Pantry Supplies & Quick Meals

It's has always interested me:  the articles and posts for making meals with "pantry supplies".  Theirs must be better than mine.

But I do store mine in Ball canning jars.  My lids are the white plastic replacements one.  I have enough of everything to make homemade Larabars at the drop of a hint.  We'll always have them to eat in a pinch.  I also have coffee, tea bags and sugar.  I can always make a pan of biscuits.

Plenty of canned marinara and dry pasta.  Big jar of Jasmine Rice. But hard pressed to come up with a protein in the pantry unless it's canned tuna.  And without cheese no one is interested in pasta. I can make a pan of cornbread.  If G ate beans that could be a nice Southern meal.  I do have a nice bag of black eyed peas.  I love those.  And a nice bag of black beans--perhaps a Bisque? But what will G eat?

If I have white sliced bread and American cheese I can make quick baked beans to go with grilled cheese sandwiches.  G will eat that meal.

When the kids were home I always had the makings for tuna casserole in the pantry.  Tuna, cream of mushroom soup, noodles and potato chips.  In Germany I started using sour cream in the recipe and it was so much better.  Both of my children wanted me to use lots of potato chips.

The other thing they liked were frozen cheese tortellini with marinara.  But frozen tortellini isn't a pantry staple--is it?  G was away during the week so the three of us could eat what we liked without having to make something else for him to eat.  We also ate something called Godfather's Lasagna--a recipe I got from an Australian friend.  A loose, deconstructed lasagna that was ready to eat in 20 minutes.  But you need to have some ground beef and some cottage cheese handy.

Is there something you always keep stocked in the pantry to make a quick meal?