Interview and Pantry Staples

Last Friday, Correen from Food Lover’s Website featured me in an interview. Click here to read my bad jokes and soap box speeches on CSAs, Clean Eating and my electric frying pan.

No recipes today but thought I would include a quick post on some Badger Girl/Manatee staples. In my other life, I worked in corporate America and I was always asking people what they ate. They would start to tell me a recipe and I would stop them and say, no, what do you actually eat everyday? It was weird but I was young and had no idea what to buy. In college, I was a vegetarian (and a college student) so my choices were limited. I was clueless when I started eating meat again and suddenly had money to buy food.

Did I mention I didn’t have many friends in corporate America?

Fast forward several years and I still wonder what people eat. Even though we make a lot of recipes in our household, we have some standby meal or snacks that I don’t really post about it or talk about it. I know others do the same and I’m curious about it.

Here are a few things you will always find in our house:

• Frozen blueberries: I teased Manatee about this obsession until I started eating them on my cereal. I heat them up in the microwave and put them in my cereal. It’s a warm, sweet breakfast and has become my favorite meal of the day.
• Unsweetened Almond milk: Being lactose intolerant, I can’t do regular milk on my cereal. Now I would not even want to. We get unsweetened vanilla flavor. It is so much better than boring old milk!
• Bananas and berries (strawberry, blackberry and/or raspberry): This all contributes to our breakfasts. We are a little obsessive about breakfast if you don’t notice. I have it down to a science: bananas, warmed blueberries, cereal, fresh berries. Yum!
• Salad mix: Duh.
• Fat-free Greek yogurt: Great alternative to sour cream and a great substitute for sour cream or mayo when you’re making any kind of dip.
• Sun-dried tomatoes (no oil): Great as a standalone snack, on salads or in a pasta dish. I love them with crackers.
• Crackers: Manatee and I both love Gluten free crackers. Let me re-phrase that, I love about any kind of cracker and Manatee only likes the Gluten free ones.
• Chicken breasts: Great as a quick meal or on a salad.
• Black bean and corn salsa: Great on salads or as a snack.
• Frozen vegetables: In general, I believe that dinner needs a hot element. Steamed veggies always do the trick and you don’t have to worry about them going bad.
• Organic Chicken Sausages: Target makes these amazing organic chicken sausages. They are pre-cooked so you just warm them up. No chemicals and a great, quick source of protein! My favorite flavors are Spinach & Garlic, Italian and Apple.
• Natural Peanut butter: Great source of protein and so good! You can also use it to make a sauce for pasta.
• Whole wheat pasta: Great quick meal.
• Canned tomatoes: Great to have on hand for quick sauces.
• Steamed Lentils: You can find these near the organic produce section of the store. I recently started eating them. They are great for throwing on top of salads, as a side dish or to bulk up a meat mixture like we did in our healthy tacos.
• Whole Wheat Flour and other baking goodies: I love baking so I can’t imagine a kitchen that isn’t fully stocked with baking materials. Check back later this week for some baking experiments. I am going to try to re-do some recipes with whole grain ingredients.
• Homemade Salad Dressing: I think we are both spoiled now. I refuse to buy bottled salad dressing because of the chemicals and because we could never eat it fast enough. I also never found a flavor that tasted as good as it sounded.
• Diet Coke: I’m healthy but I’m not perfect.

What are some of your pantry staples? I would love to hear about them.