PANTRY PREPAREDNESS - 1 Final Item!

 I failed to include the Freezer Clean Out video from Leisa at Sutton Daze. here it is:

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

PANTRY PREPAREDNESS - Part 3

 Good morning, friends.

How is your pantry coming along? Have you noticed lean spots and made a plan to fill them in? Remember, we're going into holiday season so some things will come up on sale. Holiday sales usually mean baking supplies, ham, turkey, bread, eggs... things you'll use as families gather. If you can make room in your budget, now is the time to stock up on those items. 

I eat a lot of ham lunch meat, but the packaged stuff is so expensive and full of stuff I'd rather not eat. Instead, I watch for Kretschmar. For lunchmeat, I get this on sale and sliced usually on a #1 or shaved. I love shaved for grilled ham/ egg/ cheese sandwiches for breakfast. An I can eat either of those settings without my dentures (which I don't wear much when I'm home - I like comfort LOL) I also look for sale on the bone-in, such as COOK's, and have it sliced about a finger's width for breakfast ham steaks.

Okay, with that in your thinking cap, I wanted to talk about Dehydrating and Canning foods for your pantry. If you've never done either one, don't be afraid to jump in. I will link you to people I deem qualified to walk you through the process of all three; water bath canning, pressure canning, and dehydrating. Freeze drying is a topic all on it's own and not as inexpensive as the others I've mentioned. 

When it comes to water bath or pressure canning, you absolute best two sources are the Ball Canning Book (I'm still using the one I learned with at 12) and your County Extension or Home Economist office.  If you can read and follow directions, you'll be fine. Yes, there's also Youtube but not all of them are as knowledgeable as they pretend. For canning/ pressure canning my go-to Youtubers are, Linda's Pantry and, you guessed it, Leisa at Sutton Daze. 

For dehydrating I keep The Purposeful Pantry at the top of my playlist. I've learned so much from her. I also use The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook by Tammy Ganglogg. 

As the temps (hopefully) begin to cool down, I'll be using the dehydrator a lot. Bob will be gone the first weekend in October and I plan to give the pressure canner a work out as well. I want to can potatoes and the turkey stock I have in the freezer. 

That's another thing... 

Have you taken a good look in your freezer? Maybe that's a discussion for next week and I'll share a video from Leisa at Sutton Daze. 

In the mean time, think about what you still need to get you through the winter. Make a shopping list, watch for sales and decide what you can do TODAY... tomorrow's prices may be higher or product inaccessible. 

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly

PANTRY PREPAREDNESS - Part 2

 Good morning!

How did you do with your pantry inventory? Are you more aware of what you have, or more importantly what you're missing? 

Today is a bit more of that. While cleaning stuff up in my office this week I came across a couple of printouts and a magazine article. I can't reprint them here but I can share the information from them. At some point I'd like to create my own based on their recommendations. When I do, I'll share them. At the end of this post, I'll share a pantry preparedness book by Leisa from Sutton Daze. But first, 

Have you ever watched Guy's Grocery Games on FoodNetwork? Here's a short video below from one of the episodes:

While the contestant chefs are given specific items they must use in their dish, they also have a BASIC PANTRY to work from. Staple items in most every kitchen items at the ready. Usually, you can pull together a quick meal from these staples, even if it's just pancakes and eggs. 

One article I found was from several years ago. May have come from a Taste of Home magazine by the looks of the picture on the back page of this border article. The article was titled Save Yourself Time... With A Shortcut Pantry.

The list includes things that while might not have been in your grandmother's pantry, they are staples for the cooks of today. Here's a brief list:

Bouillon cubes or granuales

Bread crumbs

Cake mixes

Canned vegetables

Canned pie filling or fruits

Canned meats

Tortillas

Grated & shredded cheeses

Condiments such as ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, tarter or bbq sauce

Refrigerated pastry dough

Pizza crusts or mix

Taco and other basic seasonings

Think of all the quick dishes & desserts you could put together by only adding a couple of things for a particular dish.

The other item I found was from Digital-Women.com back in 2005. I checked the link and it doesn't seem to have the same content as before. the complimentary printable was called EveryDay Pantry.

The sub-paragraph says:

"Think you have it? check first - you'll need not only the freshest meats, fish, fruits, and veggies, but also these standbys and staples to fill your recipes with flavor." 

The printable goes on to list foods by the following categories:

BREADS/ CEREALS

DAIRY

FRESH FRUITS & VEGETABLES

DESSEERTS

BEVERAGES

CONDIMENTS

BAKING GOODS

FROZEN FOODS & MEAT

NON-PERISHABLES

HOUSEHOLD NECESSITIES

If you want something you can hold in your hands, I recommend Leisa Sutton's Pantry Preparedness. You'll find it by clicking the link ----> AMAZON

That's it for me this week. I'll have another Pantry Preparedness next week when we'll talk about how to stretch your money and still have a workable pantry.

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed

~ Kelly

PANTRY PREPAREDNESS - Part 1

 Good afternoon!

Coming in late this morning as I wanted to take advantage of another beautiful day in the Ozarks. Was even getting a bit sticky in the house so I conceded to turning on the AC after breakfast. I remember when Bob would be gone for twenty-one days and I seldom turned on the AC this late in the year unless I were cleaning and the house would be too sticky. Hopefully, this will be the final week of this. 

I should have posted last week but I was looking for a starting point. There is so much to consider when planning for winter. Before I continue, I'm going to leave Leisa's video on Pantry Preparedness where she talks about having one month to a winter-ready pantry. Some points for you to consider as you go through my posts. They will run for the next four Wednesdays, with the fourth one posting on October 1st.

Assessing the pantry.

The first thing you need to do is clean everything in your pantry. Check for loose seals on jars, bulging tin canned food, and bugs invading your dry goods. Dust the shelves and wipe down everything with a damp cloth. Sanitation really is a thing, folks. 

My #1 TIP for dry good storage: 

Never ever store dry goods in their packaging. Unless it came in a jar. I also don't recommend plastic - unless you're storing in Gamma Lid buckets. Glass jars. When properly sealed, NOTHING is getting into your food. Regardless of where you live, critters can potentially be a problem. Even the common house fly. There are some good videos on YouTube for proper storage of pastas and grains. For me, I run almost everything in those categories through my oven for dry canning/ sealing. That includes my oats. I buy a year's supply from the overstock market then spend the next few days getting them sealed into sanitized jars.

Once everything is clean, make sure to pull everything to the front of the shelf. Next, think about how much of each item you need to get your family through the winter then start your shopping list. Think about the types of meals you regularly prepare. Do you have favorites you rotate through? Shop for those first. If you can't get everything right away, that's okay. This is to give you a list of what you need to acquire preferably over the next two months, to get you through the winter. From there you can add to the shelf until you are where you want to be. 

Watch for sales! This is the time to be stocking up. 

When I began planning for Bob's retirement last year, I kept a close eye on sales and always slid money back when I could so I'd be ready. One week, our local small town market had pasta 10/$10, Italian sausage 2/$5 and my preference of spaghetti sauce on sale for $2.50 a jar (normally almost $4 a jar!!)

I buy a particular brand because I reuse their jars to store baking supplies that don't have to be sealed, per say. Did it crimp the budget a little bit that week, but I was more focused on what we needed, as opposed to stuff we DIDN'T need right at that moment. We had plenty of groceries in the house. We weren't going to starve.

I'll be talking about Preparing for Retirement in another series.

Now that your pantry is clean and tidy. You have a list of where you want to go. Remember, ONLY stock the foods your family will eat. Think in terms of meals. Here's an example from our pantry:

To make a batch of Chili, 1 each of the following

15 oz. can tomato sauce

14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes

28 oz. can Keystone ground beef

6 oz. can tomato paste

28 oz. can Bush's Baked Beans

30.5 oz. can Brooks Chili Mix

Everything is stacked together on the shelf so when I send Bob to the pantry for Chili fixin's, everything is stacked together. He doesn't have to hunt the pantry over and possibly coming back upstairs without something. I do the same thing for my Chicken Pot Pie

1 each of:

12.5 oz. can Chunk Chicken

15 oz. can mixed vegetables

10.5 oz. can cream of chicken soup.

I learned this method from Tiffany Spaulding - craft organizer extraordinaire. Her concept is to "Keep Things Together You Will Use Together".  The system really works. Once you put your pantry in 'meal' order, you could send the seven-year-old down to grocery shop from the pantry and know they'll come back with everything you need.

That's it for this week. Next Wednesday we'll talk about other areas of your pantry. Dehydrating, Canning, Freeze Drying and additional purchases.

In the meantime,

Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!

~ Kelly