I guess I'm not making that for dinner

[redbird]

I just took an inventory of our canned beans, after discovering that we're out of chick peas--which I discovered at the beginning of collecting ingredients for what I planned to cook. The goal was roast chick peas and yams, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen (via adrian_turtle).

This is what comes of shopping, and getting other people to shop for us, without counting or otherwise checking: we have six cans of black beans, five cans of pinto beans, and one can each of small red beans and navy beans. Yes, I use black beans more often than any other kind, but I thought I had chick peas. Some kinds of beans can be substituted for each other, but chick peas are different from the other kinds of beans we have.

Yes, a more thorough inventory of the cabinets would be a good idea, now that we have much more in there than we used to, and are shopping less often. I did count the soup and the diced tomatoes, but noticed without writing down a can of coconut milk and one of pears.

Normally, we get by with lists of the freezer contents and the fresh fruit and vegetables, which are much more prone to out of sight, out of mind. But these are not normal times.

There are far worse things to be out of than chick peas, I know: we're not even close to being out of food. Nonetheless, this is annoying enough that it's worth making a little effort to prevent it happening again. (I might still run out of chick peas: that's happened before, but not when I was sure I had some.)

Comments

[jenett]

I am finding that "get a better grip on your pantry" is a necessary task right now. I am working on getting everything into an app, and then will have to work on telling it I'm out of things when I use them.

(I have a lot of chickpeas, because I kept thinking I was out, but almost no white beans, though that should be better with the next order I get. And I have a weird lack of actual garlic, though I have three three varieties of Penzey's garlic, so it's not like I'm really lacking that much?)

[redbird]

I have a bulb and a half of garlic, plus a couple of Penzey's garlics; we are fond enough of the roasted garlic powder that I can't remember the last time we used the freeze-dried.

I have lists mostly in Notepad, which seems sufficient to my needs.

[jenett]

I like the freeze dried in stews and soups, mostly. (Ditto the freeze dried ginger).

The roasted garlic is usually my go to for just general use, yeah. So good.

I'm trying an app because more convenient to do with my phone in the kitchen, since I can do partial word lookups. We'll see if I keep it up. (I go through noting the fridge and the stuff on the kitchen table today: under counter storage and the pantry to go. I probably won't bother doing the spices because I do usually keep on top of when I run out.)

[ranunculus]

Do you ever use the dry chick peas? I prefer them, even though they require a lot of soaking and cooking. When you are done they taste EVER so much better.

[adrian_turtle]

It's been a long time since I've made dry chick peas, but I actually prefer the canned. Maybe that's partly because I didn't grow up eating chick peas, so the cooked-from-dry don't taste like grandma used to make. Of course, whenever there's a difference somebody is going to like it the other way.

[ranunculus]

Interesting, I grew up on the canned ones, and liked them but the instant I tasted the dry and cooked ones I was a convert.

[ambyr]

Yeah, I also find dry chickpeas very odd and not at all my desired flavor/texture profile.

[piglet]

Yes, I’m finding that if I place an order and then they remove an item from it, it doesn’t go back into my brain as “thing we need”. So today we found ourselves out of both butter and olive oil. Whoops.

And then SOMEHOW I ended up an extra loaf of white sandwich bread. So we have 2.5 loaves, which is WAY too much. We eat more whole grain. Thank goddess for preservatives.

[redbird]

I also wound up with extras of things, because our last shopping was done by a friend of a friend, and the list discussed/sent by email, rather than in an app. Where I specifically gave an amount--so many bananas, so much milk--she got that. Everything else, she bought two of.

Mostly that's no big deal: we will use the extra dried cherries and frozen salmon, and it turns out we have started on the second package of Pepperidge Farm rye bread. But we weren't low enough on rice that I'd have bought multiple bags, with people worrying about hoarding (and I'd rather have rice grown in California than Pakistan, since reading a few years ago that California basmati tends to contain less heavy metal than South Asian). But we'll use it, I think, and the list on the freezer door says "sockeye salmon, 2x," so we're unlikely to forget we have it.

[sine_nomine]

Might I suggest bread crumbs? They're freeze-able and surprisingly helpful, imho.

[otter]

We've been steadily making inroads on the pantry and freezer shelves. I usually stay more stocked up than this, but it's hard to ask others to do my usual "If it's on discount, buy 6" thing. We send out our list and hope for the best.

The only thing I ran out of last week was dark chocolate, because I didn't specify how many I wanted, so my friend only got one. I posted a silly thing about it and a couple days later she showed up to pick up face masks, and left 2 bars of dark chocolate for me. :)