The Perfect Pantry

Powdered buttermilk (Recipe: pear spice cupcakes)

When you drive toward my town from pretty much anywhere, you pass a mall or two.

Big box stores, little box stores, grocery stores and discount stores. Drive-through doughnuts, drive-up banking. Hardware, software, sportswear.

It's hard to believe that, a century ago, apple orchards and dairy farms, punctuated by occasional clusters of tiny wood-shingled houses along the road, were all you'd find around here. Today, what remains is the name -- Apple Valley -- and just a handful of orchards.

Our house is on the outskirts of Apple Valley, five or ten miles from here to one of those grocery stores, not far to drive in good weather but not fun in the winter. So, at this time of year, I always keep shelf-stable milk and powdered buttermilk in my pantry.

Dulce de leche (Recipe: dulce de leche milhojas)

Now for a special treat: guest posts by the three food bloggers I've adopted through the Adopt-a-Blogger mentoring program. (Please be sure to visit their terrific blogs.) Today, meet Rebecca of From Argentina With Love, the first blog I adopted. A former teacher, she writes about Argentinean food, wine, and life in and around the small town of Bowen, where her husband's family lives. She's a wonderful cook who teaches classes in the Denver area, and her charming stories of the people and food of Argentina will enchant you.

Guest post and photos by Rebecca of From Argentina With Love

Along with tango and Evita, dulce de leche is one of the first things that comes to mind when people think of Argentina.

The sticky, sweet caramel spread plays so beloved a role in the culinary culture in Argentina that, in 2003, the country declared it a "national product" and lobbied UNESCO for official designation -- much to the chagrin of neighboring Uruguay, who argued that they have been making dulce de leche just as long as Argentina has.

Dulce de leche’s legendary status comes complete with a saga of mythic proportions.

Nutella®, a Pantry Special (recipe: banana or strawberry quesadillas)

Pantry Specials are great ingredients that find their way into my pantry from time to time, but not all the time. In this occasional series of short posts, you'll find information and recipes for foods that might not be on your local supermarket's shelves, but are available online.

When I suggested to my pastry chef friend Cindy that we make Nutella® quesadillas for dessert last week, she asked, "Italian Nutella or Canadian Nutella?" I had no idea what she meant, but a bit of research turned up the answer. Though the Ferrero corporation owns the trademark, the actual chocolate-hazelnut-skim-milk spread made in Italy since the 1940s is not the same product made in Canada and imported to America for the past twenty years. Canadian Nutella contains more chocolate and more sugar, and less hazelnut, than the Italian original. You'll find Nutella on the supermarket shelf with peanut butter, which makes sense; it tastes enough like chocolate peanut butter that I'm sure Elvis would have loved to spread it on his signature sandwich. Stored at room temperature (never in the refrigerator), Nutella keeps for months, though it seldom lasts that long in my house.

Greek yogurt (Recipe: lemon walnut yogurt dessert)

 

Nine things I know, and one thing I don't know, about Greek yogurt (you'll be glad to know them, too):

Phyllo dough (Recipe: phyllo nests topped with sorbet)

Baked Desserts Week, Day Three. 

Phyllophobia.

Fee low PHO bee yah.

Do you have it, the fear of phyllo dough, the fear of poking your finger through the paper-thin pastry and making a hole that cannot be repaired, the fear of letting the flaky dough dry out and crack, the fear of shredding the dough with a paintbrush as you add melted butter to each layer?

You are not alone. I used to be phyllophobic, too.

It's irrational, of course, like my fear of heights, or of mice, or of ham. But, unlike those fears, I've overcome my fear of phyllo.

And I'm so glad I did.

Refrigerated pie crust, and a cookbook giveaway (Recipe: rum raisin pear pie)

Dear readers, you know that I'm a bake-o-phobe, and I know how much you love desserts. I'm really trying, all this week, just for you. Welcome to The Perfect Pantry's first-ever Baked Desserts Week, Day One.

When I turned 40, which was oh-so-many years ago, I made my first two-crust pie.

Well, honestly, it was my first any-crust pie.

And it wasn't even my crust. It was refrigerated pie crust, from the supermarket.

I couldn't have been more proud if I'd made the crust from scratch.

Which I never, for a single minute, considered doing.

Walnuts (Recipe: walnut squares)

When I was growing up, my parents hosted lots of bridge parties. 

In the 1950s and '60s, card-playing evenings were all the rage. My parents invited one couple, or sometimes three couples, for bridge, cocktails and snacks. As these parties never started before 8:00, my brother and I were allowed -- no, commanded -- to appear in our pajamas to greet the guests ("Hi, Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So. Yes, it's fun to stay up late. Yes, I'm being good in school.") before we toddled off to bed.

On a tray table, within easy reach of the players, my mother set out bowls of Chex mix that she'd made herself. And whole walnuts, too, with a heavy nutcracker and a dish for the shells.

In the morning, my brother and I descended upon the leftover nuts. We didn't eat them; we looked for wrinkly faces in the wrinkly shells. Sometimes we'd find one that looked like my grandfather, or one of our teachers, or Richard Nixon.

Eggs, or no eggs (Recipes: Wacky Cake and Poor Man's Cake)

Please welcome Sarah, who with this post joins The Perfect Pantry as guest blogger. A working artist, sculptor, and consultant on public art projects, Sarah's work has won numerous awards and fellowships, and has been featured in exhibits across the country. She is a dedicated urban gardener and coordinates a large multi-cultural community garden in Boston's South End.

Guest post and photos by Sarah in Boston

When I was a kid, my mom created a special scrapbook cookbook especially for my dad.

He was plagued with terrible headaches and swelling in his hands and feet, and assumed that he had food allergies. Through trial-and-error cooking, they concluded he must be allergic to eggs. 

As a traveling salesman, my dad had to eat most of his meals on the road, so when he came home they tried to calm his system with all his favorite comfort foods.

It wasn’t until he was in his late sixties that he was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease, hereditary angioedema -- not food allergies -- and, after treatment, to his great joy he could eat anything. But two of those egg-free desserts, made with ingredients from my mother's pantry, remained his particular favorites: Wacky Cake (in the top photo), which my mother made for family birthdays, and Poor Man’s Cake.

Tapioca (Recipe: white-on-red tapioca pudding)

Guest post and photos by Peter in Brazil, chef and co-owner of Pousada do Capão

On New Year's Eve, I needed to come up with one more dessert for my inn full of guests, to accompany the profiteroles with bittersweet chocolate sauce and the strawberry-hibiscus crostata on the buffet table.

There just wasn’t time to make another shopping trip to Diamantina, an hour away, so I turned to my perfect pantry for inspiration.

The first thing that caught my eye were the three bags of tapioca –- large pearl, small pearl, and small grains.

Dark chocolate, and a sweet giveaway (Recipe: chocolate-mango-kiwi wontons)

Ted and I agree on many things, but not on everything.

He likes books about King Arthur, a certain Montreal hockey team, watching Spanish-language broadcasts of soccer matches even though he doesn't speak Spanish, white-out snowstorms, and opera.

I don't.

He also likes cilantro, cauliflower, tropical fruits, ham-and-cheese sandwiches, sweetened condensed milk, rutabaga, and fish served with the head on.

I don't.

In fact, until it was too late, until I was years into our marriage, I didn't realize that we differ in another important way:

I am a milk chocolate girl married to a dark chocolate guy.