Pantry Inventory — Things I Forgot
I keep remembering things I forgot to include in my “What’s In YOUR Pantry?” article, so I thought I would mention them here.
Black pepper… how could I have forgotten this? We buy black peppercorns and grind our own pepper fresh when we need it. I have never bothered to buy a pepper grinder, however, because I find it so easy to crush the peppercorns with a rolling pin. By repeated crushings (and it only takes a minute or two) I can get a fairly fine grind, although we like the tiny bits of coarse pepper in our food. Last year at about this time I couldn’t resist buying a large jar of different colored peppercorns that I saw in BJ’s Wholesale Club. There were pink, green, white, and two types of black, which of course all had a somewhat different flavor. The colors were pretty :o) and it was interesting to see what the different colored peppercorns tasted like but this is not something I would buy again. The plain black peppercorns are just better. If you’re still using the already ground pepper, you really should try grinding your own peppercorns, because the flavor is just so much more intense and wonderful.
- I also forgot salt. I still buy the containers of table salt, but I use that salt mostly for putting out fires, oven spills and the occasional dropped egg :o) and use kosher salt for almost everything else. We like the coarser crystals and the more subtle salty taste. I even use kosher salt for baking, although this is not recommended. We have an unusually large amount of kosher salt on hand at the moment because the last time my husband picked up some groceries for me he bought kosher salt in quantity on sale… forgetting I had already stocked up on kosher salt at another store a couple of weeks previously during another price reduction! Oh well…
- I also forgot barley, which I like to keep on hand for soups and occasionally to serve in place of potatoes, rice, or pasta.
- Also, dried mustard… I did mention this, but I forgot to say anything about it. I don’t think there’s much opportunity to save on dried mustard, but a can will last practically forever, and dried mustard really adds something special to baked beans, my homemade mayonnaise, and salad dressings and various other dishes.
What don’t I use? Cake flour, self-rising flour, and gluten… I don’t use any of these because I don’t feel they are necessary. The only problem that might occur is if a recipe calls for self-rising flour, but then I just add 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt to each cup of all-purpose flour (that’s all self-rising flour is) and substitute cup for cup for the commercial self-rising flour. The King Arthur flour I use already has a lot of gluten, so it is great for making bread. I also use this flour for all my other baking, and it makes wonderfully light sponge and angel food cakes. Even though I have read that using all-purpose flour will result in cakes that are not as light as those made with cake flour (and that sponge and angel food cakes may fall), I honestly have never been able to see any difference.
Written by Shirley | Filed Under Cooking & Baking from Scratch, Frugality & Nutrition series, Organization Series
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