Your First Basic Shop

If you’re lucky, your parents will be keen to buy a box of essentials to take with you (so they know you can survive the first few days). If you give them this list, it’ll help with ideas for the basics for everyday life and a few of the mainstay store cupboard ingredients you’ll often need for cooking the recipes in this book.

Basic cupboard fodder

• Cereal – wholegrain is better than sugary; it’ll fill you up and give you energy for longer
• Curry powder or curry paste
• Garlic – a tub or jar is much easier than fiddling around crushing cloves – store in the fridge once opened
• Herbs – dried mixed herbs are good for flavouring lots of savoury dishes but if you are more adventurous you might add dried oregano, basil, mint, and sage
• Honey – good for sweetening and on toast
• Marmalade, jam and Marmite (or other yeast extract) for toast
• Mayonnaise or salad cream
• Milk powder or long life milk – for when you run out of fresh
• Oil – sunflower, vegetable or olive
• Parmesan-style cheese – a tub of dried, grated Italian hard cheese
• Pasta
• Plain flour (and self-raising if you plan to do any baking)
• Raisins or sultanas – good for snacking, on cereals and in lots of recipes
• Rice – long grain
• Salt and pepper – preferably buy a mill filled with black peppercorns
• Sauces – tomato ketchup, brown, Worcestershire and soy sauces
• Spices – chilli powder and ground cinnamon to start
• Stock cubes – vegetable and/or chicken
• Sugar – caster is fine for most uses
• Tea and coffee
• Tomato purée – a tube is easiest – store in fridge once opened
• Vinegar – white wine will do for anything

Cans

• Tomatoes – economy brands are fine, and whole are cheaper than ready chopped (just crush up with a wooden spoon when you add them)
• Baked beans
• Red kidney beans
• Sweetcorn
• Tuna – supermarkets have low-price cans alongside the famous brands (they should now all carry the ‘dolphin-friendly’ symbol)

In the fridge

• Bread – it’ll keep longer in the fridge
• Butter or margarine
• Cheddar cheese – choose a strong flavoured one, if you like it, then you don’t need to use so much in cooking
• Eggs
• Milk – keep a carton in the freezer so you won’t run out; it does take ages to thaw though, and will need a good shake once defrosted