Empty supermarket recipes

[Green Aura]

I thought, while all the madness of supermarkets being emptied continues, that it might be a good idea to share some store cupboard recipes so we don't all starve.

Anyway, for lunch today, we had a mug of chicken broth and a couple of slices of seed bread with sun-dried tomato and almond pate. It was delicious, dead simple and got me thinking it would be a good idea to post.

100g sun-dried tomatoes (the dried ones, not the ones in oil) soaked for a couple of hours in 200ml water. Chop the tomatoes up a bit, if they're whole, and combine the entire thing with 100g ground almonds, 1 tsp each of paprika, garlic powder, onion powder and add salt to taste, in a food processor.

I'm sure you could play around with different seasonings and even use dried peppers or other veg.

[ina]

Lunch today - stir fry and brown Basmati rice - using ancient storeroom stuff like bamboo shoots with a sell-by date of 31/12/2015 (I survived the first half of the jar, so I'm hoping I'll survive the rest as well!), and some withered veg like carrots and cabbage, and lentil sprouts...

Recently I had a soup that incorporated butterbeans (tin), tomato concentrate, old potatoes, some veg like celery and (again) withered carrots, a bit of red pepper, and onions, of course.

I seem to have a lot of tins of beans, for whatever reason - don't eat them that often, usually, but they are handy now!

[Green Aura]

The only things we have in tins are tomatoes and tuna (not together ) but I have loads of dried pulses which, having been on a low carb diet for the last couple of years are, are now ready to draw their pension.

Doing a quick Google as to how to effectively cook old pulses I found this suggestion, which does seem to work well. As usual I forgot to clock who shared this, but my thanks to them.

Soak the beans for up to 24 hours in water. Drain and put in a pan covered by an inch or two water. Bring to the boil, take off the heat, and add 3/8 tsp bicarb per cup of pulses (it didn't say to use measurement pre or pst soaking so I just put 1/2 tsp in what was probably a cup and a half after being soaked. Hopefully it's not that critical). Let it cool and then drain and thoroughly rinse, recover with water and cook as normal. I did some very old cannellini beans and, although one or two of them remained a bit hard, the rest were fine.

And don't forget to retain the bean cooking liquor (aquafaba) for other purposes. It makes a fantastic egg white substitute for vegan recipes etc.

[ina]

And don't forget to retain the bean cooking liquor (aquafaba) for other purposes. It makes a fantastic egg white substitute for vegan recipes etc.

Just wondering whether the somewhat gloopy liquid out of tins of beans would do that, too? Might come in handy if we can't get eggs... Actually, the current shortage of eggs (from what I hear) might lead to more people getting some hens for the garden.

I find that cooking beans from dry is not really great when you are only cooking for one person, and don't have a fridge or freezer, AND don't want to eat the same all week. I have plenty of dry lentils, both green and red.

Chickpeas make a great salad, with lots of garlic and parsley, and vinaigrette.

[Green Aura]

Yes, that gloopy stuff is the aquafaba. It's quite amazing stuff. I made vegan meringues for my gal's birthday last year - they were pink because I used the aquafaba from cooking gungo peas.

[BernardSmith]

Can you treat all the "gloopy stuff" from any bean as aquafaba? Wow! If that's true that is wonderful news.

Ina - here's a technique you might try: don't cook the beans but simply allow the water you have covered the beans in to boil and then switch off the heat but allow the beans to cool in that pot for an hour. Then turn up the heat a second time to boil again and turn off the heat and again, allowing the beans to cool. If the dried beans are not years old they are fully cooked. You can cook small quantities frequently and so the amount of energy you use is small and the variety of beans can be large (chick peas today, butter beans tomorrow, kidney beans Wednesday etc...

I make a wheat berry salad the same way: wheat berries, chopped red pepper, spring greens (or parsley or cilantro) with some mixed nuts and dressed (very lightly) with mayo.

[Green Aura]

As far as I know, Bernard, the cooking liquor from any bean will do. The usual one is chickpea liquor but I've used gungo pea and black turtle beans and they work well, albeit a strange colour.

If you're cooking kidney beans you need to boil them for 10 minutes minimum to remove the toxic bit, the name of which escapes me at the moment.

[ina]

As far as I know, Bernard, the cooking liquor from any bean will do. The usual one is chickpea liquor but I've used gungo pea and black turtle beans and they work well, albeit a strange colour.

Hey - natural food colouring! I can just imagine multi-coloured vegan meringue...

[ina]

I've got the feeling that aquafaba would do well as egg substitute in pancakes... I hope I'll be ok for eggs, though, as we have local producers and I actually bought some at Aldi yesterday! They were well stocked in just about everything, even organic eggs and veg, full range of dairy products, no loo rolls though... And I got the last pack of mince beef. So no emergency recipes for me for the time being.

[Weedo]

Another wrinkle for us on the lack of meat on the shelves subject - due to extended, nationwide droughts over the past 12 years or so, our cattle and sheep numbers are the lowest for more than 100 years and still falling - much of the herds and flocks are now reduced to core breeding stock with growers desperate to retain genetics. I don't think the white meat trade will be able to fill the gap.

If we don't get a decent season in the southern grain-belt this year, cereals will in short supply, as will water.

[Green Aura]

I'm still using stuff out of the store cupboard - we can't get an order until 9th April! The local shop is good but very expensive so we're trying to do a mixture of using up stuff here, buy essentials from the local shop and a supermarket order for the rest. Spreading the love

Anyway, today's lunch is beer bread, lentil pate and the last of the tomato pate, above.

OH made some treacle beer, by way of an experiment, a couple of years ago. It was awful so I've been using it up very slowly as a hair rinse and now we're back on bread I thought I'd give it a try. It's fantastic, the molasses taste that just did not sit right in the beer gives the bread a subtle, almost granary bread flavour.

The lentil pate is about 100g cooked green lentils (which I forgot to add to last night's soup ), a tsp each of garlic powder,parsley, paprika and savory and a tablespoon each of onion powder, soy sauce and olive oil. Smush it all together (technical term there) and refrigerate for an hour to let the flavours blend.

You could use fresh onions and garlic but I have the dehydrated stuff in the cupboard (made whenever we have a glut). If using fresh, I'd fry them in the oil before adding to the lentils.

[Viper254]

We've eaten a lot of nettles in the last week from out back - Mrs. Viper wasn't a massive fan of the idea but hasn't noticed since that she's been eating them with pretty much every meal.

[Weedo]

Not sure but it seems the outright stupidity in the markets is waning a little - rice, dried pulses, flour, pasta etc. are still in short supply as is toilet paper, tissues etc. but most other foodstuff is available. Protein is a little hard to get but, surprisingly, dairy, mushrooms, nuts and fish are still on the shelves (bless the general publics' ignorance of food groups) I miss the Saturday night roast though - think I might go out and kill something.

Aside - I was told by a medical professional that, if you really need to, mouthwash makes a good hand sanitiser.

[BernardSmith]

Weedo, I would be a little hesitant about using mouthwash as a sanitizer as our CDC suggests that to be effective the sanitizer should be about 60% alcohol by volume (120 proof) but mouthwash is typically about 50 % of that... but (and I am not a doctor or an expert in public health) I would argue that simply contaminating your hands is not really the concern. Placing contaminated fingers in your eyes, nose or mouth IS... so if you REALLY NEED TO - better than mouthwash might be to stick your hands in gloves or plastic bags to prevent you from touching your face and when you can you wash those hands with soapy water - for at least 20 seconds while rubbing (friction + soap = kills the virus). The virus is not airborne and you cannot become infected simply through touch. The virus needs access to your lungs and eyes (tear ducts) , nose and mouth are the doorways. You must then, of course, treat those gloves or plastic bags as contaminated and follow best practices for removing and /or disposing of those devices (I understand that in some locales the recommendation is to wash cloth bags etc in the hottest cycle they can tolerate. but the virus cannot survive for many days outside of a living organism - how long seems to depend on the material itself).

[Green Aura]

Today I'm making baked beans! I've never done that before.

The haricot beans were cooked yesterday (big batch so some will get portioned and frozen) and this morning I'll make a rich tomato sauce and then stew the combo gently until dinner. All served on the beer bread I made last week, toasted, and a good grating of cheese. I've even made a batch of vegan cheese for the gal.

Hopefully I'll give H31nz a run for their money.