Jen wasn’t feeling well, so I made dinner tonight in between work things. It worked, but it got me thinking about how much easier life is when you have a pantry of staples you can throw together to make something yummy.
Tonight’s recipe was a Mexican-inspired pork stew. Measurements are going to be difficult, but here’s what I rummaged from the kitchen:
- 2/3 of a frozen pork loin
- 2 big russet potatoes
- 2 medium yellow onions
- 2 glugs of dark soy sauce
- 2 large dried ancho chilis
- 2 cans of Rotel tomatoes and chilis
- 4 cubes of chicken bouillon
- 2 big glugs of white whine
- 4 cloves of minced garlic
- A bunch of random spices like cumin, dried cilantro, onion powder, etc
Aaaaaaand, here’s what I ended up putting together with all of that:
- Chopped up the onions and potatoes
- Soaked the ancho chilis and chicken boullion cubes in 6 cups boiling water for 10 minutes
- Sauteed the onions in some olive oil until they started to brown
- Added the garlic
- Deglazed the Instant Pot with the white wine and let it simmer a bit.
- Added the potatoes, tomatoes and chilis and the pork.
- Poured the liquid and chilis over everything in the Instant Pot, put the lid on, sealed it and turned it on to the Soup setting.
Since the pork loin was frozen when I put it in, I quick released it when it was done, then pulled the pork out and cut it up into cubes. I put the pork back in the Instant Pot for 10 minutes to make sure it was cooked, and then served in a bowl topped with some sour cream.
It was delightful.
All of that to say that making dinner tonight I was struck by how easy it was to throw dinner together because I had the pantry staples to make dinner happen. Having things like dark soy, ancho chilis, canned tomatoes, etc made it possible to make dinner without it being an ordeal. It’s so much fun to have all these “toys” to play with!
So, get yourself some dark soy sauce and dried chilis, then play around!