If the bulk of your income goes to your groceries and when you go to the kitchen your pantry and ref is filled with different types of the same thing. I got my grocery skills and my love for cooking and eating from my mother. Well, basically everyone in our family can cook. We just have different areas of interest. Like, for me, I prefer Italian and gourmet. My mom cooks Asian. My brothers are good with steaks and grills. We all love food, and we all get hot tempered when we’re hungry or we’re eating bad tasting food. That’s why we also prefer to eat at home coz we know what we want and we know how to get it.

Here’s what you will find in our kitchen:

For ketchup, there’s tomato and banana.

Vinegar: balsamic, distilled white, apple cider (2 brands – Bragg’s and Heinz), and the local sinamak vinegar from the Philippines

Mustard: Dijon, Mayo Mustard, American Mustard, an English mustard the tube, traditional mustard

Soy sauce: the regular Silver swan, Kikkoman

Salad greens: We always buy the herb mix (which has more arugula and other herbs not usually found in the regular mix like dill) and the romaine mix for fillers

Citrus fruits: there’s always lemons and calamansi

Cheese! – we’ve got parmesan, mozzarella, emmental sandwich slices, brie (my fave na pang papak), and the regular cheese food type (Jor’s fave na pang papak). Last year, I discovered that Carrefour carries goat cheese which is a good substitute for the kesong puti that I use in tuyo salad. It was also a great addition to my mushroom vinaigrette pasta. (I’m a patron of my own cooking )

Mushrooms! – My favorite is shitake, it’s a good thing too that you can buy 3-in-1 packs of fresh portobello, brown and white button mushrooms. I prefer fresh mushrooms over canned ones but we never run out of canned champignons if all else fails. We’ve been making our own mushroom soup and it tastes far better (not even comparable) than the instant ones.

Pastas – Penne, spaghetti. (Penne is easier to cook with though.)

Lastly, I just got a couple of potted herbs so I’d have a regenerating source for my cooking.

I love food! Food, food, food!