Top 12 Pantry Items

[snapdragon]

1. Oatmeal
2. Chick /dried green Peas
3. Wheatflour
4. tomatoes bottled, tinned, dried, or pulverised
5. Tea
6. nuts
7. pasta
8. sugar or honey
9. sunflower oil
10. bicarbonate of soda
11. Barley
12. Onions

Amaranth you ask many questions but you don't introduce yourself at all, who are you ? and why do you want to know all this ?

[ina]

Oatmeal/rolled oats
Wholemealflour
Couscous
Pasta
Rice
Chickpeas
Lentils (red and/or green and/or brown)
Veggie bouillon
Dried fruit (various - not always the same)
Oil (sunflower and/or olive and/or rapeseed)
Onions
Carrots


Lots of other things, of course - but these are the ones I'd get nervous about if I ran out!

[Cheezy]

Onions
Garlic
potatoes
tomato paste
chicken stock cube
eggs
strong white flour (can make pasta and bread then)
Self raising flour
yeast
honey
rissotto/paella rice
legumes (that means I get to have beans,chickpea's and lentils!)

(I'm not counting tea cos it's a herb! and I'm not counting olive oil cos it should be a given.)

[Helsbells]

Tricky, but:
1. Plain flour,
2. Self raising flour,
3. caster sugar,
4. Demarara sugar,
4. tinned chopped tomatoes,
5. Olive oil,
6. Garlic,
7. Onions,
8. bullion powder,
9. basmati rice,
10. wholemeal pasta,
11. rasins,
12. Oats.

[Stonehead]

If you could have just 12 versatile pantry food items, what would you choose? These would be items that could be stored in the cupboards or cellar for long periods of time without needing refrigeration. For this question there is no need to include salt, herbs, or spices as I'll ask for ideas about them later. So which grains, long keeping vegetables or fruits, dried items, tinned or jarred items, etc. would you most like to have?

You wouldn't be doing a TV reality programme would you? Your posts so far are suggestive...

[Amaranth]

I am having a hard time getting below 17 on the challenge. I guess I should have picked 20 instead of 12 for the amount or then would we have been wanting it changed to 25???

The other thing that's hard to decide is where to try to choose local items to be more SSish and where to choose items that might be imported from warmer areas.

For the fruits and vegetables, I'm considering between
Apples
Onions (I can get leeks all the way through the winter on the allotment so they don't need to be stored inside so I picked onions as they do better inside.)
Cabbage (or is it better to leave this out and use the kale, asian, and other greens that live through the winter on the allotment? Yet indoor storage is a more certain thing than plants on the allotment.)
Tomatoes (tinned, bottled, dried)
Potatoes
Raisins or dried cherries
Among these there is some varied nutrition especially with having both a red/orange item and a green vegetable.

I'd like at least one nut or seed or maybe use the mixed nuts as another poster suggested. Walnuts or flax seeds would be good for omega-3s, but hazelnuts make a better nutbutter. We really like almonds a lot but they need to be imported. Sesame seeds make a good nutbutter, but they are hard to process by hand from the plant.

For grains, I'd like a versatile one like
Brown rice, but it would be imported
Oats
White whole wheat and sourdough starter
or barley, but I find it less versatile.
Or grains could be left out and potatoes could serve as the starch.
The whole wheat could be used as a whole grain like rice or barley, cracked for porridge, or ground to flour. The white whole wheat is a special kind of winter wheat that tastes lighter, but still has the whole wheat nutrition.

Dried legumes would be really good. Lentils and chickpeas would be among the top choices, but mung beans would be an advantage as they could be used for fresh sprouts.

Smoked or tinned salmon. I like to use anchovies a lot, but salmon is easier to use in more varied recipes. Salmon would provide the omega 3s which would make the nut choice not dependant on that.

Plain olives in good olive oil so there would be the benefit of the oil. Though if I went with the flax seed, that makes a good culinary oil for uncooked items.

Honey or Sugar (probably from beets to avoid imports). Or if this was left out apples and dried fruit could be used for sweeteners and would provide more nutrients.

Vinegar--Here it's difficult to choose between apple cider, white wine, more aged balsamics, or red wine. Each has different health benefits or works better in certain salad dressings, or pickling.

Chocolate

Tea

****************************************
So whittling it down a bit more, I'm thinking:
Apples (and use them to make cider and vinegar)
Onions
Tomatoes (tinned, bottled, dried)
Potatoes
Raisins (or mixed dried fruit)
Hazelnuts
White whole wheat and sourdough starter(catching wild yeasts on the wheat)
Dry legumes especially lentils, chickpeas, mung beans
Smoked or tinned salmon
Plain olives in olive oil
Honey or Sugar
Chocolate
Tea

which is still one item over. Probably the sensible thing would be to take out the honey or sugar and use the fruits as sweeteners. The fruits would add more vitamins and minerals compared to the honey or sugar. However they honey and sugar keep better assuring the calorie supply.

[ina]

Dried legumes would be really good. Lentils and chickpeas would be amoung the top choices, but mung beans would be an advantage as they could be used for fresh sprouts.

Both chickpeas and lentils make good sprouts - lentils are particularly easy to use - and they taste much better than mung beans, I think...

[QuakerBear]

Dear Amaranth,

You're not planning to hole yourself up in cave survivalist style or something are you?

[SarahJane]

1) Marmite
2) tinned chopped tomatoes
3) vinegar (balsamic)
4) rice
5)veg stock cubes
6) garlic
7) olive oil
basmati rice
9) dried pasta
10) baked beans
11) mixed nuts
12)seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame etc)

And if I could have another it would be salad cream!

[Mydreamlife]

OOOOO Tricky, I think reading everyone elses has made it harder! Kept remembering things I love!
But Here goes!

1 Plain Flour
2 Onions
3 Lentils
4 Brown Rice
5 Tomatos (Pureed, chopped, sundried, strained........!)
6 Honey
7 Rolled Oats
8 Yeast
9 Mixed dried fruit (from local health food shop - Apricots, raisins, apple, pinapple etc)
10 Olive oil
11 Mixed dried beans
12 Bouillon