Fridge Must Haves...not a debate

Sharon - posted on 02/02/2011

Milk, cereal, coffee, fruit, creamer



five items only? Thats tough. But milk is top of the list. In that order. The kids vary between apples, bananas, oranges, strawberries, blueberries etc as their cravings. So I just said fruit. But bananas and apples are cheapest and their favorites.



But if I were to have additional "staples" for a cheap but good diet?



pasta & pasta sauces (alfredo & tomato) - you can do so much with pasta. It SUCKS after a while and gets kinda boring but its filling and nutritious.



Rice. Again - so much you can do with it. Fried rice is my favorite. A bag of mixed veggies, 4 - 6 scrambled eggs a pound of ground beef, soy sauce, garlic and you have a meal that is imminently nutritious. Any of these can be made more nutritious with "better" quality items but these suffice.



boneless chicken thigh meat. TONS you can do with this. Bake it, fry it, boil it. sauce, pesto, herbs, - look for the small plastic baggies of herbs - cheaper than the bottles. They're about 80cents here. Served with rice or pasta - doesn't matter.

Nicole - posted on 02/02/2011

avacado and cream cheese sandwiches are awesomesauce!

Stifler's - posted on 02/02/2011

I love avocado on toast better than anything else!

Crystal - posted on 02/02/2011

Cheese, eggs, yogurt, berries and Juice Plus

Rebecca - posted on 02/02/2011

Oh, and to the different kinds of butter, Almond butter is really good.

Rebecca - posted on 02/02/2011

milk, eggs, bread, potatoes and tortillas

Amber - posted on 02/01/2011

mmm pumpkin seed butter. yum. tahini is good too, sesame seed butter? so many butters! and might i add, i always like to have honey in the house. right now i have none :(

Bonnie - posted on 02/01/2011

I have yet to actually try cashew butter, but my sister-inlaw swears by it. I love cashews though so I don't see why I wouldn't like it. There is only one place so far that i've seen it and it seems to be kind of expensive. I will treat myself someday real soon :-).

Lady Heather - posted on 01/31/2011

Cashew butter is nom. My daughter's first "butter" was pumpkin seed. I assume that would be good to take to school. Mmm...pumpkin seeds...

Holly - posted on 01/31/2011

milk, juice (Motts for Tots), eggs, cheese, coffee

bananas andvapples are kept on the counter, so IMO they don't count, but if they did we could bump eggs off my list and replace it with apples - the kids go throught A LOT of apples...

Julianne - posted on 01/31/2011

mmmm to the cashew butter

Bonnie - posted on 01/31/2011

Yes, plum sauce is really good with chicken fingers, but I also love mustard with it.

Has anyone tried cashew butter?

Bonnie - posted on 01/31/2011

We always keep our bread in the fridge and if we have an abundance of it (if it is on sale) we keep it in the deep freezer.

~Jennifer - posted on 01/31/2011

Milk, Iced tea, cheese, yogurt and grapes.

Maria - posted on 01/31/2011

whoa i didnt kno there was so many forms of butter lol! ima have to check this out

Amber - posted on 01/31/2011

apple butter is kind of like applesauce for your toast :D it's okay...it's one of the things i always buy organic though. peanut butter is a staple too, nobody ever went hungry when there was the possibility of a PB&J. although, my son eats more sunflower seed butter than he does peanut butter. it's safe to take to school and actually a bit better than peanut butter ;) higher in iron. and he doesn't notice the difference.

Maria - posted on 01/31/2011

what is apple butter!! ohh man im learning of so many new things!! haha yea i love bagels and cream cheese too mmm and i go thru my phases with applesauce! oh and broccoli is my all time fav

Amber - posted on 01/31/2011

i don't care for apple butter very much but my son doesn't really notice the difference when it is on his PB&J.

our top 5 would be;
Unsweetened Soymilk
Bread
Applesauce [my kid can't get enough applesauce!]
Ground Beef
Pasta Sauce

i , personally, don't like to go without bagels & cream cheese, but if i had to i would obviously. eggs is up there too, along with broccoli, carrots, potatoes & blueberries. ooh and pancakes mix.

Erin - posted on 01/30/2011

I'm not a fan of apple butter, but my Nana makes a killer lemon butter!

Our five staples would be milk, bread, cheese, PB and yoghurt.

Shannen - posted on 01/30/2011

I'm gunna see if i can find some of this apple butter or lime marmalade. it all sounds so yummy.

Johnny - posted on 01/30/2011

Mmm.. marmalade. I love orange marmalade. Lime not so much. When I was a kid, on croissants with a little butter. So good. We do apple butter around here too. Yummy.

Rebecca - posted on 01/30/2011

Apple butter is awesome. I like pumpkin butter but can't eat to much...it tends to give you the runs ;).

Nicole - posted on 01/30/2011

One new thing I tried recently was apple butter. It is really yummy:) I also tried pumpkin butter but I didn't like it as much

Sal - posted on 01/30/2011

ohh i haven't had lime marmalde for ages, but love it, and ginger marmalade too

Krista - posted on 01/30/2011

Lime marmalade is frigging AWESOME. We had Rose's lemon-lime marmalade on our toast this morning. Yummy!!!

Our must-haves are milk, eggs, bread, cheese and coffee. And for my bonus item: frozen peas.

Hannah - posted on 01/30/2011

yes :) plum sauce is sooo good with chicken fingers!

Maria - posted on 01/30/2011

Plum sauce for chicken fingers? like you dip it in the plum sauce like as if it were ketchup?! thats crazy!! ima have to try that!!

Hannah - posted on 01/30/2011

yogurt, coffee creamer, frozen veggies, plum sauce(for chicken fingers and fries) and some sort of fruit.....

Stifler's - posted on 01/30/2011

I've revised my list. If I had to only have 5 things... I'd always have potatoes (i keep them in the crisper so they don't grow sprouts), frozen beans and peas, sausages, milk and bread (goes mouldy after 1 day sitting out here). Beans and peas totally only count as one thing...

Amy - posted on 01/30/2011

fridge - eggs, milk, cheese, butter....that's all for fridge.
We can over the summer so we have lots of canned food. We buy a huge thing of rice once a year that lasts all year long and we have lots of pasta around because we canned our own pasta sauce.
bread always needed, but i never put it in the fridge

Maria - posted on 01/30/2011

Cool!! ive always wanted to go there and i will one day!!

oh yea eggs and potatoes are really important

Julianne - posted on 01/30/2011

i ♥ marmalade

Stifler's - posted on 01/30/2011

Haha I'm Australian, but I think we have a lot of British ways

Katarina - posted on 01/30/2011

Fridge: Eggs(A must have as my son LOVES them), Milk, Bell Peppers, Bread, Cheese, Grapes/Strawberries/watermelon(Whichever is cheaper when we go shopping)



Cupboard: Pasta(Def, a staple for lazier days), Potatoes, Tortilla shells(Tacos and Fajitas-never, never go wrong here), Rice, Pasta Sauce



Freezer: Ground Beef, Chicken, Popsicles (Pregnancy craving, right now A MUST HAVE), Frozen Veggies(Don't use often but a ton cheaper then fresh and they can sit there almost forever), Bacon(both my son and husband love it)

Maria - posted on 01/30/2011

Whoa thats cool your British!! yea never heard of it thanks for the link so cool. Its like we share the same internet and yet its different at the same time

Stifler's - posted on 01/30/2011

Marmalade must be a British thing lol



http://www.britshoppe.com/roslimmar.html



I've always eaten it it's delicious on toast

Shannen - posted on 01/30/2011

I imagine it would be like Orange Marmalade just made with limes instead. I have never seen it ont he shelves though.

Maria - posted on 01/30/2011

Me either is that lime jelly??

Nicole - posted on 01/30/2011

I have never tried Lime marmalade

Shannen - posted on 01/30/2011

Lime marmalade?

Stifler's - posted on 01/30/2011

I have non organic coles brand peanut butter... mmmm a pantry must have. I also have to have lime marmalade in the fridge.

Maria - posted on 01/30/2011

Just to add to the PB discussion haha i have mine in the pantry.

ok here are the top 5 must haves:
Milk, Ground beef ( we do exactly what Joy said with the meat), rice, canned tomato sauce, garlic.

but yea on a budget things i would buy that last a while are beans ( the ones you have to cook) rice, meat, milk and different pastas there's others but thats some

Bonnie - posted on 01/30/2011

Joy, we also always have ground beef in the house. You can do many things with it.

Deanna - posted on 01/30/2011

for us it is apples, milk, cheese, lettuce, eggs.

Joy - posted on 01/30/2011

And for the sake of you having money issues (we struggle sometimes too), here's what I do. I always have in my fridge/freezer/pantry the stuff to make spaghetti. It's one of those meals that you make a big pot of it, and it will last for days, and what you don't eat now, you can freeze (not the pasta...that doesn't freeze so well IMO). I always have several boxes of different pastas in my pantry, always have spag sauce and always have ground beef. Ground beef is a huge one. I buy it in the family sized packages and seperate it into one pound portions and freeze it. At any given time, I usually have about 3-5 pounds in my freezer. Meatloaf, chili, spaghetti, goulash.....it's a handy meat to keep, and cheap. :)

Joy - posted on 01/30/2011

Milk, eggs, butter, cheese, apples and coffee. I know that's 6, but those are the things I ALWAYS have in my fridge.

LaCi - posted on 01/30/2011

"@LaCi - you put PB in the fridge? How would you spread it?"



The natural/organic peanut butters say to refrigerate after opening, as long as they get a good stir before they go in the fridge they usually spread well even when they're cold. Although, if I screwed up and didn't get the oil efficiently stirred though it can be a pain in the ass and I'll have to heat it up.



It does depend on the brand, but I'm really picky about peanut butter. If there's anything besides peanuts in it I'm not a happy camper. I've only found 2 or 3 brands at the normal grocery store that are peanuts only ;/

Tabitha - posted on 01/30/2011

Milk,crackers,coffee,bottled water,and apple juice

Lady Heather - posted on 01/30/2011

Yeah, I also think it is more likely to go rancid in the cupboard. Not that it is usually around that long. But it is fresher out of the fridge. Never found a brand that didn't separate, but I suppose I haven't really looked too hard. How is it that one brand would separate and one brand wouldn't if the ingredients are the same? That doesn't really make sense to me. Do they blend it with a paint mixer or something? Anyways, I suppose this is a conversation for elsewhere....

Meghan - posted on 01/29/2011

ketchup (totally NOT food, but we have to have it lol), milk, broccoli, rice and garlic.