for those of you who stock your pantry..

[Softmama]

what do you stock it with? I'm trying to build up a little "emergency fund" in my pantry in case there are months that we are really tight and can't buy as much food. I keep reading that people have a "one year pantry" and things like that. What do you have in them?

[Denvergirlie]

We stock ours with what we eat.

Tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes - both store bought and home canned
Beans - both canned and & dry
Lentils - brown & orange
Chicken broth
Pasta of all kinds
Rice - several differnet varieties
Canned veggies - both store bought and home canned
Tuna
Popcorn
Mac n'Cheese
Some baking mixes - cake, brownies, cookies
Canned green chilies
Enchilada sauce
pasta sauce
Jarred artichokes
Olives
Pickles
Condiments of all sorts - mayo, oil, vinegar, BBQ sauce, soy sauce, Braggs, ketcup, mustard, etc, etc.
Boxed Cereal
Oats - both normal and steel cut
Nuts of all sorts
Soy bacon bits
Flour, Sugar, yeast, etc
Crackers
Coconut Milk

Then we have a medium sized deep freezer, a small upright freezer and the freezer on top of the frig. That has a variety of veggies (both store bought & from the summer garden), beef, fish, chicken and soy products, cheese, butter and other odds and ends.

I mainly need to buy fresh produce of which varies each week and milk sometimes yogurt on a somewhat regular basis.

Everythign else I only buy when there is a good sale.

We could eat well for about 2 months and survive for about 5 months off our current stockpile.

The key to a good stock pile to to only stock what you really eat.

Case in point - I havnt bought pickles, relish, dijon mustard or tabasco sauce in about 3 years and we still have way more than we will need... just because it's free or really cheap doesn't necessarily mean you need to buy it if it's not something you normally use.

If you hate tuna, then don't stock your cabinets with it.

Stock what you eat

[lmonter]

Originally Posted by Softmama

what do you stock it with? I'm trying to build up a little "emergency fund" in my pantry in case there are months that we are really tight and can't buy as much food. I keep reading that people have a "one year pantry" and things like that. What do you have in them?

Short answer? This. I'm getting closer to being able to grow and preserve enough of certain things to last us the year, but I'm not quite there yet. When I see the annual Quaker sale at Albertson's, I go in with my fistful of coupons and stock up. If I find a screamin' deal on sugar, I'll buy it (flour and sugar are in the big buckets under the seed-starting shelves) - we've already decimated two 50-lb bags of sugar in the last 6mo from so much baking and canning and so on (I didn't do super-low sugar freezer jam this year - it was more get it done asap because I had a newborn - no canned jam this year).

I only get stuff that we actually use. About once a year or so, like recently, I'll go through and reorganize and cull out the non-used things and send a bag off to the food bank. Took me a while to get to this point though, and I grew up around my depression-era grandmothers who were quite... enthusiastic about having a full pantry.

Just beware, I'm going to take down the link in a few days.


ETA: We have a few freezers, too. One 13cf upright, the side-by-side in our kitchen, and an over/under fridge/freezer in our garage. Frozen veggies, prepped meals that I've frozen to just thaw and heat up, jams, all kinds of meats I've gotten on sale for various purposes (drumsticks for fried chicken, whole chickens for roasting, pork chops for various things, cooked ground beef for all kinds of almost-instant stuff, shrimp, salmon, etc.). One of my goals in the next few months is to get a bunch of that stuff rotated out and used.

[katheek77]

What we eat. About 3% is stuff we wouldn't normally eat, but would in an emergency (dehydrated vit c drink, some dehydrated veggies, soy protein, powdered milk, etc).

So, right now we have pastas, flours, rices, popcorn , assorted beans, lentils, split peas. We have condiments (ketchup, mustard, worcestershire, soy sauce, etc), oatmeal, some cereal. Salt, baking powder, yeast, lemon/lime juices, cooking wines, tuna, peanut butter, canned chicken. Mayonnaise, cooking oils (veggie and olive), raw honey, molasses, sugar. Canned tomatoes/tomato paste/tomato sauce, canned beans, tahini, some canned fruits/veggies. Evaporated milk, condensed milk, wheat germ, chopped garlic. Chocolate syrup and hot cocoa ( DH). Tea, coffee. Maple syrup. Raisins. Vanilla extract (someone posted a tip about how vanilla extract makes powdered milk a lot more platable for drinking). Some extra spices, canned chiles. Nuts, craisins, brown sugar.

Then we have stuff I canned: chicken broth, strawberry jams, pickled pears, pears in honey sauce, applesauce, apple butter, carrot cake jam, strawberries in syrup, canned assorted greens, canned crushed tomatoes, watermelon pickles, canned beets, and some apples and pears I dried in the dehydrator.

We only have an over the fridge freezer, for now, and that's filled with veggies I froze from our CSA, and berries DD and I picked around the complex. A few assorted meats I got on sale. We are looking at getting a small chest freezer sometime soon, though.

We have a small apartment, so, we don't have a ton of space to put everything, but, we do have a pretty good store of food.

[Llyra]

I stock all of the non-perishable or sorta-perishable items that we eat regularly. Some of the items we keep a lot of are:
rice
flour
molasses
honey
cooking oil
peanuts
beans of various kinds
oatmeal
cornmeal
canned stuff like soups, canned clams, tuna, tomato paste
vinegar
peanut butter
chocolate chips
sugar
brown sugar
tea
pasta
herbs and spices
raisins and other dried fruits
vanilla
condiments

I'm sitting right here staring at it, so I'm just naming what's there now. It varies a lot.


We also preserve in-season produce by drying and canning so there's also:

diced tomatoes
pureed tomatoes
jams and jellies
fruit leather
dried apples
salsa and salsa verde
pesto

Plus I have a full deep-freeze, with in-season local veggies and fruits, and some meat (right now I have a turkey I bought on sale after the holidays), and in the spring when the freezer is too empty I buy a lot of milk and butter to freeze, to keep the cost of running the freezer down.

[velochic]

Originally Posted by lmonter

Just beware, I'm going to take down the link in a few days.

Very nice! I have a majority of commercial foods still, but we are moving a barn this spring to gain me more garden space, so I am encouraged.

Thanks for sharing the photos, but I also respect why you won't leave them up for long.

OP- It really is an individual situation. I can't tell you what to stock up on. You have to evaluate what you eat and make a list. Write down every.single.thing that you eat for a month and then decide the best way to meet those needs X 12.

[lmonter]

Originally Posted by velochic

Very nice! I have a majority of commercial foods still, but we are moving a barn this spring to gain me more garden space, so I am encouraged.

Yeah, I keep seeing those nice looking contraptions from like Costco that store the tin canned foods, but they don't work so well for glass jars, you know? Ah well, I still think my shelves are prettier than the tin can ones anyway.

[velochic]

Originally Posted by lmonter

Yeah, I keep seeing those nice looking contraptions from like Costco that store the tin canned foods, but they don't work so well for glass jars, you know? Ah well, I still think my shelves are prettier than the tin can ones anyway.

They seem to be well-built... home made?

Yes, I've seen those "dispensers" for canned goods. Good for rotation of commercial items.

Grandma never needed a contraption to make sure her family was fed properly.

[lmonter]

Originally Posted by velochic

They seem to be well-built... home made?

Grandma never needed a contraption to make sure her family was fed properly.

Yup, by my fabulous hubby. Jack of all trades so to speak. He was sitting and bouncing on the first ones he built, just to make sure. And yeah, sometimes I feel like I'm a housecoat away from being my grandma. My pantry's a little cleaner than theirs were though, but I'm still young and have a fair amount of eyesight.

[Rev1053]

We are just starting to stock. Its a daunting process! But everytime I need something I just buy two if its on sale.
I put my groceries in the pantry and take what I need out of there.

Sorta off topic but has anyone seen those emergency food buckets at Costco? They looked disgusting to me. DH thought it was marketing to a specific set perfectly.

[Hey Mama!]

Very inspiring ladies! Dh and I are trying to revamp how we eat and I'd love to start a well stocked pantry and freezer.

[maciascl]

Wow, these stock pileing threads make me anxious! I don't know it is because I am so envious or because I think having that much stuff (useful as it is) would make me go nuts. Either way you ladies are awesome!

[seeing_stars]

We are just starting to stockpile, so right now I have mostly commercial foods that I've been able to get for free or very cheap with coupons. I plan to stockpile flour sugar, rice, powdered milk, pasta, etc starting March when all of my debt is paid off (!!!)

Right now, my overflow pantry looks like this:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ary2009001.jpg

[Kaitnbugsmom]

I just got more shelving for christmas and am getting even more for my b-day in a couple weeks, so this is a short list compared to what we will have. We will have more of all of it as time & finances allow, and more of other things we eat regularly. If I have it figured correctly, our dry stock is enough to last us about 4 months right now. I'm also getting a small chest freezer with the tax check so I'll be able to expand my frozen stock as well.


chili beans
peas
pasta
lasanga noodles
oatmeal
lemonade mix
gatorade mix
pudding mix
jello mix
white rice
brown rice
4 kinds of cereals
jelly
peanut butter
applesauce
bisquick
canned tuna in water
stuffing mix
hot chocolate
brownie mix
kidney beans
pork n beans
parmasean cheeze
macaronni noodles
seasonings {paprika, soul food, sea salt}

I think that's it but I could be wrong

[Belleweather]

Let's see...

Rice
Wild Rice
Beans (Black, Kidney, Northern, Garbanzo)
Lentils (red and green)
Couscous
Barley
Split Peas
Bulghar Wheat
Corn meal
Sugar
Flour (white, whole wheat and rye)
Yeast
Chicken broth
Canned tomatoes
salsa (green and red)
spahetti sauce
pasta (Macaroni, spaghetti, orzo)
apple sauce
salt
jam
apple sauce
chocolate chips
Wine and beer (homemade, but it takes us a long time to go through 6 gallons when we only drink once a week. We need more guests!!)


In the next few months I want to add peanut butter, oatmeal, hot cocoa, baking soda and powder, Quinoa, and more spices to the mix. I also am getting far more serious about home canning than I have been -- to date I've just been doing what comes out of my small garden, but I'm quadrupling garden space this year and I want to find more ways to can pears, apricots and applesauce. I need to start sucking up to farmers in my area.

[kewb]

Originally Posted by lmonter

Short answer? This

What a fabulous pantry. I dream of space like that. I am have only started pantry storage over these past few months. I have a one month supply and I hope to have 6 months by this time next year.

I am trying to keep it to things we will eat. I have been known to buy the occasional bizarre ingredient.

Right now I have:
Vinegar, mustard, ketchup, and honey.
Flour
Rice
Pasta
Cans of crushed tomatoes and assorted beans
Dry beans
Sugar
Salt
Jelly/Jams
Baking soda/powder
Hot chocolate
Oats
Apple Sauce
Tomato Sauce

[bscal]

I would start small by getting a 3 month pantry going. Then see how it's working for you. You may need to adjust your list and get more of certain things to make it work. Once you have the kinks worked out then you can gradually bump it up to a 1 year pantry.

We've been eating out of ours so it's low on certain key items. But I'm waiting til the 15th (payday) to stock up. I've been working hard on my DR snowball and paid cash for Christmas but we are very tight for the first half of January on our budget. Anyhow, here are the biggies for us:

Kid snacks - goldfish, dried mixed fruit (craisins, etc.), oatmeal granola bars, graham crackers
Pasta - DH is Italian so we have a wide variety of pasta and pasta sauces. I usually keep around 10 jars of alfredo and I want to build up to 20 jars of spaghetti sauce. We buy the bulk bags of pasta at Costco.
Spices/seasonings - These are the things I forget about sometimes. I stock the ones I use the most - chili powder, cinnamon, salt, taco seasoning, onion soup mix, to name a few. If you buy these in bulk or on sale you can get some pretty good deals... but I only buy the ones I'm going to use often. I wouldn't buy a huge thing of nutmeg because it will still be taking up room in the pantry 20 years from now.
Peanut butter & jelly - we all love pb & j. I also stock crackers, for power outages or disasters when we wouldn't be able to get bread.
Canned veggies and fruits. I buy the store brand, when they go on sale cheap. I will load up my cart with these.
Cereals, oatmeal
Flour, sugar, other baking supplies
Gallon jugs of water - I buy these throughout the year and take them with us on vacation. We go to a small island for our family reunion every year and the water tastes gross... so we use bottled while we're there. This way they get rotated out.

That's all I can think of right now.

Beth

[annethcz]

I know it's been mentioned several times already, but I cannot stress how important it is to buy things you'll actually eat.

I've always kept a stocked pantry of some sort. But about 5 years ago I decided to get serious about it and build up to a 1-year pantry. Although I did buy a lot of foods that we eat, I also bought a bunch of things that were on other people's lists. So 5 years later, I still have 20 pounds of dried beans sitting on my shelf, and it took me several years to finally eat all of the pasta that I'd bought.

So I think it's a great idea to start building a pantry by simply buying multiples of the food you're buying anyway. Have at least a tenative plan of how you'll use the food you're buying. If you're not sure *what* you eat, keep a log of all the foods you eat over the course of a month- that'll give you a good jumping off point.

[Softmama]

Originally Posted by annethcz

I know it's been mentioned several times already, but I cannot stress how important it is to buy things you'll actually eat.
.

right. I get what everyone is saying. and yet, even though I don't eat tuna, it would be something I WOULD eat if I had to (say if DH lost his job and we had no food money) and it stores nicely 'cause it's in a can and it's great for protein....so I am thinking I should stock some things just-in-case-the-worst-happens kind of thing. thoughts?

[michelle123]

I look at what's on sale, what I have coupons for, etc. I try to get stuff that doesn't need a lot of extra ingredients, like oatmeal, pasta, cereal, etc. I also try to get staples like broth, rice that can help to make lots of different things.