In Manhattan, where apartments are oftentimes teeny tiny and cramped with very little storage space, it’s hard to have a well stocked pantry unless you make a serious effort to keep key items and have the very bare minimum to survive in the event there’s a snow storm and all the stores are closed.

When I was growing up, our pantry was always well stocked, and the vegetable and fruit drawers in the fridge were always full of different things. You could whip up many different meals without even going to the grocery store. So when I am stocking up on grocery items, I tend to think about this and think about things I could make quickly and easily when I don’t have much time or energy to cook.

One of those things is noodles. If you have noodles – dry or fresh from the freezer, you could boil them up in less than five minutes and in that time, create a sesame, peanut, or chili based sauce and have a quick meal in a matter of minutes. And that’s what I did this morning when Chris was whining that there was nothing to eat. 🙂 I made spicy peanut sesame noodles in less than 15 minutes, and we ate and caught up on Samantha Bee’s missed episodes over the last several weeks. These are the moments when I pat myself on the back for remembering best practices for pantry stocking growing up.