The Perfect Pantry®

Brown rice (Recipe: vegetable fried rice) {vegetarian}

First published in August 2007, this updated ingredient post features new photos, links and tweaks to the recipe. When I make this dish now, I use a much larger proportion of vegetables to rice, so I've adjusted the original recipe. Make as little or as much as you wish, and use any combination of vegetables -- the more colorful, the merrier. When you're running around crazy-busy before the holidays, it's nice to have a quick stir-fry dish in your repertoire for an easy lunch or dinner.

I know what you're thinking.

Good grief, three quarts of brown rice! What is she doing with so much rice? Mortaring a brick patio? Filling a sandbox? Making a bean bag chair? Blind-baking a year's worth of pies???

None of the above. This brown Nishiki rice, perfect for the rice cooker to which I am unrepentantly addicted, isn't all that easy to find in the grocery store, and the smallest package in my favorite Asian market happens to be five pounds. I'm glad to have it in my pantry.

Peanut oil (Recipe: latkes/potato pancakes) {vegetarian}

First published in December 2009, this updated ingredient post features new links and tweaks to the recipe. Even though we associate latkes with Chanukah, they're a crowd pleaser at any time of year. Make small ones for your Sunday football parties, or large ones for a vegetarian dinner main dish. Kids love latkes smothered with sour cream or apple sauce.

Rudolf Diesel had a dream.

When the German inventor and Utopian idealist demonstrated his new engine at the 1900 Paris World Exposition, it ran not on petroleum, but on peanut oil.   

In the perfect world, Diesel believed, renewable biofuels like peanut oil could power farm machinery and automobiles. In our imperfect world, my car still drinks gasoline, but peanut oil powers my frying.

Recipe for roasted cauliflower and potato soup {gluten-free}

It's not easy to learn to love something you have spent a lifetime detesting. For me, that something is cauliflower, so I've decreed that 2013 will be The Year I Learn to Love Cauliflower. Or, if not love, like. When you're incorporating something new into your diet, start with a dish you already know you will eat. In this case, I swapped cauliflower for half of the potatoes in a creamy rich potato soup, and topped it with sharp Cheddar cheese. What's not to love? Stay tuned as I continue my adventures in cauliflower. I'm pinning recipes ideas to a Cauliflower board on Pinterest, so please leave any links to your own favorite recipes in the comments. Then, make this soup. I loved it, and I know you will, too. By the end of the year, I'll be making it without the potatoes. I promise.

Creamy Indian-spiced vegan sweet potato soup recipe {gluten-free}

Once upon a time, I didn't need a scorecard to remember my family's culinary preferences. Now that I'm firmly entrenched in middle age, I forget who loves olives, who hates mushrooms, who likes tomatoes on their pizza and who won't eat anything green. So, it was inevitable that, when I cooked a big holiday dinner for my stepson and grandkids, I would get something wrong, and I came home with three pounds of leftover mashed sweet potatoes that none of the kids would touch. Lucky me: I turned those already-mashed potatoes into this rich and creamy Indian-spiced sweet potato soup. It's vegan and gluten-free, and you can make it even if you don't have leftovers. Top each individual bowl with traditional curry garnishes (cashews, raisins, chopped apple or shredded coconut) to create a hearty one-dish meal.

Recipe for boerenkool (kale with mashed potatoes) {vegetarian, gluten-free}

For years before I started blogging, I wrote for newspapers and magazines. My stories introduced readers to my neighbors through the food they cooked, most often recipes they carried with them from their family heritage, or from their home countries. Betta lived on the block where I worked in Boston's South End. Born in British Borneo to Dutch parents who moved the family back to Holland when she was a young girl, Betta taught me to make boerenkool stamppot, a traditional Dutch dish of kale with mashed potatoes and sausages. I thought about that combination recently when I came across some leftover mashed potatoes in my refrigerator, and I adapted her recipe a bit to show off some beautiful baby kale from the market. Boerenkool, which means "farmer's cabbage", makes a hearty side dish for any roast or grilled meat, poultry or fish; turn it into a traditional stamppot by serving with your favorite sausages (I served mine with some tri-tip). Betta tops her kale and potatoes very nontraditionally, with a dollop of cranberry sauce.