Every house has it's "staples." I don't mean laundry detergent and toilet paper. I'm talking about food staples. The things we've all wished we could get through an imaginary grocery store drive through. (Please, tell me I'm not the only one that thinks that!)
Most folks I know always have some kind of milk and butter substance and eggs. I say 'some kind' because I don't drink cow's milk but I always have a soy, almond, rice or coconut alternative, and I refuse to use margarine but always have butter. And contrariwise, I know people that always have whole milk, but won't use butter. So by saying 'some kind' I won't exclude anyone. But anyway, we all have staples.
I think that the foods that I absolutely have to have say a lot about me. Not just the way that I cook, but about me in general.
For example:
Rice. I have to have at least three different types of rice. Always. Currently I have six, brown rice, white rice, sticky rice, jasmine rice, black rice, and wild rice. The brown rice is my standard all purpose rice , I also use it when I make Mexican fried rice. The white rice is for when I feel like having a more traditional Chinese meal otherwise I use brown rice. I make the sticky rice when we're having Thai and the jasmine rice when we're having Indian. The black rice and wild rice were impulse buys from the last time I went to Whole Foods. I made a decent pilaf with the wild rice the other day and I honestly have no idea what to do with the black rice. The label on the bin said "forbidden rice" so of course I had to get it.
Vanilla Sugar. I don't really remember when I first made this but I really really like it. I had a vanilla bean that I didn't really know what to do with. I had already seeded it to make icing, so it was just this bean, and it was going to hang out in my kitchen until it either rotted or my husband threw it away. So I stuck it in a jar, covered it with sugar and forgot about it for a while. When I found it again and opened the jar it had the most amazing scent. And it was strong. I've used it in my coffee, random mixed drinks, and in cookies. The absolute best chocolate chip cookies are made with vanilla sugar. So now I always have a jar in the kitchen. I keep it with the mixers and liquor paraphernalia so my daughter doesn't accidentally use it in one of her kitchen concoctions.
Curry Paste. At any point I have all the ingredients to make a decent Thai curry. It's my go to meal when I don't have anything planned. I always have coconut milk, I consider that to be included in the "milk" category. So I just throw some coconut milk, curry paste and a bunch of veggies in a pot, combine that with the sticky rice that I always have on hand and ta-da, dinner!
Chocolate. I love chocolate. My favorite kind is the Goji bar. It's made by Vosges. I can't find it in my area anymore. This sad fact has caused me much grief. But since I love chocolate so much, I'll just settle for a good old Hershey's bar in the meantime. I actually don't keep Hershey's bars on hand all the time, what I do keep is chocolate chips. You know those canister sets, the ones that are labeled "flour, sugar, coffee, and tea?" I wish I had one labeled "chocolate chips." I always have at least one type of chocolate chip on hand. Right now it's the Nestle semi-sweet mini morsels. I like those because they get more evenly distributed throughout each individual cookie, muffin, or whatever they were thrown into.
Onions. Something magical happens when you cook onions and carrots together. I don't have a name for it, but it's amazing. I love onions, in all forms. I use white onions in my Mexican rice, red onions in Guacamole, green onions in deviled eggs, shallots in pot roast.
Garlic. I used to keep fresh garlic and press it when I needed it, but my husband used my press to crush some seeds one day and it's been out of commission ever since. And I absolutely refuse to use garlic powder. Off-white garlic-y smelling powder just isn't appetizing to me. It looks and smells like something you would scrape off your feet. Ugh. So I keep one of those giant jars of diced garlic in my fridge. I go through about one a month. I also have a garlic and pepper mix that I use if I want something to be garlicky and spicy. The jar says it's a pasta sauce but I can't imagine it actually being used that way.
Chili Paste. I eat this with my Thai curry, and anything else that I can think of to put it on. My chili paste is actually a combination of two store bought types. One is a chili paste/powder that's unnecessarily hot and the other is an oily mess that has no heat but lots flavor. So I mix the two and have almost perfect chili paste. Sometimes I eat just steamed broccoli with chili paste. Yum.
Obviously this isn't an exhaustive list of all the things that have a permanent home in my kitchen. If it were it would exceed the scope of a blog and I'd have to start looking for a publisher. It's just a short list of some of the things that I get the most enjoyment out of.
So, what kinds of fun things to you just have to have in your kitchen?
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