Wednesday, March 25, 2009

A Peek Behind The Sacred Pantry Door

I was inspired to do this post by the Highway Hags five part Truckin Cribs tour. Of course, they showed you a whole lot more of their truck (which I might do in the future), but for right now I'm giving you a quick tour of my fabulous pantry. I know, who really gives shit, right? Well, too bad - this is what you get today.

When we got the truck, we had two hanging clothes closets, but with all the room I have I decided I just didn't need them. I asked Ed to make one of them into a pantry. So he put two shelves in, creating three separate areas for me to pack with goodies. The very top shelf, which you can’t see, holds my pots and some miscellaneous items. The two main shelves hold the good stuff.

I’ve highlighted 10 items that we always have on hand, but in the background, were you to dig a little deeper, you’d find peanut butter, grape soda (childhood favorite!), canned veggies, oatmeal, tuna, salsa, Mint Milano cookies, sugar, crushed tomatoes, soup, spices....I could probably whip up anything in thirty minutes - if I don't have it, I'm never far from the store!

Now for the tour...

1. At least 14 boxes of Barilla pasta – I can never run low for fear of going into withdrawals. I think Ed is sick of having macaroni for dinner, but this is what I grew up on!

2. Bottle of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup – a necessity for late night chocolate milk but also good for a chocolate fix if there is nothing else available – a little squirt in the mouth is like an intravenous feed.

3. Extra Virgin Olive Oil or EVOO as Rachael Ray likes to say. Another staple – wouldn’t be able to run my kitchen without it.

4. Ed’s necessary bag of chips. I never grew up eating chips – but he’s a white boy and apparently, white people have chips on the side of their sandwich. The only side we might have with our sandwich would be another meatball.

5. Our instant coffee selections for when we don’t want to brew a pot of regular or use the espresso machine. Folgers for Ed (they really do have flavor crystals!) and my favorite, General Foods International Italian Cappuccino.

6. Balsamic Vinegar – a salad staple for me, but great for making a balsamic reduction for chicken or pork and excellent on strawberries.

7. Crystal Light – if I must to drink water (ICK) it has to have something in it. We’re into the Strawberry/Banana/Orange right now (which really just tastes like strawberry) but I have too many favorite flavors to name.

8. You can’t see the box, but it’s Pillsbury Devil’s Food Cake mix. For when I must have a freshly baked cake.

9. Potatoes (duh) that are actually FROM Idaho! Bet you couldn’t tell that by just looking at them, could you? And yes, they really DO taste better.

10. Drinking water. We fill up the tank in the truck but only use that for showers and dishwashing. For coffee and drink mixes, I use the bottled stuff. Refills are only .35 a gallon at Walmart. Can’t beat that. Well, if you're paying for water that is.

5 comments:

Team Caffee said...

What do you use to bake with?

I also have a well stocked pantry in the truck and use various items to cook with. My favorite is my Rice Cooker which very seldom makes rice. I will have to blog on what all I have great idea and great for ideas.

Hedon said...

Dude!

That is too cool. Eddie did a damn fine job putting in those shelves -- they look great.

Course the stuff in them looks pretty good, too. Especially since Stace informed me earlier that if we eat McDonalds one more time she is going to drive us into an overpass and I could only agree... :)

Ed said...

Thanks Hedon. I agree with you on Mcdonalds too. Last ditch meals or 99 cent heart attacks. :-p
-Ed

Gil said...

Nice collection of goodies, especially the Barilla!

Team Caffee said...

Your truck is awesome thanks for the link. How do you like the bed facing placed like that when going down the road? We are considering that configuration in our next truck. I also have wondered about the heat build up inside the sleeper with a convection oven and how bad it pulls on the generator?