Top 5 Kitchen Must Haves – Stuff we Eat

Happy Friday buddies! I am almost on vacay mode but before we head to Oceanside for the weekend I thought I’d post a #foodiefriday post about the 5 things we always have in our kitchen.

1. Minced garlic: Charlie and I use garlic in almost everything we eat. To make it easier to cook with we buy the peeled garlic from the store and then run it through our food processor to mince it really quick. Put that in a tupperware with olive oil and it’ll last for over a month in the fridge. Piece of advice: NEVER go with the jarred stuff. That is preserved in citric acid and has very little flavor.
2. Cast iron skillet: I love cooking on our cast iron skillet. It keeps heat longer unlike most pans that cool down almost instantly when you add ingredients to it. It’s great for frying chicken, making burgers, and getting a nice sear on a steak. Another great thing, you can go from stove top cooking and straight into the oven.
3. Non-stick pan: I try not to use non-stick pans because of the supposed health risks of teflon but let’s be real here. When you’re making an over easy egg you gotta go non-stick. 
4. Sea Salt: Salt is arguably the most important ingredient in cooking. It heightens and accentuates flavors in most dishes and can also draw out excess water from vegetables like mushrooms. I don’t like using regular table salt, it’s mostly just a personal preference.
5. Sesame Oil: Charlie and I love the flavor of sesame oil. Since we cook a lot of Asian inspired dishes at home we have it readily available. We use it to give vinaigrettes and other salad dressings a different depth of flavor, when we have beef we have it as a dip with sea salt and pepper (Korean style), we use it in our poke recipe, and I even use it when I pop popcorn. It has a higher heating and smoke point than most oils (410 degrees compared to canola oil’s 400 degrees).