Staples

One of the most important parts about setting up a kitchen is figuing out what you need to keep on-hand. Now, for most of us moving out of the dorms or out of the parents' house, we come to our first "real" place with a mishmash of kitchen gear picked up on the cheap or snagged from the parents' place. I'll be talking about kitchen hardware in a later post - what I want to focus on now is the food aspect of the kitchen.

One of the important things to figure out first is to determine what your family's eating style is. Do you tend to eat a lot of rice or potatoes with your meals? Do you plan out meals in advance, or do you just go to the pantry and throw stuff together? Figure out what you know you'll use when it's available, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what kind of staples your family needs.

In order to keep our home running and fed, we keep rice, canned tomato sauce, chicken, ground beef, garlic cloves, and a few of those boxed chicken dinners on hand. With all of this, we could eat reasonably well for about two or three weeks. Of course, there are spices and seasonings that we keep stocked, as well - chili powder, garlic salt, and cumin chief among them.

All of these are things that will last a reasonably long time - we get the flash-frozen bags of chicken breast, and freeze what beef we buy and don't use immediately. These things will make sure that you don't run out of food if you can't make it to the grocery store - an important consideration when you're living paycheck to paycheck.

Figuring out what kinds of foods your family always keeps on hand is also a great way to take a closer look at how your family eats. For instance, looking at my family's staples, it's pretty obvious that we need to get a few more vegetables and fruits into our lives on a regular basis. By making a point to keep healthier things on-hand, you can make changes to your family's diet that can do a world of good in the long run. The best way to keep a household going is with a variety of healthy and satisfying foods on-hand - and "satisfying" is in the eye of the beholder.