butter

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Nutritional yeast for sprinkling over pan-fried tofu and for making vegan "cheese" sauces and gravy.

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Canned tomato products, including canned diced tomatoes, tomato sauce or tomato puree, and tomato paste. Whole peeled tomatoes are a bonus but not required.

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Like #3, I always have Costco-sized cases of canned diced tomatoes and tomato paste that I go through at a scary rate.

Also - Pacific Natural organic Free Range Chicken Broth and Red Pepper Tomato soup in tetrapack quarts.

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It's not entirely odd or unusual but I HAVE to have jasmine rice in the house. We eat rice almost daily so I buy 10KG bags of the stuff all the time. It's the one thing we can't survive without.

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Wasabi Powder/Paste, at least 5 different types of coffee and beef jerkey

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Kosher salt, olive oil, black pepper & parmesan cheese. I can make ANYTHING come alive with those. But, branching out just a tad, I'd go w/ Siracha, fish sauce, limes, double black soy sauce & black sesame oil.

But - weird thing that worked out well last night, I was making my new obsession, Wedding Fried Chicken, with a couple a tweaks (a sweet tea & salt brine first, and celery in the oil), and it occurred to me that it'd be a sin to waste the frying oil, seeing as I'd rendered bacon fat in it and all. I reached into my cupboard and yup - I could have sworn I had hush puppy meal in there, and I was right.

My husband and boss both said "you just HAD hush puppy meal laying around"? Indeed. Seems kinda random, seeing as I live in Brooklyn and all, but I'm not gonna argue with the food gods. Those bacon fat fried hush puppies were gooooood!

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frozen chopped okra, canned black eyed peas, and like many other respondents, canned diced tomatoes.
Oh, and I never seem to be able to keep chicken broth on hand, but am always frustrated that its not in my pantry.

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Oh - and arborio rice and vegetable stock if a risotto urge strikes. Which it does. A lot.

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I always keep Minor Chicken, Beef and Bacon base on hand. You can make almost anything taste better using them instead of salt and I always have broth on hand for fast soups, stews or casseroles.

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Sesame Oil and Parmasean Cheese

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Don't tell anyone (ha) but my dirty pantry secrets involve an extra supply of pasta and a couple cans of cream-of-something soup. I plan (healthy) meals and buy supplies to cook them most of the time. On rare occasions that fails and I fall back on the (terribly unhealthy) comfort food of my childhood: the 1970's casserole.

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I agree with Jen who mentioned Nutritional Yeast. I love having it around as it is very versatile and adds a nice, nutty, flavour (not to mention heaps of protein) to foods.

Other, more "quirky" items I ALWAYS have to have on hand are pickled garlic and pickled veggies. (beets, beans, asparagus, cauliflower, giardiniera mix, etc.) I am obsessed with pickled foods. Not only do they last forever, but they are perfect for a quick antipasto platter/appetizer plates or snack. Pickled garlic I love using in salads (especially caesar salad - yum!) to add a nice, interesting salty/briny crunch. My caesar salad is famous amongst family and friends because of it!

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Peanut butter. Oh, how I love peanut butter. My roommate makes fun of my stash. I think I have about 8 pounds of it. I bake with it, eat it with apples, make sandwiches, and make cold peanut butter noodles. Mmm.

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spiced vinegar.
patis(filipino fish sauce)
bagoong(fish paste)

rarely used but essential with some foods.

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soy sauce, definitely... ok, that's probably not as quircky... ok, I still have some grasshoppers in the pantry, would that do? although I don't find many uses for them.. just occasionally as beer snacks....

http://www.lavacahacemu.com

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Hm . . . loads of Asian-type stuff. Jasmine, black and brown rice, dried seaweed of several types, dried shiitakes, different oils (olive, grapeseed, sesame, peanut,) canned black olives (so fun on your fingers!!), rice noodles, bottled pad thai sauce.

Some different salts, real vanilla (extract and paste,) some sort of bitter dark chocolate . . . I guess I'm getting into the not-so-weird?

OK, the "weirdest" staple in my pantry might be the water-packed lotus slices . . . soooo good in stir-fry. Or maybe shrimp crackers, the kind that look like crinkle-cut fries. Anybody else eat those? Mmm.

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Like Monica, I keep several pickled things handy: asparagus, okra, green beans. They're great as an appetizer or as a side with, say, a chicken salad sandwich.

I also always try to keep Pillsbury French loaf dough in a tube on hand. You can make beautiful fancy sandwiches with it.

Sriracha sauce, and sun-dried tomato paste in a tube. Freeze-dried shallots (from The Spice House in Milwaukee; I'd link, but their site appears to be down right now). Roasted Hatch poblanos, bought by the bushel and frozen in small bags. Pine nuts. Fig balsamic.

I also like to keep a flank steak in the freezer. I marinate it in honey and low-sodium soy sauce in a ziplock for a day, then freeze it.

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Must have Kitchen Bouquet for my gravies! Canned, diced tomatos, condensed sweetened milk, Ortega taco seasoning, sea salt and balsamic vinegar.

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