my top five kitchen staples (ingredients)

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about kitchen essentials. Have you ever considered how versatile Dijon mustard is? Or the myriad dishes you can create when you have fresh lemons on hand? Yes, this is where my mind goes!

I fall in and out of love with certain ingredients as the seasons change but my top five “staples” list has stayed constant for years. What I rely on most (and use nearly every day) are:

1. Lemons (always fresh)
2. Mustard (Dijon and whole grain)
3. Onions (preferably sweet, like Maui or Vidalia)
4. Olive oil
5. Soy sauce

LEMONS: We are lucky to have fresh citrus year round in California. Our four trees are always producing, so a fresh-picked lemon is a quick trip to the garden away. I make SO many things with lemons, it’s hard to ennumerate them: our basic vinaigrette, lemon-Dijon chicken marinade, lemon-olive oil drizzle on ANY steamed or stir-fried green vegetable, lemon juice on crispy smashed potatoes or french fries, lemon on grilled fish, etc.

MUSTARD: I think I use mustard every day, too. It’s the basis for my homemade vinaigrette

http://dirtandsunshine.posterous.com/djion-vinaigrette-step-by-step-by-step

and it seems to make its way into practically every chicken recipe I make (except fried chicken). We especially love Dijon on steamed carrots:

http://dirtandsunshine.posterous.com/carrots-a-la-kathy

ONIONS: My favorite cooking aroma of all time is onions sauteed in olive oil. The scent in the air takes me right to Italy and this combination is the foundation of many amazing meals. We like raw onions in salads (Greek salad and tomato-onion-avocado salad, for example),

http://dirtandsunshine.posterous.com/tomato-avocado-onion-salad

and cooked onions in soups, stews, and pastas:

http://dirtandsunshine.posterous.com/garden-inspired-pasta-pb

OLIVE OIL: I wrote about my family’s intense love of olive oil in ‘dirt&sunshine’. We really do go through several bottles a month, using a Spanish variety from Trader Joe’s for our every day cooking and a rotating selection of the best extra virgin offerings from Italy, Greece and California on salads, soups, pastas, and vegetables. It really is liquid gold to us!

SOY SAUCE: Did you know that many great marinades have a bit of soy sauce for saltiness and texture? It’s surprising how many times it pops up in recipes I find (especially for grilled meats). For our family, it makes the best two-ingredient chicken marinade EVER:

http://dirtandsunshine.posterous.com/two-minute-two-ingredient-chicken-marinade

Try some of these ideas and let me know what you think. Also, what are YOUR top five ingredients? I’m curious!