Pantry Supplies - The Basics

There are some items I just have to keep in the Pantry at all costs as with these few items when the budget is stretched you can always get a meal from this little lot and a good meal at that.  It need not be exotic but they can be simple meals that get you used to cooking again without being extortionate, but which have a multitude of uses and can cross over into other dishes.

Sack of Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes

Squash

Parsnips

Frozen peas

Tray of Eggs

Milk

Plain Yogurt

Cream

Bicarbonate of Soda

Baking Powder

Butter

Sugar

Stork or similar

Lard

SR Flour

Plain Flour

Bread Flour

Yeast

Onions

Carrots

Leeks

Apples

Cabbage

Cheese

Soup Mix

Pearl Barley

Pasta

Home made Passata Sauce

Rice

Chicken

Chicken portions of one description or another

Bacon

Sausages

Porridge Oats

Not many ingredients in the larger plan of things but with these few items if you keep a good stock of them in at all times you should be able to rustle up a meal quite quickly.  If I do not have a stock of these items in - I have been known to get quite twitchy.  The list of what to do is not comperehensive and I am sure you could add your own way of using these items to the list.


Potatoes:  Chips, mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, colcannon, bubble and squeak, roast potatoes, Potatoes Dauphonoise, potato pancakes, potato farl, Potato and Leek Soup, Jacket Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes: Cut into chunks and roasted with fresh rosemary in the oven, cooked like a jacket potatoe, sweet potato soup, roasted mixed veg (combination of sweet potatoe, potato, leeks, onions, garlic, parsnip, courgettes and red peppers is delicious.

Squash: can be roasted in the oven, as a filling in home made pasta, roasted in its own right, soup made from it.

Parsnips, roasted, made into soup, chopped with other vegetables and roasted in the oven, used in a chutney

Frozen peas:  You can make your own pea soup from these, add them to casseroles and stews, serve as a side vegetable boiled with you rmain meal, add to quiches or if any left over add to bubble n squeak,

Tray of Eggs: Boiled, poached,  omlette, fried, coddled scrambled, in quiches, meringues, swiss rolls, victoria sponge cake, custards, ice cream, scones, mousse, souffles

Milk to drink milk shakes, boil for coffee, make custard, trifles, egg custard,scones, home made cottage cheese, yogurt, curd cheese etc

Plain Yogurt to use in soda bread instead of buttermilk, to eat on its own or with some fruit, to freeze and make ice lollies, to make ice cream

Cream to use on fresh fruit, whipped up and served with scones and jam, in trifles, in cakes, in rice pudding with apple pie and rumtopf

Bicarbonate of Soda to use as a raising agent in Soda Bread

Baking Powder to make plain flour into SR flour

Butter on toast and in baking to make a butter sauce for fish on scones crumpets and teacakes

Sugar on cereal, in tea, in baking

Stork or similar in baking

Lard in pastry and lardy bread

SR Flour in baking in sponge cakes, scones, swiss rolls roulades

Plain Flour in baking yorkshire pudding large and individual in pastry



Bread Flour for bread and yorkshire pudding and home made pasta and pizza

Yeast for a yeasted fruit bread or home made bread or wine making

Onions in French Onion Soup, in quiches, with steak in sandwiches with beefburgers and hot dogs

Carrots as a side vegetable to a main meal in coleslaw in soup in jam

Leeks roasted as a relish and served with sandwiches, roasted with other vegetables, boiled in soup in casseroles, in a stew pack

Apples Stewed as a dessert with sugar served hot and served with vanilla ice cream as a sauce in a pie, stuffed apples, wine making apple amber Tarte Tatin apple betty apple dumplings apple crumble

Cabbage shredded in coleslaw cooked and serveds as a side in bubble n squeak saurkraut

Cheese toasted, welsh rarebit mashed in potatotes, into a cheese and potato pie, cheese quiche  with baked potatoes in burgers in a sauce in mash in scones fried cheese cheese omlette adding to lasagne, and pasta dishes, souffles

Soup Mix mixed grains to add more body to a soup or a stew

Pearl Barley for adding to a stew or a soup

Pasta home made made from the OO flour or bought ready made and adding  sauce all sorts of different shapes and sizes

Home made Passata Sauce: as a base for a soup, lasagne with pasta or meatballs

Rice (Pudding Rice) sweet rice pudding done in the oven or on top,

Basmati Rice/Jasmin Rice with curry and chinese

Arborio Rice in risottos

Chicken whole chicken to roast and get at least two meals out of and boil the bones for stock

Chicken portions of one description or another to use in curries or in chinese or in chinese soup or stir fries

Bacon in quiches for breakfast in sandwiches with cabbage with potatoes in bubble and squeak

Sausages toad in the hole, fried, sausage casserole sausage sarnies

Porridge oats for porridge in the morning, in flapjacks, in treacle tart, in flummery in oat biscuits

Dried fruit  for scones and a light fruit cake and also in a curry

So with a few basic ingredients that you try to keep to hand no matter what you can always make a meal of one description or another.  No doubt as soon as I have sent this one to post I will think of something else to add I nearly always do.