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A recent mouse-related incident resulted in me throwing out a selection of dried goods: rices, pastas, noodles, beans, lentils, etc. It was liberating - some of these packets had been sitting there for years and even moved house with me. I discovered food I didn't know I owned. (I note in passing that mice who steal green lentils leave the skins.) However some things were mouse-proof, due either to packaging or to location. I can't bring myself to throw away good food, so I decided to use it. Part of the reason things hang around in my kitchen is because I "might need them" to make another batch of the recipe I acquired them for, or for some other recipe belonging to that cuisine/style/genre. THIS IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. When I make too much tamarind paste, it *will* sit in the fridge until it grows mould (about three months, I think). When I buy two kilos of carrots even though I only need half a pound because that's what size the bag is and they're-good-for-me-anyway-so-I-should-eat-more-of-them, they *will* take up far too much space in the vegetable drawer until they reach retirement age and go all wrinkly and stop being hard. When I see a packet of snow-dried tofu in the wholefood shop and get all excited because I've never seen it before but I have a recipe that I saved from a mailing list back in 1995, I *will* have most of the packet left over and not like the recipe anyway. Anyway. I also have a kilo and a half of lentils. That's what size the bag was, and they're good for me anyway, so I should eat more of them. This isn't a problem, since I adore lentils almost as much as aubergines. Lentils go with anything! I am going to test that last statement. If lentils really do go with anything, then they should help me clear out my cupboards. I have started modestly. I have some lentils simmering right now with: * carrot (counts as something needing clearing out; see above) * potato (see carrot) * tamarind paste (from Indian meal cooked a week and a half ago) * a slightly wrinkled tomato that I suspect of having been too close to the back of the fridge at some point and hence getting briefly frozen * some paprika (the big bag was cheaper than the small jar, honest, that's why I have 200g of it) * a spoonful of onion marmalade (in recipe-testing phase to put on website; it's very very nice but it's not worth publishing a recipe that only makes a small amount of it, and, well, I do like to run more than one test) and also things that I don't need to use up but which taste nice: hot chilli powder, sauteed onion, squeezy garlic, squeezy mixed herbs. Wish me luck. Other things languishing in the cupboards include five types of seaweed, some "ume-shiso sprinkles", 100g of dried anchovies, a tin of enoki mushrooms, a tin of "spiced minced prawns", the aforementioned snow-dried tofu, a bag of agar flakes, a jar of noritamago furikake, a jar of vine leaves, a jar of pickled something-that-looks-like-baby-sweetcorn, a tin of "vegetarian stew", three or four tins of Heinz soup in flavours that I don't like, and a bag of chickpea flour. Kake
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