Things I won’t use:

Shortening — that is, solid vegetable fat (e.g., Crisco) for use in frying and pastry. I use lard or butter for pastry, on the rare occasions when I make it, and oil for frying.

Also margarine. It took me ten years to convince Himself that the stuff is awful, and he’s better off eating butter. Science eventually caught up with me.

Macaroni and cheese mix. Yuck. Just yuck.

In fact, pretty well any kind of mix. If there’s a mix on the market, I can make it better and cheaper from scratch. The one exception to this rule is angel food cake, which takes a dozen eggs and a lot of skill and luck to make with real ingredients — and then what do you do with a dozen egg yolks?

Instant anything. Coffee, iced tea (I mean, really?), hot cereal, soup from a sachet, pot noodles, gravy (e.g., Bisto), Minute Rice, mashed potatoes in a box, Bisquick. Most of the stuff they sell in the middle of the supermarket.

Most frozen veg. I agree with Steve about peas and, when I butcher a Hubbard squash, I usually dice it and freeze half for future reference.

All canned veg, except tomatoes, which are technically fruit. In my dreams, I sometimes find myself back in Germany during an exercise, which I know is going on because I’m dressed in wet combat clothing and facing a Melmac plate of alert rations: canned sausage with instant mashed potatoes and canned creamed corn on the side.

Unlike Steve, I use canola (rapeseed) oil. Too many people are allergic to peanuts these days.