Pantry Challenge 2: What you cooked

Posted by kathryn in Blogging and Dinners

What can you make for dinner from a list of 15 long-life ingredients? The kind of foods you’d have in your pantry?

This was the question I asked a few weeks ago, when I announced the second round of the Pantry Challenge.

And what a list of meals it is. I love these entries because they’re all so different. It shows that even with a limited set of ingredients you can make a range of different meals.

Mograbieh Dinner Salad

Zoe from Progressive dinner party used mograbieh or Israeli couscous in her Pantry Challenge meal. These little beads are actually a type of pasta, which you cook by boiling.

The mograbieh is combined with chicken thighs, frozen edamame beans, onions, olives and Ras el hanout. And her blog post includes good instructions about the various steps.

Progressive Dinner Party’s mograbieh dinner salad.

Awesome pasta

Lisa from Unwakeable put together a gorgeous looking pasta meal. While she used dried lentils instead of tinned, she actually made the dish from her pantry – no extra shopping required.

Tomatoes and red lentils are cooked together with onions, paprika, thyme and olives to make a rich and nutritious sauce to serve over pasta. How delicious.

Unwakeable’s awesome pasta

Pasta with pangritata

Lucy from Nourish Me follows Jamie Oliver’s lead and makes pasta topped off with tomato sauce and a pangritata.

This simple topping is a Southern Italian substitute for parmesan.

It’s made by stir frying breadcrumbs with garlic and olive oil. This produces a crunchy, flavoursome topping, with a lovely texture contrast to the pasta.

Lucy also adds some dried chilli, for an extra flavour boost.

Nourish Me’s pasta with pangritata.

Black bean-brown rice-sweet pepper skillet dinner.

For her Pantry Challenge entry Elaine from Greens & Berries wanted to make a meal with a minimum of ingredients, that was suitable for various diet restrictions.

Her result is a delicious looking, easy skillet dinner made from black beans, rice, tomatoes, frozen sweet peppers and herbs. It’s vegan, gluten-free, wheat-free and egg-free. And still packed full of flavour.

Greens & Berries Black bean-brown rice-sweet pepper skillet dinner.

Pantry Challenge frittata

My response to the Pantry Challenge list of ingredients was a frittata.

All you really need are some eggs, olive oil, a few herbs and then whatever vegetables you can find in the fridge and freezer.

Mine includes dried oregano and a combination of frozen beans and peas. Ten minutes on the stove top and then 3 – 4 under the grill and dinner is ready.

I served this with a slice of sourdough bread, but you could also add extra vegetables and some rice.

Limes & Lycopene’s Pantry Challenge frittata

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who took part. It’s not an easy challenge. It requires some thinking outside the square. But your dishes are inspiring.

And thank you for yet again showing that even without any fresh food in the house you can still make a healthier meal, than ordering take-away. A meal that doesn’t skimp on flavour and works out a lot cheaper.

If you want to see what was cooked last time – take a look at the first Pantry Challenge round-up

What are you going to add to your Pantry – to make it easier to eat well?

02 December, 2008