I love honey and I always have several jars in the larder. Runny varities, Italian, French sunflower and lavender, Greek with it's lovely licorace flavour and good old clover honey. I also love set honey, all creamy and white and spread onto thick slices of toasted and buttery home made bread . . . carrots are delicious steamed and then glazed with butter and honey . . . A variety of flours, organic and stone ground, French, plain, self raising, strong (both white and brown) whole wheat, malt, spelt. They all have their uses, but, please, only keep what you are going to use within a few weeks to hand on the shelves. Store the rest in the freezer as it can go rancid very quickly. I like to keep quite a few different sugars . . . light and dark soft brown, caster and granulated white, golden caster, icing sugar, dark and light muscovado, demerara, lump sugar. They all have their uses. I also keep a variety of syrups such as Golden, Dark Treacle, Molasses and Maple. I love Maldon Sea Salt and French fleur de sel. I use them in almost all my cooking. I do keep a large tin of household salt as well, along with a variety of pepper corns . . . green, pink, black and a lovely mixture of the three. Garlic both regular and smoked, and shallots and onions, both brown cooking and red. These are a must for me, and used often. A variety of good quality dried herbs and spices. I have quite a few different ones and I use them all frequently. I do love fresh herbs, but the uses of a good quality bottled herb cannot be underestimated. One thing that I absolutely love and adore is unearthed barrel aged feta cheese. I know this is kept in the fridge but I just couldn't not mention it. It's wonderfully delicious and worth every penny. I also keep a good Parmesan Reggiano that I grate myself and a variety of different strengths of cheddars. I also have a weakness for Danish butter. It's very good, and I always have several pounds of it in the fridge and freezer, sweet and salted, not to mention some good vegetable shortening. This is by no means an extensive list of all the things that one should have in their larders, but just a few of my favourite things. It goes without saying that one should keep a variety of tinned fishes as well as fresh fruits and vegetables amongst other things, and I do. I just thought it would be fun to talk about some of my most beloved ingredients. One thing that you are never short of if you keep bananas, eggs and milk around is a tasty bowl of bananas and custard, my Todd's dessert of choice. Old fashioned yes, delicious yes, satisfyingly comforting, yes . . . *Bananas and Custard* Serves 4 Printable Recipe You can call it many names . . . creme de la vanille, creme anglaise . . . it matters not. It's all vanilla custard and it is wonderfully delicious when properly made and homemade. Why anyone would ever bother with the powdered version when they can make it so easily from scratch is beyond my comprehension! 1 pint whole milk (2 cups) 1 vanilla pod 4 egg yolks 1 TBS caster sugar 4 medium bananas Put the milk in a saucepan. Slit the vanilla pod down the centre and scrape out the seeds into the milk with a sharp knife. Drop the split pod into the milk as well. Heat the milk over a medium heat, just until you see bubbles forming around the edges. Remove from the heat and remove the vanilla pod. (Just rinse it off and dry it and you can then stick it into your sugar bin where it will give your sugar a lovely flavour and fragrance . . . no worries and no waste.) Beat together the egg yolks and the sugar. Pour the hot milk over top of it very slowly, whisking constantly. Strain the mixture into the top of a double boiler. Place over the top of the bottom of the double boiler over simmering water and cook ove rvery low heat, stirring all the time. When it thickens to the consistency of double cream (it should coat the back of your spoon), remove it from the heat and pour it straight into a bowl to reduce the heat. Let cool to warm, before proceeding. The secret to successful custard is to not be in a hurry. If the worse happens and it starts to separate, whizz it in the blender. You can of course, pre-empt this problem by adding a small teaspoon of cornstarch to the egg yolks before adding the milk. Peel and slice the bananas into four dessert dishes. Spoon the warm custard over top of them and serve.