I love the winter. Let me preface that remark by saying I love winter when I do not have to go anywhere in it and when I am in a house I can keep warm and most important of all, one that has a full larder.
Even when living in town, it is still so good to have a pantry that lets a person fix just about any kind of meal wanted.
I stock in with dried soup mixes for a starter. Even though I love to make my own soup from scratch, these dried soups make very good soup too and lots can be added to make them even better.
Take this noon. After writing these stories, I have a packet of cheesy potato soup. To it I will add some heavy cream and I cut up some ham to go with it making it cheese ham and potato soup. Even better than before.
I love to have lots of noodles and many kinds and boxes of Zatarain’s rice mixes. Dirty rice mixed with a pound of hamburger is my favorite although the Spanish rice goes very well with any Tex-Mex meal.
At all times I have lots of Linguine and Fettuccine noodles. I like the fact that they are flat and a little larger than spaghetti and go well with spaghetti and meatballs. Even better is to always have some cream in the refrigerator, some parmesan cheese and some butter and when you have nothing else, on the coldest of days you have one of the best of all comfort foods, Fettuccine Alfredo. I will be sharing a simple and simply wonderful recipe for that comforting staple the first column of March.
I like to have lots of cream of mushroom soup and lots and lots of canned tomatoes. I keep canned marinara sauce in the pantry but my favorite of all canned tomatoes are whole tomatoes canned. Yum, they are good in tomato sauces.
I keep clams for clam chowder and plenty of steak, hamburger and seafood in the freezer.
Last week it has snowed and snowed and snowed. I never was snowed in but sure didn’t want to go to the grocery store in a blizzard.
How wonderful it was to have a stocked up pantry. I ate well and wondered who I had learned this valuable lesson from in the first place. Probably mother or one of the grandmothers. Thanks mother and grandma!
