most of the jars in my fridge, and many of the items in the pantry, were not purchased by me.
In addition to saving a lot of money, I’m really enjoying the challenge of cooking only with ingredients I already have (plus fresh produce, milk, eggs, and that sort of thing). It’s helping me branch out and cook different cuisines, or at least cook new dishes on a regular basis. I did have to expand the definition of “fresh” to include canned tomatoes and chicken broth.
(Yes, that’s right - Mark Bittman’s chicken broth is going to stay in his pantry forever, and I’m still buying new. I don’t really like chicken, so it is extremely rare for me to have an actual chicken carcass to make stock out of. I make vegetable and seafood stock, but not chicken. And there are some soups and risottos that really taste a lot better with chicken broth, even if it’s the canned variety.)
Whenever I use up a package and get to throw it away, I feel very accomplished. Today I finished a bottle of Trader Joe’s orange champagne vinegar (excellent combined with a shallot and some walnut oil to make salad dressing). I expect to finish a bag of bread flour and a canister of oatmeal tomorrow when I make another batch of oatmeal toasting bread. I may also make cardamom and dried cherry scones, which will finish up a package of dried cherries and make a dent in both all-purpose and whole-wheat flour. And I’m about to make biscuits to go under stew I made with lamb (from the freezer), vegetables (odds and ends from other recipes), lentils (from my enormous stash of dried lentils), rosemary (dried from my own plant), and tomatoes (bought canned; I lose!).