....Which in the realm of the kitchen, is not a bad thing. There are some things which my kitchen will never lack: Knorr's chicken bouillon cubes because they save your ass in so many ways. Coconut milk because it is essential to my favorite soup and to coconut rice. Beans, because as Laurie Colwin said, a house without canned beans is a house that is not stocked for emergency. And fresh bread crumbs.
Yes, fresh bread crumbs. My mother did this to me. She taught me to make meatloaf and meatballs and breaded this-or-that and indoctrinated me into the importance of fresh bread crumbs. Therefore, once or twice a year, you will see me arrive home from the grocery store with what looks like provisions for a barbecue:
Just regular old hot dog and hamburger buns. El cheapo. On sale is ideal. Into the food processor they go, and after being crumbified, right back into the bags and into the freezer.
Since this is a blog and since this is real life, I timed the entire operation as well as taking pictures. It takes eleven (11) minutes from opening the bags to putting the Cuisinart pieces into the dishwasher. Possibly less because you will not be pausing to take pictures.
Want to see what else my mother did to me? Check it out:
Know what that is? No, it's not pot, ha ha, very cute. That is fresh chopped parsley. My mother taught me to buy bunches of it, wash it, dry it, de-stem it, whirl it up in the Cuisinart, bag it and freeze it. And now, damn it, I can't be without it. I am a parsley whore. I put it in everything. The process takes much longer (it's the de-steming part, you could go crazy) but to me it's just one of those things that's worth it. Mom also taught me to chop and freeze dill but I abandoned that practice after a few years and decided dried dill was good enough for me. But scallions, surprise, freeze really well. Chop them up, throw them in a bag and next time you're making Mexican food or Black Bean Soup or anything else where you think, Damn I wish I had some scallions... You do! Grab the bag and throw them right in. Bam. You're a genius.
(Did I say parsley whore? Really?)