How to Stock a Pantry

If you really want to cook, you need a pantry.  In “Little House on the Prairie” days, this often meant aroom off the kitchen full of shelves to store fruits and vegetables you canned and jam you made. 

Today you don’t need a whole room to store much-used ingredients, but you do need several shelves or a cabinet, preferably near the fridge and stove..

Then you need basic ingredients like flour, sugar, salt, mustard, ketchup, soy sauce, vinegar, packages of dried pasta, rice and olive or canola oil.  Add some...
canned goods, including tomatoes and tuna. Fill the fridge with butter, eggs, cheese and, if you drink it, milk.  In the freezer I keep a package of flour tortillas, Aidells Habanero Sausages and a loaf of French bread.

If you like flavorful food, don’t forget to buy some spices. And if you want to tackle baking, get some baking powder, baking soda, vanilla and, of course, chocolate chips.

Financially these ingredients add up.  Maybe it’s the reason a lot of people don’t cook or say they can’t cook.  It’s much easier to dash into the supermarket on your way home from work and buy a precooked meal … or get restaurant takeout … or just sit down at the restaurant.

But once you have a fully stocked pantry, it’s easy to whip up a meal.  Within a month the pantry will have paid for itself.  Your meals may not have all the restaurant frills, but the cost could well be a quarter of what the restaurant bill would be.

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