COVID Cooking - New Pantry Staples
 

Has more frequent cooking and trying new recipes changed what is always in stock in your kitchen? While I had a predictable supply of garlic, pasta and other basics, I now find that miso paste, ponzu and shallots have been elevated to the level of "must never
run out." Does anyone else expect to shop differently going forward?

Although we've taken advantage of the "never leave home" time to try cooking some new dishes, we haven't really purchased different items, except as needed for a particular meal. The one thing that's been different for us than many people I've spoken to is that we still have rolling shortages in our grocery stores. Sometimes that means one store is sold out and we have to drive to another nearby, and sometimes it means everyone is out. It's not usually toilet paper any more, but food items. It seems to be the more immediate Chicago area that's affected as my in-laws who live about 30 minutes west haven't had problems.

As a result, we've kept more meat in the freezer just in case we have a week where we can't get something. Always a couple packs of chicken breasts, ground turkey, ground beef, pork loin, pork chops, and often a flank steak or some larger cut of beef.

Yep.

But before I start, Mickidon do you know you can store miso in the freezer? Stays soft, it’s just like taking it out of the fridge. Lasts almost indefinitely this way. I keep at least three kinds, but it’s always been a pantry staple for us.

Since lockdown -
Butter - occasionally I found premium French kinds on sale and I’d stick these in the freezer too.
Cabbages - so many cabbages. Opened a fermenting thread mostly because of cabbage. Sauerkraut rocks! It’s like indoor gardening.
Frozen lotus roots (AKA renkon), conveniently pre-sliced. A great lo-carb alternative to potatoes and carrots for casseroles/stews.
Frozen whole leaf spinach. Usually had it before, now I feel anxiety if there isn’t any in the freezer. Brexit heightens the simmering fear of a vegetable shortage.
Olive oil - again, am nervous about Brexit cutting us off from a regular supply.
I bought 80kg (4 x 20kg sacks) of EU grown Japanese rice at the end of last year. Did I mention Brexit and the related anxiety?
Coffee (not the instant kind). I finally learned to make decent coffee last year, first with a V60 then an Aeropress.

My husband hyperventilates when there aren’t any onions or garlic in the house, but that’s always been the case.

We typically only bought seafood on the day we were going to prepare it. Now we have a subscription to Sitka Salmonshares, which sends us four and a half pounds of seafood a month between April and December. It's flash frozen and individually packaged, and all sourced from a small collective of about 20 boats in Sitka, Alaska.

I don’t think I’ve added too many items, more a case of upping the quantities I keep on hand. ie: now never fewer than 8 cans of tuna and 4 jars of pasta sauce where previously I would allow stock to drop below half of that.

only additions I can think of are cans of spam and deviled ham.

Even more snacks :-)
glass bottles of Jarritos soda
and Indian foods that I got at Indian grocer. These are prepared dishes that are in packaged form and I have to put the whole package in boiling water. All made in India - different from the Tasty Bite product that Costco and USA supermarkets stock.


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