A preview of the picks below. Full recommendations and notes throughout the article.
My friend Maureen recently served us pasta. Now, Maureen is a great cook, but the sauce she made from scratch that evening was sad. It was thin and watery and one-note. I ate it and admired it and lied about how good I thought it was, as is my custom, and tried to figure out what was going on. I’ve been eating Maureen’s cooking for fifteen years, and I know that sad sauce is not in her repertoire. Finally, after she’d gone over the steps with me, I got it: the tomatoes. She’d bought a can of generic brand crushed tomatoes for, what, a buck twenty-nine? I’m not a snob (well, okay, I am a little, but bear with me), but in this instance those tomatoes were doing seventy percent of the heavy lifting in the recipe, and a buck-twenty-nine can just can’t do that kind of work.
I went home and took a hard look at the contents of my pantry. There was a bottle of vanilla extract I’d been using for years (for what I suspect is a cookie recipe from the Bush administration). There was fish sauce I’d once bought and have never used since because I don’t know what to do with it and it freaks me out a little. There was a huge canister of olive oil I’d bought at a warehouse store (it comes in a canister that looks suspiciously like motor oil). And there was a bunch of boxed chicken broth I bought when it was on sale (twelve cartons, apparently because that’s how many fit on a shelf in my pantry) that tastes like salty water.
Cheap vanilla (substitute: pure vanilla extract) Cheap coffee (substitute: freshly ground beans) Salted butter (substitute: unsalted butter) Iodized salt (substitute: kosher salt) Sugar (substitute: organic sugar) Vegetable oil (substitute: extra-virgin olive oil) Processed peanut butter (substitute: natural peanut butter) Bread (substitute: sprouted grain bread) Shredded cheese (substitute: block cheese) Canned black beans (substitute: dried black beans) Canned tomatoes (substitute: fresh tomatoes) Canned coconut milk (substitute: full-fat, reduced-sodium coconut milk) Flaky sea salt (substitute: Maldon sea salt) White flour (substitute: whole-wheat pastry flour) Eggs (substitute: pasture-raised eggs) Ground spices (substitute: whole spices) Chicken broth (substitute: homemade chicken broth) Canned chickpeas (substitute: dried chickpeas) Canned tuna (substitute: fresh fish) Canned sardines (substitute: fresh sardines) Margarine (substitute: clarified butter) The cost difference to make each of these swaps can vary widely, but most of them will add up to less than $5 per week.
The Foundations
Buying iodized table salt for cooking.
I cooked and baked with iodized table salt (from the same red-and-blue cylinder) for around thirty years. It’s what I put on the rim of margaritas. For decades I thought there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t figure out what recipe authors meant when they said “salt to taste.” I’d try to follow their lead, but my dishes came out either bland or obscenely salty. Finally I figured out what the issue was: It wasn’t me. It was the salt.
Table salt is so much more dense than kosher, in terms of salinity per teaspoon. So if a recipe called for a teaspoon of salt and I used table, when the author meant kosher, it would make my dishes twice as salty as intended. The texture of kosher salt is nice and flaky and you can pinch it between your fingers and get a feel for how much you have, which allows you to season more evenly and avoid over-salting. Table salt has this metallic iodine taste that I didn’t even realize was there, because I could no longer taste it’s absence.
This is the salt every professional kitchen uses, and there is a reason. The hollow pyramid-shaped crystals dissolve fast and let you season with your fingers instead of a measuring spoon. Once you switch, every recipe that previously came out a little off will suddenly taste right. Get a box, decant a small amount into a little ramekin by the stove, and never look back.
View Pricing on AmazonUsing the same salt for finishing as for cooking.
At her kitchen table my friend sprinkled a pinch of flaky sea salt (Maldon) onto a warm chocolate chip cookie and I saw light. It’s called finishing salt and I had never heard of it before. I thought it was just a way for wealthy people to waste more money. I was wrong. This stuff is magic. It’s crunchy and doesn’t melt like regular salt and makes everything taste like the best thing ever. Ever.
It can also elevate the simplest of dishes into something special. A sprinkle of flakey salt on a steak or tomato slice in summer or even on the corner of a brownie will make your family/friends stop mid chew and ask “what on earth did you put in this??” You don’t use much of it so one tin of Maldon will last you easily a year.
The big flaky pyramids are the finishing salt that put finishing salt on the map, and once you have a small dish of it next to the stove, you start sprinkling it on things you did not used to bother with. Eggs. Avocado toast. The top of a salad. It elevates dinner without changing anything else about how you cook.
View Pricing on AmazonThe bulk olive oil from the warehouse club.
Also, beware of big bargains on olive oil. I’m not going to name the brand because I don’t want to get sued, but you know the one. Olive oil is a fruit juice, and fruit juices spoil. Heat and light do olive oil no favors, and odds are that bargain-basement bin of extra-virgin you dragged home, thinking yourself thrifty and slick, sat in somebody’s warehouse for quite a while. It might not even be the olive oil it claims to be (more on that here). Fraud is rampant in the industry. Investigations galore. Twenty bucks is twenty bucks, so don’t skimp.
Better olive oil. Not some sad, bitter, bland, rancid stuff that’s been sitting on the shelf for a year, but some really good, single source, harvest-dated olive oil that you buy in a medium sized bottle so you get through it in a few months while it’s still delicious. Roasted veggies caramelize better. Dressings aren’t bitter. Bread dipping tastes like bread dipping instead of like you’re dipping your bread in paint thinner. Everything just tastes like a hundred times better.
This is the everyday cooking oil I actually keep on the counter. It is harvest-dated, the flavor is balanced enough to use for everything from a salad dressing to roasting vegetables, and the dark bottle protects it from light. It does not pretend to be a sixty-dollar Tuscan finishing oil. It is the workhorse you reach for five days a week, and it is honest about what it is.
View Pricing on AmazonGeneric store-brand all-purpose flour.
Flour: I always thought that flour was pretty much the same, regardless of brand. This recipe was my litmus test, so to speak. I made these cookies twice in one week, once with King Arthur flour and once with the store brand, and the difference was actually noticeable. The texture/crumb/rise of the King Arthur flour cookies were all better. The flavor was a little different too; there’s a slightly nutty flavor to King Arthur flour that I’d never really noticed before. I guess that’s what happens when you use one type of flour exclusively.
Cheap flour doesn’t have a consistent amount of protein in it, and this can be the difference between why one batch of homemade bread turns out great and the next batch turns out like bricks. Consistent ingredients make consistent results. And once the ingredients are consistent, you’ll start to develop a feel for your own baking and start to trust your recipes more. I like King Arthur all-purpose flour because the amount of protein in it is consistent bag after bag.
It is maybe a dollar more than the store brand and it is the difference between cookies that work and cookies that almost work. The protein content is consistent, the flour is unbleached so there is no chemical aftertaste, and the bag is sturdy enough that it does not spill all over the pantry shelf when you pick it up.
View Pricing on AmazonImitation vanilla extract.
Vanilla extract is derived from orchid seeds/pods, and is quite complex in flavour, containing hundreds of different compounds which give it its aroma. Confession: I used imitation vanilla extract for the best part of twenty years, until recently. I didn’t think there was a big difference (there is.), and I liked the price better. It’s basically made of synthetic vanillin (the main aromatic compound in real vanilla), some related compounds, and water. Imitation vanilla tastes like the smell of fake vanilla at a gas station donut shop. Real vanilla tastes like vanilla. I can’t go back to imitation vanilla now. I hope this convinces you to make the change too.
I switched to a small bottle of Nielsen-Massey, and the next batch of cookies I made, my husband said, “did you do something different to these.” That is the whole experience in one sentence. You do not have to use a lot. A teaspoon goes a long way. One small bottle will last you a year of normal baking. And every cookie, every cake, every batch of whipped cream for dessert tastes immediately like the version of it you wanted to be making.
The little 4oz bottle is enough for a year of regular baking, and the flavor is the gold standard. Nielsen-Massey is what serious pastry chefs use, and the difference between this and the imitation stuff is not subtle. You will taste it in the first cookie. The cookie will be visibly more loved by everyone who eats it.
View Pricing on AmazonBaking powder that has been in your cabinet since 2019.
Baking Powder: If you want light fluffy cakes, pancakes, biscuits, etc make sure you check the expiration date on your baking powder. It only lasts about 6 months before it stops being able to do its magic and make all those lovely baked goods rise. I recently realized that the baking powder I’ve been using for (I think) FOUR YEARS has been expired this whole time. FOUR YEARS of thinking my biscuits were a little to dense, FOUR YEARS of thinking my pancakes weren’t quite fluffy enough, FOUR YEARS of thinking I was just no good at baking…all because of expired baking powder.
A good test for baking powder is to stir a ½ teaspoon into a cup of hot water, as if it doesn’t fizz like mad, toss it and buy some more (it’s only about $3/tin and your pancakes will thank you come tomorrow morning).
Bob’s is aluminum-free, which matters because aluminum-based baking powders can leave a faint metallic taste in delicate cakes. The 14oz size is enough for a full year of regular baking, and the resealable container actually keeps it fresh, which is the thing that keeps it working past month six.
View Pricing on AmazonThe Pantry Workhorses
Generic canned tomatoes.
Maureen and I recently had a falling out over pasta sauce. The issue: San Marzano tomatoes. You see, there are all kinds of canned tomatoes out there. And if you’re like me, you probably reach for the nameless, inexpensive, can every now and again. Those tomatoes are, shall we say, subpar. Sort of watery, over-processed, acidic globs that can turn your sauce tinny and sour. (Ick.) But San Marzanos are different. They’re dense and meaty with just the right level of acidity and a hint of sweetness. They meld into the perfect sauce: rich, tomatoey, nothing like a bruised tomato soup.
San Marzano (Certified/DOP) Tomatoes, Ok so I know I’ve been saying this forever, San Marzano tomatoes have been around forever but recently other producers of canned tomatoes have been labeling their cans as such. If you’re looking for the real deal, look for DOP or Certified San Marzano tomatoes on the label which means they’re actually grown in the San Marzano region of Italy. They’re closer to $4/can instead of $1.50 but I promise you it’s worth every penny for soups, pizza sauces, and any other kind of sauce. Use these in my slow cooker lasagna recipe and taste the difference.
Cento is one of the few American brands that is genuinely certified DOP, meaning the tomatoes are the real thing. The pack of six is the right move because once you start using these you stop wanting to use anything else, and you go through them faster than you would expect. Every pasta sauce, every soup base, every pizza night. The pack stores forever, so the cost-per-can works out to less than you’d think.
View Pricing on AmazonBoxed chicken broth.
At one point I had about as many cartons of chicken stock as a small grocery store would carry. I’d see it on sale and add four or five cartons to my already bulging supply on the pantry shelf. I’d pull one out and heat it up, convinced that I was about to enjoy a savory broth. Instead I’d get a weakly seasoned cup of slightly salty water. I didn’t realize that chicken stock in a carton is mostly salt and water with just a hint of chickeny flavor. Not worth the shelf space.
Better Than Bouillon (my fridge condensation issue solved.) is a tiny little jar the size of a small candle that lasts forever (I’ve had mine for at least six months) and makes soup, rice dishes, and braised dishes about thirty percent better (not kidding). It takes one teaspoon plus a cup of boiling water and tastes like actual chicken broth rather than the sad watery stuff you get out of those three-ring bind boxes at the store. My chicken tortilla soup recipe now calls for this and it is SO much better for it. Free up some shelf space and up your cooking game.
The roasted chicken version is the one to get. It tastes like actual roasted chicken concentrated into a paste, not like the slightly chemical poultry flavor of bouillon cubes. One teaspoon to one cup of water, and you have a stock that is genuinely better than most boxed broths. It lives in the fridge, it lasts forever, and a single jar replaces a shelf of cartons.
View Pricing on AmazonThe supermarket fish sauce.
I once bought a particularly stinky fish sauce in a clear plastic bottle which I used once for a stir fry, and then put away and have been scared to use for the last three years. If it smells like you’re standing on the beach at low tide in August (this one did), it’s not good fish sauce. The good stuff smells funky (in a good way), a little cheesy even, umami, and a few drops can transform a dish.
Red Boat is a fish sauce made with just anchovies and salt (yep, that’s the ingredient list, two items.). Fish sauce is amazing, just a wee bit in stir-fries, marinara sauces, beef stews, Caesar dressing, etc. It adds an incredible amount of depth and savoriness to a dish without you being able to taste fish, you taste food…just more of it.
First-press anchovy sauce, no added sugar, no preservatives, no MSG, no caramel coloring. The bottle lasts about a year of regular cooking, and once you have it on hand you start sneaking a teaspoon into things you would never have thought to add it to. Bolognese. Pot roast. Salad dressings. The food gets better in a way no one can put their finger on.
View Pricing on AmazonThe wrong soy sauce.
Soy Sauce: The cheap soy sauces (found on the bottom shelf in the international foods aisle) taste nothing like the soy sauce you get at restaurants. These cheaper versions have a flat, salty flavor and contain ingredients like hydrolyzed vegetable protein and caramel coloring (instead of being made with fermented soybeans like the more expensive versions). I used to use these cheaper soy sauces and wondered why my stir fry dishes never tasted like the restaurant ones.
Kikkoman. Find the kind that says “naturally brewed” on the label (this is what most restaurants use). You may think you’re buying an insane amount of soy sauce when you pick up a gallon jug, but once you’re using it for marinades, dipping sauces, adding a little to stir fries, a couple of drops to beef stews and Bloody Marys, etc., you’ll realize that you’re not going to plow through the jug all that quickly.
Yes, a gallon is a lot. But Kikkoman traditionally brewed lasts essentially forever in a cool pantry, and once you decant a portion into a small dispenser bottle on the counter you find yourself using it in places you would not have before. Pan sauces. A few drops in a vinaigrette. Marinades for everything. The savings versus buying ten small bottles is real, and the flavor is dramatically better than the bottom-shelf stuff.
View Pricing on AmazonCheap supermarket pasta.
Cheap pasta, I mean REALLY cheap, like 99¢ (maybe less if you bought it in one of those giant boxes), just doesn’t taste as good. It doesn’t hold the sauce well. It gets mushy. The water it cooks in gets kind of milky. It’s sad pasta.
I used to think buying a three dollar box of pasta instead of a one dollar box of pasta was silly. This pasta was made with bronze die-cutting which gives the pasta a slightly rougher texture allowing sauce to adhere to the pasta better instead of just falling right off. Bronze die-cut pasta also has a better “bite” and doesn’t get as mushy as cheaper varieties. Bronze die-cut pasta has a slightly more wheaty, nutty flavor as well. All in all it’s a much better pasta and since you’re probably having pasta for dinner a lot of nights a week it’s worth splurging on a nicer pasta.
Bronze-die-cut, slow-dried, made in Italy with durum wheat. The texture is rougher than supermarket pasta in the very best way, sauce clings to it instead of pooling on the plate, and the bite holds up even if you slightly overcook it. A box is about three dollars. If you eat pasta once a week, this is one of the highest-ROI upgrades on the whole list.
View Pricing on AmazonThe Spice Cabinet
Pre-ground black pepper.
Pepper (assuming you’re using pre-ground pepper from a canister like McCormick) is ground months before you get it, and then sits in warehouses for who knows how long. It’s losing flavor the entire time. By the time you use it, it’s a sad gray powder with a hint of pepperiness, lacking the floral/pine/citrus notes that pepper can have when freshly ground. I know this sounds extreme, but it’s true.
Another option would be to get pepper in a bottle with a grinder built in to the cap. This is pretty convenient as you can get that fresh ground pepper aroma and flavour without investing in a peppermill (and having to learn how to use it). Just give the top a twist and the peppercorns inside crack releasing all that lovely aroma. I find food tastes heartier and more complex with freshly ground pepper. And pepper stored this way seems to last ages (months for me). The cost is pretty much the same as that tin of ground pepper.
The grinder is built into the bottle, so there is no separate peppermill to learn or store. You twist the top to grind. The peppercorns inside are good quality and stay fresh because they are still whole. When the bottle is empty you can refill it from a bag of peppercorns and the grinder keeps working. This is the easiest possible upgrade to fresh-ground pepper.
View Pricing on AmazonBuilding a spice rack one jar at a time.
For years my spice cabinet held a mishmash of spices that didn’t necessarily complement each other: sumac (for one recipe, just one, that I craved and have never since made again), three separate brands of cumin (apparently if you can’t find the cumin that’s already sitting in your cabinet, that’s your cue to go buy yet another jar), tarragon that’s been in the back of my cabinet since 2018. And while I have made good use of all these spices, the truth is that they don’t necessarily complement each other, and the more individual ingredients I have, the less flavor impact each of them has.
You’ll be more likely to use them up (no more guilt closet.). They’ll all be relatively fresh and of similar age (better-balanced flavor). They’ll all be labeled and dated (less confusion). They’ll all be the same size and shape and from the same company (more uniformity). Your weeknight cooking will instantly level up.
Ten essential spices, all in matching tins, all freshly milled and dated, all from a single company that takes its sourcing seriously. The flavor of every jar is markedly stronger than the supermarket version, because the spices have not been sitting on a warehouse shelf for two years. Use this to replace the worst offenders in your existing cabinet and your weeknight cooking gets noticeably better.
View Pricing on AmazonKeeping spices for more than a year.
Spice Jars: Spice jars have a shelf life. For ground spices, think a year; for whole spices, maybe two years. Beyond that point they’re basically just decoration. So if you’re one of those people who still has that cumin in the back of the spice cabinet because of The Cumin Incident of 2021, it’s not exactly flavouring anything at this point, and it’s wasting very good cabinet space.
It doesn’t get much better than that. And it doesn’t get much cheaper either. This is one of those rare kitchen fixes that’s completely free and has an immediate impact on your cooking. Twice a year, open up all of your spices and take a whiff. Not much of a smell? Toss. Smells weak? Put them on your to-buy list and use up what you have first. Still fragrant and bold like the day you bought them? You’re in the clear.
Garlic powder when the recipe says garlic.
Substitutions are not always interchangeable. Sometimes we need to learn the difference between ingredients that are similar and when to use one over the other. Garlic powder is not the same as fresh garlic. Garlic powder is dehydrated garlic that has been ground down into a powder. It has a slightly sweet flavor. Fresh garlic on the other hand, has a sharp pungent flavor that behaves differently in a hot pan. I’ll admit that I’ve been caught using garlic powder in place of fresh garlic because it was all I had on hand when a recipe called for “two cloves of garlic, minced.” But after learning the difference between the two, I’ll always make sure I have fresh garlic on hand when needed.
Swap garlic powder for the real thing (well, not powder for the real thing, but you get the idea). Garlic powder has its uses, dry rubs for example, but fresh garlic (or shallots, scallions, whatever) takes dishes to a whole new level. Restaurant quality. I keep a head of garlic on the counter at all times, ready to be swapped in (and swapped out when it starts getting a little soft).
The Side-Dish Staples
The cheap rice in the giant bag.
But I hated that rice. I would buy a twenty pound bag of the most basic long-grain white rice I could find at the store (every six months or so, because I’m cheap) and it would come out clumpy and the grains would be tasteless like cardboard and the water it cooked in would always be oddly gray and super starchy. And since I didn’t like it, I didn’t make it as often as I should have considering how friggin’ versatile and inexpensive good rice actually is.
I buy Lundberg basmati now without thinking twice. I can’t believe I didn’t discover it sooner. It’s three times the price of rice I’ve bought in the past, but it’s three times better. The flavor is amazing, almost floral and nutty, and you can smell it cooking. The texture is fluffy and light with long, separated grains. I’m used to thinking of rice as a bland side dish, but Lundberg basmati is worthy of eating on its own.
California-grown basmati from a family farm that has been doing this for four generations. The grains are long and stay separate when cooked, the aroma is the real basmati floral note, and the bag is enough for a month of dinners. Pair it with a simple curry, a stir-fry, or even just a piece of grilled chicken and a roasted vegetable, and the side dish becomes a real part of the meal.
View Pricing on AmazonSkipping the apple cider vinegar.
When a friend suggested I try Bragg’s apple cider vinegar, I thought, I already own vinegar, the white distilled kind that I keep around for cleaning purposes. But I obliged, and now my opinion of that condiment formerly reserved for salad dressing has completely changed. Recently, while simmering a pot of bean soup, I drizzled in a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. Instantly, that flat, cloying pot was lifted and rounded. From then on I made a habit of finishing soups with a splash of vinegar.
Acid is the chef’s secret that home cooks don’t know about. Acid will lift the flavors of a braise, soup, pot of greens, chili, tomato sauce, etc., much like salt will, but in a different way. I like Bragg’s raw apple cider vinegar (the kind that’s not clear and has the funky “mother” floating around inside the bottle). It’s more complex than distilled white vinegar and I find that it does its job better, too.
Raw, unfiltered, organic, with the cloudy “mother” of natural enzymes still floating in the bottle. A teaspoon at the end of a pot of stew or beans will brighten the whole thing. A splash in a vinaigrette adds depth that white vinegar cannot match. The bottle is huge and lasts a year of regular use, and it is genuinely the most-used vinegar in my kitchen now.
View Pricing on AmazonBuying butter on sale and freezing twelve sticks of it.
Similarly, if butter is kept in the freezer for a long period of time, it can pick up flavors from other foods. I used to buy butter on sale and freeze it, a big mistake. I’d take out a stick of butter and it would be freezer-burnt and have a weird taste. I finally realized that the butter had been picking up flavors from other foods in the freezer (I seem to recall that I had stored it next to some frozen onions…). Moral of the story is to buy only as much butter as you will use within a couple of weeks (unless you want onion-flavored butter for your cookies).
Upgrade your butter storage. Keep butter refrigerated (I usually just have one or two sticks on hand at a time and buy fresh butter as needed) instead of frozen. Your baked goods will taste infinitely better and you won’t be able to taste that you used frozen butter. Free upgrade. You will barely notice a difference in price over the course of a year.
Pre-grated cheese.
The bag of pre-shredded mozzarella seemed like a sensible time-saver. Then I learned what was in it. Pre-shredded cheese is coated in cellulose powder, which is a fancy way of saying wood pulp, to keep the shreds from clumping in the bag. The cellulose does not melt. So your pizza cheese never melts quite right, and your homemade alfredo sauce stays gritty no matter how long you stir it, and you blame your technique. It is the cheese.
Cheese: You know what else I wish I’d known ten years ago? That you can grate cheese yourself in about ninety seconds using the large holes on a box grater, and it makes a world of difference in flavor. Pre-grated cheese contains additives (wood pulp, of all things.) to keep it from clumping, and you can taste the difference between that and the smooth melt of freshly grated cheese. And it’s literally a no-cost improvement.
The Habit Changes
Treating “good enough” as the same as “right.”
But I think there’s an even bigger mistake that led to these mistakes, because I’d convinced myself that good enough was right. Store-brand vanilla extract was good enough. Boxed broth was good enough. Pre-shredded cheese was good enough. Individually, these decisions didn’t seem problematic. But, collectively, they added up to recipes that weren’t living up to their potential, and I was cooking at seventy percent capacity and assumed that was the way my food tasted.
Nope. Staples. One of the biggest mistakes new cooks make (and mistakes I made when I was first getting into cooking) is thinking that in order to cook restaurant-quality food, you need restaurant-quality ingredients. Expensive cuts of meat. Fancy cheeses and wines. It’s not true. Great meals start with great staples: salt that actually tastes like salt, oil that actually tastes like oil, cheese that actually tastes like cheese, pepper that’s still fresh. When your staples are up to snuff, all of a sudden recipes you’re already making will taste better, too.
Not tasting as you cook.
Taste as you cook. I know. I know. I’ve been cooking for decades and only recently started to follow this most basic of culinary advice. For years I faithfully followed recipes, dutifully added all of the specified ingredients and only tasted the finished dish once it made its way to the table. Which meant too often that once I sat down to eat I discovered that the soup needed salt, the chili needed heat, or the sauce needed acid. Sometimes I’d adjust at the table, more often I’d quietly eat my way through a slightly less than stellar dinner feeling vaguely defeated.
Add better pantry ingredients. Start tasting your food while it cooks. I know this sounds obvious, but for me tasting my food as I cooked it was revelatory. I now taste the oil after sauteeing my onions, taste the broth after I add it, taste it half way through cooking, taste it two minutes from being done and again after I add whatever adjustments I’m making. I’m tasting at least 6 times during the cooking process now. I find I am less surprised when the food hits my tongue at dinner time and I find I am able to bring dishes up two notches (I cook from the same instant pot dinner recipes and recipes I’ve been making for years but they taste two notches better because 1) I’m using better ingredients and 2) I’m tasting throughout the cooking process and making adjustments along the way). Grab a wooden spoon and get tasting.
And here’s twenty-one of them. None of these are fancy, none of them call for restaurant-y cooking skills or ingredients that make you feel like a fraud for attempting to make at home. These are pantry upgrades that will take ingredients that are currently working at seventy percent capacity and squeeze every last drop out of them. These upgrades, all together, will cost about the same as a nice dinner for two at a restaurant, and will improve your cooking almost immediately (I’m guessing within ten meals for most people). I’ve been doing this for about a year now and it’s made me want to cook more, believe it or not. When your base ingredients are up to snuff, cooking feels easier. Recipes I’ve been making for fifteen years taste better. Where to start? I have a list of easy chicken dinners here, and once you’ve got better pepper and better broth, try my mississippi pot roast recipe. And Maureen, I see you switched up your tomato situation, and boy does your pasta look good again. Next up: salt.