January Canuary is not only a month of cleaning out the freezer with the purpose of filling empty jars but it is also the first month of Pantry Challenge 2025.
What is the point of filling all those jars with straight from the earth summer yums if I am not going to eat the yums? My jars are full, my winter pantry is full, and my makeshift root cellar is overflowing with garden potatoes and onions, a few carrots, 2 butternut squash, and 3 sweet potatoes from the grocery store. There is no lack of winter food. I think I have enough to eat almost sans the grocery store between now and the first spring garden greens. I will be forced to use my imagination from time to time; I won’t always have exactly what I want but I will have enough as I practice the culinary art of ‘substitute this for that.’
Tonight’s dinner was an open the freezer door, wander through the makeshift root cellar, and use Christmas leftovers to make a delicious pot of corn chowder with shrimp. I found shrimp, corn, and corn broth in my freezer. My makeshift root cellar yielded 4 fine potatoes and an onion. My fridge boasted a half gallon of half and half. Perfect!
These bits and pieces made enough corn chowder to fill my belly tonight with leftovers aplenty to feed me the entire weekend and maybe a tub in the freezer for that mid-January Tuesday evening when I have no desire to cook but might be willing to heat and eat. Corn Chowder is a great start to Pantry Challenge 2025.
So what are the rules of a pantry challenge? The rules are whatever you want them to be. As for me I plan to eschew the grocery store for three months. My Azure order will be postponed until late March. My garden is fair game. I know a few potatoes and carrots are still in the dirt. The perennial herbs are flourishing and eager to be invited to dinner. Those snow peas are still growing but harvest is scarce. Harvest is at famine level. But should those snow peas bare pods of yum, I will eat them.
Pantry Challenge 2025! Embrace it!
Corn Chowder
½ cup diced bacon or ham
4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
3 cups frozen corn
2 cups water (I used corn broth for flavor)
2 teaspoons salt
Ground black pepper to taste
2 cups ½ and ½
Melt fat of choice in a 4 quart soup pan. Add diced meat and cook 5 minutes or until it renders its fat. Add onion and sauté until lightly blackened for great flavor. Add potato and cook another 10 minutes. Use water or corn broth to deglaze the pan if the onions begin to stick.
Add corn, corn broth (or water), and simmer lightly for 15-20 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add ½ and ½ and bring just to a simmer. Do not boil!
Note: I found a half bag of shrimp in my freezer. I added the peeled shrimp to my soup pot along with the potatoes. They were a delicious addition.
תגובות