It's a lot easier to start cooking if you already have some basic food items in the house.

My Food Cupboard

Here's a list of the (probably essential) non-perishable foods that will happily sit in your food cupboard (or pantry) until you are ready to use them.

• Condiments
• Mustard
• Ketchup
• Mayonnaise
• Oils
• Cooking oil (vegetable or canola)
• Olive oil
• Salad dressing (pick your favorite)
• Pastas and Rice
• Spaghetti and / or fun-shaped pasta
• White Rice
• Brown Rice
• Canned Foods
• Beans-kidney, pinto, black, navy, etc. Used for cooking or adding to salads.
• Soup
• Tuna Fish
• Stewed Tomatoes (2 cans)
• Spaghetti/pasta sauce

Other

• Breakfast Cereal
• White sugar

Spices

• Salt
• Pepper
• Oregano
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Cinnamon

My Spice Cupboard

You will want to personalize this list with things like coffee, tea, sodas, etc.

This is a good basic list on which you can build. From these ingredients, you can make dishes like tuna salad sandwiches, chili, spaghetti, and rice. And that's just the beginning!

I am intentionally leaving out the entire category of baking foods (like flour, brown sugar, confectioner's sugar, coco powder and so on). You can begin assembling those ingredients when you begin baking from scratch. (Yes, that will happen someday too!)

When stocking up, I strongly recommend bringing a written list of what you need to the grocery store with you (or have it on your cell phone or mp3 player.) It can become hard to remember what you actually do need these days when some grocery stores are so big they should have their own zip code.

When given a choice in size, be realistic. I rarely buy "giant family size" of anything, since my household has only two people and it takes a long time for us to get through a small jar of mayonnaise. Granted, the larger size is a better value, but not if it ends up being thrown out because it has passed its "use-by" date. I would rather buy the smaller size and when it runs out, buy a fresh jar.

Anything else YOU would consider a "must have" in your pantry?

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