What's in your Pantry?, page 1

After years of tweaking our supply cupboards, here's what is there today:

Dried items: Red and green lentils, oat groats, rolled oats, kamut, split peas, spelt, brown rice, shelled almonds, ditto pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds, candied ginger, aduki beans, black beans, blackeyed pea beans, couscous, millet, hulled barley, rolled barley flakes, soybeans, and dried pasta.

Canned goods (which we are trying to phase out) include canned beans, canned peas, and a little canned fruit. We also stock jars of pasta sauce, small jars of sliced pimentos. Jarred sauces we use include Thai peanut sauce, tamari sauce (similar to soy sauce), teriyaki sauce, and Indian curry sauce. Aseptic packs (which we are also trying to phase out) include soy milk, tofu, and vegetable broth. Oh, I should also include that we have 12 3-gallon containers of filtered water from our local food co-op which has a quintuple water filtering machine for 30 cents a gallon.

We got started on storing more non-perishable food when the whole Y2K thing was at its zenith. We continued along those lines afterwards because we live in a semi-rural area where the roads aren't great to begin with, electric power interruptions are hardly unheard of, etc.

Anyway, in the refrigerator we have SmartDogs (amazingly tasty soybased hot dogs), packaged tempeh (easy to bake in the oven with a little soy sauce), soy mozarella, and Trader Joe seasoned baked tofu (a new item they started to carry about 3 months ago). Note: I used to avoid tofu until I learned how to cook it. The rest of the refrigerator contains fruit in season, various veggies, two kinds of sprouts - mung bean and blackeyed pea sprouts at the moment. Also soy yogurt, South River miso (best miso in the United States -- I have never ever before seen a manufactured food product with no expiration date because none is needed... this miso keeps indefinitely in the refrigerator.) Condiments include rice vinegar, honey mustard and sesame miso dressings, gomasio (a seed based seasoning mix). Drinks include homemake iced tea - both black tea and WildBerry noncaffeine which can be made from the Celestial Seasonings WildBerry tea bags. Also homemake coffee mix made from a coldprocess method, and grapefruit juice.

In the freezer is mostly frozen portions of previous homecooked meals. Desserts include tofutti and fruit bars. Also frozen are peas, Trader Joe vegetarian egg rolls and vegetable tempura, chickenless nuggets, Boca Burgers, and Trader Joe enchiladas. Also sprouted wheat flat bread (because I have a food intolerance for wheat other than sprouted wheat -- I get killer headaches from many wheat products).

Miscellaneous in baskets on counters: Licorice candy, Altoids, some kind of weird power bars I am avoiding so far, tostada shells, rye crackers of various kinds, Japanese style rice crackers wrapped in seaweed, rice cakes, Trader Joe corn chips.

In jars on the counter: I discovered I bought many different kinds of seaweed and then never used them because they were stashed away in cupboards! So now in jars on the counter near the stove are arame, wakame, dulse, kombu (fantastic as a soup base) and hijiki. Also 2 different types of green tea, one type of black tea, and in the cupboards are 14 other types of noncaffeine tea.

Also in cupboards are about 25 different spices, Hain Vegetarian Gravy mix (actually tastes wonderful), sugar (hey I have my vices), molasses, and Szechuan sauce jars from our local Chinatown.