Pinto beans. I like to soak and cook dry ones better, but the canned version is my favorite in-a-pinch lunch or dinner, and all they need is few minutes in the microwave, a little cheese and spice, and they're ready to go.
Canned beans and dried pasta are staples in my pantry and show up in my cooking on a weekly basis-oftentimes together! The beans and/or pasta are used as a side dish mixed w/herbs and olive oil or as a base for meat based dishes.
Tahini -- thinly spread on crackers for a snack or tossed with cold buckwheat noodles along with miso, ginger, garlic, mirin, and a spalsh of apple cider vinegar =)
bagged kombu. it definitely adds deliciousness to rice and just about any broth you want to make. there's nothing better than a bowl of sushi rice.
For me, it's gotta be SPAM. I love the stuff even though others hate it.
My mom used to make SPAM fried rice for us and it was an easy but really good go to meal. When I started living on my own, I made SPAM fried rice as well but tired of it easily. Plus, I was never as good as my mom made it. So... what else could I do with it?
One of my friends had invited me over to his house for some pre-party preparations. Him being a fellow foodie, I was eager. I asked what we were making and he said SPAM musubi. I asked what it was and it was basically SPAM sushi, Hawaiian style. He taught me how to make homemade teriyaki sauce in which slices of pan fried SPAM were dipped into. (Equal parts soy sauce and brown sugar, course chopped 2-3 scallion, sliced inch or two ginger and 4-5 cloves of garlic. Boil and drop to simmer for 10 minutes and there's homemade teriyaki sauce) We used a Japanese plastic rectangular mold to shape the rice. Top it with a dipped slice of SPAM and wrap with nori.
THANK GOD FOR SPAM!
Seems that canned tomatoes are a recurring theme, but I have a particular favorite: Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes. The roasting gives a variety of Italian and southern dishes a different flavor that everyone always raves about.
Also, and possibly surprising but useful if you have an open mind, is Old El Paso Red Enchilada sauce. Now I grew up El Paso and learned how to make incredible red sauce from scratch, but who has time on any sort of a regular basis to reconstitute dried red peppers and run them through a ricer? Instead, I doctor up a can of Old El Paso to make pretty good enchiladas and carne.
a jar of sun dried tomatoes to make a pesto sauce for pasta or fish, especially during the winter months when it's impossible to get ripe tomatoes.
canned tomatoes, of course -- for pasta sauce, curries, veggie stews, etc. but my real favorite is the jar of nutritional yeast we keep on a shelf by the stove. it's perfect for seasoning popcorn (even if the nytimes seems to think that went the way of bellbottoms), putting on toast with butter, adding to sauces, etc.
and big jars of homemade pickles (lately, red cabbage and cauliflower)
I love jarred roasted red bell peppers. Whether I'm making pasta, creating a sauce, looking for a great sandwich topping (especially a grilled chicken and fresh spinach panini-YUM!), or looking for a snack, it's one of the first things I look to in my pantry.
Larp na? Orecchiette? ELK?
My contributions are far more tame: I have grown particularly fond of capers, which I like to add (very liberally) to wine sauces and salads, and of a certain Mexican fresh cream (jarred), which is the most cheerful topping (I like to drop spoonfuls on fajitas and anything else I can get away with) I've ever encountered.
Jarred anchovies, for Caesar salad and orecchiette with broccoli rabe. Mark Bittman stole my idea this week with his pasta recipe. Also frozen artichoke hearts from Trader Joe's - much more versatile than the marinated kind (though those are tasty).
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