What's for supper?

Today is 'fridge cleaning out day' around here.  I know you know what I'm talking about.  We get our meat order in on Thursday, and today is Wednesday.  The farmer's market is on Friday, and today is Wednesday.  The new specials at the grocery store start on Thursday, and today is Wednesday.  Wednesday is the day we eat 'stuff'.

But Wednesdays don't have to be blah and boring.  Even when you have nothing in the house...you still have something in the house, right?  So here are my top five...

Meals To Make Without Any Ingredients

1.   Ethnic Food

The trick with making ethnic food out of zero ingredients is to pick a country where the food is supposed to be slightly haphazard.  I have two main 'nationalities' that I use when making an ethnic-style dish - Chinese and Indian.  Now, none of these "recipes" are even recipes, or for that matter, Chinese or Indian food - but when I add the flavourings of those types of foods, then my dish becomes similar enough.  For example, tonight we're having "Asian" food.  It's not Asian food in the slightest.  What it is is odds and ends from my fridge left over from previous meal prep: half an acorn squash, a small onion, half a green pepper, about a quarter of a cauliflower, the last lonely pork chop and whatever brown rice was in the end of the bag.  That is not an Asian meal, but it tastes like one because I had some Thai seasonings and pineapple sauce to throw in with it.  If I hadn't had those flavours available, the meal would have become an "Indian" meal, because I would have cooked it with a bit of milk and curry powder.  Or if I hadn't had that, it might have been a stew with some of the thyme on my windowsill and a few bay leaves, salt and pepper.  It's exactly the same ingredients, only the seasonings change.

2.  'Something With a Flatbread'

Flour, water, salt, baking powder and a bit of oil - that's all you need to make tortillas.  And tortillas will literally make a meal out of almost anything.  You can turn them into pizzas, you can make a quesadilla, you can make a wrap, or a tortilla chip or...well, whatever.  Have you got beans?  Or lentils?  Or something like that?  Cook them, puree them, spread the puree on your tortilla, season, add whatever else you've got, and heat.  There's your quesadilla.  A tomato is nice, or a can of mushrooms sauteed, or the last sad green pepper.  Haven't got that?  Have you got cheese?  That'll do.  Or tortillas cut into triangles and dipped into whatever you have on hand.  That sad pepper, two wrinkly cloves of garlic and half a tomato?  Thats's gold, my friends!  Toss them in a bit of oil, bake on a baking sheet and puree them.  That's dip for your tortilla chips.  Or spread something down as a base and make pizzas!  No tomato sauce?  No problem - this is where Bechamel sauce really makes a stand.  Creamy enough that you don't need cheese, and a very good vehicle for any dried herbs you may have.

3.  A baked dish

Oh, pasta.  I know you well.  Boring though it may be, it's a great 'nothing in the house' staple.  As is rice, or any grain (barley makes appearances in our house), or mashed potatoes, too.  The concept is the same everywhere - you cook your starch, you layer it with whatever, you add a sauce, you bake.

4.  Tomato-Based Dishes

When you have tomatoes, and a lot of them, but not a lot of anything else, you have a meal practically prepared.  This is because cooked tomatoes form the base for so many dishes including sauces, chilis, soups and stews.  The easiest of these is probably the basic vegetable sauce.  Saute what must be sauteed, and then slow cook vegetables in tomato sauce for the longest time you have.  A few hours at least.  You can serve it over rice, or noodles, or on it's own.  You can add chili spice, or steak spice and barbecue sauce and make sloppy joes.  You could add meat, which is great if you have it.  You could pureed it and make it into soup; you could even cook other stuff in it, like boneless, skinless chicken, or layers of zucchini, or pour it into cooked rice stuffed into peppers...

5.  Stuff with eggs

If I didn't buy at least a dozen, and more likely two dozen, eggs every single week I honestly think I'd go nuts.  Because an egg can be anything, anything at all.  Mainly I use them in meals to form a strata - a layered omlette that includes bread.  It's a question of layering bread cubes with, well, whatever, and then pouring a mixture of egg and milk overtop and baking it.  Personally, I like it with cheese, but I'd eat a tire if there was enough cheese on it.  As for the other stuff, well, a slice of bacon, a last piece of chicken, leftover rice, three cherry tomatoes, a piece of broccoli, half a can of beans, an opened bag of croutons, some chopped herbs and green onions, frozen corn...

Enjoy!