Old Mother Hubbard

Went to the cupboard

To give the poor dog a bone;

But when she got there

The cupboard was attacked by a full bottle of soy sauce

That made a big mess and kicked her in the rear.

 

Okay…It wasn’t Mother Hubbard or a cupboard.  It was me and my pantry.  But, the soy sauce and the big mess are truth!

Most days I have to laugh at the universe’s incredible sense of humor and how it uses said sense of humor to kick me in the rear.  Cleaning out the pantry has been on my to-do list since before my spring semester ended.  I actually wanted to do it because a neat and clean pantry makes cooking and baking so much easier and more enjoyable.  But, like many other things, I hadn’t gotten to it yet.  The soy sauce apprently was tired of waiting and decided unilaterally that today was the day!

You wouldn’t think that a small bottle of soy sauce would make a huge mess.  Let me tell you, a small bottle of soy sauce leaping from the third shelf up onto a tile floor splatters big time! Not only was there soy sauce and glass all over the floor, but the splash factor was amazing…three feet back up the wall!  I should have taken pictures; but if I had done that, I would have immortalized the disaster that was my pantry at that point.  Once I cleaned up the soy sauce mess, it was time to tackle the rest of the pantry.

Twice a year, I pull everything out, check all of the expiration dates, and put things back neatly.  You wouldn’t think that would be such a big deal.  It is.  Here is why.

I cook…from scratch.

As I was cleaning this morning, I found myself thinking that this job would be so much easier if we ate Hamburger Helper, and Macaroni and Cheese from the blue box, and brownies and cakes from boxed mixes, and spaghetti sauce from a jar, and Rice-A-Roni, and Oreos and Nutter Butters, and Ramen noodles, and Wonder bread, and cooking from scratch meant that you used Bisquick!  This is not how we eat.  Except for the occasional can of Progresso Italian Wedding Soup, I make almost everything from scratch.  Doing so makes for a crowded pantry!

Let’s start with flours.  Unbleached all-purpose, whole wheat, white whole wheat, cake, bread, almond, coconut, quinoa, and coffee!  Yep.  There is such a thing as coffee flour.  I have them all, though some do reside in the freezer.

Then there are beans and legumes.  Black beans, great northern beans, and garbanzo beans occupy the greatest amount of space, but the pinto beans get a little corner of their own.  Lentils in various colors are also well-represented.  And if you have beans, you have to have rice.  Right now, jasmine, brown, and brown Minute Rice for the dogs.

And pasta…lots of pasta!  Boxes of semolina pasta in various shapes and sizes from cavatoppi to radiatore sit side by side chick pea penne and edamame fettuccine.  With pasta comes tomato sauce and tomato paste.  I do buy canned tomatoes, especially during the winter.  During the cold months, we got a few tomatoes from the plants in the greenhouse, but not enough to go to the trouble of canning them.

How about oils…canola, olive, sesame, and peanut.  And let’s not even talk about spices!  The Texas-sized containers of chili powder, fajita seasoning, garlic pepper, and cinnamon live in the pantry.  The myriad of other spices live in the drawer to the left of the stove.

Oh, and baking necessities…they are a whole other story.  Think about chocolate.  Powder, squares, nibs, chips.  Unsweetened, bittersweet, semi-sweet, milk, white.  And as long as we are talking chips – chocolate, cinnamon, butterscotch, toffee, peanut butter.

I could go on, but you get the point.  Cooking from scratch demands that you have a lot of ingredients on hand all the time.

Sometimes…like today…I think it might be nice not to have to worry about the difference between baking soda and baking powder or steel cut oats and quick cooking oats.  Or, the difference between light brown sugar and dark brown sugar.  Or, do I really need to use cake flour?  Sometimes I think it might be just dandy to open that package of Oreos and know that they are ready to eat and I didn’t have to worry about whether or not I have high oleic canola oil and/or palm oil and/or canola oil, cocoa (treated with alkali), and high-fructose corn syrup.  Just kidding.  I don’t really want those things.  Those things are the reason that I cook and bake from scratch.

My ideal simpler life would be to have someone to come in every now and then a make homemade stuff for me.  I’d have the convenience of Wonder bread with the taste of homemade – fresh and preservative-free.  Alas, that is not going to happen. So, I’ll be happy with my overstuffed, but, for now, clean pantry, in which I have all of the ingredients that I need to make all the foods that we enjoy eating!  Thank you for this gift leaping jar of soy sauce!

The only down side to today’s adventure is that the lingering smell of soy sauce has made me crave fried rice, which I can’t make because now I have no soy sauce!

Time to start a new grocery list…