Cooking with Pantry Ingredients during a pandemic

As a personal chef, I am used to pivoting, adapting, being flexible. My business looks much different than it did just a few weeks ago. One of the services that I was able to provide recently, was a pantry cooking lesson for one of my longest clients. She has always wanted to cook more, and never had the time. Well, now she has the time, but had limited ingredients, because, like all of us, she is trying to stay home as much as possible and not make unnecessary trips to the grocery store. The last time I was at her home, before the shelter-in-place order, I stocked her up with beans, pasta, dried herbs and spices, broths, coconut milk, rice, lentils, legumes, 

The first thing she made that I helped her with was a great recipe that is becoming a modern classic: Spiced Chickpea Stew with Coconut and Turmeric. This is an Alison Roman recipe from the New York Times, and it’s delicious. It’s meatless (you can add a protein like chicken, if you like). It has tons of flavor, and is very adaptable. (She happens to hate mint, so we left it out! It is good with cilantro, though!) She told me she is enjoying cooking for her family, they are ordering lots of take out from restaurants too, and having me fill in every couple of weeks with a no-contact delivery of homemade food! The best of all worlds to make things brighter during this time!