On the theme of cleaning out the pantry... I also make smoothies.

"Cleaning out the pantry" smoothie recipes

One day, when I was in college, a guy showed up at the door of my apartment from a party across the street and offered to trade one of my roommates a bottle of coconut rum he had taken from the party for a cigarette.  This was obviously a major score for us, except that we had nothing to mix the rum with.  After raiding the refrigerator and pantry, I discovered some canned fruit, which we threw into the blender with rum and ice, creating delicious alcoholic fruit smoothies!

Since that day, I have been throwing random, cast-aside pantry items into blenders and making them delicious, from soups to smoothies to dips.  This past week, I have discovered unused items like applesauce, cranberry sauce, crystallized orange, cocoa powder (sweetened) and peanut butter and turned them into delicious treats instead of throwing them away.

This week's major victories in the smoothie department are as follows:

Orange/cranberry/ginger smoothie

- 1 individual container of greek yogurt with some kind of fruit (or just a cup of yogurt)
- 1 individual container of applesauce (or 1/2 cup from a jar)
- 1/3 can of cranberry sauce
- 1 - 2 packets of crystallized orange (http://www.truelemon.com/true-orange-cooking)
- Minced or powdered ginger, to taste
- Any frozen fruit

Blend these things.  Add liquid of choice if needed (I use green tea by the spoon with this one, but not much is needed because most of the ingredients aren't solid.)

Banana/PB/Mocha smoothie

This one is ice-creamy and wonderful

- 1 chopped frozen banana
- Peanut butter (1-2 tbsp)
- Dutch cocoa powder (or whatever cocoa powder is in YOUR pantry), to taste.  I used 1 spoonful, but 2 would not be crazy.
- about 1/3 cup of coffee, or a little less for thicker, more ice creamy consistency

Blend it.  Love it.

"Cleaning the pantry" soup #2356 (or something comparable, as I make soup every time I clean my pantry)

Asparagus, tomato and goat cheese soup

I'm getting ready to go traveling for awhile, and one of the elements of my impending move into storage is the cleaning out of pantry ingredients.  Today I needed to get rid of a jar of white asparagus (asparagus in a jar makes better pureed soup than fresh, due to its texture), a can of tomatoes and one refrigerator impulse buy, sweet hot pepper goat cheese.

Boil the jar of asparagus and the can of diced tomatoes in a saucepan for a few minutes with about a cup of water and some garlic salt and ground red pepper to taste.  Then puree it all, put it back in the pan with the burner on medium-ish.  Crumble in 1/4 to 1/2 of the log of goat cheese (depending on how badly you need to get rid of the goat cheese) and stir.  After about 5-10 minutes, split it into two generous servings and eat it with other things you need to finish.  In my case, that was two pieces of rye toast with EVOO and garlic salt.

Then give me a big hug because that was so good.