15 more ingredients for your grocery list — and the mix-and-match ways to use them
If you liked our grocery list from last month, here's a fresh and fabulous one to try out
The 15-ingredient grocery list we shared last month was designed with extending the time between trips to the store in mind — it came with a ton of meal ideas based on those items. Already worn those out? We've got a follow up list here to ensure you've got delicious and interesting meals to cook even in this time when you can't get to the store much.
Use these recipe ideas as your jumping off point, swapping in whatever you have in place of things you don't. Sub rice in for the quinoa or frozen peas in place of corn, for instance, and make them your own with spices from your cupboard or fresh herbs plucked from your sill.
Just like last time, there are some kitchen essentials we assume you already have, things like oils, butter, salt, sugar, garlic and onions. With those stocked, here's what else to pick up, and just some of the meals you can make once you do.
The ingredients:
White or savoy cabbage, frozen corn kernels, a bottle of fish sauce, garlic and ginger paste, quinoa, dried porcini mushrooms, a couple of cans of coconut milk, pecans, limes (or bottled lime juice), sweet potatoes, canned green chilies (chopped or whole), canned black beans, stock or bouillon cubes, chickpea flour, and a pound of ground meat (chicken, pork, beef...).
Use them up in all of the following ways — or more
Ground meat + sweet potatoes + dried porcini mushrooms + pecans
Make meatballs. Grate a sweet potato on the finest side of a grater and grind ¼ cup of dried porcini mushrooms (for their umami flavour) and about three times as many pecans in a blender or food processor to make a flour. Mix a pound of ground mushrooms, pecans, and shredded sweet potato into the ground meat. Season with salt and pepper and fry a small flattened piece of the meat mixture, and then taste, so you can adjust the seasoning before rolling the rest of the mixture into meatballs, and baking or frying them.
Black beans + sweet potatoes + stock + corn + lime
Make a black bean stew. Saute a large, chopped onion in oil until really soft, about 15 minutes or so, stirring frequently to avoid browning. Add a couple of cloves of minced garlic at the end to soften for about 30 seconds, then add a can of drained and rinsed black beans and a couple diced sweet potatoes. Pour in enough stock to cover everything, plus a bit extra to get to a stew-like consistency. Cook until the sweet potatoes are soft, adding frozen corn near the end to heat it through. Season the stew with salt and pepper and lime juice to taste, and simmer uncovered to reduce the stew to your desired consistency. You can puree it all too, for a creamy soup, if you'd like.
Chickpea flour + black beans + green chilies + corn + lime
Make vegetable fritters. Whisk ¾ cups of chickpea flour with ½ cup of water and add salt, pepper and lime juice to season the paste. Steam some frozen corn until soft. Stir in some chopped green chilies, and mix just enough corn and black beans into the chickpea batter to speckle it throughout. If the batter is very thin, add more chickpea flour. Form the batter into loose patties and shallow fry them in oil in a hot pan.
Chickpea flour + corn + sweet potato + green chilies
Follow this recipe for making chickpea flatbread — or socca (note that the batter requires at least an hour of resting). Bake one or two peeled sweet potatoes until soft, and puree with enough stock to make a spread; season it with salt and pepper and drizzle in some melted butter if you want a richer taste. Defrost the frozen corn and serve the flatbread spread with the sweet potato puree and topped with corn and chopped green chilies.
Ground meat + pecans + green chilies + coconut milk + lime + sweet potatoes
Make a saucy, ground meat dish with a side of sweet potato chips. Slice a couple of sweet potatoes into thin rounds, drizzle with oil and salt, and bake until softened and browning. Make a pecan gravy by dissolving ⅓ cup of brown sugar in ⅔ cups of water, and boil for 5 minutes in a small pot; puree that with 1 cup of pecans, half of a can of green chilies and about ½ can or more of coconut milk. Add a splash of lime juice and season with salt and pepper. Season and cook a pound of meat, and stir in just enough pecan gravy to loosen it up. Serve with the sweet potato rounds.
Garlic and ginger paste + dried porcini mushrooms + cabbage + corn + quinoa
Cook the quinoa and set aside. Soak about 14 grams of dried porcini mushrooms in room temperature water for ½ an hour. Slice the cabbage thinly and saute it in a few glugs of oil. When it's almost soft, add a spoonful of ginger garlic paste and some corn and cook until the cabbage is soft and the corn is heated, stirring (add a bit of the mushroom liquid if the pan is drying out). Stir in the reconstituted mushrooms at the end and season with salt and pepper. Serve with the quinoa.
White or savoy cabbage + quinoa + ginger and garlic paste + black beans + sweet potatoes
Make meatless cabbage rolls. Cook the quinoa and dice and steam a sweet potato. Peel off the outer leaves of the cabbage and boil them in salted water until tender-crisp, about 5 minutes. Sweat an onion in olive oil and add the black beans and a spoonful of ginger-garlic paste, and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the cooked quinoa and sweet potatoes and adjust the seasonings to taste. Roll a tablespoon of this filling in the centre of each cabbage leaf, and layer them in a baking dish with a lid. Make a roux with oil and flour and slowly whisk in enough stock and water to get gravy. Season with salt and pepper and pour over cabbage rolls. Bake, covered, until the cabbage is nice and soft, about 1 - 1 ½ hours.
Sweet potatoes + quinoa + black beans + corn + lime + pecans
Bake sweet potatoes until they are soft, and toast some pecans in the oven. Cook the quinoa and thaw some frozen corn. Chop and fry an onion in vegetable oil until very soft and browning, about 15 minutes, adding more oil or water if your pan dries up. Add a pinch of sugar, along with the cooked quinoa and corn. Season with salt, pepper and lime juice. Split the sweet potatoes open and top them with the quinoa mixture. Serve with toasted pecans and a drizzle of olive oil.
Coconut milk + quinoa + lime + fish sauce
Make a simple Thai-like soup. Cook some quinoa and set it aside. Finely chop a medium onion and simmer it in 2 cups of vegetable stock and a can of coconut milk for about 15 minutes, then puree it until smooth and add quinoa, a teaspoon or two of sugar, a tablespoon of fish sauce, and the juice of one lime. Taste the seasonings and adjust.
Ground meat + sweet potatoes + cabbage + lime + fish sauce + pecans
Make wraps using cabbage for the shell. Cube a sweet potatoes into ½-inch squares and steam or roast until soft. Toast the pecans. Wash some cabbage leaves and pat them dry. Peel and smash three cloves of garlic, and fry them gently in a couple glugs of oil for about 30 seconds, then add a pound of ground meat and cook fully. Turn off the heat and stir in a finely chopped small onion, the cooked sweet potato, 2 tablespoons of fresh lime juice, and 1 tablespoon (or a little more) of fish sauce. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Fill each cabbage leaf with about a tablespoon or so of filling and top it off with pecans.
Looking for more recipes to make with these ingredients? Try these:
Socca with Walnut Pesto and Arugula
Quinoa Bowl with Pickled Vegetables, Edamame and Tofu Balls
Jessica Brooks is a digital producer and pro-trained cook and baker. Follow her food stories on Instagram @brooks_cooks.
