{"id":323,"date":"2009-02-11T23:40:31","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T23:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/?p=323"},"modified":"2009-02-11T23:40:31","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T23:40:31","slug":"pity-the-poor-pantry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/pity-the-poor-pantry\/","title":{"rendered":"Pity the Poor Pantry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Invaluable Kitchen Resource Gets No Respect<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Pity the poor pantry.\u00a0 It’s always getting lumped with all that old-time stuff our mothers (or grandmothers) did.\u00a0 Remember the stuff they would drag out of the pantry?\u00a0 Canned vegetables that tasted like cardboard and boxes of Jello that got turned into something with “salad”<\/p>\n

\"Jello--A
Jello--A Pantry Classic, Perfect for Jello Salad!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

incongruously in the name.\u00a0 And that thing they did called “stocking the pantry?” That took a whole lot of time, and for what?<\/p>\n

Nowadays, we’ve got at least a couple grocery stores within driving distance, selling everything you could ever want and we prefer our vegetable fresh rather than canned, thank you very much.\u00a0 So why do we care about the pantry?<\/p>\n

Well, we might laugh about our grandmothers’ pantries, but the joke might actually be on us.\u00a0 Under the guise of modernizing our ways, we might have gotten tangled in a time-consuming, health-defeating, taste-stifling trap.\u00a0 How can that be and, more importantly, is there a way out?<\/p>\n

First, how could we have gone wrong by buying fresh at the grocery store?\u00a0 To begin with, have you ever calculated the time cost of\u00a0 our “quick” stops at the store to pick up something fresh?\u00a0 It’s called “overhead” and it amounts to between 20 to 30 minutes, whether you stop to pick up two items or 20.\u00a0 Secondly, grocery stores “selling everything you could ever want” are not a blessing on a weeknight at 5:30, when you’re racing home from work tired and hungry.\u00a0 Tromping up and down their mammoth girth can make even Chinese take out sound good, to heck with any New Year’s resolutions to the contrary.<\/p>\n

Which is exactly the problem.\u00a0 Faced with spending 20 to 30 minutes in a stressful, artificially-lit, high-pressured mega-mart at the end of a long day, who wouldn’t opt for Chinese take out, or frozen pizza, or drive-through hamburgers?\u00a0 So we end up in the curious predicament of having access to an extraordinary wealth of healthful, fresh, delicious foods and yet actually eating a narrow range of highly processed convenient foods.\u00a0 Adding injury to insult is the fact that a lot (maybe most?) of what we buy on an average jaunt to the store isn’t fresh anyway:\u00a0 Pringles, breakfast cereal, pasta and jarred sauces come to mind.<\/p>\n

So is there any way out of this predicament?\u00a0 You bet!\u00a0 Dump any lingering mortification you harbor about the pantry and embrace it fully–but in a new-fashioned way.\u00a0 No canned spinach and Jello for the modern gal’s (or guy’s) pantry.\u00a0 Instead, stock yours with the makings for healthful, taste-tempting and fast meals–and skip that every day or every other day trip to the store.<\/p>\n

Sarah is a perfect example.\u00a0 We met at a dinner party last weekend.\u00a0 She had brought some completely delicious hors d’oeuvres made completely from the pantry, which prompted a conversation about pantries.\u00a0 “I never<\/em> go to the store more than once a week,” she informed me.\u00a0 “I figure out what I’m going to make for the week, then go shopping on the weekend.\u00a0 What’s always amazing is how little I need to buy for my weekly meals.\u00a0 Almost everything comes from the pantry.”<\/p>\n

I couldn’t help but ask, “So are you able to make pretty good meals, even working more than full time?”\u00a0 “No problem,” she replied.<\/p>\n

Ready to get out of the grocery store and into the kitchen, making great meals instead of tromping up and down the aisles?\u00a0 Read on. . . Here’s what’s in this series:<\/p>\n