I almost never order takeout — not because I’m all high and mighty but because I’m alternately lazy, cheap, depressed, indecisive, or all of the above. Occasionally the urge for brick-oven-charred pizza strikes (maybe even from the Indian pizza place), but more often than not, my takeout ventures are driven entirely by a burning desire (no pun intended) for hot and sour soup.

I get cravings sometimes, but I can usually calm them down. When I need hot and sour soup (usually when I’m sick), I really need it. Bad. And then I have to go through the whole mental battle of trying to decide whether I want to eat that much MSG; whether I want to spend a bunch of dollars when I could just make dinner; whether I have the energy to walk three blocks to pick it up…but dammit, I need my soup.

Well, I was skeptical about this one, but Cook’s Illustrated (not usually my favorite) came through with a recipe for hot and sour soup involving completely normal pantry ingredients that’s actually really good.

I had a pork chop and stock and most of the other ingredients, and just ran around the corner for some tofu, sliced bamboo shoots, and fresh shiitakes (ok, fine, so they’re not all common pantry ingredients). I found that my black Chinese vinegar had gone south, so I went with the red wine and balsamic vinegar alternative, boosted with a little more cider vinegar — the sour wasn’t quite sour enough.

Lots of white pepper and chili oil, and a half hour later, I am not joking: best hot and sour soup I’ve had in ages. I thought I hated bamboo shoots, but they added just the right tang. The little bit of pork gave it just enough heft for a light dinner. And the crunch of the scallions scattered over the top just reinforced that it was fresh.

Beautifully, I’m not even sick.

Make soup. And cornbread.

The soup because you feel like crap, it’s cold out, and you need something warm and spicy with vegetables and soothing broth. The cornbread because it’s so easy, you’ll barely expend any of your dwindling energy, and oven-fresh bread is probably one of the world’s ultimate comfort foods. Besides soup.

If you don’t believe me: I made the cornbread after I’d already started the soup, and by the time I was finished with the dishes, everything was ready. Here’s the verbal re-creation of the Mark Bittman recipe I used (verbal because I feel so yucky, I don’t feel like getting up):

Heat some fat in an 8″ square pan. (I used bacon drippings! Don’t ask.) While you’re doing that, mix together 1 1/2 cups of cornmeal, 1/2 cup of flour, a teaspoon of salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, a tablespoon of sugar, and maybe some smoked paprika. Mix together 1 1/4 cups of buttermilk or yogurt and an egg, then stir that into the dry stuff. Pour it in the pan, cook half an hour, done.

So to the soup: I’m a big fan (well, maybe just an enthusiast) of “whatever’s in the house” soup. (I’m sick, ok? Maybe I really want pho, but I do not feel like going to the store.) My strategy is to think about what I do have that’s fresh, evaluate the freezer, then pick a genre. Tonight I had some leftover shredded pork shoulder (I know, good, huh?) and little in the way of fresh veg, so Mexican seemed like the right direction.

Pantry tip: Always, always keep some beans in your freezer. Once a month, while you’re watching TV or something, just simmer a pound of dried beans in water to cover, maybe with a few cloves of garlic, until done. Divide into pint containers or Ziplocs and freeze. You can dump the frozen beans right into your cooking soup! And if you’re really stuck, cook up some rice, defrost some beans, pull out the hot sauce, and you have easiest dinner ever.

In any case, I’ll spare you a recipe, since I didn’t really have one, but here’s what went in, in order of appearance:

• onions, carrots, garlic (some chopped chile in adobo would have been nice, but I was out…too lazy for dried chiles)
• a couple of fresh kaffir lime leaves I got from Michael’s tree (some lime zest would be fine)
• a few spoonfuls of tomato sauce, a half pint of still-frozen black beans
• some really good chili powder, salt, oregano
• 4 cups of stock (water would be fine, with all this other stuff)
• chopped-up leftover pork
• a can of hominy, some frozen spinach, cilantro

When it was good and hot, I ladled myself a huge bowlful, topped with a bit of crumbled feta (watch the salt) and some of the cornbread.

I still feel crappy, but I bet I’ll be better tomorrow.

Fresh garlic really is something else, and made me realize how dessicated the stuff we normally store on the counter really is when we bring it home. Where peeling garlic for me is usually somewhat of a smash and slide operation, peeling the fresh stuff I brought home from the market last week was closer to a delicate undressing. Sexy, almost, and very tender.

Wow.

In any case, starving, craving something healthy, and lacking much else in the way of fresh vegetables, I tried Anya von Bremzen’s rendition of Castilian garlic soup, which is insanely easy, really:

Chop up some prosciutto or serrano, slice 6 cloves of garlic, and chop 4. Cut up a hunk of country bread into large cubes. (I was lucky to have the some leftover ciabatta I made last weekend. More on that later, perhaps.)

Sweat the sliced garlic and ham in some very nice olive oil for about 7 minutes until it smells wonderful, then add your bread, stirring to coat with all the now even more delicious oil. Off heat, toss the whole mixture with 2 teaspoons of sweet pimentón, then return to the heat and add 5 cups of stock.

Simmer for a few minutes, then add the chopped garlic and simmer one minute more.

To serve, you add a poached egg. Since I made the full batch of soup, and am eating that sucker alone (probably not all in one sitting), I poached the eggs right in the soup. A little salt and pepper, a glass of wine, you’re good to go.

Now my house smells fantastic, and I’m warm, cozy, and well fed. Can’t beat that at the end of a long, long weekend.

(See Anya von Bremzen’s The New Spanish Table for the recipe.)

Despite what any of those right-coasters might believe, California is not really all that warm. If you’ve ever visited San Francisco, you likely made an emergency shopping run to pick up a cozy sweatshirt or jacket to warm up when the fog started rolling in. It’s not foggy now, but it’s damn cold. I mean blowing-on-hands, shoulder-cramping cold.

I know, it sounds like a sissy claim when I tell you it’s in the 30s (”Oh, big deal, we had a blizzard here in Denver!” “It’s pouring muddy slush in New York!”). Well, remember that skiers and East Coasters expect it to be cold in the winter, so they do things like insulate their houses and buy double-paned windows. They might even have parkas and central heat.

In any case, in the weather of two sweaters, jacket, scarf, and gloves, it’s French onion soup time, if you ask me. Skip out of work early, swing by the store, and get a pot going now.

If you’re like me, you probably didn’t get around to making any beef stock this week, so go ahead and use your low-sodium canned stuff. I cheated and made some broth out of the veal demiglace I’ve had languishing in the fridge for a couple of months, but it’s really the onions and cheese that matter.

You need real Gruyère (you’ll blanch at the cost, but buy it anyway) and about five pounds of sweet onions. If you can find only generic yellow onions, or white ones, don’t bother — you need sweet ones, or they’re just never going to caramelize, which means you’ll have oniony soup but not the luxurious browned deliciousness your freezing innards are craving. Some thyme is also nice. And a little bread.

Slice your onions as finely as you can. Your eyes will ache as you sob out a flood of onion tears (unless, as I vow to do next time, you put on some goggles, or you’re just not sensitive to the stuff, in which case I hate you). When you’re done, melt a few tablespoons of butter in a nice big, wide, heavy pot and start cooking your onions over medium heat. You’re going to want them to cook fairly slowly until they start to brown, which can take nearly an hour. Seriously. Just toss them around every few minutes to cook them more or less evenly.

Now here’s a technique I learned from James Patterson, which I think concentrates the flavor a bit: Add a half cup of your broth and cook it down; repeat three more times. I added some sherry at this point, too, just for kicks. Now add 7 or 8 more cups of broth, plus some sprigs of thyme, a bay leaf, and salt and pepper. Simmer for about 15 or 20 minutes, and adjust your salt (don’t skimp on the salt). It’s ready!

I don’t mess around with crocks (well, fine, I don’t have crocks), but you can’t beat cheese toast: Slice some of your bread, sprinkle with Gruyère, and broil for a minute. Add a toast or 5 to a big bowl of the soup, then sprinkle with even more cheese, and pour some wine. Could dinner really be any easier?

(Oh, and to answer your unasked question: Yes, your house will smell like onions when you’re done. But you’ve smelled worse, trust me.)

Thai coconut milk soup (tom kha gai): I used to think this sounded too exotic for a casual night dining alone, but a hundred weeknight dinners can’t be wrong. I’ve made this so many times, in so many different ways — well, all you need is a few pantry items.

Lemongrass is good. In fact, I went with the soup tonight because I happened to have three stalks of it in my fridge (it keeps for weeks — or try dried). If you don’t have that, go with limes. Or lemons and limes. Coconut milk, obviously.

Most recipes call for chicken, but I had frozen shrimp. Perfect. Even better is the Black Japonica rice I made alongside (jasmine is fine, but something nutty with some bit to it is even better). It’s easy, I swear.

I don’t like lots of bits in my soup, so I make a quick stock first: Peel your shrimp and save the shells. Heat some oil in a pot and toss in the shells, some smashed pieces of lemongrass, a few slices of ginger (or even ginger from a jar), some sliced onion, a little garlic, and some spice. If you have dried chiles, you can use those, but red curry paste is even better — I used a couple of large teaspoons. Sauté the aromatics in the oil for a few minutes, then add about 4 cups of stock or water. Let that boil and then simmer for a while — 5 minutes or 30 minutes, whatever works for you.

Strain the stock to get all the bits out (eating lemongrass is a bit like gnawing on wet toothpicks). In the same pot, sauté a little more finely chopped onion and ginger in a little oil, then pour in the stock. When it’s hot, add the shrimp, then a can of coconut milk. If you have some shiitakes, you can throw those in, too. The shrimp will only take a minute or two to cook through. When it’s done, squeeze in a lime or two, add a few splashes of naam pla (buy some fish sauce, seriously — it’s good, cheap, and keeps forever), and some cilantro, if you have it.

Done! Scoop it into a bowl along with a few spoonfuls of some rice, or some noodles. Hot.

Yes, I’m back. To anyone paying attention: I apologize for disappearing. Let’s catch up. It’s not like we haven’t been eating.

The latest: I’ve been on the “save money, don’t go to the store” angle this week…well, actually, this month, which explains why the pantry is running thin. I’ve been getting a little too spendy on the outings (culinary and not), but that’s always a fun excuse to play the pantry challenge. What can you make based almost entirely on pantry and freezer ingredients?

(I make exceptions for essentials like onions, garlic, carrots, and lemons, which are easy to keep on hand in bulk. So can you.)

My pantry-challenge meals lean toward grain and legumes without question. The house is officially bereft if I’m out of canned tomatoes or pasta. You can always make something brilliant with those two lifelines and spices alone; even better if you’ve got some meat (bacon? pancetta?) or jars of capers and olives on hand. Talk to me about pasta. I can go on for hours.

So tonight I’ve got leftover baked pasta with broccoli and goat cheese (no tomatoes!) waiting for me, but last night I went “healthy” by hitting the dried beans. Easy as hell, and I’ve prepped the freezer for pantry raids down the road.

The procedure: The moment I walked in the door, I poured a bag of bulk dried chickpeas (maybe a little more than a pound?) in a pot with two inches of water to cover and got them going over high heat. No presoaking, no fancy prep. Dried beans, water. Poured a drink and sat down to finish some work.

About an hour later, I dug a couple of Italian sausages and half a bag of frozen spinach out of the freezer, chopped some onion, carrot, and garlic, and located the leftover tomato sauce from the pizza I made last week. Browned the sausage, then softened the vegetables in olive oil. I deglazed with some sherry — the chickpeas nearing done — and added the tomato sauce, sausage, and my favorite, pimentón.

When that mixture was bubbling satisfyingly, I ladled a few scoops of the chickpeas with their cooking liquid (and the couple of cloves of garlic I added halfway through cooking) into the pot, simmered a little while, added the spinach, some parsley, and a dash of sherry vinegar, and presto! Done. Actually quite good, and perhaps half an hour of active cooking time.

Almost as great: several pints of cooked chickpeas prepped for the freezer and an even faster meal another day.

What do you make when you’re too lazy to go to the store and too cheap for takeout?

Lisa inspired me today by asking if I had any good soup recipes. Of course I do — I’ve got more recipes than I know what to do with, and I make soup at least once a week — but I told her that I usually just wing it, which is the truth. But I like to check my books for ideas and inspiration (and pictures!), and good ole James Peterson came through for me tonight.

The cheapo market actually had great peppers the other day, which is how I found myself with a pile of beautiful yellows and oranges, with one stray red languishing alongside in the veggie drawer. I had been thinking of peperonata on the way home, but that started to seem boring, so I wanted to do something new. Soup! Thinking I had only yellow bells, I started dreaming of a pretty yellow soup, with some sort of garnish. Shrimp! Ooh, I forgot I had shrimp.

I checked to see what James had to say about bell peppers in his Splendid Soups. He does his red bell pepper soup Mexican-style, with some light chile action, finished with cream and sour cream. I’ve had Mexican overload lately, so I started thinking Spanish instead, which seemed like a lovely way to complement the orange.

Now, I don’t know my ass from authentic Spanish cuisine, but I do have some delicious sherry vinegar that deserves to splash everything, so James and I decided to go with that. I sautéed the chopped peppers with some onion and a lot of garlic, added chicken stock, and simmered away for about 15 minutes. Out came the immersion blender (best $5 thrift-store purchase ever), which let me purée it all right in the pot.

Since the whole operation was so fast, I decided to go the slick route and press the purée through a sieve. Finished the silky orange soup — now at about a medium consistency — with a little cream, salt, white pepper, some of that gorgeous vinegar, Tabasco (for a different kind of kick), and about half of some paprika-dusted goat cheese that’s been crying at me from the cheese stash in the fridge.

The shrimp was precooked (normally a no-no, but dammit, sometimes it really is perfect), so I figured they’d need just a little flavor. I melted some butter and sprinkled it with pimentón, then tossed in the shrimp. (Next time: Dry the shrimp first. Wet shrimp…not so pretty.) The little shrimp proved not much of a garnish (they disappeared in the soup), but hey…it’s just me.

More important: flavor? Sparkling — tangy and sharp and smooth (which if you think about it really isn’t an oxymoron). I love it! I think even James might be pleased.