The Pantry - Finally!

We have a well stocked pantry. Actually, two of them. We do not have a stockpile. Simply put "stockpile" has a negative connotation to many people. When one thinks of "stockpile" I tend to think of a garage full of food and that is simply not who we are or what we have in our home. We have a healthy supply of items we use on a regular basis. Simple semantics I know.

I have actually been called a food hoarder. Mainly by people who have never been in my home. Sharon Astyk is a writer who focuses on climate change, peak oil and energy conservation. She addresses food hoarding in her book Independance Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage and Preservation. I am paraphrasing here so bear with me. Food hoarding is when food is a scarce resource and you purchase large amounts of it to stockpile and sell for personal gain.  Buying food in times of plenty ( at a lower cost) and storing it, even stockpiling it, in your home as a hedge against future hard times is not hoarding. It is a prudent use of your time and money. Let's not even address true hoarding as that is an illness and does not apply to most of the population. Her book is enlightening and she takes food preservation and storage even further than I have even considered. I have a couple months supply- she has 6 mos to a year. The book is witty, well written and has helped me  to modify what and how much I keep in the house.

A pantry is a great asset to your home when it is well stocked. Our pantry has items we eat and use on a regular basis. Most of the items are bought at the lowest price we can find and stored in either a small closet pantry or in a converted armoir - both in the kitchen. We store extra toilet paper, towels, cat food, toiletries and cleaning supplies in the garage. As an estimate we have at least a couple of months supply of food in our house at any given time. The downside is that we like fresh produce and don't care for frozen. Additionally, we both dislike canned vegetables with the exception of canned tomatoes and beans. A garden offsets some of the produce we consume annually.

Our pantry holds dry cereal ( bought on sale with coupons), assorted flours ( wheat, rice, potato, tapioca, corn, masa etc.) , sugars ( brown, white, powdered), sweeeteners ( honey, maple syrup, crystalized honey, agave nectar), rolled oats, dried milk ( regular and buttermilk), egg replacer ( We don't eat many eggs and it is great for baking), rice (white, brown, arborio and basmati), assorted other grains (millett, barley, quinoa),
assorted dried pasta, canned milk, condiments ( mustard, ketchup, steak sauce- all purchased with coupons), homemade jam and lime marmalade ( no one eats the maramalade..lol), home canned peppers, snacks (rice cakes, chips, nuts- coupons again) onions, canned tomato products, assorted oils and vinegars, leavening agents and a lot of oriental items like rice paper wraps. We have a large assortment of herbs and spices either purchased on sale, in ethnic stores or dried from the garden. Our freezer has a variety of meats and fish purchased on sale.

With all of this and fresh produce we can fix a meal at almost any time. It does require some planning as to what to purchase when. I purchase items when my levels get below a predetermined amount. Usually when there are two of the item left on the shelf or less than a weeks worth of other items.

But how does it save money you ask? The main way we save is through cooking our own meals. Yes- you will need to cook. A pantry full of prepared foods is a full pantry yet you most likely are not eating as healthy and will not save enough money.  Doing your own cooking and some of your baking can really drop the amount you spend. You are buying items on sale not just when you need them thus if there is an amazing buy on canned tomatoes purchase enough for several months and store in your pantry thus also increasing your savings. Don't just buy something when you are running out. Buy pantry items before they run out when they are on sale or if you have coupons for them.

It is possible for us to save even more money by purchasing larger amounts of foods. Splitting bags of grains with another person or coming up with more storage space are just a couple of options.  Normally, the larger amount of an item that you buy the lower the price. However, if you do not like rolled oats a 50 lb bag will haunt you no matter what the savings might have been.  I tend to buy a 3 to 6 month supply of most items we use a lot of like cornmeal, rice or rolled oats.

Once you have your pantry together you will need to maintain the products. Normally,  the purchases are brought home and they are repackaged into smaller amounts. A 10 lb bag of rice is first put in the freezer (to kill grain insects) for several days then taken out and repackaged into 1/2 gallon glass jars or quart jars. Flours that will go rancid quickly in the heat are stored in the freezer. We are in the subtropics and rancid flours and grains can happen fairly quickly.

Meats are repackaged into amounts we can consume at one meal, dated and frozen. A couple of times a year I will can peppers or make jam and these items go into the pantry as well. The peppers are from the garden or purchased in large amounts from a local grower. The jams are made from cherries from our tree, strawberries from a local U-pick or if all else fails from bags of frozen berries purchased at Sams Club.

Almost everything is purchased at the lowest cost I can find for that item in my area then stored in the pantry until needed. It works for us because it is convenient, saves money and help us to eat healthier. So maybe it is a stockpile....but I am going to be old fashioned and call it a pantry. Happy Savings Everyone!  


         

Maggie and Stella

Today I was honored to pick up my grand daughter Maddy from daycare and spend the afternoon playing with "Monkey" and "Ducky." We had snacks and juice and played "Itsy Bitsy Spider". Then we had dinner and played with Papa when he came home from work. Almost nothing was accomplished during the afternoon and early evening while Madelyn graced us with her beautiful presence. Not that we expected it to. Papa Rob is now in the garage working on the mower and I am trying to catch up on blogging. That "Pantry" entry is still hanging out there waiting to be completed. And so it waits.

So while bathing Maddy I remembered baths given to me by my grandmothers Maggie and Stella. My mothers mom "Margaret" - "Maggie" and my dad's mom "Stella." Two amazing women who did all they could to help make their families lives better and I am sure bathed a lot of grandchildren through the years. Stella had a shower in her bathroom with large pink roses on the walls and small rose soaps that we didn't use but that smelled amazing. Maggie had a slightly more utilitarian bathroom but she also had the same large rose wallpaper as well as a drawer of makeup left from my Aunt Lisa.  In her bathtub one could fine Caress soap or Ivory shampoo. I wonder if  Maddy will remember the smell of  lavender soap and the feel of air dried towels against her skin?

Maggie and Stella both were avid gardeners and I recall spending hours watching them a.k.a. "helping" them garden and preserve what they grew. Stella had a large garden at my uncle's farm and Maggie had an equally large plot at my aunt's house.  Both of them made the worlds best pickles. Maggie made sweet baby pickles and Stella made mouthwatering bread and butter pickles with slices of onions and lots of mustard seeds. Yum.

From them I unknowingly inherited a love of both home canning and gardening.  I remember steam billowing out of the conservo on grandmas stove and grandma (Stella) telling grandpa (Leonard) to wipe the rims with a damp towel before topping with the canning flats. There were days of the house smelling like cooked chicken as countless poults were sacrificed, cooked, then canned to be enjoyed on a cold winter day. Beef was done the same until someone found a place where it could be cooked and canned in metal cans for the family instead of spending hours canning in a hot humid kitchen. It all made the best chicken and noodles or beef and noodles you could ever taste! So much family working together- aunts and uncles in and out of the house while it was all going on. As a child I found it all mesmerizing. I loved sitting at the octagonal table in the dining area watching it all not realizing the necessity as well as the amount of effort it took to get it all done.

Maggie's kitchen was smaller and her work space was the kitchen table. She would soak her small cucumbers in salt water rinsing them and changing the salt water every few days. She used a round white enamel dish pan that hung year round in the laundry room by the back porch. After several soakings over a matter of days they were cooked in a sweet and savory liquid then magically canned when no little fingers were around to get in the way. The pickles were enjoyed over holidays and at family gatherings.. if Grandpa Leo did not get them first.

Today when I can jelly or pickles I am usually alone as my family is scattered. My husbands boys are near as are the grandkids. I wonder sometimes who will carry on some of the traditions and foods that we grew up with or if anyone will even bother? I do know when that when I am up to my elbows in dirt planting my little garden or have steam billowing into my kitchen while pickles are being canned that Stella and Maggie are near and nodding in approval. And sometimes I even talk to them telling them how much they are missed and how much they taught the little girl that followed them around watching all they did to keep everyone fed.                            

Talking to the World

I am home sick today- my asthma is really acting up. The day I spent in Immokalee earlier this week pushed me over the edge into the need to stay home category. Since I can't sleep and can't really go anywhere logging into blogger on the laptop while reclined on the couch seemed the perfect solution.  T.V. doesn't have much to offer until around 11 a.m. when the old "In the Heat of the Night" re-runs are on. Yep- the show is 20 years old but the acting is better than many of the new shows.  O.k. so I have seen most of them yet when I am sick there is nothing better than a Heat re-run while curled in a soft blanket on the couch.

Since I had a lot of extra time this morning I pulled up the stats for readership of the blog. I must say, I may not have many people logged in as followers but people are reading the blog. I am  amazed that readers have logged on from Latvia, Romania, Britain, Canada and The United Arab Emirates. I do know who the UAE reader is- the rest are up in the air. So my little blog has gone global.

I started this for one reason and find that I write little that actually applies to why I began blogging. It has been a great creative outlet and a way to express where I am at any given moment.  I find I may sit down to write about one topic but a news piece or a comment from someone will totally change the direction I am going. That is how what was supposed to be a post on using a pantry to save money became, "Wants and Needs" and the second attempt on the pantry post  became "Heartbroken".

When I stray from the topic I am not trying to preach to anyone I just want to raise awareness. There are so many issues that get swept aside or don't get t.v. times as they are not sexy or dangerous. If I can give them a little more air time and promote conversation then awareness has gone up a notch.

Issues change from country to country and day to day for everyone. Some issues are universal. Love, peace, security, hunger, war....the list is endless. We may not all be from the same places or share the same beliefs yet we always need to respect the ideas of others and keep the lines of communication open. When we stop talking there is no awareness of another persons views and our personal concept of the world then becomes skewed.

Look at the debt ceiling talks in Washington or the conflicts in the Middle East. All are caused by the belief that one specific worldview is the only way to live and all others are not worthy of consideration.
Each side holds fast to the idea that theirs is the only way to resolve the situation. If my husband and I tried to run our household like the politicians run the world we would be divorced. We must talk and we must compromise to survive as a whole, loving family unit. Is it any wonder there are wars and the debt ceiling issue. As Dr. Phil says, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?"  Apparently, the leaders want to be right  as no one seems to be very happy.    

My little blog has morphed into something more than planned. Hopefully, it can be a tool to promote respectful conversation as well as an outlet for whatever happens to be on my mind for the day.
Thank you to all who have been reading and if there is a topic you are passionate about e-mail me or post a comment. Then we can talk to the world about what is important to you.