What's in your pantry?

Many people avoid cooking because they believe they need all fresh ingredients to make a nutritious and delicious meal. While fresh fruit and vegetables do add a nice flavor to many meals, you might be overlooking several ingredients in your pantry that add up to not one, but several meals.

The good news is you don’t need to head to the grocery story or farmers’ market every time you cook and you don’t need to resort to bags of potato chips or cans of soup for a simple meal. Here are some common pantry items and some nutritious recipes to go along with them.

• Chickpeas
• Lentils
• Millet
• Brown rice
• Oats

Try an experiment. One night this week, make a meal just using some of the contents from your pantry. You might need some refrigerated ingredients, but see what you come up with. Who knows, you might surprise yourself with how creative and delicious a meal you can make. As always, share with us so other people can try your creative concoctions.

Clean out that pantry and get cooking!