Friday, Pantrying and panting

     I am sorry no pictures (badly taken) today as I am running with scissors.  Mom and I are going to Spokane this afternoon to attend a LEFSA  Party.  Lefsa is a Swedish potato bread much like a tortilla.  We have about 15 woman coming and we will assembly line and make enough to take home and freeze for the Holidays.  So I had a few things I really needed to get done or wanted to get done before I leave.

Things I have to do:

Get customers to pick up  done!
Get mom showered, fed and dressed.  work in progress
empty car of all groceries we bought last night  done
fill mom's meds done
pack moms clothes done
pack me done
rotate laundry  done
cancel two appointments  done
Load car with lefsa grill, rolling pins, krumkake irons, pins turners  done
Deliver a baby gift and freezer meal to sister who just had babydone
Things I want to do:

Bathe  Done
Pull all geraniums, some bacopa and a few dusty miller and winter store. Done
call all clients for pick up done

     Going any where with mom is a struggle staying over night adds to the chaos. I have left such a mess on the back porch and in the back hall and in the garage, and in my room, and in the shop.  No one would know that I had a clean house a week ago.  But I did not want to sew today so I really tried hard to sew extra and late last night.  I thought oh I will have all this time.  Really?  I am just going to leave all my messes and come home to them.  SO glad Hub's is gone he would be having a fit, I would kill him if he left me messes like this. But I can get home Sunday and start cleaning up all my fun....

     I have been restocking my pantry the last two days with the Holiday bake sale items that are marked down.  I have cases of food all over and groceries in bags all over.  I will do a reveal next week.  This is a time of year that I save for.  I still need to buy more butter, but have not found a good enough sale. I have really spent some money but I don't mind because most weeks we will get buy with just buying, milk, bread,fresh fruit and veggies, we won't need anything else.
  
     Building a pantry when you are not  indigent is a whole new ball game, but the concept is the same.  It is best to have some place that is dry and cool.  Also a freezer is nice.  I have never had a freezer and rely on two refrigerator freezers.  This can be hard as I cannot really stock up large things.  I have been known to take things to friends who have large freezers that need more things to freeze.  Remember to ask for help  if you need it.  Most people are really understanding about these things.

     Storage:  I have three shelves outside my laundry room for canned good and things that would freeze.  I have all flour, sugars, oats,rice, beans in the garage on a shelf.  This house is huge but has very little storage.  Because you know every bedroom needs a walk in closet right?  Such a stupid design.

Places to store food when you have no storage.

     I have stored food under my bed in cases.  I just slid the boxes out when I needed something. I have stacked storage in my closets, I have even had a large trunk as a coffee table and stored all my sugar and flour in it. Behind furniture and under furniture.  Most apartments have an outside storage just make sure to store things in seal able containers if you are storing where bugs can get in.  I have stacked boxes in corners and covered them.  My goal in my storage is to have at least 4 of everything I cook with on a regular basis.  Long term things like spices I only store one or two.

     Once you have enough money to buy food for your family that is not just subsistence you can start by reading the local grocery adds that come out every week.  Most stores have what are called loss leaders.  Or food that they are loosing money on in order to get you into the store to by other things they are making money on.  You goal is to only buy the loss leaders.  You want to get a pantry set up and a freezer set up where you only go to the store for, fresh items and loss leaders.

     This week tomato paste was on sale for 3/1.  I bought a case or 24 cans.  I will not buy this again for some time.  So when I need sauce I run down tot the storage and grab a can.

Since I am basically a scratch cook I have two large containers that hold 10 lbs of flour and 10 pounds of sugar.  I have had them for 40 years.  When the container gets low I run down stairs get a bag of flour or sugar and refill container.  This goes for any and all spices, and baking essentials.

Say I want to bake chocolate chip cookies:

I pull butter, flour, sugar, brown sugar,chips, nuts,eggs,leavening vanilla
Butter .50 1 cup at .99 a pound
flour  paid 2.19 for 10 lbs  maybe  .15 for flour
sugar. 1.50 for 5 lbs so  .15
brown sugar .15
eggs  .10
chips .99
nuts .99
leavening,  .2
salt .2
vanilla I double my vanilla and use pure sorry snob baker here. .15
so for  3.40 cents I will get at least 7 dozen cookies.

Mrs. Doesn't have a pantry  needs to bake cookies for kids school rushed to the store to get
flour  3.35
butter  3.99
she has enough sugar
brown sugar 2.49
eggs 1.69
chips 2.99
she has to buy vanilla and a bottle of the imitation is 1.99
Nuts are outrageous so she chooses not to put those in.  She is now out of sugar at home after baking cookies so she will be running to the store again within a couple of days. She spends a whopping 16.50 today and yes she will now have vanilla, brown sugar some flower, some eggs, but she thinks I just spent 16.50 for cookies I can buy a package for 3.69.  Yes ,yes she can but she will get 2 dozen cookies that are not as good and she will not have any left at home for her family.

It pays to stockpile the things that you need.

Have a great and productive day staying positive while you are in the negative.

Kim