Advice for my first home from the food experts please!

kittykitten

I'm (hopefully, gazumping avoided) moving into my first house soon. It will literally be my first home that hasn't been my parents' house - the only other time I've spent away from home was when I spent 6 months working away, but was living in provided (but grim) accomodation and came home every weekend, so literally bought nothing more than I needed, also would shop each evening just for something to do!

So my problem is I now need to start thinking about setting up a larder/store cupboard type stock of things. Obviously, having spent quite a lot of my savings on deposit, solicitors fees, will need to buy furniture, etc this doesn't leave me a lot of money spare, although my mum is so desperate to go shopping (think she just likes the idea of filling a house from scratch!) that I suspect she will, before I move in, take me on a parent-funded food shop as she did with my brother when he moved out.

What I'm really looking for from you wonderful people is what you would recommend buying to start with, anywhere you'd recommend looking, anything I should avoid, etc. I am quite domesticated, do enjoy cooking, but am used to doing it in a house with wonderfully stocked cupboards, and not used to doing it for me only - usually I shop for the whole family and cook for the whole family, so any suggestions from people on their own would be useful!

*debbie*

Do you have Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food cookbook? It is for the basic beginners in cooking, so perfect for my teenaged son, and has a list of food he recommends having in the cupboard. They include
dijon mustard
wholegrain mustard
olive oil
vegetable oil
red & white wine vinegar
plain & self raising flour
baking powder
sugar - various varieties
pasta
noodles
tinned tomatoes, tuna, cannelini beans, kidney beans, coconut milk
rice
oats
honey
maple syrup
nuts of various variteis
cream crackers
stock cubes
pesto
curry paste
soy sauce
ketchup
mayonnaise
salt & papper
nutmeg
cinnamon
oregano
bay leaves
coriander seeds
fennel seeds
cumin seeds
chillli powder
5 spice
garam masala
curry powder
paprika
frozen peas, braod beans, sweetcorn, fruit, prawns, pastry.

There is also a great list of 'kitchen kit' he recommends. All these things are dependant on what you like to eat, eg, if you dont like curry, forget the coconut milk, curry pastes, various seasonings....

Good luck, I remember my first place of my own.....I won't tell you how many years ago as it makes me feel old!

Middy

I also recommend to have a bottle of Worcester sauce, baked beans, pasta sauces and soup (tinned and the longlife packets ready to heat)

So if you are low on cash or cba to cook, at least you have something to knock up in minutes.

geordie_joe

kittykitten wrote: »

what you would recommend buying to start with, anywhere you'd recommend looking, anything I should avoid, etc.

yes, avoid the stuff you will never use and only buy stuff you will use.

To be honest, asking other people is the worst thing you can do. They (we) don't know what you like or what you will use, so why go out and buy the stuff we buy?

The store cupboards of the Uk are full of items that have been there for years and will never get use. They were bought because the person thought they might need them one day, often because someone else told them they would need it.

The best advice I can give you is, buy the things you know you will need/use and don't buy anything else until you need it.

After all, if it's not in your home now/never has been in your home, the chances are you won't use it if you buy it and put it in your new home.

eleanor73

Tinned tomatoes!!! My one storecupboard essential!

Also check what you've got before you go shopping so that you can make meals out of what you've already got.

Be flexible and check for bargains.

Get a decent size freezer so you can batch cook and then portion up individually.

And enjoy-it'll be a lovely adventure!!

chardonnay_2

don't be afraid to try the value or basic ranges. check out www.hotukdeals.com and go to the grocery section to find latest bargains.

caroline1973lefty

over the years i've wasted loads of money buying store cupboard stuff that was recommended by one recipe book or another, that then never got used.

(why on earth do you need two types of wine vinegar?!)

like geordie joe says, buy what you actually use. i do a lot of wholefood cooking and i realised recently that i don't need to have more than one or two choices of each type of food in store at any one time - one type of bean, nut, tinned fish, even grain, is pretty interchangeable with another, and experimenting is half the fun of learning to cook.

having said that my 'wouldn't be withouts' are:
vinegar
pepper
tamari (yum)
mixed herbs (grow a few in your garden too)
chilli powder
curry powder
cumin
coriander
olive oil
honey
lentils
oats
rice or barley
pasta
tins of beans, fish, tomatoes
pumpkin seeds
coffee and tea bags and camomile and peppermint tea
plus in terms of fresh stuff, potatoes, onions, bacon, cheese, yoghurt, butter, and whatever vegetables are in season.
ooh and if you have a freezer, maybe some chicken livers, fishfingers, and frozen meat and fish.

mmm... that's about it really! if you lay in bulk stocks of these you should be able to rustle up a pretty wide range of meals - and will be a better spend of your mum's money than getting endless jars of tapenade, smoked paprika, or whatever the latest celeb chef thinks is a must have!

PasturesNew

I'd start with:
Baked beans, Oxo cubes, salt/pepper, some basic herbs, tinned tomatoes, couple of tins of tuna, some cheap noodles, bag of rice, bag of pasta, couple of tins of peas.

After that I'd just see what I needed as I got into the swing of cooking. It's the summer, you live alone - you might find that by the time you get home from work just cheese on toast is all you can be bothered making

Bella521

Totally agree with PasturesNew - don't burden yourself with buying too much stuff initially. Maybe try and grab a few minutes every weekend to plan a week load of meals - grab free magazines like Tesco Mag, etc - they often have reasonable meal ideas in there. Then you can go shopping armed with a list and not be tempted to overspend. Plus,then if you need a store cupboard thing like mustard or chilli sauce, you'll know you're actually going to use it in the recipe!

Sunnyday

why not draw up a list of all the meals that you enjoy and then write a list of all the ingredients and build a store cupboard that way.

I`d be lost without my collection of herbs and spices but some do get used a lot more than others so i tend to go for dried ones which i top up from the garden. Frozen herbs are good too.

HTH


SD

mervyn67

Having looked at Debbies list (although inspired by Jamie) talking as a househusband there is a lot that I think is "Cheffy". You will have to sort out what.
I would say that 2 mustards ,2 vinegars and various sugars are not an immediate need, nor are maple syrup and nuts (unless of course you are used to cooking with them).
Pesto and many of the spices mentioned are used so rarely by myself that they are not needed so don't get them until you need to (they are not essential to life).
Did anyone mention Milk, Eggs, Bacon, Sausages, Coffee, Tea, Mushrooms, Salad stuff, Potatoes, General veg?