Fired any groceries lately?

In an era when office cutbacks mean those employees still on the payroll must now be able to do two or three other jobs in addition to their own, it’s time to take a look at your pantry and ask: Are your groceries earning their keep?

Take cooking oil. Whether it’s canola, corn or the murkily labeled “vegetable oil,” this is one grocery item that does its job and then some. Pour it in the cake batter, then use it to grease the pan. You can also whip up a salad dressing, oil a squeaky door hinge or deep fry just about any food that you think would be improved with extra crunch and calories. Don’t know what to do with those leftover Halloween candy bars in the freezer? Plunge them into a vat of boiling oil and hawk them at a festival for 10 times their original cost. Then recycle the used oil into biodiesel fuel.

Now compare that pantry performer with another item taking up shelf space: say, Pop Tarts. You can eat them, if you want to start your day with a sugar rush devoid of nutrition. They can quiet a whining child. If they get stale enough, I suppose you could use them to shim a wobbly table. But after that, their versatility begins to wane.

As the kitchen boss, which of those two would you keep on the pantry payroll?

Here are some other All-Star Pantry Performers I’d keep on a skeleton crew:

Graham crackers make a great low-calorie snack Can also be used for:

·s’mores
·graham cracker dessert crust (just crush them in a plastic bag)
·sandwich cookies (fill 2 halves with peanut butter or a simple icing of milk and powdered sugar)

Oranges are juicy, tasty and so full of Vitamin C they ought to be stored in the medicine cabinet. Other uses:

·Scrape off the orange skin (but not the white part, which is bitter) to make orange zest.
·Once the oranges are gone, toss the nylon mesh bag in the drawer where you keep kitchen sponges and pot scrubbers. Next time you need to scrape dried crud off a pot, just ball up the bag, scrape off the gunk, then either toss it in the trash or run it through the dishwasher to use again.

Corn Flakes are one of the least expensive cereals around; my target price is 99 cents a box, and when I find them at that price, I stock up. Other uses:

·A teaspoon of sugar transforms them into a lighter version of Sugar Frosted Flakes.
·Crushed flakes can do the work of bread or cracker crumbs in most recipes.
·Substitute for Special K in Special K bars.

Powdered milk is a great substitute for regular milk, if you happen to run out. Just make sure you chill it firstt. It‘s also convenient for baking, so that you don‘t use up the milk supply in the fridge. Other uses:
·Mix 1 dry cup with 1 cup rolled oats and half a cup each of peanutbutter and honey to make a fantastic trail snack we call honeyballs.
·Paint.your house, using the recipe in “Paint Your House with Powdered Milk,” by Joey Green.

Vinegar is great for cleaning your coffeemaker, and when you’re done, you can pour the hot mixture down the kitchen sink to knock loose crud buildup that can lead to clogs. Volumes have been written on this pantry performer’s versatility, but here are some of the things I count on vinegar to do for me:
·Convert regular milk to “sour milk” or “butter milk” for certain cake and pancake recipes. Just add a teaspoon to a cup of milk.
·Turn regular old cooking oil into a serviceable salad dressing.

Expired milk update

I was curious to try the milk yesterday at seven days past the expiration date, which would have, I believe, set a record for us. But I forgot to say anything to the kids about it, and when I looked in the fridge that half gallon was gone. Drunk up, without a word. More evidence that its drinkability was not just some twisted frugal bias on my part, for they surely would have yelped if the milk tasted funny.

Experimenting with expiration

In my ongoing experimentation with "expired" milk, this morning I ate a bowl of cereal with milk that is six days past its expiration date. I drank a little in a cup beforehand, so I wouldn't ruin the cereal in case the milk was sour. But it wasn't.

Experimenting with sour milk

Yesterday, encouraged by some postings on other frugal blogs, I tried making biscuits with milk that was six days past its “sell by” date. But I can’t even say for sure whether the milk was “sour,” because my son poured some on his cereal by mistake earlier in the day, and said the taste wasn’t noticeably different. The biscuits were good, everyone agreed, but we couldn’t tell if they tasted any different, either.
Exploring the science of sour milk feels like a brave new frontier for me, because it suddenly creates a bunch of uses out of the very cheapest kind of milk. I’m even thinking about setting the rest of the jug out on the counter and seeing if it separates -- and if so, whether we can make it into cottage cheese.