What does a well-stocked kitchen look like?

An excellent strategy for ensuring you and your family are eating nutritiously is to invest the time in doing your own food preparation.  Cooking is not for everyone, but there are many simple, accessible and easy recipes and staple foods readily available, that I am convinced that cooking may not be as big of a barrier as it may seem.  You don’t necessarily even need to use recipes and one approach I use is batch preparation of simple items that can be assembled into meals, like I discussed here.  One thing that I always do is to keep a few basic foods stocked in my pantry, fridge and freezer to make sure that I can quickly put some meals together even if I have not been to the grocery store recently.  Here are the main foods that I always try to keep in the house:

Foods to keep on hand

• Canned beans
• Lentils
• Onions
• Garlic
• Lemons/limes
• Spices (chili powder, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, turmeric, ginger, curry powder, Seasonello, which I learned about from my friend, Jeanne, who has excellent taste.  As an aside, if you are my friend and you recommend something, I am going to follow it!
• Vegetable or Chicken broth
• Diced and crushed tomatoes
• Frozen Chicken (breasts and thighs)
• Frozen Ground Beef/Turkey
• Green tea
• Frozen berries
• Canned coconut milk
• Salsa
• Rice
• Tuna
• Eggs 
• Pasta
• Quinoa
• Rolled oats
• Coconut aminos/soy sauce
• Olive oil 

These foods allow me to put together a variety of soups, smoothies, stir fries, and salsas, along with stand-alone, one ingredient meal components, like rice and beans. Then, I add in fresh meats, vegetables and fruit as available after a grocery store run.  Consider keeping these foods stocked in your kitchen to take some of the planning out of food prep and to ensure you are ready to go when the mood to cook may strike.  Reach out if I can help you get stocked up!