No, no, this isn’t a list of all
the dals and vegetables you will find in Mom’s kitchen. All of that makes
for a series of great meals, sure, but you’re a babe in a hurry. One who
is on the move 24/7 and one who wants to eat well. So, let’s get together
what you need.
In The Smart
Girl’s Fridge
Milk. Low fat, low cream, whatever you
desire.
• Tomato puree. Great for soup and curries. It can even be
used to make juice.
• Eggs. Have one lot hard-boiled, but in their
shells.
• Butter. Margerine. Lard (great for making pie
crust).
• A ‘dubba’ of hard cheese for grating on top of
sandwiches, pasta, salads.
• Cheese spread. This you can make
yourself, using milk, grated cheese and all-spice seasoning.
• Mayo.
Low fat.
• A perennial pile of long-lasting fruits and veggies like
onions, potatoes, ginger, garlic, oranges, mosambi, lemons, apples. And whatever
else the season brings.
• Herb-infused oils to drizzle over breads
and rotis. Infuse sprigs of parsley, basil, and thyme in olive oil and there
you have them.
• Ripe, red tomatoes for instant
bruschetta.
• Small portions of bacon or salami for a quick
spaghetti-sauce. Dunno how to make the sauce? Mix a measured amount of the
shredded cold meats into a tomato puree-and-capsicum-based sauce.
Voila!
• Ice cream for instant dessert. Whatever the
season!
• Yoghurt, flavoured. Or plain creamy dahi. A BIG bowl of
it.
• Frozen wine in ice cubes for cooking purposes. All you need to
do is toss a couple of cubes into the wok with the bird for yummy chicken in
wine.
• Lemon juice, pre-prepared.
• Liquid stock, made
from the water you boil meat or chicken or veggies
in.
In The Smart Girl’s
Store
Cupboard
• Coffee.
• Tea.
• Cocoa
powder.
• Bread, plain and flavoured. Buns.
• Salt.
Garlic salt.
• Wheat flour, aka atta.
• White flour, aka
maida.
• Crackers. A dieting gal’s best snack.
• Sugar. Brown sugar. Powdered sugar.
• Cinnamon,
powdered or in sticks.
• Pasta. Every kind there is, for varying
(yours as well as your guests’) tastes.
• Cereals, whatever
your family fancies.
• Oats. Makes a nifty porridge as well as soup
thickener.
• Tinned fish. Salmon and for ‘jaldi’ snacks
on toast or a pizza base.
• Beans. Small, large, kidney-shaped, red,
white, yellow... all of it is delicious. Oh, and baked beans in tomato sauce for
that impromptu TV meal.
• Rice. Wild, brown,
Basmati.
• Tomato sauce, ketchup or the spicy kind.
• A
spice box with basil, mint oregano, rosemary, thyme, parsley, at the very least.
• Wine, table or cooking kind. The inexpensive kind, in other
words.
• Honey.
• Jams. Marmalade. A tub or two of
strawberry preserve.
• Olive oil.
• Vegetable oil. To be
used as sparingly as possible.
• Vinegar, white and
red.
• Essences, vanilla, rose, etc.
• Chutneys. Mango,
tomato, carrot...we aren’t telling you to make them, cadge them from a
kitchen–friendly pal, your mom or grandma. Or, better still... buy them at
the nearest market.
• Yeast.
• Mustard.
• A
bottle of ‘paanch phorun’ if you have ‘Bong’
friends.
• Soya sauce.
• Chilli
sauce.
• Worcestershire sauce.
• Roasted nuts. Great for a
snack, even better for a quick garnish. And ooooh, so healthy, so
tasty.
• Paper towels so your pinkies stay clean and the fried food
stays that much less oily.
• Silver foil to wrap your lunch in, to
keep baked food warm and to seal in the flavour of cooked
Keep at
hand, a tin of coffee or tea
Honey has medicinal value and it’s
tasty as well
Cheshire cheese is the oldest Cheddar-type cheese, and
the oldest named cheese in Britain. There are three varieties, a white, a
‘red’ (actually yellow in colour), which are dyed with annatto, and
a blue-veined variety originally considered undesirable when it occurred
accidentally.
