Getting down to Basics

I like to have certain basics available in the house at all times.  These particular basics you can create quite a lot of good meals with especially when the pennies are scarce. When we go shopping again at the end of the month the freezers will get sorted as will the dry pantry.  I tend to keep a substantial stock of ingredients inhouse.  The basics I tend not to like to be without consist of the following:

A sack of potatoes;  I like to keep a sack of potatoes in as you can always provide a good filling meal using these.  You can bake the potatoes, mash them, steam them, make champ, make colcannon, make fish cakes with a tin of salmon, roast them, make rosti, bubble and squeak with left over veggies.

A large net or a couple of smaller nets of onions, shallots, pickling onions.  Shallots and pickling onions I normally freeze so I can just pop them into a roast straight from the freezer. I have then only normally have one really bad session of crying when peeling members of the onion family.  Being without the freezer at the moment though I just prepare a few of these as and when we need them.

At least a couple of large cloves of good garlic.  I use garlic a lot especially when cooking with the Italian sausages and making roast veggies.  We also like it in garlic bread and I often make my own garlic butter.

A tray of 30 eggs (sometimes have a tray every week).  These are used fried, scrambled, in custards, boiled, poached, used in baking cakes and puddings, pancakes.

Lots of milk.  For drinks and milkshakes, making puddings, Yorkshire puddings, Rice pudding, Semolina, Sago and Tapioca.

Butter.  I keep a lot of butter in.   Even when those who think they know best put a warning out about butter I carried on using this on an everyday basis.  We just do not like the replacement spreads.  I was bought up with butter.  My mum could not bear margarine at all.  I suppose it is down to personal preference at the end of the day.  However I do use a lot of butter in cooking, and eating as well as in baking tea-breads, bread, and puddings and cakes.  Bread and Butter pudding is a firm favourite here also.  I also use some in pastry.

Lard.  I use this to make my own pastry and also occasionally for frying certain items.  I would much rather use lard than the palm oil that is hidden in all sorts of items it should not be, and which is demolishing the natural habitat of wild animals that were here well before we were.  It is in Oreo biscuits and all sorts of other biscuits as well as soap powder.

I do use hard block Stork Margarine in pastry and also Stork tub margarine for baking.  However when it comes to fruit cakes they always have butter in them.

Cheddar Cheese. We eat a lot of cheese in pack ups and salads, toasted, on top of Shepherd's and Cottage pie, in mashed potato, in pastry.  Cheese pie, sauces, cheese straws, and as a topping for baked potatoes.

Bacon used in meals i.e. egg and bacon, in Quiches, Egg and bacon tart, savoury muffins.

Tomatoes.  We use a lot of these often in sauces and also in soups.  We also fry these fresh and I also make lots of preserves from them.  OH has a partiality for them in any event.

A selection of fresh veggies carrots, swede, turnip, cabbage, frozen peas, parsnips, celery, courgettes, broccoli and cauliflower.  I usually buy these weekly.  If there are any veggies left I usually do a weekly stir fry to use them up.  Equally if I do not think I am going to get to use them up I will prepare and freeze them for use on another day.  We eat a lot of vegetables as part of a main meal whether that be a roast, toad in the hole, roasted mixed vegetables to serve with Italian Sausages

Bread flour for making a loaf or buns.

Baking flour; plain and self-raising for baking and pastry making

Plain Yogurt.  I make this myself and we use it for making home made raita to accompany a curry or to have as part of my breakfast, accompanying granola or muesli. Or as a pudding.  Can also be used in making muffins and cakes.

Fresh fruit i.e. grapes, bananas, apples.

Frozen mixed fruit works out cheaper at this time of year rather than fresh.

Tinned tomatoes.  Use for making soup, pasta sauce, accompanying a fry up, making ketchup.

Tinned baked beans.   As beans on toast or to accompany fish and chips or a fry up.

Tins of Tuna, Salmon, sardines in tomato sauce and also Corned beef.

Dried milk.  I keep this in as I use it in bread making but also in case I run out of milk.

Puff pastry for making quick home made pastry treats such as sausage rolls, bacon and cheese puffs, Milles Fueilles, palmiers.

When the freezers are up and running, I usually have the meat I need in there and just fish it out when I need it.  However being without the freezers I have had to supplement with buying in fresh every couple of days or so.  I usually go for things like:

Mince.  Used for making Shepherd's Pie, Cottage Pie, Ragu, Bolognaise, meatballs, Chilli.

Stewing Steak for making stew, steak pie, steak pudding, meat and potato pie.

Chicken thighs for use in curry or Balti, also stew and for making chicken pie, fried chicken and stir fry.

Chicken Breasts for use in Hunter's Chicken, Hawaiin Chicken, and stir fries.

Kievs. I usually buy these in but have been known to make them myself.

Chipolatas/Sausages for Toad in the Hole, stripping down to make sausage rolls, sausage patties, Italian sausage is bought pre-prepared and served with roasted mixed vegetables.

There are a few more things that I could add to the list.  For the best part I keep a lot of stuff in the dry pantry and the majority of the stuff listed above I like to have on a weekly basis for some good eating.  However it does vary a lot.

Fish I prefer fresh.  I do not really like this frozen, as I think that freezing fish makes it dry up and lose its flavour and texture a bit.

There is a lot you can do with the above and a lot of things I make I have not mentioned, but I do try and mix the recipes up quite a bit so that for the best part we eat well.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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