Stocked pantry to the rescue

This past Shabbos I decided to make a simpler Shabbos menu than usual.  We didn’t have any guests planned, my oldest dd was away in NY, and I just felt like making things a little simpler.  Practically speaking it meant we didn’t make any desserts and made one salad less.

My dh wasn’t aware of this, and spontaneously invited someone after services on Friday night to join us for dinner.  That was fine; we just put out some fresh fruit, sliced almonds, and raisins for dessert.  Then he told me that he also invited someone else for lunch the next day, and my dd13 told me that our green bean salad was almost totally finished (our guest loved it :)) and we didn’t have much in terms of salad for the next day; the vegetable dishes we had wouldn’t serve well cold.

After returning from NY, dd14 told me the families she ate with hardly served any vegetable dishes or salads, so knowing that, we could have just pretended to be one of those families.  But to us the meal feels paltry without some salads at lunch.  We found some defrosted french cut green beans in the fridge (it had been done ‘accidentally’ on Friday afternoon, but we were obviously meant to have it ready to use!) so we added that to the green bean salad.

First of all, dd assembled the odds and ends of vegetables into a delicious fresh salad.  That gave us two fresh salads.   Then we turned to the pantry.  I pulled out a quart of coleslaw.  This is the only thing I have that is like a fresh salad that I canned.  (If anyone is interested, let me know and I’ll explain the process; it’s not hard.)  Then we took out a can of orange cranberry relish (store bought), sweet and sour carrots (home canned), zucchini relish (home canned), and pickled green tomatoes (home canned).  Then we had plenty of vegetables. 🙂

I really recommend that every one stock their pantries.  Not only does it 1) save you money because you can stock up on when items are on sale or buy in bulk, 2) save you time and money because you’ll have what you need in the house instead of running to the store more frequently, but 3) it makes it much easier to be relaxed about having guests over!

Avivah