Here’s a good list of things to have on hand at all times, even if you only plan on cooking two or three times a week. It’s your basic Pallet to work with. The stuff that you reach for only to find out that you never bought it. Plus most of it keeps forever so you don’t have to really worry if you don’t use it

Salt – Always have salt on hand. Spend the extra two bucks and use ether a good Sea salt or Kosher. Believe it or not, salt does have flavor and that ionized shit won’t cut it. Whole Pepper For the pepper mill you bought. Trust me on this. Fresh ground pepper and that powder BS are two different things. Use Fresh ground, please. Olive oil Get a thing of decent extra virgin but you don’t need to spent 20$ on a bottle unless you have some Italian super model coming over for dinner. Store sealed in a dark place so it will last a while Sugar A little bit of sugar can go a long way and while basic sugar does have drawbacks it does work in a wide variety of situations Brown Sugar Much stronger flavor but it’s well worth having on hand Sriacha- Imagine if Ketchup and Hot sauce went out for a night of heavy drinking. This is the result of that night. Not overly hot but it does have so kick and a little on the side of a plate adds a lot of flavor. The other thing that Chef loves about it is that it’s thick and holds up well as a bright garnish. Butter- One of the greatest and most versatile of all ingredients out there. It has allot more uses than most people think of and for this reason I suggest using unsalted butter. You can always add salt and if you use butter in baking, a little extra salt can throw off the recipe. Rice The type you chose is to you and with over 7,000 varieties, you have a lot of room to play. Pasta- Once again, it’s your call on the type you choose. The nice thing is the fact that it hold up well and is easy to cook. Flour- All purpose is fine for 99 percent of what you’ll use it for. Store it in an airtight container

Now please keep in mind folks that I have what I call my one week rule when it comes to most things, both in my home and my pro Kitchen. I really don’t like to keep anything around longer and I only buy what I need for a meal or two at a time. It sucks to think you have cream when going to make Mac N Cheese only to find out it’s sour when you go to use it.

The more you cook at home, the easier it is to shop since you learn to use things in more than one way. In the restaurant business when I design a menus I always try to use any given item 5 ways if possible so that I’m always able to keep things fresh and in rotation. It’s not hard to figure out 3 or 4 ways to use a potato……

***Questions, comments, feedback?!?!? Come on people, let your voice be heard on the site !!!! Joe commented this morning and SHAZAM, this post is online just hours later cause I give a fuck about YOU!!!!! Please like and share and re-post cause I’m not getting paid for this site (yet) so I depend on you to spread the word………..pretty please.