Top Five Purchases for the Unbroke Kitchen

1. Invest in seasonings and spices. Pick up one or two whenever you have some extra grocery money until you have a variety. I know they look pricey, but they go a long way and they will keep you from getting bored. 

Can you fry an egg? Can you fry an egg and put pepper on it? Can you fry and egg and put thyme on it? Italian seasoning? Paprika? Mrs. Dash? Dry Ranch seasoning? (ohh, yea, its good). 

Same thing with homemade french fries and chicken and who knows what else? You can change the taste of foods with some good seasoning and you can make your food taste as good as any restaurant with a few spices.

2. Get yourself some Bisquick. Not to be a walking advertisement, but this stuff is handy. Biscuits. Pancakes. Pizza Dough. Baked chicken. Chicken Pot Pie. Banana Bread? 

Basically Bisquick is nothing more than flour, leavener (baking powder) and shortening already mixed together. So, on the one hand, yes, it’s pricier then those three things. On the other hand, it takes up less space, if you’re not a cook its less intimidating to mix water & Bisquick then it is to have to measure four or five ingredients, and, if you’re not using it that often you won’t be in danger of having something go bad. 

I, personally, don’t have flour, sugar or baking powder in my house.

3. Bread crumbs

Breaded chicken. Mix up a box of $0.33 macaroni and cheese, toss it in a casserole dish, sprinkle on some breadcrumbs and broil it for a few minutes and, boom, fancy baked Mac & cheese. Meatloaf, meatballs, meat patties. My mother has a no-fail recipe involving chopped mushrooms and breadcrumbs she calls stuffed mushrooms. 

4. Buy organic milk if you don’t drink a lot of milk. Yes, its more expensive up front, but check out the expiration date on that bad boy! No more throwing away 2/3s of the milk every time you buy some.

5. Eggs. Have you noticed that medium eggs are much less expensive then extra large? Did you know that an egg is actually “still good” for quite a while after the expiration date? A handy test is to put a whole raw egg (in its shell) into a glass of water. If it sinks it’s good. (If it floats it’s bad. If it hovers halfway up the glass it just depends how lucky you’re feeling.)    And my GOSH you can do so many things with eggs!   You can make them taste like ANYTHING!