Stocking Your Pantry for the Holiday Rush

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween weekend! Now that the holiday season is in full swing, we can all use as much help as we can get to keep holiday stress in check. Running a professional kitchen requires us to keep primary ingredients stocked at all times; this can be applied to your home kitchen as well. Always having a wide variety of spices, baking supplies and canned goods in my own kitchen has saved me time and again from making that last minute trip to the store…on Thanksgiving!

Some great basic ingredients to stock pile now include:

In general, if you are an avid cook then you will use these items often enough to make it cost-effective to keep them on hand. I usually do an assessment of my kitchen before the holiday cooking season to see if I have the basics on hand. I start with the condiments and run through a quick mental checklist of my pantry for:

§  several different types of oils (olives, vegetable etc.)

§  various types of vinegars

§  garlic

§  onions

§  potatoes

Next, I check my stock of rice, pastas, beans and other grains. At that point I also load up on canned soups, chicken stock, vegetable stock and canned pumpkin.  

Then it’s on to the freezer to make sure there are a few bags of frozen vegetables, fish fillets and other meats. Finally, I review my wine and spirits supply. Even if you are not a drinker, many recipes call for the addition of red or white wine. Using high quality wine and spirits in your cooking is as important as using fresh ingredients.

Having these items around will cut down on your shopping list during Thanksgiving. Also, for those surprise guests you will be ready to create a delectable treat at the drop of a hat. Of course, if you really hit a wall the day after Thanksgiving, Paradise Bakery’s Harvest Turkey Sandwich combines the best of Thanksgiving leftovers for you, no assembly required!