Although I try to make a menu every week, sometimes, it just doesn’t happen. I wanted to list a few things that I believe are must-haves in the pantry. With these things in my pantry and freezer, I will always have a meal to make.

Pantry Must-Haves:

• Diced tomatoes- there is ALWAYS a meal that can use diced tomatoes, so I always have at least two cans of these in the pantry.
• Black beans- I can give you three recipes that I have right now that call for black beans and one of those recipes takes about 20 minutes to make- fast. easy. That’s my thing. So I always have about two cans of these.
• Rice- Do I even need to say why? You should never run low on rice, or the next three items:
  - Macaroni
  - Spaghetti
  - Mashed Potato Mix
  With those, you always have a side for whatever meat you are cooking or you have a meal (with the spaghetti).
• Corn- This is my go-to veggie. Hubby and I are pretty bad about cooking vegetables, but I’ve always got a can of corn that I can throw in.

Freezer Must-Haves:

I buy my meat in large packages, this way, I don’t have to buy it every week. We don’t eat too much beef in here (as I am an ex-vegetarian, I still limit my beef intake) so when I do want to cook beef, I just go buy it. Here are my must-haves for the freezer:

• Diced Onions- Since there are only 3 of us in this house and I don’t necessarily use onions unless it’s called for, when I do buy a whole onion, sometimes it goes bad and I get pissed. If I have a bag of frozen onions ALREADY DICED a) I cut back on prep time because I don’t have to cut it and b) I can use it when necessary and therefore don’t have to throw away an onion that’s gone bad.
• Peppers- I always. always have a bag of pre-cut peppers in the freezer. Red, yellow & green peppers and I actually have one bag of diced green peppers in there too (so if a recipe calls for green peppers, I don’t have to pick them out one-by-one in the mixed bag). I have a ton of recipes that call for peppers, but just like onions, sometimes they go bad and I hate wasting stuff.
• Frozen carrots- Same excuse. Carrots come in a really large bag and we won’t usually eat ‘em all.
• Ground Turkey
• Chicken Breasts- I usually buy these at Costco, but sometimes if you go to the grocery store you can find a large tray of breasts on sale because they are set to expire in a day or two. The prices are drastically cut and if you know you are going to take it home and freeze it right away- you just saved a bunch of money. I bought two trays on sale at WalMart about one month ago and just replenished that supply today.

Now, if you don’t own a Crock-Pot/slow cooker- you better ask somebody. Hubby got me one for Christmas about three years ago- best. investment. ever. Seriously, on those very lazy days when you know you don’t even FEEL like slaving over a hot stove- the slow cooker is your friend.

I had an issue  few weeks ago:

To which my Tweep, The Renegade Mom replied:

Ya, I put frozen chicken, a can of diced tomatoes and frozen red peppers with a little water into the slow cooker and BAM! Hubby came home and said “Mmm watcha cookin’ honey?”

That’s right… don’t hate. That’s how we do things around here.

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