The Perfect Pantry®

Turkey and kale fried rice recipe

Using up every last bit of leftover turkey and vegetables from a holiday feast brings out the frugal New Englander in all of us. When the bits you have are small, just a cup of this and a handful of that, you're ready to make fried rice. Everything you need resides in the pantry, and once you get the basic method in your head, you can whip up a bowl of fried rice with any protein and vegetables you have on hand. In this case, turkey and kale, both remnants of our Thanksgiving dinner, bring just the right balance to a dish where the rice and Asian condiments really take center stage. You can swap tofu for turkey, brown rice for white, cabbage for kale, and no nuts for peanuts. It's all good.

Sake (Recipe: spicy pesto soba with chicken and snow peas)

First published in August 2007, this updated pantry ingredient post features new photos, links, and a few tweaks to the recipe. The spicy pesto in this dish calls for equal amounts of basil and mint, and it's a pesto you can use in many different ways, from scrambled eggs to tomato salad.

Accidents happen.

Blue cheese, vinegar, wine, yogurt, fish sauce, yeast breads, sake.

If modern government-regulated food storage requirements of today had been in place hundreds of years ago, we'd have none of these products, because all are the result of storage mishaps.

Thank goodness for accidents, for food left out of refrigeration too long, left in a barrel for too many months, left out in the sun or in a dark cellar, or carried through the desert in hot saddle bags on a camel's back.

Slow cooker Sindhi beef curry recipe

Though I love to try new dishes at Indian restaurants, I'd always been a bit intimidated about tackling those same recipes at home. I didn't have many of the unfamiliar spices and ingredients in my pantry, didn't even know where to buy them, and I froze in fear at the number of steps of preparation many recipes required. Then, a $19 slow cooker came into my life, and with it, a couple of cookbooks that made cooking Indian food fast and easy and not at all scary. My husband Ted and I loved this recipe for Sindhi beef curry adapted slightly from 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese & More Slow Cooker Recipes, a must-have book for slow-cooker cooks who love Asian food. Unfamiliar as I am with regional Indian cuisines, I researched the origin of this dish, and learned that it is from the Sindhi people who come from the area of west India that is now, geographically, in Pakistan. It's a simple tomato-based curry that's perfect over rice. Make it ahead, if you can; like all stews, it's even better the second day.

Recipe for ginger-lime tuna with buckwheat (soba) noodles

Do you ever have days when you want to run away from your everyday meals? Days when you don't want oatmeal or eggs or cereal for breakfast, a healthy-but-uninspired salad for lunch, or chicken and vegetables for dinner? Me, too. And on those days, the "run away" days, I head straight for my pantry, where I stash a large variety of Asian noodles for this exact type of culinary emergency. A bowl of ginger-lime tuna with buckwheat noodles pulls me right out of my mealtime rut. It hits all of the taste notes, tangy and slightly salty and umami-rich, without any spicy heat. (You could certainly add a squirt or two of Sriracha sauce. I'll never tell.) Make the dish vegan by substituting chunks of extra-firm tofu for the tuna, and make it easy by starting with pre-cooked and shelled edamame, which you can find in the produce section of many supermarkets. If you don't have soba noodles on hand, use any firm Asian noodles (ramen noodles work well, without the seasoning packet), or spaghetti.