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Filling the Pantry One Thing At A Time
For the last few weeks I've been working on filling the gaps in our pantry. Dehydrating carrots here. Making chocolate sauce another day. Picking parsley and garlic chives from the garden and drying them near the fire. Using the older onions to make caramelised onions another day. Limes from the fruit bowl and oranges off the tree for marmalade and lime butter. Turning powdered milk that needs using into condensed milk and caramel sauce for the pantry. Dehydrating oranges to make orange powder. Drying apples for snacks (and to preserve them). Dehydrating pumpkin mash to make pumpkin powder.
It sounds like a lot of work, and if you were to do it all at once it would be. But I spread it out. A little each day, and the gaps filled up quickly.
A singe batch of marmalade takes about an hour and half from start to finish - but most of that time is when it is cooking in the microwave. I'm not standing in the kitchen all that time.
Slicing a bunch of celery and getting it into the dehydrator only takes about 5 minutes, but it fills a gap in the pantry for very little effort.
It sounds like a lot of work, and if you were to do it all at once it would be. But I spread it out. A little each day, and the gaps filled up quickly.
A singe batch of marmalade takes about an hour and half from start to finish - but most of that time is when it is cooking in the microwave. I'm not standing in the kitchen all that time.
Slicing a bunch of celery and getting it into the dehydrator only takes about 5 minutes, but it fills a gap in the pantry for very little effort.
Picking the parsley and chives and laying them on a cake rack on the top of the fire took just a few minutes and refilled the spice jars in the cupboard.
Little by little, just one or two things a day, will fill the pantry. You don't need to spend hours in the kitchen, working up a sweat and having a heap of washing up to do.
If there are things you can't make, adding one or two a week to your shopping list, or deliberately searching for them on half price, will fill the gaps quickly, with little effort and little, if any, affect to your grocery budget.
Right now fill the gaps as you find them. Don't wait. Supermarket shelves are emptying. They may look full, but have a good look. Things are spread out. They are in different areas to fill the gaps (see, even supermarkets are trying to fill the gaps, although that's an attempt to pull the wool about shortages over our eyes).
Little by little, just one or two things a day, will fill the pantry. You don't need to spend hours in the kitchen, working up a sweat and having a heap of washing up to do.
If there are things you can't make, adding one or two a week to your shopping list, or deliberately searching for them on half price, will fill the gaps quickly, with little effort and little, if any, affect to your grocery budget.
Right now fill the gaps as you find them. Don't wait. Supermarket shelves are emptying. They may look full, but have a good look. Things are spread out. They are in different areas to fill the gaps (see, even supermarkets are trying to fill the gaps, although that's an attempt to pull the wool about shortages over our eyes).
Keep a list of what you have and what you need to fill the gaps. Put it in your handbag or on your phone. Use it.
Do this for all your pantries: food, laundry, bathroom, cleaning, garden, first aid, gifts. Look to see what you need.
You may well be wondering why, when I'm a dedicated once-a-year shopper, that I'm filling the gaps now.
Well, just in case you missed it, we are smack bang in the middle of a cost of living crisis. This crisis has brought my city of Melbourne, Australia, to almost panic stations. People are scared they won't be able to feed their children, let alone pay the mortgage or keep the lights on.
When we go to the supermarket, the shelves are not quite bare, but certainly not as well stocked as we were used to just four short years ago.
There is a shortage of meat and poultry and fish. There are empty spots in the freezer cabinets of the supermarket. Not everything I like to have is available, although our politicians and a few of the more "popular" financial gurus assure us that we won't go hungry - we may not be eating what we like but we won't be hungry! Those shortages mean we need to shop around for what we need and what we want.
Along with these shortages there is predicted to be a 60% increase in the cost of fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry and fish. Can your grocery budget stand a 60% increase? I know mine can't.
So I am filling the gaps, little by little, every day. Three weeks ago I was able to add chicken fillets to our pantry. They were on sale, and I dipped into the grocery budget and bought enough to last us almost a year. Half went into the freezer and half was pressure canned to be shelf stable.
Lamb has been on sale the last few weeks and again, I've stocked up. Some is in the freezer and some has been canned. When corned beef was down to $8.99/kg I bought a few and canned them in meal portions. We now have enough corned beef on the shelf for the next year, a great relief when food is so expensive and in short supply.
This isn't panicking. This is being wise, a good steward, taking care of your family and your home so that you won't go without, and you won't need to pay the inflated prices just to survive.
And now we have the war between Israel and Palestine that threatens to spill to the entire world, along with the ongoing Ukraine/Russia war, China expanding into the Pacific, bad weather everywhere causing crops to fail. All these things will affect us, and add to the shortages.
It makes sense to fill your pantry, even if it's just one thing at a time, and keep it full.
Do this for all your pantries: food, laundry, bathroom, cleaning, garden, first aid, gifts. Look to see what you need.
You may well be wondering why, when I'm a dedicated once-a-year shopper, that I'm filling the gaps now.
Well, just in case you missed it, we are smack bang in the middle of a cost of living crisis. This crisis has brought my city of Melbourne, Australia, to almost panic stations. People are scared they won't be able to feed their children, let alone pay the mortgage or keep the lights on.
When we go to the supermarket, the shelves are not quite bare, but certainly not as well stocked as we were used to just four short years ago.
There is a shortage of meat and poultry and fish. There are empty spots in the freezer cabinets of the supermarket. Not everything I like to have is available, although our politicians and a few of the more "popular" financial gurus assure us that we won't go hungry - we may not be eating what we like but we won't be hungry! Those shortages mean we need to shop around for what we need and what we want.
Along with these shortages there is predicted to be a 60% increase in the cost of fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry and fish. Can your grocery budget stand a 60% increase? I know mine can't.
So I am filling the gaps, little by little, every day. Three weeks ago I was able to add chicken fillets to our pantry. They were on sale, and I dipped into the grocery budget and bought enough to last us almost a year. Half went into the freezer and half was pressure canned to be shelf stable.
Lamb has been on sale the last few weeks and again, I've stocked up. Some is in the freezer and some has been canned. When corned beef was down to $8.99/kg I bought a few and canned them in meal portions. We now have enough corned beef on the shelf for the next year, a great relief when food is so expensive and in short supply.
This isn't panicking. This is being wise, a good steward, taking care of your family and your home so that you won't go without, and you won't need to pay the inflated prices just to survive.
And now we have the war between Israel and Palestine that threatens to spill to the entire world, along with the ongoing Ukraine/Russia war, China expanding into the Pacific, bad weather everywhere causing crops to fail. All these things will affect us, and add to the shortages.
It makes sense to fill your pantry, even if it's just one thing at a time, and keep it full.