Pantry Talk - Thoughts on how I stock up Part 3

I don't think I've written very much about really, really deepening the pantry. Probably because I know most people don't have the space or financial ability to do so... or just don't want to spend the time it takes, for this is where it becomes essential to be organized.

However, having said that... it is also where you can save the most money and it becomes truly an "insurance plan you can eat" if necessary. I've been there, when we were able to have a deep pantry and it was so welcome during our first year with no income.

When one has a deep pantry, any money that does come in for food is able to go to milk, veggies, fruit, etc. Not to mention paying the utility bills.

This is also where I wasted money in the past but I always learned great lessons in what we would eat from the pantry, what we ended up not liking, where future pantry money should be prioritized, etc.

I can't keep a deep pantry now but those lessons learned "back then" are what I use now to make certain the small pantry has the most essential ingredients in it. While I almost always use up pantry items now, it is a priority to restock it when we have the ability.

What we have in our pantries will depend on our present circumstance a great deal... someone who cooks completely from scratch will store mostly basics while another who uses more convenience foods will make certain they are on the shelves. Most of us will have a combination of both... leaning more toward one or the other.

In my much smaller pantry, I keep basics such as the items needed for baking, soups, stews, pastas, casseroles, etc. Where I used keep about six months of most items and that is no longer possible, it is still fairly easy to stock one year's worth of such things as spices, salt, baking soda and powder, extracts, etc.

Basically one keeps the same things in their deepened pantry as they do on a much smaller scale... only more. How much more depends on your finances, your ability of space, and how much time you are willing to invest into planning and organizing.

I can tell you this... I used to save enough money by the small amount of work I had to put into the pantry that my "per hour wage" would have been significant. :)

It is essential when keeping a very deep pantry to keep it organized or you'll end up throwing things away. Believe me, time goes by much faster then you think so you must write the dates on items and find a way to store them so the latest purchased will go to the "back" of the shelves (so to speak, it may be the bottom box of canned goods or the "extra" corner of the cabinet). Just as location, location, location is key in real estate, so rotate, rotate, rotate is what a deep pantry is all about.

The best article I ever read about "stocking up" was during the 1990s (when people were talking about Y2k) about a homesteading family in Michigan's Upper Pennsylvania who had to stock up each year out of necessity.

I spent a long time looking for the article in my files this morning and couldn't find it but I did finally locate it online.... here. This is a great article to show how one family "thinks through" what they need in their pantry.

Of course, this doesn't include anything we grow or purchase to do our own home canning and freezing. Rural people in past generations (and many now) would not understand why we would even consider not having a pantry. :)

More pantry thoughts and links later... the buzzer is sounding on the clothes dryer and the timer in the kitchen will soon tell me my loaf of bread is baked. Although the aroma coming from the general area of the kitchen precedes the timer.

Hope this post makes sense, it truly is "off the top of my head". Well, except all that time looking up the article.