The Perfect Pantry®

Slow cooker recipe for lemon-garlic chicken and white bean stew

While it's true that Rival invented the Crock-Pot®, back in 1971, the company didn't invent slow cooking. Clay pots, tagines and Dutch ovens all predate the electric slow cooker. This chicken and white bean stew springs from the French farmhouse tradition of slow cooking in a pot set into the fireplace. Today, thanks to an inexpensive piece of kitchen equipment (the slow cooker I used for this recipe cost less than $20), I can make stew without hauling in wood, building a fire, raking the embers, and lugging a heavy cast-iron Dutch oven from the kitchen to set into the hearth. Lemon and garlic create the flavor base for this healthy, naturally gluten-free stew, which, like most stews, tastes even better the second day.

Brown rice and almond pilaf recipe

Some people make fluffy, puffy, splendiferously perfect rice. I don't seem to have the gene for it. Whenever I attempt stove-top rice, I underboil, overflow the pot, or just, somehow, end up with very blah rice. My life changed forever when I bought my first rice cooker, a $19 model I found at an Asian grocery store. Since then, I've upgraded several times; my current cooker, a three-cup Microcom, makes the best rice (brown, white, jasmine, basmati, whatever you feed it), and it sings a little song when the rice is cooked. I've branched out a bit, too, and used the rice cooker to make quinoa, barley and oatmeal. This recipe for brown rice and almond pilaf, made in the rice cooker, combines typically bland brown rice with sweet caramelized onions, garlic, and toasted almonds. The rice on the bottom of the cooker develops a bit of a brown crust which, when mixed back into the rice, gives the texture of a paella. If you have a richly-flavored vegetable broth in the pantry, swap that for chicken broth to make this a vegan side dish.

Recipe for chicken and vegetable quinoa stir-fry

A couple of years ago, my husband Ted and Cousin Martin hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Every evening, after climbing all day and carrying tents, food and gear, their guides cooked a meal for the group of hikers. When I asked recently what those meals were like, all the guys could remember was "some sort of quinoa stir fry thing with vegetables". Not much to go on, but Kathy and I started with a recipe we found online, and we loved the dish we created, a kind of chicken and vegetable fried rice -- without the rice. I imagine that the Peruvian cooks might have included roasted cubed potatoes. We used cubes of grilled chicken breast, for a super healthy and satisfying entrée. I hope this quinoa stir-fry, even if it's not authentically Peruvian, brings back good memories for Ted and Martin. (PS: Their next climb is Mt. Kilimanjaro. Anyone know any Tanzanian dishes that use our pantry ingredients?)

Recipe for shrimp, kale and cannellini bean casserole

Officially, I might not be the absolutely last person on the planet to fall in love with kale, but I have fallen, and fallen hard. Raw kale salad with a warm vinaigrette remains a favorite, and I'm glad I froze some barley and kale soup. My pantry, well stocked in case of the winter snowstorm that never seems to materialize, inspired this shrimp, kale and cannellini bean casserole; all of the ingredients, except the kale, came straight from the cupboard, fridge and freezer. A rustic Tuscan-style dish that comes together in minutes and bakes for just half an hour, this casserole needs only a glass of white wine, and a bit of crusty bread to mop up the juices.