Adventures in cleaning out the kitchen

[sam_gamgee]

Inspired by:
a) my desire to start cooking on a more regular basis (okay, okay, in general)
b) my desire to do a bit of spring cleaning
c) watching No Reservations (which I really liked and definitely recommend)
d) and seeing all of you talk about food and randomly seeing Joe Mallozzi post to his blog about food,

This evening, I sorted through the cabinet where we keep the canned goods and cleaned out a few things that were past their expiration date. (One can was from 2002! And we had some Jello mix from 1998!) And I made a list of the "odd" things we have that we don't normally use (so who knows why my dad bought them). (So, for instance, the several cans of tomato paste and tomato sauce didn't make the list because we make chili and spaghetti sauce fairly regularly.)

Now, I have to find recipes to use:
- 1 bottle of mesquite barbeque sauce
- 1 bottle A-1
- 1 can red kidney beans
- 1 can black beans
- 1 can jellied cranberry sauce
- 1 can condensed green pea soup
- 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
- 3 cans of creamed corn
- 4 cans of salmon (which have an expiration date of *2013* - and I know we bought them a while ago)
- 5 cans of chicken broth
- 7.5 cans of peas (the .5 is from a smaller can that's about half the size of the others)


I know that there is at least one meal, if not two, in there because the salmon could be used to make salmon cakes, the creamed corn could be the starch/veggie, and the cranberry sauce a side.

But what do you do with 7.5 cans of peas?!? (And, yes, I realize that they don't need to be used all at once.) I don't think we've ever eaten canned peas - we always use frozen.

So, flist, any recipies/ideas/suggestions/whatever would be greatly appreciated. (And the recipies don't have to be just for these items - I'd be grateful for any recipies that you like.)

And to continue my adventures in cleaning out the kitchen, I will tackle our pantry either tomorrow or next weekend. And after that, the freezer! :-P

Comments

[monet1873.livejournal.com]

You have any olive oil, tomatoes, balsamic vinager, bell peppers and maybe plain canned corn? Mom has a yummy bean salad I could try to hijack from her... Oh, and you could always do a salmon salad or salmon cakes....Come to think of it, I have a cookbook dedicated to salmon I could pook through for more ideas...

[sam-gamgee.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that sounds yummy. I think we do have those items, or they should be easy enough to get. And I was thinking of making salmon cakes with the salmon (since I will actually eat that).

Hey - we're planning on going to Va La on the 26th, around 3. Feel like coming?