Gumbo Lily has an excellent post about deepening the pantry today.I'm linking to her blog instead of that particular post. Bring a cup of tea and prepare to be inspired... there is a lot of wisdom there. :)
If you use Bloglines as an rss feed, you'll know that you can "save" blog posts to read later. I have many past posts from Gumbo Lily saved to read once I get this side bar links research finished and e-mails caught up... not to mention the everyday living that goes on here.
I forgotten that I'd been asked about "debugging" flour. I "debug" flour by putting each bag in a plastic grocery bag and keeping it in the deep freeze for a couple of days (probably more than I need). When I didn't have a deep freeze, I'd do the same with one bag of flour at a time in my refrigerator's freezer section.
I know some people recommend freezing the flour again a couple of months later but so far I haven't had any bug problem with just one freeze. I make certain to keep the oldest bags of flour either in the front of my shelves or dated so I am always rotating oldest to newest bags. I store five pound bags of both unbleached all purpose flour and unbleached bread flour. I use but I don't store extra self-rising flour.
If you want to store whole wheat flour longer than a couple of months, it must be stored in a freezer (or at least in the frig) as it goes rancid quickly.
I have ground my own wheat for about nine or ten years now. I asked my friend in a food co-op to find out the price of wheat now since I'm getting very low. For the first time since I've been using wheat, it was not available... at all. She orders through a large co-op distribution center in Iowa City. Eeek!
Sigh, it is a good thing I do have food in the pantry. Our car broke down again and we're looking at another $250 fix (our wonderful mechanic is going to keep it as inexpensive as possible!). It's one of those situations where he has to take the car apart to fix it! This is such a good car in the long run that we'll be glad we have the fixes done. I had such pantry plans for that money, too. However, it can't be helped and I'm thankful for that car.
Photo: Bushel of Apples; allposters.com
6 comments:
Thanks for the link - I think I'll enjoy her blog! I did a bit of pantry stocking today as Kroger is having it's 58 cent sale so I was able to get quite a few basics. I freeze my flour for a few days when I get it and then it sits in my pantry until I need it and I've never had a bug problem (knock on wood).
Are you enjoying Wives and Daughters? I got it from the library yesterday and I'm on disk 2 (I've seen it before but for some reason I only remember the beginning) :-).
Manuela
Since you last spoke about debugging flour, I've been doing it, too, with every new bag of flour. My dad was here once when he saw flour in the freezer and asked why. Since then, I've noticed that my parents have flour in their freezer, too. :>
Off to check out your link...thanks!
Thanks for the link, it looks great.
I am going to start putting my flour in the freezer as this is one of the things I'm trying to stock up on.
Blessings.
I have had an occassional box of noodle mix get buggy or cornmeal and such. Therefore I also freeze them for a day or so before putting them on the shelf when I have the space in the freezer to do so. The cornmeal got buggie inside a tupperware container so no bugs got out but still I could have stopped it altogether if I had put it in the freezer. Jody
What co-op does your friend in IC use? Pioneer? I'm in Cedar Rapids and am in a co-op, United Foods. I want to get into Azure Standard, their prices and variety seem better. Alas, I think I'd have to start a group and there doesn't seem to be much interest.
Brenda!
How really kind of you to post a link to my blog. Thank you.
I've always thought I wanted to grind wheat flour, but never have. I really like Montana Wheat Flour (already ground nicely).
Jody
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