For a long time, I’ve been thinking about creating a post on what I keep in the pantry. I have always loved lists, and this seems especially appropriate here. I love cookbooks with reference sections, because they’ll include a list of items along the lines of, "Stocking Your Pantry."
As anyone who’s ever lost power, set up a new house from scratch, or had some other kitchen-formative event knows, building a pantry ain’t cheap. In 1998 after the tornado, we lost fridge, freezer and chest freezer contents — we pegged it conservatively at several hundred dollars’ worth of food. [I'll have to post some other time on the wonderful meals we all shared that week with friends in the 'hood, as everyone with a grill or a gas stove desperately cooked what they could in a short amount of time. We were exhausted from the incredible work and stress created by the tornado, but man, we ate like kings!]
At any rate, I think it’s just personally useful to have a list of those always-on-hand items. My entire adult life, I’ve kept this list in my head. You know, the things you immediately replace when you use the next-to-last-one. But I think it would be even nicer to have a written list. So I’m going to start with the fridge.
Dairy
1 gallon whole organic milk
1/2 gallon 1 percent organic milk
Large container lowfat vanilla organic yogurt
2 lbs. salted butter (I buy unsalted for specific recipes)
2 8-oz. pkgs Neufchatel cheese
At least 8 oz. cheddar cheese
Light sour cream
Block of fresh parmesan
Crumbled feta
1 dozen organic eggs
Fruit & Vegetables*
Celery
Red grapes
Jar of mandarin oranges
Salad greens (I always have these, and they usually go bad before I eat them. Who knows how high my "salad stupid tax" is per year. Please don’t begin to estimate it. It’s probably more than I pay NES.)
Baby carrots
Individual servings of applesauce
Capers
Several forms of garlic
Jar of jalapeno peppers
Meat
Sliced or shaved roasted turkey for sandwiches (I buy other meat as needed for recipes….we eat vegetarian about 60% of the time.)
Condiments
4-5 jars salad dressing (Homemade is better but I rarely have time.)
Dijon mustard
Plain yellow mustard
Brown mustard
At least one jar of specialty mustard
Hellman’s light mayo
Heinz ketchup
Salsa
Lemon juice
Pimento-stuffed olives
Black Greek olives
Barbecue sauce
Cilantro paste (I just bought that this summer after my cilantro plant went to an early grave. It’s not bad.)
Strawberry jam
Grape jelly
Sesame oil
Red wine vinegar
Better Than Bouillon** vegetable, beef and chicken bases
Horseradish
Claussen dill pickles
Bubbies dill pickles
Sauerkraut
Ground ginger
Tahini
Store-bought pesto (I keep this year-round. I love homemade pesto even better when I am able to make it.)
Pine nuts
Organic chocolate syrup
Maraschino cherries
* This list looks so short! Trust me, I eat lots of fruits and veggies. But I buy them according to what’s fresh that week at the market, so I don’t have a lot on hand at any one time.
** This stuff is magic and if you don’t have some, get to Publix asap! (Maybe they sell it somewhere else around here, but I haven’t found it. I used to have to buy mine in Florida when I visited my parents.)