Survival Sunday 244: Kitchen Staples

In Which I Discuss What To Keep In Your Kitchen

I've talked a lot about various basic things you can do with kitchen staples, but it's been quite a while since I've talked about what a kitchen staple is.

Kitchen Staples are basic foodstuffs and ingredients that it's wise to keep in your kitchen. Your three most important kitchen staples if you're going to cook from scratch are, of course, going to be:

• All-Purpose Flour
• Sugar
• Salt

You can cook with just those three. You can't cook much, and this is also assuming you have easy access to water in your kitchen, which you pretty much cannot cook without (I can't think of any recipes where you never need a working kitchen sink), but you can cook something (Asian dumpling dough, for instance is literally just flour and water with maybe some salt).

So what are the most important things to have in your pantry, cupboards, and fridge? Let's find out!

Let's Start with our basic dry ingredients.

We'll assume you want to be able to enjoy baked goods here, as well as stovetop. With that assumption you'll want:

• All-Purpose Flour
• Baking Powder
• Baking Soda
• Cornmeal
• Oats (rolled and/or steel-cut)
• Salt
• Starch (corn and/or potato)
• Sugar, Light Brown
• Sugar, Plain
• Yeast, Instant
• Yeast, Active Dry

Pretty simple, right? These dry ingredients will help you make a lot of recipes. You'll need to add things, though, to give it more flavor.

Your basic spice cabinet looks like this:

• Allspice
• Basil
• Bay Leaves
• Chili Powder
• Cinnamon
• Cloves
• Curry Powder
• Garlic Powder
• Ginger
• Nutmeg
• Onion Powder
• Oregano
• Paprika
• Parsley
• Pepper, Black
• Pepper, Cayenne
• Pepper, Red Flake
• Rosemary
• Thyme

With these spices, you've got quite the leg up on a lot of recipes, and you can, of course, expand it as needed!

Now, you've got all of these dry ingredients. What do you add to them? My suggestions for non-refrigerated additives are:

• Corn Syrup (I know, but it's useful)
• Honey
• Oils
• Canola/Cooking
• Olive
• Sesame
• Maple Syrup
• Soy Sauce
• Vinegar
• Balsamic
• Cider
• White
• Worcestershire Sauce

And if you're looking for fridge Staples, here you are:

• Butter
• Eggs
• Milk

Yeah. That's pretty much it. If you have regular milk and vinegar, you can make "sour milk", which is a good substitute for buttermilk, and it's best to pick cream up when you need it and not before.

Finally, we have the "Other" section of Staples - things that are useful to bulk up your pantry and keep you noshing in case of emergencies:

• Beans
• Canned Goods
• Fruits (I like to avoid "in syrup", since that's too much sugar)
• Meats/Fish (yes, that includes tuna and SPAM)
• Veggies (green beans and corn are the most popular here)
• Soup (tomato and chicken noodle are our go-to)
• Sauce (tomato sauce, mostly)
• Onions
• Pasta
• Potatoes
• Rice

Seriously, if you have dried beans, rice, and pasta, plus some random canned goods, some butter, some olive oil, and some spices, you have meals. The canned meats are, of course, optional if you're vegetarian/vegan, and they're very high in sodium, so don't add salt to anything you're making with them, but these  will help you cook a ton. Don't refrigerate your potatoes or onions, because they'll get shriveled and gross.

I think that'll about do it for my basics today, so I'll leave you with this last note:

You don't have to buy everything at once. If you have the opportunity to get pre-packaged meals and/or mixes as you're building your pantry, then do it. Trust me when I say that by haunting sales, you'll end up with all of the canned and dry goods you'll ever need - especially if you live in a city, where I'd imagine it's a lot easier to find stuff for cheaper!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC