My Personal Kitchen Ingredient Staples

So over the summer I really realized what sort of ingredients I need to have in my kitchen. To the kind of dishes I make these ingredients find themselves being thrown in over and over again. So I'll just start this right from the beginning with the fresh produce. Honestly though, this is more like my personal kitchen staples. All the things I try to keep in my kitchen at all times

Sweet Yellow Onion
I use onions in so many things. Sometimes the white ones are a little overpowering, but the yellow ones are sweet and add to the flavor instead of taking it over.

Roma Tomatoes
Almost every time I make a pasta dish I throw tomatoes in to thicken it in up some.

Green Bell Peppers
I really like the green bell peppers. They have the slightest bite to them that adds a crispness to what I cook


Cold ingredients:

Milk

Cheddar Cheese

Bread 

Buns

Eggs


Ranch Dressing
This is a situation item. I can throw it on leftover pizza, in salads


Shredded Mozzerella and Shredded Cheddar Cheese
I store this in the freezer and it ends up keeping fresh for a long time.

Tortillas
I store these in the freezer as well. They are good for

Chicken Breast
I freeze this to store it and then move it from there to the the refrigerator before I cook it.

Frozen Pizza
I think paying more than 3.50 for pizza is ridiculous. So wait until large pizza goes on sale and add ingredients and spices to them. it makes great pizza

Cupboard Ingredients:

Pasta
I like to use the round pastas, Penne, Rigatoni, shells, corkscrew pasta, etc.

Rice
I prefer brown rice!

Pasta Sauce
I prefer a plain pasta sauce and I like to add other ingredients and spices to make it delicious.

Cream of Mushroom Soup
This can be added in to make a sauce different than the tomato pasta sauce.

Salt

Pepper

Garlic Salt
I use garlic salt in tons of recipes even more than just regular salt

With all of these ingredients in mind I tend to try and buy 2 or 3 of each thing when it goes on sale. This keeps my fridge full and running efficiently. Next post will be about a recipe and cooking, I Swear!

First Post, the Basics in your Kitchen

Hi, I would just like to welcome everyone to this blog. Since last summer I have been cooking for myself while i lived on my own. I discovered over the summer how much I actually love cooking. I love how I can take the individual ingredients to create something different. That feeling of completion and of accomplishment I felt after making a delicious dish is something enjoy and want to share. So with that in mind I want to take you guys through my cooking experience one discovery at a time. To start us off here is a list of what I feel are kitchen essentials.

Santoku Knife

First and foremost you need a good knife. With this you can start off chopping vegetables, fruit, cheese, meat, etc. This is an excellent tool for starting your cooking adventure. In the future you can buy a food processor and other kinds of cutting tools to make your life easier, but for now the Santoku knife fits the bill. Be sure to grab a good cutting board as well.

Pot

You need a pot with a lid. It is important to have the lid because you can use it to strain noodles. The lid also allows you to make rice as well! I would say having 2 pots total is definitely necessary. One to cook noodles, and the other to heat the sauce. Or rice and whatever you want to top it with.

  Pan

This can be used to make breakfast, cook burgers, sauces, grilled cheese, chicken, eggplant, etc.! One pan should really be all you need!

Some would place a set of measuring cups and spoons here, but I actually dont use them. I will approximate how much of an ingredient I put into my dish to tell you all about how much to use

Other small things will help, a big stirring spoon, butter knife, can opener, and such are good to have as well.