We’ve all done it, gotten so busy with day-to-day activities that dinner gets put on the back burner — nothing more than a fleeting thought at some point during your crazy, hectic day. Then you get home, open the pantry door and see nothing more than a couple of cans of cream-of-something soup and a lonely package of dry pasta begging for some spaghetti sauce. But there’s none to be found.
You get the picture. And the last thing you want to do in the dead of winter is shrug your coat back on, bundle up the kids if you have any and head back out the door in search of a dinner that goes beyond fast-food burgers and fries.
As a Memphis-based restaurant consultant, Le Cordon Bleu graduate, freelance food writer and author of her latest book, “The Southern Pantry Cookbook,” not to mention the mother of two daughters, Jennifer Chandler knows that situation all too well.
Anne BralyShe remembers coming home one afternoon and finding herself in a quandary. “I remember looking in the fridge and thought to myself, ‘Oh no! I have nothing for dinner.’ I contemplated calling my husband and asking him to pick up pizza on the way home.”
But she resisted the urge, instead trying to solve the problem with what she had on hand in her freezer. Before long, shrimp and grits were on the table made from frozen shrimp, canned tomatoes, boxed chicken stock, bacon and instant grits.