The Bitten Word

Cupboard Cleanout: Day 4 -- Chinese Black Beans with Tofu; Steamed Broccoli; and Cherry-Cheesecake Pudding

We're midway through our Cupboard Cleanout, and so far it's been pretty terrific. (Although we're also now out of pretty much all the "normal" foods we had in stock, so we're about to enter the Wild Wild West of pantry items.)

This Chinese Black Beans dish is actually something we've been making a lot lately, Cupboard Cleanout Challenge or no. It's loaded with great flavors, it's super quick to cook, it only uses one pan, and it's cheap. And it's filling.  And it's meatless (well, except for the oysters in the oyster sauce).  

What's not to love?

Cupboard Cleanout: Day 3 -- Braised Curry Chicken with Golden Raisins and Peanuts

Three days into our challenge, we've stumbled onto a dish that's already an instant new favorite! (What's that they say about necessity and invention...?)

Yesterday, a reader named Cheryl commented on our post about Day 1 with an idea for how to use up some of the pantry ingredients she saw on our list. Cheryl wrote:

I can well imagine the chicken thighs in a tagine or curry, with onions, carrots and golden raisins, sweet potatoes, too, if they are still there...put it all over couscous or basmati rice. Slow cooking is luscious, especially thighs until they fall off the bone!

We liked Cheryl's idea so much that we went right home and got to cooking!

Our 10,000th Comment!

Just a quick note to mention that last night we received our 10,000th comment on The Bitten Word! We continue to be so grateful to hear from you guys -- we love your comments and your emails. We literally could not do this without you.

The 10k milestone made us wonder about the first comment we ever received, so we went back to our very first recipe post, this Pork Cheek and Black-Eyed Pea Chili. Our very first comment was from "Maybelle's Mom," who wrote to say:

I found this link on the Cleveland Food Board. Would you have any idea where the best place to get pork belly on the east side of Cleveland?

Well, four years later, we still don't know anything about sourcing pork belly on the east side of Cleveland. But we're thankful for Maybelle's Mom, and for everyone else who has shared their thoughts and questions with us.

So what was No. 10,000? It was a short and sweet comment from a reader named Mary Miller, who commented on our original Cupboard Cleanout post to say, simply:

    thanks guys!

No, Mary, thank you! And thanks to all of the rest of you! 

Cupboard Cleanout: Day 2 -- Sweet Potato Soup, Roast Pork with Apple-Cranberry Mostarda, and a Collards and Couscous Salad

On Day 2 of our Clean-Out-the-Cupboard Week, we went to Costco, which is exactly not the kind of place that you want to visit if you're trying to clear the pantry. But we were running errands in the 'burbs with some friends, and they needed to go to Costco, so we tagged along. 

When we announced this week of cooking down the food we already have on hand, we said that we would allow ourselves $15 to spend on items we want for the week. Doing this at a place like Costco has its advantages and disadvantages. In the plus column, prices seem pretty low. But at the same time, you can't get a small amount of anything. Buying proteins was out of the question, because there were only a handful of items we would have wanted for under $15. If we had been at another supermarket, we would have purchased a couple of onions. Here, we had to buy a 5-pound bag. So here's what we purchased:

A gallon of milk: $2.58
A bag of clementines: $6.99
Two bunches of bananas: $2.78
A 5-pound bag of onions: $4.49
Total: $16.84 

So we went over budget by $1.84, but think we did pretty well. This really puts the pressure on, though, for making more out of what we have on hand. If you missed the list of what we have to work with, you can see it yesterday's post. 

What did we cook and eat on Day 2?

A Few Updates: Giveaway Winner, Pins & Comments

First, we selected a random winner this morning for our most recent giveaway. The winner is Jenise, who commented, "It's gotta be Bon Appetit, there just something so wonderful about a piece of fried chicken." Hear hear! Jenise wins a copy of Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London's Ottolenghi. Congratulations! 

Second, like seemingly everyone else on the planet, we've joined the ranks of Pinterest users. If you're there, you can follow us and see things that we find of interest. Spoiler alert: there are a lot of Downton Abbey related pins. (Also, can we please talk about that Christmas special? We're still swooning.) You can also see what others are pinning from The Bitten Word, which is pretty interesting, too. 

Over the weekend, in an effort to make it easier for you to comment, we made some updates to how comments work here on the blog. During the giveaway, several readers wrote to say that they were having trouble commenting, so we removed the "captcha" -- the little box that asks you to input a code. This should make leaving comments much easier. But if you have problems, please let us know. We love hearing from you. 

The photo above is a beautiful little plate of pasta carbonara that we had a few weeks ago in Florida. We snuck down there for a weekend with friends. We're overdue to tell you about that, and about a trip we took to New Orleans a few months ago. We'll do that next week, once our cupboards our bare. 

Speaking of -- we'll have a second post up in a few hours about Day 2 of the Cupboard Cleanout Challenge. See you then. 

Cupboard Cleanout: Day 1 -- Whole Wheat Pasta with Short Rib Ragu

Our grand experiment has begun: One week of eating only the food we already have in our freezer, fridge and pantry.

We started off by making a full inventory of our larder -- all the forgotten pastas, misbegotten pre-made sauces, and truly random ingredients lurking in our cupboard. You can read the whole list after the jump.

For our inaugural cleanout meal Sunday night, we eased ourselves in with a pretty tame dinner. We defrosted some braised short ribs and pearl onions, left over from when we made those Short Rib Pot Pies back in October. We added a little tomato paste, some red wine and some Salsa Lizano to make it a little more saucy, and we threw in some frozen peas to liven it up. We served it over some whole wheat spaghetti noodles.

Day 1 Dinner: Whole Wheat Pasta with Short Rib Ragu
Cupboard Items Used: Frozen leftover short rib filling, frozen peas, spaghetti
Degree of Difficulty: 2 out of 10
Verdict: Delicious! Rich and savory and meaty, this was an excellent way to kick off our Cupboard Cleanout.

Read the full list of all the random stuff we'll be trying to figure out how to use this week, after the jump!

January and February Covers Gallery + Win a Cookbook in Our Latest Giveaway

Here are two things that stuck out to us about the most recent food magazine covers. 

In January, the month of "light" this and "new you" that, Food & Wine placed a nacho burger on its cover. Forget you, diet! 

And in February, none of the 10 magazines we track put chocolate on the cover. Somewhere, St. Valentine is weeping. (As if to make up for it, the March Food Network Magazine just arrived in our mailbox and it's "The Chocolate Issue.") 

There are several covers that we truly loved over the past two months, and you can see them in the gallery below. And we want to know what you think. 

Since we loved the Soba Noodles with Eggplant and Mango from Plenty so much, we decided to give it away here on the blog. It's a beautiful book. Believe us, you need this book. 

Here's how you can win it.  

Soba Noodles with Eggplant and Mango

From Plenty: Vibrant Vegetables from London's Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi

At the end of last year, Plenty -- a new cookbook from London Chef Yotam Ottolenghi -- was turning up all over the place. It was mentioned in just about every magazine we receive, and we saw it on dozens of best-cookbooks-of-2011 lists. 

A few weeks ago we reserved it from the library to see what all the fuss is about. 

And let us tell you: It was love at first sight. 

This book grabbed us at the introduction. Although Ottolenghi is not a vegetarian, he has written a column called "The New Vegetarian" for a British newspaper. This book is essentially a collection of recipes from that column, so it's all vegetables from the point of view of a meat eater. Often, recipes will include suggestions of what meat to serve along with the dish. Most of the recipes, though, look substantial enough to serve as the main dish of any meal. 

As you know, we usually find ourselves at the carnivore end of the scale. But we've wanted to cut back the amount of meat in our diet. If you're looking to do the same, Plenty may be all the inspiration you need. 

The book is categorized by vegetables ("Funny Onions," "Roots," "Leaves," etc.) and there are at least a dozen dishes we're eager to make. A Caramelized Garlic Tart. Chard and Saffron Omelettes. Sweet Corn Polenta. We're dreaming of spring and summer already. 

But one dish lept out to us from the page: these Soba Noodles with Eggplant and Mango. 

Clean-Out-the-Cupboard Week Starts Sunday. Play Along at Home?

After we made the New Year's resolution to get organized in the kitchen, a reader named Susan left an excellent suggestion for how we could pare down our overflowing food cupboards:

Can I make a suggestion? I try to do this with my family every so often... Can you take a period of time (say a week), where you spend absolutely zero $$$ on food? I find that between my freezer and my pantry, there is enough food to feed us for up to probably a month!

If you did that, you would certainly be able to justify purchasing that crown roast! And you would probably have some fun adventures meanwhile, trying to make decent meals out of the excess in your cupboards!

We loved Susan's idea -- so that's just what we're going to do! And we want you to play along at home.

Here's what we'll do.

You Shared the Shame: Readers' Junk Drawers!

When we told you about our secret kitchen shame -- an overflowing junk drawer -- we invited readers to share images of their own kitchen clutter. And share you did! Dozens of your wrote in to empathize or to out certain family members as kitchen hoarders.

And plenty of you actually shared your junk drawer pics with us! 

So let's take a journey inside the junk drawers of some very brave Bitten Word souls.

 

From Kathleen: "At least you've cleaned yours out!"