Country Cooking Recipes-Get Your Pantry Basics Here

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Kitchen Pantry Favorite Stock Ups

Whip up most anything at a moment's notice with these top ten kitchen must-haves:

1. Baking supplies (flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt)
2. Pasta, including the modern pantry staple of boxed macaroni and cheese. For more innovative pasta meals check out the Washington Post's inexpensive pasta recipes)
3. Chicken broth (Swanson's Organic Chicken Broth won a recent Cooks Illustrated taste test)
4. Rice (brown and white and basmati, if regularly cook Indian food)
5. Canned fish (take your pick of salmon, tuna, anchovies, or sardines. Trader Joe's has a good selection.)
6. Oatmeal
7. Nuts
8. Honey
9. Olive oil
10. Canned tomatoes

In The Pantry

sugar, cake flour, all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour (though to be honest, I often have to throw it away because it spoils quickly and I forget to store it in the fridge—if you do this, make sure to let it get to room temperature before using), Scharffen Berger chocolate semi-sweet and bittersweet baking bars and baking chunks, SB cocoa powder (and thanks to SB for stocking my test kitchen), Valrhona cocoa powder, brown sugar, confectioners' sugar, baking soda, cornstarch, cream of tartar—wow this just the baking supplies, and I could go on. I also keep Barilla boxed pasta, canned chickpeas, canned red kidney beans, dry lentils, steel cut oats, tomato paste, canned tomatoes (San Marzano and Pastene ground peeled). I also have some goodies I canned last summer, including peaches, tomato jam, tomato relish and strawberry jam.