In Praise of Pantry Staples [NOT 1/1/21]

1/1/21 brightersideoflife 39

It’s dreary with freezing rain and I am not leaving the house. But I’m hungry…..What’s in the pantry? All sorts of things.

What is a pantry staple you love to keep around? What sorts of things do you do with it?

I love rolled oats. I live alone, yet I buy the giant container of them from Costco. I think the shelf life might be indefinite as long as they’re kept sealed up.

I love a good hearty warm bowl of oatmeal in winter. Thanks to clever marketing, some people aren’t aware that rolled oats can be easily used to make oatmeal like “quick oats” can. Rolled oats just need a few minutes to set up after heating.

I love making my own granola, too. So tasty to snack on and so easy. If you buy granola from the store, I highly recommend making your own because it’s easy, makes your home smell awesome, and you have better control over things like sugar amounts. I’ve seen granola recipes using aquafaba instead of oil, but I haven’t tried it yet. Here’s a basic recipe, but fuck it, customize how you want.

https://cookieandkate.com/healthy-granola-recipe/

I love making swiss oats. Oats + yogurt/milk/non-dairy milk + add-ins (chopped nuts, fruit, dried fruit, frozen, fruit, spices, dollop of jam, etc etc) and put in the fridge for a few hours or even overnight, and it’s all delicious. I had this with leftover cranberry relish and chopped pecans for breakfast.

Also, duh, oatmeal cookies and muffins, etc. Can’t go wrong with oatmeal muffins!

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39 Comments

  1. I could never handle cooked oatmeal in any form.  The slime was always too much for me to handle.  So, I typically either use it for baking, or I’ve even been known to eat it like cereal with milk.
     
    There’s always pasta in the cupboard and there’s always frozen cubes of pesto in the freezer.  So, there’s always dinner if I run out of ideas, or run out of food.

    • I have to make really dry oatmeal when I make it warm, I agree about the slime factor which seems worse when there’s a higher liquid:oat ratio. Like those pre-mixed instant oatmeals were always too runny for me when I was a kid. 

  2. a pantry?
    uhhh….are you accusing me of being some kind of organized?
    ive got a fuck load of herbs and spices
    and hot sauce…
    i think there might be some stuff knocking about in the freezer too
    but i get my foodibles fresh every day…as i fancy them
    oh wait….i always have eggs

  3. It has taken me years to have a pantry that I can cook from, spur of the moment. I always have a jar of capers, fresh garlic, onions, white wine, lemons, and half and half on hand. You can fake a pretty good sauce/roux/drizzle with some combination of those items.

    Plus jasmine rice, a variety of pasta, various oils, and a ton of different spices, ranging from sweet to savory to world cuisine flavorings.

    Our local organic CSA means there are always fresh fruits and vegetables around, mostly salad vegetables because some people (ahem) are anti-vegetable. 

    And baking stuff, different flours, cream of tartar, baking soda and powder, vanilla, almond, lemon, and raspberry flavorings, chocolate bits…

    And parchment paper.

    It sounds like a lot, but by my age I have learned what most recipes that will be deemed acceptable will call for. As I run out/run low, I tell the Alexa dot to add it to the list.

    Sorry for being a  boring pantry over-sharer!

     

  4. Peanut butter. It’s my favorite food, straight from the jar. Protein powder, milk, bananas. What else do you need? I have some life long food issues. 

  5. Canned salmon.
    Chicken broth.
    Noodles.
    Instant soup.
    White and Brown Rice.
    Hot sauce.
    If worse comes to worse, I have stuff I can eat.  Not being the most dynamic cook, I can at least make stuff that won’t kill assuming I don’t get bored and run off to the nearest take out place.

  6. I have a very well stocked pantry because my husband is a kind of a prepper… It’s an area where I agree that it’s best to be prepared. 
     
    So I won’t give an exhaustive list, but I always have plenty of pasta, noodles, rice, oatmeal, cereal, canned tomatoes, multiple types of beans, peanuts, peanut butter, tortillas, crackers, and a relatively well stocked spice cabinet. I also keep a lot of frozen foods – we have a second small freezer in the basement. I mostly buy my veggies frozen and there’s usually a good variety stocked (always broccoli, peas, corn, green beans, onions, and carrots), frozen fruit (great for smoothies and compotes, or just to snack on as is), and often a spare bread loaf, because if I were to run out of bread, lildamnhero would totally lose it.
     
    So on nights when I am uninspired and need something quick, it’s frequently pasta with tomato sauce and a vegetable. Oh, and I’m the type of heathen that buys a big jar of minced garlic that’s always in my fridge. Sorry not sorry, I take shortcuts where I can. 

      • I’ve seen your references to weekend meal prep. I’m always impressed by people that can do that. Too much to manage and figure out at once for me – I like to have one task at a time. That’s why I adore one pot meals too. I made a recipe the other day that involved a pot on the stove, a tray in the oven, and a sauce in the food processor, and I was very stressed out. Nearly burned my carrots but got them out in time. 

    • The one thing that really annoys me in my kitchen is that I have a side-by-side model of refrigerator so the freezer half is just… weirdly shaped. It’s just me so when I bought the house (and the appliances were new), I was like well hmm not idea but whatevs can’t be that big a deal. Well, it sucks. It’s just a pain in the ass to try to stash food effectively in there when I don’t even have the real estate for like normal sized frozen pizzas. 

      Where this ramble is going — sorry, I’m not entirely sober — is that I wish I could freeze and store more stuff but I can’t figure out the logistics of how to store it in my tiny vertical stripe of a freezer and I don’t want to buy another freezer since it’s just me. 

        • And I don’t cook meat, so it’s not even like I want to stash a tray of chicken in there that I bought on a good sale. I seriously don’t know who they’re designed for. The weird shape doesn’t even work well for bags of frozen vegetables. 

          • Right? I don’t know why anyone chooses to buy one. “I would prefer both a fridge and freezer where I will never be able to fit any large items please, but make the overall size the same as a fridge that fits things.” 

    • Fellow heathen here… I prefer the garlic paste, either in a tube or a jar, but will use jarred minced garlic, too. I save fresh garlic for when I want whole roasted cloves of it 🙂

        • You guise are killing me here! I practically use garlic as a vegetable . I do have granulated garlic that I use all the time for certain uses, but seriously I put fresh garlic in just about EVERYTHING 🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄

          • Last time I checked the garlic paste, it had soybean oil in it as the base and nope that fails with my stupid food allergy. 

            Also…. I am a lazy saute-er and garlic is not forgiving to a little over-cooking the way onions or other veggies are!

      • I don’t buy the garlic paste, but I always buy ginger paste. So much more convenient.
         
        And I’ve never used granulated garlic – is it different from normal garlic powder? I always have garlic and onion powder on hand. 

        • Granulated garlic is a little coarser in texture than garlic powder. I don’t think it cooks any different, it’s just what I get from the spice shop. Their stuff has a more garlic-ey scent and flavor than the garlic powder I’ve bought from the store, if that makes sense? 

  8. I grew up on welfare, the child of hoarders, and the granddaughter of folks who were farmers during the Great Depression…
     
    Soooooooo having a stocked pantry *at all times* is basically a 3rd generation handed-down compulsion, with–if I’m really honest? A good bit of passed-down mental illness, too.🙃🙃🙃
     
    I try to be more conscious of what I have, than either of my parents tend to be… but the habits/traits they instilled in me ARE hard to break sometimes!!!😖🙃🥴
     
    I DO work at using things up, and rotating things through… which is NOT something either my parents or grandparents did well or much of.
     
    But I ALWAYS have multiple types of rice (Wild, Brown, White, Basmati or Jasmine, and a quick-cooking/ready-rice option also); a few cans of beans; some dry beans (for soup); at least 2 types of pasta; at least part of a case of Ramen (i buy a case of 24 when I’m running low & it’s on sale 5/$1.00); cream of mushroom & cream of chicken soups; tomatoes–various types in the big can, also tomato paste, & sun-dried tomatoes; dry or paste versions of beef & chicken bullion; baking ingredients–yeast, flour, white sugar, baking powder & soda, chocolate chips, brown sugar,  powdered sugar, powdered milk, & almond & vanilla extracts; a few types of oil–olive, canola, coconut, crisco, & vegetable/canola oil; store-bought bread of some type; tortillas/wraps; and a few varities of canned meat–chicken, tuna, sardines, salmon, smoked oysters… whatever dad’s given me from his “senior commodities” that he didn’t want, or that *I* bought, because I wanted them handy.
     
    I also ALWAYS have fresh onions & some potatoes in the cupboard, and like @bigdamnheroes, I keep a jar of minced garlic on hand in the fridge at ALL times (I try to keep fresh on hand, but sometimes that jar in the fridge is just easier!)😉
    And then, there are all my herbs, spices, & spice mixes… those take up the equivalent of 11 or 12 6″×12″ trays, altogether, on the small sheves under our kitchen island. 
    In all honesty, although I try hard to keep it reasonable, I also honestly start to get pretty twitchy, if I DON’T have a solid range of “basics” in the cupboard, to make meals with.
    It’s NOT often that I ever buy “an entire meal” at the store… it’s more that I buy a meat/protein, maybe some fresh veggies/salad stuff, and then it’s just a matter of using/replenishing/rotating through that stock of “basics.”
     
    I guess I just got used to ALWAYS having that broad range of “basics,” partly because when I was a kid my mom, grandma, & aunties always got together at various points in the summer & fall to “put up” a bunch of canned goods–everything from jams/jellies, syrups, veggies, salsas, pickles, & tomato sauces,to fruits, and even canned meats like chicken or beef… 
    When I was little, there were still a few older folks around my hometown, who still had & used outhouses, and the rural electric cooperatives & telephone companies had only gotten into homes out there about 30-40 years before I was born…
    So there were LOTS of folks who survived winters by growing, then drying or canning their own foods….
    It’s pretty different “Up Home” nowadays, but back in the 70’s & 80’s, in rural MN, there just weren’t  that many options for groceries, so you canned when things were in-season, and ate that or went without, until the harvest seasons for things rolled back around again.
     
    In this pandemic, It was surprising, how many folks in the exurb where my last store was, who apparently always bought groceries every day or two, and never judt kept things “on hand.”
    I knew that folks in bigger cities tend to live that way, because of living spaces being tiny.
    But it was pretty shocking, to realize that folks who lived in large, suburban & exurban single-family homes were also 
    Coming from where & who i did, that concept was just mind-boggling!😉
     
    Tbh, if we have to quarantine here, the meals might not be interesting/exciting, but there ARE enough things, that we could cook a decent variety of meals, for 2+ weeks, and not get too bored, although the meals may not be exciting/fancy😉

    • I was also shocked to realize how many people buy groceries daily or close to it! That really became clear during the pandemic, with recommendations to only grocery shop every two weeks and how much that upset a lot of people. Typical length for me between grocery trips was already close to two weeks. Before Lil (with milk and fresh fruit making up a large part of his diet), we’d often go even longer because I didn’t feel like going to the store, and we always had stuff. 

  9. I also follow in my mom’s steps and keep a fully stocked pantry with just about my own mini grocery store at all times. So, it’s hard to narrow down what’s my favorite pantry staple. But I’ll say pasta, canned tuna, and canned garbanzos are some of my top favorites. Pasta+any veg+olive oil=quick yummy meal. Canned tuna is very versatile and super cheap. Sandwiches, on crackers, on salad with balsamic vinegar, stuffed into veggies, etc. Garbanzos are amazing and can be put in anything! Pasta salad, hummus, salads, soups, with rice seasoned just about any way, & you can use the liquid from the can to make aquafaba vegan whipped cream or icing! 

    • I’ll add to that as a vegetarian – garbanzos can weirdly sub in pretty well for tuna. I pretty frequently just mash them up with some mayo, dill, etc and it works like tuna salad. (I add a little crumbled seaweed sometimes if I want more ocean flavor.) 

  10. Rice is probably the pantry staple I rely on most and always have on hand. I buy it by the 10 or 15 pound sack. I make a 13 x 9 pan of rice probably twice a week, maybe 3 times. You can put anything over rice and stretch it to feed more people. With 6-8 people eating on any given night… that can be a lifesaver! Oats, cornmeal, canned black (and various other) beans, canned chicken and tuna, mashed potato flakes, and canned tomatoes are probably the next most important ingredients I try to keep stocked. For fridge stuff, eggs, cheese, carrots, jarred garlic of some variety, various pickles, and plain yogurt are almost always in there. The freezer stock is ever rotating, but I usually have frozen potatoes (fries, tots, hashbrowns), and the odd tub of leftovers which I inevitably forget to label. Counter staples are apples, onions, and potatoes. And, of course, for baking, gf flour or bisquick, almond flour, sugar, baking soda and powder, and ground flax seed.
     
    My spice cabinet is my prized possession. I have a HUGE variety of spices and seasonings and I can make cardboard taste good if I have to. Also, I have a shoe bag hanging over the kitchen door that is filled with bottles of different vinegars, Thai sweet chili sauce, Worcestershire sauce, tamari, fish sauce, various hot sauces, etc. Imho, if you can season properly, you can work with any food life throws at you.
     
    I learned this the long and hard way, because I have dipped in and out of poverty my whole life. When I was a little kid, we were pretty poor and most of our food was home canned stuff from my mom’s garden. I remember my dad watching me eat lunch and telling me he wasn’t eating because he wasn’t hungry. Things got better, but my mom always overbought food after that period. I struggle with the same thing. I want to have enough on hand for something like, say, a pandemic lockdown (heyooo), or to help out my kid or a neighbour (I lived in low-income housing for a long time), without being all crazy-food-hoarder-lady. Having a big family means keeping a lot on hand, though!
     
    I’ve gotten a lot of food from food pantries during my adult life. If it was just me or just us adults, whatever, I probably wouldn’t have gone. But my kids didn’t ask to go hungry because life likes to throw curveballs, so I went. Food pantries are great… they are usually filled with caring people and kindness and, of course, food… but you never know what you’re going to get when you go. I have kids with food allergies/sensitivities (gluten and dairy),  so I usually pick through the bags there and return what I absolutely can’t use, stuff like cream of ___  soups. 
     
    Honestly, though, I can work with just about anything at this point! Give me a handful of sad vegetables and my spice cabinet, and you’ll get a damned good soup. Nothing but canned veggies? Stew or pot pie filling. I freeze odds and ends, herb stems, onion peels, carrot ends, etc, so I can always make stock to cook rice in for extra nutrients. Gf pasta is more expensive than regular, but I try to keep some on hand because my gf kid is the pickiest of my kids (he’ll eat the stinkiest goat cheese, but a pickle or anything that has even seen a mushroom near it? Hell, no!) 
     
    My kids are surprisingly not picky about most things, though. They all like strong flavours and, while chicken nuggets were always greeted with joy, so is my spicy chili, salmon patties, or loaded nachos. My youngest son will eat literally anything, and the spicier the better… I have a picture of him at age 5, caught drinking hot sauce from the bottle in front of the open fridge!
     
    Ok. I think I wandered off, here… I do that when talking about food…
     
     

    • I keep meaning to bake rice but then things happen like the giant takeout dish of rice from the Indian restaurant (10 frozen bags of single-serving rice in the freezer, I’m almost through them!) or the dish I want to use rice with is like a soup or stew where I need the rice to cook in it to thicken it up.

      I got a Yotam Ottolenghi cookbook a few years ago (Plenty More) and everything I’ve made has been fucking delicious. He has a way of doing baked rice where you put the rice in the baking pan, toss the aromatics on top, put a piece of parchment paper over that, then foil over the top of it all for baking. And I feel like the aromatics in there would take it up to killer awesome levels. I should do that this week. I wonder if I have the aromatics. I should check that. Maybe I should stop using this comment as stream of consciousness. 

       

  11. I’m in the borderline food hoarder group, Covid made this so much worse, but the one thing I never want to live without again is salt packed anchovies, I finally found some at igourmet. They are kind of a pain to use, you have to rinse them and take out the spine but the flavor elevates what you’re cooking. I like when people claim to hate anchovies but love food that has anchovies in it. Worcestershire sauce, I mean you!
     

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