Staples

[sibyllevance]

I'm very much a beginner in all things kitchen so I tend to stick to recipes for the most part but obviously I can't work on recipes every day. I've just realized today while cooking 'by myself' (i.e. without a recipe) that I had some habits I frankly never realized I even had.
I almost always start by melting onions in a good chunk of salted butter, especially when I have no idea what I'm going to do. It seems like the right thing to do somehow (one of my housemates melts his onion exclusively in oil but I think I won him over just with the smell of mine).

So, what are your staples? Can be an ingredient or a 'foundation' for a recipe (frying onions for me)

Comments

[sibyllevance]

Here are some of mine:

- Dried herbs and spices. Most of the time my cooking would be completely dull without them. I don't always know what goes well with whatever I'm making so I smell each and just take a chance.
- Olive oil. I'm ashamed of that one because it's so damn dear and I kind of use it for anything and everything (and the combo butter/olive oil to melt onion, try it once and you'll never go back again) but it smells and tastes so good.
- Onions and garlic and lemons. I never have too many onions but I've had too much garlic and too many lemons. I like lemons for all kinds of things (salads, houmous, with fish, for guacamole) but if I end up having too many with nothing to use them for, I squeeze them for some lemonade. I roast the garlic (behead it, rub with olive oil and wrap in foil before putting in the oven).
- Beans. Not just kidney, I lived on kidney beans for months and then branched out because I was getting tired of them. You wouldn't believe how filling and tasty beans are. I recommend black-eyed beans especially.
- Pasta and rice. It's a boring staple but a staple nonetheless. Where I am the basmati rice is always on discount (no idea why but I'm not complaining) so I always go for basmati as opposed to white. For pasta I try to vary shapes and sizes. Spaghetti are extremely popular but I think I prefer linguine, even.
- Muscovado sugar which I found completely by accident at my supermarket because it's the cheapest here, turns out it's also the best (it's unrefined brown sugar so it retains all the minerals).

I'll let you stand in for me, thanks!

[marahmarie]

OMG, I was going to post my must-have staples but you just covered the entire list perfectly, except for the sugar, which I've never tried. We are *identical* right down the line on the rest. I wonder if we made meals in identical cookware, and brought it over each other's houses, if we'd even know whose food was who's?