In February I wrote a post called Food Storage For People Who Don’t Hate Food. Most of the feedback I got on that post was very positive, but a few readers seemed skeptical of my claims that eating from the pantry for six months was reasonable, even if one had the food stored.
This floored me – eating from your food storage is part of food storage, to my mind. But two readers sent in such similar emails I had to share them and respond:
Melissa wrote:
I recently got through a big personal trial when my husband lost his job and I had to keep the family fed while not spending more than we had to. But I do not know if you have ever really been in that kind of situation because it sounds like the way you are doing everything is to spend money by buying a lot of things that are supposed to be put aside to eat later. That is fine if you think the world is ending or you have a lot of extra money but we are just now starting to get out from the debt we built up when my husband was unemployed. So we do not have a lot of extra money to buy food to leave just sitting around.
I know you are a chef and have a big garden so you probably know a lot about how to combine things together but it seems not realistic for most people to spend money to eat that kind of food, and still have good food and take care of their dietary needs and everything.
Christine wrote:
I was hoping to get some ideas for how I should I actually cook for my family if we need to live from our “larder” for six months. In 2009 my husband was unemployed for over a year. Even if I’d known that this was going to happen and had six months of food stocked up I don’t know that I’d have been able to come up with meals without buying a lot of extra food anyway. (I can’t make beans and rice every night!) So is there a menu plan that I should use that goes with your pantry shopping list? Or is there a cookbook you could recommend?
Both Melissa and Christine are really saying the same thing: even if you do have food stored, how do you really use it to mitigate the impact of a protracted emergency. (And let’s not kid ourselves, for most people longer-term unemployment is a protracted emergency.)
Cooking Is A Basic Skill
How do you cook from your pantry? Well, the answer is actually is really quite simple: practice.
The ability to cook – I’m not talking gourmet multi-course affairs here, just putting dinner on the table every night – is a basic skill of resilience. If you are unable to chunk out meals even when surrounded by good, wholesome ingredients, then you have a skill deficiency, not a food storage problem.
I don’t want to sound unsympathetic, honestly, but the entire point of that food storage post was that you store food for the way you already eat. And if the way you eat doesn’t allow a food store you can tap into when you really need it – in the form of a pantry, a garden, a deep freeze or whatever – then your food choices are way too brittle.
If I understand these emails correctly, Melissa and Christine are also questioning the idea that eating exclusively from the pantry in tough times is even possible.
Well, that sounds like a challenge. So, okay, darling readers, challenge accepted.
Eat From The Larder Challenge
Join me this April and put your food storage to the test, save money, practice pantry eating, get creative and make some room on your shelves and in your freezer before the big 2014 harvest and food preservation season starts.
I eat primarily from the pantry about this time every year, simply because I don’t want to go into a new harvest season with a bunch of old food. If you fancy yourself a productive homekeeper, a planned period to eat down the pantry just makes sense. Even if you have the best larder-building estimates going, some food stuffs have been under-utilized and some have been over-stored.
Maybe you had a bumper crop of winter squash, maybe you made a bad decision at Sam’s Club in the ramen aisle, maybe the kids unexpectedly boycotted applesauce, maybe your partner turned up pregnant and, defying all stereotypes, decided she hated pickles.
Whatever.
We all have pantry items that linger. We all have canned goods that are rolling over into their third year, we all have packages of mystery food in the freezer.
The Eat Down The Larder Challenge is your chance to get creative, use what you already have, save a bunch of grocery money and make space for the new harvest.
I really hope you join me!
The Rules
These are the rules I’ll be following:
- From April 1st – 30th, all meals and snacks have to come entirely from food I already have on hand. No additional groceries will be purchased. No meals will be eaten out. I will spend $0 on groceries.
- I can use any food already on hand or grown on site. Food from the garden, foraged foods and items in the pantry, fridge and freezer are all fair game.
- There will be no last minute purchases to “stock up” before April 1st, although I will be buying milk in the next few days because I need it anyway.
- I will do weekly posts in which I share what we ate while cooking from the larder.
Those are my rules but you can modify these rules to suit your needs. If you have a smaller larder, maybe you want to “allow” certain purchases like dairy, or bread, or whatever. You can opt to give yourself a certain grocery budget to work within (like No Spend Month) that’s challenging but doable.
You can define this Eat From The Larder Challenge in whatever way works for you, so long as the primary goal is to use the food you already have and challenge yourself.
I’d love to have you join me! What do you say – are you in?
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This is great inspiration for me! I’ve been trying to reduce our food budget & have quite a bit here on hand that I just haven’t used due to poor planning and too many “I don’t feel like cooking” nights. I’ll probably buy milk, some eggs (we get some from a friend with chickens, but these don’t usually last us very long!), & some fresh produce. Looking forward to the challenge! 🙂
I’m really keen but with a bit of a twist. My plan for April was to take all the raw ingredients from the freezer pantry and garden (autumn here) and fill the other freezer with ready meals for when I return to work. May need to get some additional staples to do so but as I hope to make a couple of months worth of meals that should be fine. I would live the recipe ideas though. The first time I read your blog and the prudent housewife I thought there is no way someone can live solely from their pantry. How silly is that especially since we have a massive garden and orchard, chooks for meat and eggs, sheep and even cattle for meat. Now I know I have enough food on hand that I should only be buying staples and still have heaps to share. It is just coming up with recipes and getting out of the habit of buying food. Now whenever we think we need to go shopping urgently we deliberately wait a few days and it’s surprisingly easy to ‘find’ food. Just have to start pushing that out longer.
If you could comment with your recipe plans which would be good for freezing that would be wonderful.
Check out onceamonthmeals.com for good freezer recipes. Personally I only freeze ingredients, not all made meals because that’s what I cook/eat best.
Another great reason to do this is you will quickly see the holes. I tried for February. It didn’t take long to realize my ratios were all out of wack. I have enough flour and dried beans to last months, but ran out of oil, peanut butter, and coffee in a few weeks. This lead me on a web search to your excellent stocking up post and I’m now in the process of evening out my stores to better reflect what we eat. Could I get by on what was there? Sure (well my husband might revolt if we ever ran out of peanut butter) but I’m excited to get a better balance. This time of year is pretty thin as last years tomatoes are almost gone, we are getting to the bottom of frozen fruit, etc.
I’m in! If only just because I have to move in August, and I don’t want to take things with me. I have just recently gotten into canning, so I don’t have any home-stored food unfortunately. But I do have store-bought canned goods and frozen veggies/meats that need to be used. I think I’ll buy eggs and dairy (future hubbs can’t quite break his cereal habit). Something I’m not looking forward to – I was silly and bought imitation crab meat – ick! It’s been in the freezer for a while and now it’s time to use it… I’m thinking crab cakes, spice the hell out of them to cover the fake flavor. It was something fondly remembered from childhood that did not transfer over to adulthood. I really just want to throw it in the compost, but I’ll stretch my imagination just for the practice. Thanks for the idea!
Wow, that was alot of posts to read through. Seems like people could use some fresh fish and vegetables to go with their stored food. How about an Aquaponics system that you build yourself from parts off the shelf?
I’m a disabled person (read we live on Social InSecurity) with two small kids and a wife that won’t, yes, I said WON’T eat decent food. So I grow food in the garden and fish and veggies in the AP system(s) but have to cook meat and potatoes for the wife. I swear I about fell out of my wheelchair when she took a bite of broccoli!!! So, as for the challenge… jeez, why did you have to start it during planting season?… I’m up for it.
facebook.com/gottagrow.aquaponics
This is a wonderful idea! Unfortunately I am ahead of you by one month because my husband and I had a short-term, time-sensitive, money saving goal. Now my larder is dwindled down to about a dozen jars. Poor timing in the whole timeline of the “hunger gap” and the gardening seasons – my garden won’t be producing enough to feed us for several months. I am with you in spirit 😉
Like most other people, I’m in and excited but will have to accommodate for my husband a bit by purchasing a few items. We are fortunate- we have a half pig and a quarter cow in our extra freezer, so meat won’t be a problem. What WILL be tough is figuring out what to do with all the zucchini relish I canned last year; I’ve only opened one jar of the stuff! I don’t have any tuna fish… Any brilliant ideas on what to do with all the relish?
I use a homemade carrot zuke relish on my salads – and on top of cottage cheese –
just love it – instead of dressing. Also use with eggs and cheese in a tortilla roll=up. Anyplace you would use pickle relish works great…. like in potato salad, macaroni salad, on sandwiches 🙂 Enjoy!
Great, thanks for the ideas! 🙂
count me in! I guess I better shop before April 1st!
This is a great idea. Looking forward to seeing meal plans!!
Erica- If you are still listening for comments on this post, I have a question for you and homebrew hubby…
Can I use my malted grains for making bread? I keep meaning to try it out but was curious if you knew if the malting process made brewing grains (mostly barley, some wheat & other) made them unsuitable for bread or not…
I’ve got several hundred pounds sitting around the place…
I accept the challenge, with some personal variations.
We learned years ago to use our preserves (canned, frozen, dried, etc) *all the time* throughout the winter because we ended up hoarding our own food (it seems so precious!) which defeated the purpose. So now we do the rotation of stored goods pretty much as you described in an earlier post.
I will endeavor to take up this challenge but I will not cancel my bi-weekly local produce order, something we have done for years. I will likely need to buy other fresh things but I will think in the next couple of days about setting parameters around that.
Okay. We are in. I will purchase nothing in April and we will eat from the larder. Confess that I will purchase some olive oil and a can of coffee before the first but then think we can do this and eat pretty well from the freezer. Time to make room for next years garden and of course the chickens will be glad to keep us in eggs.
I’m in! I love to stock up, and even after a winter of eating out of it, my pantry and my freezer is still full! How does that happen? Simple, I think–falling back too often on easier choices than what is put away from last year. This will be fun!
Thank you Erica! I’m looking forward to see what you’re cooking each week. I’ve been a grocery store shopper my whole life and the idea of not going to the grocery store is hard to imagine. But, I am thinking about following the challenge for the month of May after I see what you’ve done. Thank you for setting a great example!!!! For this and your other ideas.
Half-in. Eggs and dairy still come regularly from the store, but otherwise I think we do pretty well eating out of the pantry. However, I have lots of fruit in the freezer (because I always pick too much on our u-pick outings!) so the challenge for April is to Make More Smoothies. Not berry picking this year isn’t an option, so better make room now!
I’m out because renting a room makes keeping enough veggies on hand tricky. But I’ve done three weeks without shopping earlier this year. Got very rice and lentils -centric towards the end. I will be watching for recipes because I’m planning on renting an apartment with the boyfriend this summer when my contract here is up. And he’s all for stocking up on food. (I remember he got all excited by your earlier food storage post) . So I guess what I’m saying is please please do follow-up posts.
I like this idea of clearing out my pantry and freezer to make space for 2014 stuff. We have food things given to us at Christmas that I need to see if we’ll eat or should I send along to the Drop-In center for someone else to try.
We’re making smoothies for breakfasts. I have some rhubarb from last year I want to make compote and try it with with my blueberries and strawberries.
Looking forward to seeing what others are doing as well
Love it – I’m in! I will be supplementing with limited groceries. As someone who is limited-income (I’m a grad student AND a farmer), I try to keep my larder stocked by preserving foods I know I’ll eat when they’re in-season (read: available in huge quantities for very very little money because they’ll spoil!), and buy the few things I don’t make from scratch, like rice or quinoa in bulk (again, cheap!) It’s not always easy to do, and when we have a large financial setback (like my other half being unemployed last year), the larder gets eaten down pretty far. But I know that spring is coming and soon I’ll have a whole new freezer and pantry-full of fresh foods to put by for the next year. The trick is to be open to new foods, and preserve things that you love to eat, in portions that are easy to cook with – and then to spend the half an hour a day to prepare good home-cooked food. I find that’s a good time to listen to music or catch up on our day. When all else fails, soups made from frozen veggies or dried beans can bubble away on the stove without requiring my time or attention, using up ‘extra’ food and providing us with a healthy meal at the end of the day. Thanks for the post, Erica!
I have tons of things in the pantry and freezer that I can eat (including some lamb liver that I keep pushing to the back of the freezer!) and a beautiful bed of escarole and a row of Swiss Chard in the garden. This will be a fun challenge. One thing I am having trouble with this time of year: onions and garlic. I’ve long gone through what I grew myself and what I buy in the store now is often soft, moldy in spots, and sprouting even when I buy them at high end grocery stores. I don’t recall this problem to this extent in years past. Any tips on storing these items?
I peel and chop onions, then freeze them spread out in a jelly roll pan so they don’t freeze in a solid lump. When they are hard I put them in old plastic ice cream tubs and keep in the freezer in case my basement stored fresh onions have all gone bad. I do the same with celery root which I use in place of fresh celery all winter.
I’ve also been content to use fresh chives in any recipe that called for onions. Not the same texture, but the flavor still gets in the dish.
Ha ha ha! So do you have any good recipes for beef tongue, liver, and heart? We just used the last of our beef (except I still have some bones for stock) except for the organ meats because…well…you know. Anyways, these would HAVE to be on the menu for me to take the challenge. Not that I’m making any commitments here. Still it would be nice to know if I can possibly attempt to foist these things off onto my family. Already tried liver and onions. Didn’t go over much.
Beef liver is strong. Much stronger than lamb or chicken liver. Honestly, I don’t care for it except for maybe once a year. If your family isn’t used to the minerally quality of liver, beef liver is a hard place to start. The best way I do know to cook it is to soak in water or milk (milk preferred but do you want to use a gallon of milk to try to make liver maybe palatable?) for several hours, pat dry, cut into slices about 3/8″ thick, dredge in flour, pan fry to medium in butter, then remove the liver and make a whole grain mustard pan sauce with cream. Serve liver and mustard sauce with something starchy to soak up flavors – pasta, rice, etc. If that’s not gonna fly, you will make the family dog (or your friend’s dog or whatever) very happy if you slice the liver and dehydrate it into liver jerky snacks. Or just give the liver to your dog fresh.
Tongue and heart are easier – both are primarily muscle fiber like steak, not whatever kind of squishy fibers are in liver and kidney and spleen. Both are actually really good. For tongue, blanch it and peel it, then slow braise and shred. I’d recommend mixing with barbecue sauce for a barbecue beef sammies. Peeling is key, though!
The biggest issue with heart is that it is tough as hell – hardest working muscle in the body, after all! I typically soak heart to in salted water remove excess blood, go through it and trim out anything that looks weird, like a rubber tube or not like muscle, and grind. It’s a great extender for chili, taco, etc. mixed with more traditional ground beef or pork. It just tastes like really meaty meat. You can also trim and slice very thinly and sear or grill like for kebab or stir fry. But slice thin and don’t overcook. Something acidy like a vinaigrette or lemon juice is nice with the super meaty flavor of heart.
Thanks for the ideas! I never thought to make jerky for the dog out of the liver. Now I’m excited to try out the tongue and heart.
I also just read a blog on taking frozen “iron pills”. I bought chicken livers, but the blogger says beef is the best. Cut it up pill-size. Freeze individually for about 20 minutes, then freeze together in a bag or container. The blogger said she takes about 4 per day. I’m up to 2 per day when I remember. Washed down with OJ in the morning I can’t taste a thing, but still get all that great raw liver nutrition. Of course our dogs are jealous! I would think you could do this with any of the healthful organ meats. Not exactly a meal idea, but at least it’s a way to utilize what’s in your pantry.
Tongue and heart both grind well in a grinder. Add some mayo and spices and make a meat sandwich spread – similar to potted meat or deviled ham. My kids love it, especially if in a toasted cheese sandwich dipped in soup. Liver is great sliced 1/3 inch thick, soaked and rinsed several times in water or tomato juice if wanted. Then I like to make it chicken fried and spicy 🙂 Somefolks like it swiss steaked – with tomato juice poured over it after chicken fried, and allowed to simmer… V8 juice works well for that also. The heart is also awesome slivered or diced, cooked, and then used in tacos or enchiladas, etc. For tongue, pressure cooking it makes it very very easy to pull the skin off of it 🙂 Then just cool, peel, and slice it 🙂 Delicious!
Thanks Marci!
I hear what Melissa and Christine are saying. Women’s Ministry at our church has a “Start Chart” we use as a fund raiser. It is a series of charts to help a cook pick from each column to make a soup, a casserole, beans and more. If you are interested let me know, I’m on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/michelle.priddy.5. I also make recipes for our food box clients. We serve a hot dish each morning we hand out food.
My challenge? In order of priority?
1. It must taste good.
2. Use food stuffs the clients get ALOT of (this month it is carrots)
3. Make it a hot dish with complete protein without using meat. (our clients eye light up when the dish it hot)
4. The recipes must use very basic ingredients so our clients can reproduce the dish for themselves without having to spend extra money. I can not use internet recipes because, well because most chefs are not making recipes for clients like ours, so I make the recipes myself.
This month’s recipe (Supplementary protein = potato + milk)
Simple Carrot Potato Soup
1-3 TBS oil
2 cups carrot medallions, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 cup potatoes diced in 1/4 -1/2 inch cubes
1 TBS diced onion or 1/2 tsp powdered onion
1- 1 1/2 cup water
1 cup milk or milk product (yogurt-cottage cheese)
1/4 tsp cumin (optional)
1/4 tsp ginger (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Saute carrots, potatoes & onion with oil in sauce pan. When still tender crisp, add just enough water to cover veggies, let simmer until potato and carrot are able to be pierced easily with a fork, add water as needed but do not let add to much water as the milk will add ‘soupiness’ to the dish. Add milk or milk product, allowing some of the potatoes to mash and thicken the soup.
Stir. Add cumin and ginger if you’d like. Salt and pepper to taste.
(My son actually likes this soup- so I know it is good- he’s a picky eater)
Okay, I’m in. I need to make a few exceptions–our monthly buying club produce box (since I am committed to the group), a biweekly milk run (to a local farm at least) , white eggs (the brown we have in ample supply don’t take natural colors) for Easter dying (’cause the kids would squawk) and our Easter restaurant brunch. Since I’m feeling a little guilty, I will make the candy for the Easter baskets to make up.
This is great! I used to do it about once a year to clean out the cupboards and start fresh. Now I live in a very small condo and can’t store anything that we don’t eat. I guess I could get about a week out of our stores so I’ll join you for one week. I’m just going to get milk too, and eggs.
I got butter too. Starting today, 7 days.
I’m in! Luckily we can modify the rules some, cause I truly don’t think I would have enough for a month solid, although I am striving to build a food storage that would last months if needed. (Hence why I’m learning to garden and put up my own food.) My goal will be to simply build my menus around the food I already have to clear it all out. I plan on taking a detailed inventory of my freezer and pantry, plan my menus, and if I have to supplement with store bought food then that’s okay.
I think I’ll take up your April Challenge, I am going to follow the Chicken Challenge on the McMinnville Harvesters (a gleaner group at http://www.facebook.com/pages/McMinnville-Harvesters/273911425983975) Most of that will be larder food, recipes are easy and frugal and right there for folks like Melissa Christine and I, plus the cost per meal is on the facebook page too.
I’m traveling for work next week, but I’ll give it a shot for the rest of the month. I’ll need to pick up a couple fresh things, like potatoes and milk, when I get home but will otherwise work with what I’ve got. Looking forward to the menus and follow-up from everyone.
Great minds think alike… actually started this a week ago – while sick and rained in 🙂
Going to allow bananas and oranges tho for personal health reasons. 2 freezers full and canning cupboards that need rotated/emptied.
I find what works best for me is to just set on the countertop a dozen cans, boxes, bags, etc out once a week, and make myself use them in some way …. If I look at them long enough setting out there, I’ll use them 🙂
PS – Swiss chard overwintered well, and will be starting to pick it this week 🙂 YUM!
Hi Erica,
I love this idea and am glad you’ll be posting about it. Something that I think might be useful to go along with it and the skills deficiency idea is some more posts with time-saving tips for the kitchen. For example, your post a while back about how to chop onions. I know for myself, and probably for others, that it’s not lack of ingredients or lack of creativity, so much as lack of time and energy when I get home from work, and little tricks like that can make the difference between cooking something interesting and having eggs. Again. For the second time that day, and tenth time of the week. (Yay chickens!) I know I can do freezer meals and the crockpot, but I don’t always plan that far ahead 🙂
This is a great idea for April since I need to clean out the freezer and pantry to receive the new products of this upcoming summer season. Plus, I’m overwhelmed with work this April and allowing myself to dip more liberally into what I’ve stored will save me time as well as money. It just requires a bit of planning. I even started a few days early: Saturday’s homemade pizza night was a great chance to work through some old stuff: anchovies, olives, etc. Thanks for the great spring cleaning idea!
Following along for the most part with a eye on using up some stragglers in freezer and pantry… Love the post. And the inspiration. Thanks!
I only just read this now (morning of April 1st here in Australia) and I’m in! Slight difference is we are coming of prime preserving season so I can reach for the bottled stuff from just last week rather than feeling like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel, but anyways. Only exceptions for me will be fresh milk and yoghurt, one farmers market trip will be allowed (already planned catch up with friends) and hot cross buns for Easter. Everything else food wise for the month will be from garden or pantry. I’m really excited about this challenge! Thanks for throwing it out there.
We are in!! Actually we have been doing this most of the winter!! We buy local free-range chickens twice a year, a quarter of local beef, half a local pig and garden like mad!! I have always canned (thanks Mom and both grandma’s) but have also taught myself to pressure can which is imperative for low acid foods and meats. I make stock after chicken and turkey dinners, save vege scraps to make stock as well and can them. Probably have 25 or 30 quarts of various stock in basement now.I only tend to buy things on sale and then in quantity and can excess. Example…scored 10 lb bags of potatoes for $1.77..regular $3.99.. and have been canning up excess for storage (I MAY have bought 100lbs..ehem). There are lots of ways to have a great larder…even if it’s under your bed! Start with something..you may surprise yourself!
We are in! I will have to make a few exceptions like eggs, dairy and bananas for the littles in our house. I hate wasting food and want to use up all those bits and pieces left in the freezer and pantry. For me, it’s a challenge to get hubs to eat vegetarian meals. We don’t usually have too much of a stockpile of meat, so this will be interesting 😛 Can’t wait to get all those jars empty and ready to fill this summer! Looking forward to seeing some of your meal ideas 🙂
Perfect timing. We are doing a no spend month based on one of yours right now!
Well, I’m already out! Handsome’s tea is all used up- and since he doesn’t smoke, carouse, or
drink, (I can’t even get him to drink coffee,) when he asks for special ice tea, he gets it. I’m still going to hang in there and try to avoid the store by using up last fall’s frozen bounty and the canned goods we put up- I’ll be saving all the way around there!
This is a great challenge for everyone to try, especially in this age of change and uncertainty. Ironically our family was already in the midst of cooking out of our larder in preparation for spring. I think I will pass this on for others and get the family to give this a go for the entire month. With a small exception about milk, we go through to much to have on hand for that length of time, so will need to be a regular purchase. I look forward to the challenge of substituting for things we may have run out of, or melding together seemingly unlikely pairings of food as we whittle down our freezer and pantry supplies.
http://www.family-adventures.ca
Hello Erica,
Do you have a list of what is in your larder? A list of your staples? While teaching my daughter I made a list of staples, also shared it with my gleaner family (McMinnville Harvesters).
THIS IS MY STAPLES LIST
Annual acquisitions:
Storage: Salt, Flour, Sugar, Baking powder & soda, Yeast, Vinegar, Wheat, Beans, Oats, Rice, Barely, Corn meal, Dried Milk, Soy Sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Scotch tape, Bleach, Tooth brushes, Penzy’s herbs &spices,
Home dried Veggies & Fruit:
Corn, Tomatoes, Onions, Peppers, Beets, Cauliflower, Apples, Raisins, Walnuts, Peaches, Prunes Cherries, Pumpkin seeds, Herbs (thyme, rosemary, oregano)
Cold storage (garage, fall until):
Garlic (until spring), Apples (until February), Onions (until March), Squash (had one good two years), Tomatoes (until end of December), Potatoes (until March)
Freezer:
Salmon, Ham, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Tomatoes, Blueberries, Black berries, Strawberries, Fruit juices (didn’t have time to can will become Christmas jelly),
Canned:
Salmon, Tomatoes, Peaches, Apple sauce, Apple pie filling, Cherries, Grape and apple juice, Pickles,
Monthly/bimonthly (or every two months) acquisitions:
Dried Pasta, Pop corn, Brown & powdered sugar, Corn starch, Ketchup, Pepper, Dish & laundry & hand soap, Shampoo, Toothpaste, Coffee, Q tips, Bandaids, Neosporan ointment, Stamps, Advile, Feminine hygiene items, Canned milk, Pork butt (when less than $1.50)
Semimonthly (every two weeks) acquisitions:
Bread, Tortillas, Tea, Oil, Mayo, Crackers, 7up, Potatoes, Onions, TP
Weekly acquisitions:
Milk, Eggs, Butter, Cheese, Carrots, Yogurt
Splurge acquisitions:
Cottage cheese, Mozzarella cheese, Chocolate, Coco powder, Marshmallows, Boxed mac&cheese, Log cabin syrup, Eagle brand milk, powdered gelatin, Beef, Seafood, Printer ink, Computer paper, Medical grade essential oils (tea tree, lavender, eucalyptus)
PS Looking forward to the recipes you will be generating from your larder challenge. It will be fun to see if I will be able to use them using my staples.
I’m in (starting today, we were out of town for a work trip with my husband until last night).
We’ll allow purchases of milk and some farm-stand/farmer’s market fruit (to supplement our homegrown citrus – my nursling isn’t tolerating me eating a lot of citrus). And coffee, if we run out (my husband will mutiny without that). Otherwise, it’ll be pantry-freezer-garden.
I’ve been meaning to do this for quite some time anyway; thanks for the kick in the pants.
For the record – this still gives me anxiety. Because, ohemgee! – what if we run out of amaranth (which we never eat anyway)?! We have an obscene amount of food stocked away and I still freak out about running out of stuff. Which is completely unreasonable. And I’ve, so far in my life, never been food insecure, so I have no idea why I have this specific anxiety. Perhaps this challenge will help me work through this issue while also helping us eat through the older stuff in our larder.
Today is the last day of the first week of the month of April. When can we expect to see your weekly blog concerning this Challenge? I have endorsed your blog- encouraged my friends to check out your recipes. Please don’t make me look like a fool. (But thank you for the lesson learned.)
Actually, the 7th (Monday) is the last day of the first week of April. I have a post on The Challenge scheduled for then.
Thank you, I’ll be looking forward to Monday.
For anyone who didn’t plan ahead for Easter (like me) and has a pretty good pantry, I just made malted milk eggs from a recipe I got on the internet. Melt equal weights of chocolate and malted milk powder with a shake of salt. Mine was still too dry to shape so I dribbled in enough vanilla extract to get it to form little balls and egg shapes. They’re soft and tacky at first, but then dry solid, so place them on parchment or waxed paper. The recipe called for white chocolate, but I only had dark, and I only had some old malted Ovaltine. I bet the real powdered malted milk would be even better. Once dry enough I’ll melt some chocolate and roll them in that for final setting. I’m sure others can be even more creative (white chocolate with food coloring and swirls?), but it was fun to see I can get along without buying a lot of whoppers or bird eggs by making just a little batch of this to satisfy the need.
And BTW, I mentioned this challenge to a farmer friend and he really gave me/us something to think about: “If everybody ate out of their pantry for a month the US food system would collapse ….. and consumers would have tremendous leverage in these food fight issues (such as labeling or banning GMOs, etc.)”
I have done this before and am now into Day 13!! Not as good as your challene, though, as I do EAT OUT so i need to add that to the remaining 17 days ogpf my challene…you are ON! i love this idea and post my foods on FB.