Post by benshelpmeet on Sept 14, 2006 10:42:27 GMT -5
Here are a few sites with lists...
www.frugal-families.com/Articles/Kitchen/wellstockedpantry.htm
www.nutritionexplorations.org/parents/pantry-list.asp
www.dietitians.ca/public/content/eat_well_live_well/english/menuplanner/AppendixB.asp
www.betterbudgeting.com/articles/cooking/pantrylist.htm
Though I am not a vegetarian.... This is a great whole food / healthy foods list.
vegweb.com/articles/8.shtml
www.flylady.com/pages/FlyingLessons_ControlJournal7.asp
www.grandmaspantry.com/pantrylist.html
www.thefamilyhomestead.com/pantrylist.html
www.thriftyfun.com/tf604721.tip.html
www.organized-mom.com/articles/101303a.shtml
Well, it's income tax refund time and I am trying to settle up some plans we have. We need to restock the pantry with the items that are more difficult to come by and budget in during the traditional paycheck year. I'd like some input on these things
What I am looking at is perhaps a year of these items. I realize that is relative to our usage, but a guideline of amounts would be helpful and I can fine-tune from there before I actually buy/order.
Oats
generally we prefer long-cooking, but either is a good choice for us. We tend to use between 50 and 100# every 6 months. I'm considering 150# total here.
Prairie Gold
we will opt for wheat berries here, but I do like to have the more fine grind of traditional flour as well. I'm leaning toward 200#, but we use it in everything, so perhaps I'm thinking too less?
Raw Sugar, Sucanet, Fructose
I still have 25# of raw/unrefined sugar here. We are getting away from white sugar completely, so this will be our bulk sugar need here.
Honey
There is a local man I am hoping to catch up with on this, but if not, I will be ordering. Lately honey prices have shot up to $2 per pound, if lucky to find it for that. What would be my chances of maintaining a decent product if I could find it in say a 5 gallon pail? I'm wondering about it crystallizing and such. I have no problems with the smaller, 5# amounts and heating portions for use when crystallized. Maybe several of those size are the better option?
Some other items, off the top of my head here, would include, buttermilk powder, carob powder and carob chips, spices and so on. There are so many things -- I know I am forgetting some.
What do you think? Suggestions?
Sister Deanna
Hi Sister Deanna,
Just off the top of my head, these things come to mind, dry beans, other flours (rye, corn meal, etc) and oils.
Before we went into the ministry, we worked on ranches in remote locations out west, so I always kept a stockpile of things, including non-food items, toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, laundry soap, you get the idea.
In the book, Marlene's Magic with Food Storage, this is a list she recommends:
wheat
powdered milk
oil
salt
honey or sugar
yeast
baking powder
baking soda
powdered eggs (this is a stocking up list for disaster planning, henc the powdered stuff)
canned milk
canned fruits
rice
soup bases
legumes
seeds for sprouting
oats
raisins and other dry fruits
nuts
chocolate powder
peanut butter
corn starch
spices and flavorings
lemon juice
shortening
Hope that helps.
Beverly
My friend owns a bakery and we order from her once a year when she makes a big order at the end of each year. That's why it's so cheep, because alot of orders are put in for alot of grain at once.
You could probably order from Adas General store in Finger ( the Beachys ''John and Sadie'' are sweet brethren ) We will be seeing them this week end. We are going up for a long week end, sort of a vacation so to speak. We will enjoy the refreshing get away. We are leaving Friday morning and will be back late Monday night. I will ask her if you can order some grain from her if you would like. I'll get her phone # for you if you would like and you can set it all up. She can probably get grain for a decent price. Thats how I normally order my grain, except I normally order from my friend up this way, thats 1 hour away ... Finger is 4 hours away from me.
We ordered...
4 (45#) 6 gal buckets of Prairie Gold Wheat Berries $18.03 ea ( without the bucket in 50 lb bag form it is 12.44 ea )
4 (45#) 6 gal buckets of Hard Red Winter Wheat $17.62 ea ( without the bucket in 50 lb bag form it is 11.88)
1 (45#) 6 gal bucket $19.21ea ( without the bucket in 50 lb bag form it is $12.44)
We decided to get it in bucket form, because if we bought 5 gal buckets from Home Depot it would cost $5.00 for the bucket then we would have to by oxygen packets to keep it fresh and they cost $24.48 for a pkg of 100 once there opened they have to be used. The buckets cost $6.84 each, we lost or gave up 5lbs of wheat to get it in bucket form, but it is vacuum sealed and the bucket ended up costing a few cents cheaper than the buckets original cost . We felt it was a good exchange.
We also purchaced...
1 (50#) Regular Rolled Oats
1 (50#) 6 gal bucket Cracked 7 Grain Mix
1 (50#) 6 gal bucket 7 Grain Rolled/Flaked
[ We bought a 6 gal bucket to put it in, it will be opened and being used so it needs no oxygen packets or to be vacuum sealed ]
Their honey was a 12 lb pail for $30.09, that did not sound like a good deal to me so I decided to wait. I have a friend that gets local raw honey in
5 gal pails for around $90.00 at least that was the price a couple of years ago, which we thought was high because in early 2000 we got 5 gal pails of honey for $40.00 it was good local raw honey. We will order more soon.( in the spring)
Where do you get your Raw Sugar, Sucanet, Fructose?
Can you post some good recipes that use these types of sugar? I know they are all different and have different results...some are less sweet...some are more grainy.
Like you I want to get away from all white and refined sugars....
How do I switch over?
How do I make it work for me in the recipes I have?
This is the trouble I am having with Whole Wheat! I find if I use hard red and soft whit wheat mixed it turns out good or just soft whit wheat for some things like biscuits.
I appreciate all the input from all you ladies.... I'm learning alot!
Where do you order or get your...buttermilk powder, carob powder and carob chips, spices?
How do you use buttermilk powder?
Do you store your carob chips in the freezer?
We get our spices from Sams...Where do you get yours?
What kind of spice do you stock up on?
How do you store your pantry supplies?
~Darlene ~
We are doing the same thing we are planning and making a list of things we will need to get..
We are making a large amount of our order from Walton. They will ship it to our home and well it just is so much easier...
www.waltonfeed.com/
Glenda
I was taught that you use hard wheat for anything that requires yeast and soft wheat for anything that requires baking powder/soda. Maybe thats why your whole wheat goodies are coming out heavy.
I bought my Sucunat at the health food store. I just substituted it cup for cup for brown sugar. It's more expensive but we just eat fewer desserts so it goes a long ways.
I bought my buttermilk powder at the Amish bulk food stores. Your friend probably carries it. I mix it up according to the directions and just use it in any recipe that calls for buttermilk.
Have fun stocking up!!
Beverly
I use my hard and soft wheats...yeast-risen is for hard wheats (breads, mainly) powder/soda risen is for soft wheats (cookies, quick breads, pastry, pastas, etc.).
We were buying our raw sugar/sucanet/fructose from our Mennonite friends up north. I came to Mississippi well-stocked I was afraid I'd not find any here. To use it, well, we just started adding it in. The raw sugar works well in just about anything...we are using white sugar for the iced tea as I have run out of fructose But it isn't herbal, so hardly healthy to start with.
We also arrived here with the buttermilk powder, carob powder and carob chips. I think the co-op our Mennonite friends ordered through for their shop was Blooming Prairie. We bought many of our herbal tinctures there as well. The chips are kept in the freezer, but they do as regular chips do and turn white after time. We like them though. They seem to be more similar in taste (in cookies) to a milk chocolate chip, rather than a semi-sweet.
I have several 5 gallon buckets in our pantry for storing items. We were keeping the ground flour in the freezer for several days after buying, then placing the bags into metal garbage cans with tight-fitting lids. You know what rural living is like Gotta fend off the critters from getting my goodies!
Our buckets were $1 each from a local grocery store up north...we bought their pails from the bakery and deli...the whipped icing bucket, chef-grade boiled eggs bucket, etc. Haven't found a store here that will sell them, or give them away i will have to pick up more when we make it back north. My "cannisters" in the kitchen are canning jars and gallon pickle jars I use the 2 qt canning jars for lesser-used dry goods, such as the carob powder, etc. And the larger gallon jars for rice, dried beans, flours, sugars, etc. We just fill these from the 5 gallon buckets in the pantry when needed.
Many of my spices came from our friends up north, as well. I bought cinnamon for under $2 per pound. A pound will fill a large spaghetti sauce jar, close to a full qt jar. We only use Rumford baking Powder, so I buy up whatever I can find when it is available...not many stores carry it around us. I store it in a qt canning jar. Baking cocoa, carob powder in the kitchen, baking soda, etc. are all in qt jars. My other spices, cayenne, chili powder, thyme, dill, parsley flakes, etc. that we don't need quite so much of, were also bought in bulk and I keep them in pint sized canning jars. They will be in the garden this year, so I will dry them myself and determine how best to store them. I believe the fresh dried home grown does better in a cool climate, rather than a cupboard.
We bought a little gadget several years back called a "Pump-N-Seal" and that is what I use to seal my canning jars. Each time you open the jar to use, you can re-seal it with the pump. I've wondered about purchasing one of those bag sealer machines as well...but I'd want the kind you can use any bag with and not have to always buy theirs, kwim? I don't know though, haven't looked too deep into them.
I did think about the other items we would like...can't believe I forgot the olive oil! LOL. That is a daily staple. It is the only oil we use...it's in everything from our baked goods down!
**Yeast, I buy in the blocks from Sam's. best price I've seen for it. I keep it in the pantry until I open a block, then I store it in the freezer in a pint canning jar, with a jelly jar of it in the fridge for weekly use.
**We also purchase powdered milk in bulk, not just buttermilk. I use either buttermilk or regular milk powder in all the baking, and we generally add 2 qts of mixed milk to a gallon of 2% when it reaches half, to stretch our drinking milk supply.
**We rarely use salt, so the 3 bags of seas salt and container of table salt I have is probably more than enough for a long time. We do not add salt in any of our recipes, not even the bread and cookies. My butter/margarine is salted and we find that is more than enough for our tastes and no one notices its absence.
**I would like to get several more blocks of real butter so i can get it canned and into the pantry as well. The sweet cream butter we bought up north was wonderful! The blocks were huge, perhaps 4 or 5 lbs. Wish I had known about canning it then!
I hope to have several variety of beans in the garden that we can dry ourselves, but certainly, stocking up on at least a few basics would be a good thing. Navy, pinto, limas, black-eyed peas, etc.
Thank you for sharing with this thread, ladies! You reminded me of so many things! I knew starting this would be a good thing
Sister Deanna
It is so nice to come on a site and find other women doing the same things we are.. Our list has been gone over and gone over. WE do not want to forget anything that we need.
One thing we are doing now that we like so much better is we are making our own peanut butter. It is great and well there is none of that added stuff in it.. We are also using pecans to make peanut butter. It is soooo good.. All we do is grind them up in a coffee grinder or food processor type thing. WE then add oil no more than 2 tbsp if needed.. And you have peanut butter you can also add salt if you would like. We were given the chance to pick up all the pecans we wanted over the holiday season and we did so. Now we are shelling them and i am going to be roasting them and canning them just for the purpose of making peanut butter out of them...
So that was one thing i can take off my long long list..
Some of the other things we have on our list is powder eggs, powder buttermilk, powder milk, powder sour cream, powder shortening. These things take up little room and yet when you need them they are there in the pantry. Sure makes baking a whole lot easier. One big buy for us other than our wheat order will be our honey. We need to get at least six five pound containers..
These are a few of the items we will be getting to stock up our pantry.....
Deanna, I noticed you have oats on your list what about grits, and cream of wheat??? Just a thought.. I know that walton sales what they call germade that taste and looks just like cream of wheat and well they are good and filling...
This is something that we will make sure we have at least 50# of in the house..
just a thought..
glenda
Hi Sister Glenda,
We also make our own peanut butter. We use our Champion juicer to make it. It turns out wonderful.
Germade is good stuff. I have had it in the past, it's like Cream of Wheat, except it's whole wheat.
We are blessed to have a "bee man" in our town, so we get fresh local honey. Folks here buy things in small quantities, so I can only buy it in quart containers or smaller.
Stocking up is a foreign concept here, most folks will buy just what they need for a day or two. I've seen ladies in the vegetable market just buy one stalk of celery (they peel off what they need from one big bunch), one potato, etc, etc. The kitchens are generally small also, with not much storage room. A pantry is unheard off.
None the less, I'm stocking up, a little differently than I would in the states, but buying a few extra things here and there to put away.
Good luck with your order.
Beverly
Sisters,
Thank you for posting such great tips and your pantry stock items. I know we use flour, at this time I have not found a grain grinder and am hard pressed to invest over $100 for one to fit my Kitchen Aid..so I have to buy the processed flour.
I get my bulk items, Wheat Flour, Soy Flour, Buckwheat Flour, and some spices from the Amish store near here, and then over at a bulk foods/sort of 2nd's store..most of their product is 100% fine, you just might find the box dented..I check pull dates.
I like to have plenty of pasta, that I don't make with my machine, I have an Italian pasta maker, a clearance rack item I had kept for many years..it makes lasagna, spaghetti, fettucini, the regular noodles and also I can use my ravioli mold and use the lasagna noodle dough for those..
I keep dried spices and dried herbs on hand..as well as dried onion, garlic pieces, dried bell pepper, and also cheese sauce mix (amish store) this is in cheddar and swiss..sometimes I add a bit for a little more flavor.
I primarily make all of my mixes, such as taco seasoning, spaghetti sauce, barbecue, sweet and sour, chili, and also regular asian sauce mix.
My goals next year are to dry more of the herbs I grow and eventually have all my mixes made up well in advance of winter.
Thank you again for the posts..I really have enjoyed reading them...such good ideas!!
God bless,
Sister Penny
Sister Penny.
Something you might want to think about is getting a coffee grinder. you can grind wheat in small amounts in a electric coffee grinder.. It is a thought... Make sure that you have one just for your flour. You dont want it to taste like coffee...
I know that here you can find a good coffee grinder for about ten to twenty dollars.. Not to bad really...
glenda
Dear sisters,
Yesterday, I purchased at the Dollar tree ( where every things 1.00 ) some plastic see through containers that will hold approx 5lb of flour OR sugar. You could store just about anything in them. I also got some half that size. They have a white screw on lid ( very nice! )
We also by pickles by the gal jar ( these jars make real good storage containers.
We grind up the dill pickles in a food processor to make dill relish. It's alot cheaper that way.
I was able to purchase raw sugar and carob powder and herb teas ( medicinal) this week end from the Amish dry goods store in West Tn. during our visit last week end.
We like to stock up on dates, apricots, raisins, prunes...etc.
Love, ~ sister Darlene ~
Looking through the Emergency Essentials www.beprepared.com catalog of grains and foods (pricey, but helped with my list making...) I have made over my list a bit so I can check prices elsewhere.
We looked at freeze-dried fruits...could be used in a great number of ways, such as granolas, even cobblers and such. I'd like to try a couple cans to see if they are worth the trouble of ordering. If nothing else, to get a few this year until we can get back to canning and drying our own fruits and such again. I probably won't go with them, but it was a thought.
On the dehydrated items, we looked at the Rumford baking powder I use (it's aluminum-free...it's all we buy) that was $12.99/1,744 1/4 tsps...beef and chicken bouillon ran about $24.30/567 tsps...buttermilk powder at $15.80/113 cups...butter powder was a new thing I wasn't aware of...
On the grain side, there was a package deal of 13 6 gal sealed mylar buckets...3 of Golden 86 white wheat, 2 each of red wheat and white rice, 1 each of rolled oats, yellow popcorn, pinto beans, soft wheat, pearl barley and small red beans...this ran $470. A 45lb pail of hard white runs about $42 alone. They also have 3 of the 6 gal pails of instant milk powder for $250 (comes out to $2.15/gallon mixed up...not a bad price with the current milk market and me without goats).
We have a few buckets here, but mostly, they have purposes already...storing hard red I still have, powdered milk, and bread flour. I haven't found a store that will sell their bakery buckets around here, so paying $7 per 6 gal bucket with sealing lid isn't too bad for the first year I don't think. Next year, we wouldn't be needing the buckets and could go for grains in mylar bags only and save off each price.
But...this was just to pad out my idea list. I still need to check Walton Feeds and a couple other places if I can find anyone else that ships this way.
Well...off for the remaining chores. We have a dinner at church this weekend and I am baking breads and cookies. I have 3 batches of the Amish sugar cookies put together and chilled...just have to roll and cut them then freeze them until Saturday when I'll ice them. Bread will be made in-between those days.
Sister Deanna
www.frugal-families.com/Articles/Kitchen/wellstockedpantry.htm
www.nutritionexplorations.org/parents/pantry-list.asp
www.dietitians.ca/public/content/eat_well_live_well/english/menuplanner/AppendixB.asp
www.betterbudgeting.com/articles/cooking/pantrylist.htm
Though I am not a vegetarian.... This is a great whole food / healthy foods list.
vegweb.com/articles/8.shtml
www.flylady.com/pages/FlyingLessons_ControlJournal7.asp
www.grandmaspantry.com/pantrylist.html
www.thefamilyhomestead.com/pantrylist.html
www.thriftyfun.com/tf604721.tip.html
www.organized-mom.com/articles/101303a.shtml
Well, it's income tax refund time and I am trying to settle up some plans we have. We need to restock the pantry with the items that are more difficult to come by and budget in during the traditional paycheck year. I'd like some input on these things
What I am looking at is perhaps a year of these items. I realize that is relative to our usage, but a guideline of amounts would be helpful and I can fine-tune from there before I actually buy/order.
Oats
generally we prefer long-cooking, but either is a good choice for us. We tend to use between 50 and 100# every 6 months. I'm considering 150# total here.
Prairie Gold
we will opt for wheat berries here, but I do like to have the more fine grind of traditional flour as well. I'm leaning toward 200#, but we use it in everything, so perhaps I'm thinking too less?
Raw Sugar, Sucanet, Fructose
I still have 25# of raw/unrefined sugar here. We are getting away from white sugar completely, so this will be our bulk sugar need here.
Honey
There is a local man I am hoping to catch up with on this, but if not, I will be ordering. Lately honey prices have shot up to $2 per pound, if lucky to find it for that. What would be my chances of maintaining a decent product if I could find it in say a 5 gallon pail? I'm wondering about it crystallizing and such. I have no problems with the smaller, 5# amounts and heating portions for use when crystallized. Maybe several of those size are the better option?
Some other items, off the top of my head here, would include, buttermilk powder, carob powder and carob chips, spices and so on. There are so many things -- I know I am forgetting some.
What do you think? Suggestions?
Sister Deanna
Hi Sister Deanna,
Just off the top of my head, these things come to mind, dry beans, other flours (rye, corn meal, etc) and oils.
Before we went into the ministry, we worked on ranches in remote locations out west, so I always kept a stockpile of things, including non-food items, toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, laundry soap, you get the idea.
In the book, Marlene's Magic with Food Storage, this is a list she recommends:
wheat
powdered milk
oil
salt
honey or sugar
yeast
baking powder
baking soda
powdered eggs (this is a stocking up list for disaster planning, henc the powdered stuff)
canned milk
canned fruits
rice
soup bases
legumes
seeds for sprouting
oats
raisins and other dry fruits
nuts
chocolate powder
peanut butter
corn starch
spices and flavorings
lemon juice
shortening
Hope that helps.
Beverly
My friend owns a bakery and we order from her once a year when she makes a big order at the end of each year. That's why it's so cheep, because alot of orders are put in for alot of grain at once.
You could probably order from Adas General store in Finger ( the Beachys ''John and Sadie'' are sweet brethren ) We will be seeing them this week end. We are going up for a long week end, sort of a vacation so to speak. We will enjoy the refreshing get away. We are leaving Friday morning and will be back late Monday night. I will ask her if you can order some grain from her if you would like. I'll get her phone # for you if you would like and you can set it all up. She can probably get grain for a decent price. Thats how I normally order my grain, except I normally order from my friend up this way, thats 1 hour away ... Finger is 4 hours away from me.
We ordered...
4 (45#) 6 gal buckets of Prairie Gold Wheat Berries $18.03 ea ( without the bucket in 50 lb bag form it is 12.44 ea )
4 (45#) 6 gal buckets of Hard Red Winter Wheat $17.62 ea ( without the bucket in 50 lb bag form it is 11.88)
1 (45#) 6 gal bucket $19.21ea ( without the bucket in 50 lb bag form it is $12.44)
We decided to get it in bucket form, because if we bought 5 gal buckets from Home Depot it would cost $5.00 for the bucket then we would have to by oxygen packets to keep it fresh and they cost $24.48 for a pkg of 100 once there opened they have to be used. The buckets cost $6.84 each, we lost or gave up 5lbs of wheat to get it in bucket form, but it is vacuum sealed and the bucket ended up costing a few cents cheaper than the buckets original cost . We felt it was a good exchange.
We also purchaced...
1 (50#) Regular Rolled Oats
1 (50#) 6 gal bucket Cracked 7 Grain Mix
1 (50#) 6 gal bucket 7 Grain Rolled/Flaked
[ We bought a 6 gal bucket to put it in, it will be opened and being used so it needs no oxygen packets or to be vacuum sealed ]
Their honey was a 12 lb pail for $30.09, that did not sound like a good deal to me so I decided to wait. I have a friend that gets local raw honey in
5 gal pails for around $90.00 at least that was the price a couple of years ago, which we thought was high because in early 2000 we got 5 gal pails of honey for $40.00 it was good local raw honey. We will order more soon.( in the spring)
Where do you get your Raw Sugar, Sucanet, Fructose?
Can you post some good recipes that use these types of sugar? I know they are all different and have different results...some are less sweet...some are more grainy.
Like you I want to get away from all white and refined sugars....
How do I switch over?
How do I make it work for me in the recipes I have?
This is the trouble I am having with Whole Wheat! I find if I use hard red and soft whit wheat mixed it turns out good or just soft whit wheat for some things like biscuits.
I appreciate all the input from all you ladies.... I'm learning alot!
Where do you order or get your...buttermilk powder, carob powder and carob chips, spices?
How do you use buttermilk powder?
Do you store your carob chips in the freezer?
We get our spices from Sams...Where do you get yours?
What kind of spice do you stock up on?
How do you store your pantry supplies?
~Darlene ~
We are doing the same thing we are planning and making a list of things we will need to get..
We are making a large amount of our order from Walton. They will ship it to our home and well it just is so much easier...
www.waltonfeed.com/
Glenda
I was taught that you use hard wheat for anything that requires yeast and soft wheat for anything that requires baking powder/soda. Maybe thats why your whole wheat goodies are coming out heavy.
I bought my Sucunat at the health food store. I just substituted it cup for cup for brown sugar. It's more expensive but we just eat fewer desserts so it goes a long ways.
I bought my buttermilk powder at the Amish bulk food stores. Your friend probably carries it. I mix it up according to the directions and just use it in any recipe that calls for buttermilk.
Have fun stocking up!!
Beverly
I use my hard and soft wheats...yeast-risen is for hard wheats (breads, mainly) powder/soda risen is for soft wheats (cookies, quick breads, pastry, pastas, etc.).
We were buying our raw sugar/sucanet/fructose from our Mennonite friends up north. I came to Mississippi well-stocked I was afraid I'd not find any here. To use it, well, we just started adding it in. The raw sugar works well in just about anything...we are using white sugar for the iced tea as I have run out of fructose But it isn't herbal, so hardly healthy to start with.
We also arrived here with the buttermilk powder, carob powder and carob chips. I think the co-op our Mennonite friends ordered through for their shop was Blooming Prairie. We bought many of our herbal tinctures there as well. The chips are kept in the freezer, but they do as regular chips do and turn white after time. We like them though. They seem to be more similar in taste (in cookies) to a milk chocolate chip, rather than a semi-sweet.
I have several 5 gallon buckets in our pantry for storing items. We were keeping the ground flour in the freezer for several days after buying, then placing the bags into metal garbage cans with tight-fitting lids. You know what rural living is like Gotta fend off the critters from getting my goodies!
Our buckets were $1 each from a local grocery store up north...we bought their pails from the bakery and deli...the whipped icing bucket, chef-grade boiled eggs bucket, etc. Haven't found a store here that will sell them, or give them away i will have to pick up more when we make it back north. My "cannisters" in the kitchen are canning jars and gallon pickle jars I use the 2 qt canning jars for lesser-used dry goods, such as the carob powder, etc. And the larger gallon jars for rice, dried beans, flours, sugars, etc. We just fill these from the 5 gallon buckets in the pantry when needed.
Many of my spices came from our friends up north, as well. I bought cinnamon for under $2 per pound. A pound will fill a large spaghetti sauce jar, close to a full qt jar. We only use Rumford baking Powder, so I buy up whatever I can find when it is available...not many stores carry it around us. I store it in a qt canning jar. Baking cocoa, carob powder in the kitchen, baking soda, etc. are all in qt jars. My other spices, cayenne, chili powder, thyme, dill, parsley flakes, etc. that we don't need quite so much of, were also bought in bulk and I keep them in pint sized canning jars. They will be in the garden this year, so I will dry them myself and determine how best to store them. I believe the fresh dried home grown does better in a cool climate, rather than a cupboard.
We bought a little gadget several years back called a "Pump-N-Seal" and that is what I use to seal my canning jars. Each time you open the jar to use, you can re-seal it with the pump. I've wondered about purchasing one of those bag sealer machines as well...but I'd want the kind you can use any bag with and not have to always buy theirs, kwim? I don't know though, haven't looked too deep into them.
I did think about the other items we would like...can't believe I forgot the olive oil! LOL. That is a daily staple. It is the only oil we use...it's in everything from our baked goods down!
**Yeast, I buy in the blocks from Sam's. best price I've seen for it. I keep it in the pantry until I open a block, then I store it in the freezer in a pint canning jar, with a jelly jar of it in the fridge for weekly use.
**We also purchase powdered milk in bulk, not just buttermilk. I use either buttermilk or regular milk powder in all the baking, and we generally add 2 qts of mixed milk to a gallon of 2% when it reaches half, to stretch our drinking milk supply.
**We rarely use salt, so the 3 bags of seas salt and container of table salt I have is probably more than enough for a long time. We do not add salt in any of our recipes, not even the bread and cookies. My butter/margarine is salted and we find that is more than enough for our tastes and no one notices its absence.
**I would like to get several more blocks of real butter so i can get it canned and into the pantry as well. The sweet cream butter we bought up north was wonderful! The blocks were huge, perhaps 4 or 5 lbs. Wish I had known about canning it then!
I hope to have several variety of beans in the garden that we can dry ourselves, but certainly, stocking up on at least a few basics would be a good thing. Navy, pinto, limas, black-eyed peas, etc.
Thank you for sharing with this thread, ladies! You reminded me of so many things! I knew starting this would be a good thing
Sister Deanna
It is so nice to come on a site and find other women doing the same things we are.. Our list has been gone over and gone over. WE do not want to forget anything that we need.
One thing we are doing now that we like so much better is we are making our own peanut butter. It is great and well there is none of that added stuff in it.. We are also using pecans to make peanut butter. It is soooo good.. All we do is grind them up in a coffee grinder or food processor type thing. WE then add oil no more than 2 tbsp if needed.. And you have peanut butter you can also add salt if you would like. We were given the chance to pick up all the pecans we wanted over the holiday season and we did so. Now we are shelling them and i am going to be roasting them and canning them just for the purpose of making peanut butter out of them...
So that was one thing i can take off my long long list..
Some of the other things we have on our list is powder eggs, powder buttermilk, powder milk, powder sour cream, powder shortening. These things take up little room and yet when you need them they are there in the pantry. Sure makes baking a whole lot easier. One big buy for us other than our wheat order will be our honey. We need to get at least six five pound containers..
These are a few of the items we will be getting to stock up our pantry.....
Deanna, I noticed you have oats on your list what about grits, and cream of wheat??? Just a thought.. I know that walton sales what they call germade that taste and looks just like cream of wheat and well they are good and filling...
This is something that we will make sure we have at least 50# of in the house..
just a thought..
glenda
Hi Sister Glenda,
We also make our own peanut butter. We use our Champion juicer to make it. It turns out wonderful.
Germade is good stuff. I have had it in the past, it's like Cream of Wheat, except it's whole wheat.
We are blessed to have a "bee man" in our town, so we get fresh local honey. Folks here buy things in small quantities, so I can only buy it in quart containers or smaller.
Stocking up is a foreign concept here, most folks will buy just what they need for a day or two. I've seen ladies in the vegetable market just buy one stalk of celery (they peel off what they need from one big bunch), one potato, etc, etc. The kitchens are generally small also, with not much storage room. A pantry is unheard off.
None the less, I'm stocking up, a little differently than I would in the states, but buying a few extra things here and there to put away.
Good luck with your order.
Beverly
Sisters,
Thank you for posting such great tips and your pantry stock items. I know we use flour, at this time I have not found a grain grinder and am hard pressed to invest over $100 for one to fit my Kitchen Aid..so I have to buy the processed flour.
I get my bulk items, Wheat Flour, Soy Flour, Buckwheat Flour, and some spices from the Amish store near here, and then over at a bulk foods/sort of 2nd's store..most of their product is 100% fine, you just might find the box dented..I check pull dates.
I like to have plenty of pasta, that I don't make with my machine, I have an Italian pasta maker, a clearance rack item I had kept for many years..it makes lasagna, spaghetti, fettucini, the regular noodles and also I can use my ravioli mold and use the lasagna noodle dough for those..
I keep dried spices and dried herbs on hand..as well as dried onion, garlic pieces, dried bell pepper, and also cheese sauce mix (amish store) this is in cheddar and swiss..sometimes I add a bit for a little more flavor.
I primarily make all of my mixes, such as taco seasoning, spaghetti sauce, barbecue, sweet and sour, chili, and also regular asian sauce mix.
My goals next year are to dry more of the herbs I grow and eventually have all my mixes made up well in advance of winter.
Thank you again for the posts..I really have enjoyed reading them...such good ideas!!
God bless,
Sister Penny
Sister Penny.
Something you might want to think about is getting a coffee grinder. you can grind wheat in small amounts in a electric coffee grinder.. It is a thought... Make sure that you have one just for your flour. You dont want it to taste like coffee...
I know that here you can find a good coffee grinder for about ten to twenty dollars.. Not to bad really...
glenda
Dear sisters,
Yesterday, I purchased at the Dollar tree ( where every things 1.00 ) some plastic see through containers that will hold approx 5lb of flour OR sugar. You could store just about anything in them. I also got some half that size. They have a white screw on lid ( very nice! )
We also by pickles by the gal jar ( these jars make real good storage containers.
We grind up the dill pickles in a food processor to make dill relish. It's alot cheaper that way.
I was able to purchase raw sugar and carob powder and herb teas ( medicinal) this week end from the Amish dry goods store in West Tn. during our visit last week end.
We like to stock up on dates, apricots, raisins, prunes...etc.
Love, ~ sister Darlene ~
Looking through the Emergency Essentials www.beprepared.com catalog of grains and foods (pricey, but helped with my list making...) I have made over my list a bit so I can check prices elsewhere.
We looked at freeze-dried fruits...could be used in a great number of ways, such as granolas, even cobblers and such. I'd like to try a couple cans to see if they are worth the trouble of ordering. If nothing else, to get a few this year until we can get back to canning and drying our own fruits and such again. I probably won't go with them, but it was a thought.
On the dehydrated items, we looked at the Rumford baking powder I use (it's aluminum-free...it's all we buy) that was $12.99/1,744 1/4 tsps...beef and chicken bouillon ran about $24.30/567 tsps...buttermilk powder at $15.80/113 cups...butter powder was a new thing I wasn't aware of...
On the grain side, there was a package deal of 13 6 gal sealed mylar buckets...3 of Golden 86 white wheat, 2 each of red wheat and white rice, 1 each of rolled oats, yellow popcorn, pinto beans, soft wheat, pearl barley and small red beans...this ran $470. A 45lb pail of hard white runs about $42 alone. They also have 3 of the 6 gal pails of instant milk powder for $250 (comes out to $2.15/gallon mixed up...not a bad price with the current milk market and me without goats).
We have a few buckets here, but mostly, they have purposes already...storing hard red I still have, powdered milk, and bread flour. I haven't found a store that will sell their bakery buckets around here, so paying $7 per 6 gal bucket with sealing lid isn't too bad for the first year I don't think. Next year, we wouldn't be needing the buckets and could go for grains in mylar bags only and save off each price.
But...this was just to pad out my idea list. I still need to check Walton Feeds and a couple other places if I can find anyone else that ships this way.
Well...off for the remaining chores. We have a dinner at church this weekend and I am baking breads and cookies. I have 3 batches of the Amish sugar cookies put together and chilled...just have to roll and cut them then freeze them until Saturday when I'll ice them. Bread will be made in-between those days.
Sister Deanna