fancy schmancy pantry drink: seasonal harvest punch of deliciousness

This is hella fun over the holidays
I like a nice libation. In fact I am known to in flusher times have 2 or 3 varieties of fizzy drink, a bottle of something I have never tried, like pinaepple aloe juice or whateva and an ice matte latte or three to offer myself and impress my guests.   An assortment of drinks makes me feel rich.  At verrrry least I like to add some lime to a pitcher of ice cold water in the fridge. Get into it.


I inherited an orange from the reception bowl at some hotel my friend was staying in and the rest was randomly in my pantry.

from pantry:
orange
a few sticks of cinnamon
an apple juice juice box
one can of sprite
one can of soda water

add on
half small carton of mulling spice 1.95

total cost: 1.95
(relatively expensive for a pantry raid punch but WORTH IT)

ok basically we are recreating apple cider but cutting it with sprite and soda water so it is lighter and crisper on the palate. Those mulling spices are intense people use em in wine and hot toddies but in this it makes the drink taste fa-bu-lously exotic without the heaviness and dryness you get with regular apple cider or mulled drinks.
Ingredients in there were cinnamon, cloves, sugar, orange peel and some other thing i cant remember.

basically throw in the mulling spice, the juice box and the fizzies to taste. Float orange slices in there and the cinnamon sticks.
pour over ice OR
pour over a glass of bourbon whiskey on the rocks. Yummtastic

vegetarian rice a roni hippie dippie food bowl

Ok put on your hemp t shirt and ergonomic sandals made of pleather and alfalfa fiber,  and slap on the all natural geode deodorant.  This version of pantry raiding takes the vegetarian eastwest trend by its dreadlocks and actually uses the practice of pantry raiding to show you how rice bowls are basically a pantry raid anyhow.
Another subletter another radically bare pantry left me with the following ingredients:


From pantry:
One frozen soy nugget
a bag of knorrs chicken rice and pasta side dish
a half bag of trader joes broccoli and green bean mix
big fat raisins
a bag of walnut halves
siracha (obviously)

add ons: none
total cost : $0

Ok so basically i channelled all those rice bowls my actor slash musician friends subject me to at vegetarian restaurants that present a pseudo eastern pseudo mediatrraneaun semi middle eastern flavor in what is essentially a risotto with veggie staples on top (soy, wheat gluten, tempeh etc) and dressed up with some kind of eastern take on ranch dressing (goddess dressing, creamy lemon whateva sauce, etc)

So if you want a more hippy dippy version of this dish stir in some ranch sauce with capers and extra garlic and voila.

For this, I threw the trader joe's bean, pea, and brocc mix (which had some butter and cheese type of things in it so the ranch was not necessary) and stir fried it up. Then i threw in the one sad about to be freezer burned soy nugget and heated that too.  Meanwhile the rice-pasta thing which normally tastes a bit like hospital food on its own, I amped by throwing in the big fat raisins to the mix for a nice lil juicy semi moroccan feel.  When the rice was done I put it in a bowl. topped it with the beans and the lone soy nigget, drizzled in siracha and added a handful of walnuts.

All these textures in one bowl felt very restauranty (and by restaurant I mean vegetarian place where white people with dreadlocks and chinese tattoos are the servers and  that sells rice bowls for 9 or 10 bucks.)

Tasted so much better because it was FREE