March 22, 2020 –
In the recent week we’ve all seen more than a few images of empty store shelves flash across the news. In one of our trips to the grocery, as our hometown of Seattle prepared to shut down, I watched shoppers young and old grabbing canned food.
As the shelves emptied and people took whatever was left, one young couple said to each, “What we are we going do with canned of green beans?” The other responded, “I don’t know, heat them up? Just grab some.” It left me wondering how many people now have a stash of canned food that they aren’t sure how to transform into meals.
If you (like me) are at home for the foreseeable future, then we’ll need to get creative to keep the home cooking interesting. For this month’s cookbook review, I turned to the bookshelf to find a cookbook ready for the current situation: Choice Recipes and Menus Using Canned Foods.
There is no date, copyright or otherwise, but based on the elegant, colorful illustrations, I’m going with 1940’s, maybe early 1950’s. Published by the American Can Company, it is completely focused on using canned goods to make meals with minimal (or no) fresh ingredients. While this runs quite contrary to our complementary focus on fresh everything; for convenience or food availability, you absolutely can create delicious fast meals with canned food. And if you prefer, you can substitute in fresh for canned.
For example, we test ran a recipe for Sweet Potato & Sausage Bake and could not find canned pork sausages around here and used fresh with canned sweet potatoes.
In addition to recipes, this 48-page cookbook has number of helpful features including a can sizing guide, a guide to good can opener, and menu ideas.
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