HOW TO BUILD A PANTRY - 27 essential ingredients
and the many meals you can make from them
I like cooking. I like cooking for big groups. I like cooking a lot. I would go as far to say I love cooking with all of my silly little heart. I ideally would always be cooking for 6-8 people, this is my comfort zone, this is where I shine. I have in fact just written a cookbook full to the brim of recipes that feed 6-8 people (it’s called In for Dinner and it’s available to pre-order now, publishes in May and I apologise in advance for the many more times I will be saying this in an effort to get it into as many hands as possible). Be that as it may, I really dislike cooking for one, specifically cooking for myself. Now there may be something deeper here, connected with self worth, that I may need to unpack with my therapist, but to keep it top line: I just can’t be arsed to go to all that effort for myself. The joy I find in cooking comes from feeding other people, from nourishing them with delicious food, from seeing the joy it brings (most of the time) and the opportunity for connection it brings.
When I first moved to London at 20, on my own, without a job or one single friend, I really struggled to cook for myself. I knew how, but I couldn’t muster the energy or the enthusiasm for much beyond smoothies, hummus & crudités and many a bowl of pesto pasta. Now that’s all fine and good for a mildly depressed 20 year old finding her feet in the big city, but for this 31 year old woman finding her feet in a new city, I need to up my game. I am living and working in Rome for the next month, mostly because my schedule allowed for me to be out of London for the whole of February and that might not happen again this year, so I jumped at the chance to escape the grey and rainy big smoke for a minute. The apartment I’m staying in is usually let on a short stay basis and so it has little in the cupboards save 12 types of herbal tea - for which I am grateful. So, challenged with stocking this kitchen from the ground up, whilst also being realistic about how much food I will get through in the month, I wrote myself a shopping list of 27 essential ingredients from my cramped Ryanair window (a small win) seat.
From this modest but thorough selection of ingredients, I can make countless meals, snacks and crucially some really delicious batch cooked dishes that will become the basis of my lunches and dinners throughout the week.
In this newsletter I have shared my shopping list for 27 essential ingredients, a prep list to help save you time and effort during the week, two recipes to stock your fridge for those ravenous exhausted moments and also a list of 7 linked recipes that can be made from this list of ingredients, demonstrating just how far those 27 essential ingredients can take you. I’m so excited to share this with you!
Sending love, Rosie x
