Equipping the Kintsugi Kitchen: Starting from Nothing (Consumables edition)

French's. And you can't fight me RL because I'm a mythical creature.

 

I haven't seen cans of tuna mentioned yet. Or alternatively canned chicken if you don't like fish. It's precooked, stores (nearly, for this thread's purposes anyway) forever, goes great in lots of stuff, and is a fuck ton cheaper than most other protein sources.

 

Canned tuna in water is good, but I actually prefer my canned tuna in oil: if I want to eat a tuna sandwich, I scoop the tuna and the oil up and put it directly on bread. This skips the step of making tuna salad. (You can also throw canned-tuna-in-oil, and a can of tomatoes, into some cooked pasta for a very simple pasta salad.)

You can cook beans without soaking them; I'm told that's how the Mexicans do it. Just throw a bit of salt in the water and let it boil for about an hour longer than otherwise. It's less energy-efficient, but sometimes that's not what you actually care about. (And before you ask, salting beans doesn't toughen them. It's acid that toughens them. Don't throw your can of tomatoes in your chili until after the beans are done.)

So potatoes were mentioned upthread - instant mashed potatoes are also useful to have around. You can reconstitute them with water and possibly milk/salt/butter (whichever ones you happen to have around) for a carbohydrate, or you can use them to thicken soup. (I concluded later on that I preferred to stock rice instead of mashed potatoes, but it was good for a while.)

I also stock canned condensed cream of chicken soup; this isn't because it's a soup, but because it can be used as a pasta sauce (undiluted) if I don't want tomatoes. You can also use cream of celery, cream of mushroom, etc.