The Fall Pantry Update

 Well, folks, I was asked if I could give a final pantry recap on what I have put up for winter, so I shall now try to list it here.  I must warn that I might miss a few things.  There's a lot *laugh*.

I have spent, foraged, gleaned, bartered, gone to war to get every little bit out of my garden.  I have canned, dehydrated, blanched and frozen, even when I had no energy to do any of it.

And so my friends, here's the final results.

This is peace.  This is security.  This is a sense of accomplishment.  This is pride.  This, is, by far, a blessing as this will feed my family.  I'll show pictures of the freezer (I couldn't get a good enough angle to get the fridge freezer to turn out right in pictures, though) and the pantry, but I'm concentrating on things that I put up myself :).

In the Freezers:

• Cabbage, sliced into sections, blanched and frozen 
• Freezer slaw, made from outer leaves of cabbage
• Corn, cut off ears, blanched and frozen
• Zucchini, grated, portioned into bags for zucchini bread
• Watermelon berries (foraged)
• Blueberries
• Raspberries (foraged and gleaned from mother-in-law's)
• Peas, blanched and frozen (lots from garden)
• Carrots, sliced, blanched and frozen (from garden)
• Squash, cubed, blanched and frozen
• High bush cranberries (foraged)
• Turnips
• Rose Hip fruit leather (foraged rose hips to make, put into freezer for long-term storage)
• Potatoes, baked and/or par boiled and turned into hash browns and put into bags for soups and other applications
• Swiss Chard, blanched and frozen (from garden)
• Spinach, blanched and frozen (from garden)
• Chinese Cabbages, various, blanched and frozen (from garden)
• Cantaloupe

Home Canned:

Pie Fillings:

• Triple Berry Pie Filling
• Cherry Pie Filling
• Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling
• Apple Pie Filling

Syrups:

• Pancake Syrup
• Rose Hip Syrup
• Golden Syrup

Jams/Jellies:

• Raspberry Jam
• Strawberry Jam
• Cherry Jam
• Strawberry Preserves 
• Orange Marmalade

Sauces:

• Apple Sauce
• Cranberry Sauce
• Taco Sauce
• BBQ Sauce

Fruits in Syrup:

• Apples
• Pears
• Peaches
• Grapes
• Rhubarb
• Cherries

Veggies/Pickles/Relish

• Dilly Beans
• Rat Tailed Radish Pickles (various types)
• Red Cabbage Slaw
• Rat Tailed Radish Relish

Condiments:

• German Mustard
• Yellow Mustard
• Honey Mustard

Drinks:

• Lemonade Concentrate
• Peach Pie Moonshine
• Mulled Apple Cider (not there yet, but is going to get put up hopefully this weekend)

 Dehydrated:

• Cabbage
• Cantaloupe 
• Peppers
• Rose Hip Fruit Leather (in freezer right now as seen above)
• Sage
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Chives
• Bunching Onions
• Chocolate Mint

And I also braided and hung garlic as well.

Whew.  Even writing all of that made me tired.  How about you?  How has your food preservation gone so far this year?  I'm thinking I'm pretty much done with mine (after this I'm just planning on some shelf stable foods and some refrigerator storage apples and such).

Monthly Shopping Goals: March 2015

Well, the pantry is slowly being restocked between my 25.00 a week I've been putting aside, a 200.00 trip to Costco on Valentine's Day (where my husband and I got rice, sugar and some other essentials with a part of our tax refund) and just generally working on stocking up on things in my regular grocery budget from week to week as I ran into sales.  So, instead of doing a 25.00 breakdown per week like I have been, instead I think I'm going to switch to monthly goals on what I need to build up food stores around here as I'm hoping to start reducing my grocery bill to 100.00 a week instead of 150.00 a week around here soon just to see if I can do it and to save very needed money.  And hopefully it might give you some inspiration to help out in your building up of food stores too.

So, here are my monthly goals (some vague, some specific) on what I need in the way of food.

Bulk Stores:

Food:

I want to get some #10 cans of tomato products, at least, from the bulk stores to use in different applications and just because it's a good thing to have around for food storage.  I didn't realize that tomato products were so cheap this way until recently and am thrilled to find them as when I can things like salsa...a #10 can goes a long way to making salsa easier.  Not to mention other recipes (which I'll share at later date).

Get more cans of canned crab and shrimp to use in salads and fondue and such (Three Bears is the cheapest place I've found to buy these canned around here).

Get more chicken stock (I use it all the time and I like the Kirkland Brand of stock as it is the most allergy friendly).  I'm hoping to make more chicken stock and freeze it, but freezer space is kind of limited with meat and apples at the moment, so I'm thinking buying boxes might be the best option.

Get a big container of Hershey's baking cocoa.

Bath and Cleaning Supplies:

Get a couple more bottles of the cheap Windex, Lysol and dish soap.

Regular Stores:

Hoping for another sale at Carrs for cooking oil as I would like to get at least another bottle of it.  I hate to keep too much around as it does go rancid, but at the same time if I make fried chicken it blows through the cooking oil relatively fast.  If that fails, I want to get a thing of cooking fat from Three Bears.

I am hoping for a sale on laundry soap as well.  I went to Fred Meyer for their laundry soap sale today and wasn't happy that the stuff I normally buy for 6.00 on sale at Carrs was 9.99 for the same bottle and the huge bottles that were on sale didn't include the type I normally buy.  Here's hoping there's another sale on that.

Also hoping for a good sale on cat litter again just to add a few more boxes to my stockpile.  If you can find these on 5.00 Friday be sure to look for peelies (peel off coupons) on the cat litter.  I was able to score a box for 3.50 last 5.00 special!

Amazon.com:

I am budgeting out for a Subscribe and Save order in the middle of the month.  So far I have toilet paper, drinking chocolate (a more concentrated form of hot chocolate that my husband and I like because it takes a lot less chocolate to make a mug of hot chocolate and is also safe for my son from peanut cross contamination) and oats on order.  Other than that I will try to shop for around and see if I can find some good deals on there as if you order 5 items you save 15% versus 5% (I haven't got Prime yet). 

Other Online Sources:

I put together an order today for 3 lbs of nut free butterscotch chips from Vermont Nut Free Chocolates.  Sadly, three pounds of butterscotch chips cost me 25.00 after shipping, but these are one of the few foods my son will eat for positive reinforcers at school, so it was a necessary purchase.

So, there you have it folks.  My "here's hoping I can get this stuff" list for the month.  Do you have anything you want to get for your pantry this month?

Rebuilding a Pantry on 25.00 a Week (Week 8)

So, this week's pantry rebuild went toward a few basics that I needed.  So here's where my 25.00 went.  This week was spent at Fred Meyer.

• 4 Monster's Inc. battery powered tooth brushes, on clearance for 2.99 each.  
• 2 Angry Bird's battery powered toothbrushes on clearance for 2.49 each
• 1 thing of waxed paper 1.89 (I'm planning on using wax paper more around here)
• 1 thing of bread crumbs 1.19
• 1 thing of paper lunch bags (I use these for popping popcorn for the kids in the microwave) 1.69 on sale
• 1 thing of facial tissue 1.25 on sale

Total spent:  22.96

Total left of 25.00 weekly allowance:  2.04

Rebuilding a Pantry on 25.00 a Week (Week 7)

This week's 25.00 pantry rebuild was a bunch of awesome scores that I got at Carrs on clearance and on in-store sale.

• 2 boxes of corn taco shells 50% off: .98
• 1 box instant dry milk on clearance 50% off:  2.24
• 1 Jar Classico Pasta Sauce on clearance 50% off:  .15 (I'll get into that in a minute)
• 1 Can olives on clearance 50% off:  .49
•  2 Jugs Welch's Grape Juice:  2.50 a piece on sale (in store sale on those)

The best score this time around was definitely the pasta sauce.  It was 50% off and the original price was 3.00 and something.  But, I was surprised to find the jar cost me .15 when I looked at my receipt, because I'd had a Just 4 U price of 1.00 and some change on the pasta sauce and I had a manufacturer coupon loaded on my card on top of it.  Once the discounts and coupons stacked I walked out with a .15 thing of pasta sauce.  Those are the types of things that make your day just that much brighter.

I had a personalized price on the olives for .99 (although I'm pretty sure the can said .99 on it anyway, so maybe it was on sale?) and so once the 50% off came into play it was .49.

And the taco shells were just an awesome find.  I got the only two boxes that they had on reduced for 50% off.  I had a personalized price loaded on my card for .99 a box for the corn shells, so once the 50% off was taken into account I got them for .49 a box!  The original price on them was only like 1.19 a box anyway, so it wasn't THAT big of a price difference for my Just 4 U price, but I was still over the moon about it.

So, all total for the pantry this week:  8.86

So, all totaled I had 16.14 left out of my 25.00 for the week.  

None too shabby I'd say!  I would have bought more to make up some of the difference, but honestly I've been shopping twice a week (milk run is the second trip for the most part), so what I find on my "small" shopping trip for milk or my big shopping trip for the week is how my 25.00 gets spent (or not spent) for that week.

I was also going to use some of the remainder to buy a 25 lb bag of AP flour, but found a 5 gallon bucket full of flour in with the last of my food storage (we were following a gluten free diet for a while, so I had put it away for safe keeping).  If you would want to buy a 25 lb bag of flour at Costco or another bulk store it really is not bad at all (8.00 and something was the price when we went to Costco last week).

Rebuilding a Pantry on 25.00 per week: Week 6

So, this week's 25.00 toward my pantry rebuild project went toward:

• 6 Pack Massel Beef Bouillon
• 1 can Bird's Custard Powder
• 1 container of wet wipes (5.00 on 5.00 Fridays at Carrs)
• 1 package Fruitables juice boxes (free with Just 4 U coupon)
• 1 box Nature Valley Breakfast Biscuits (free with Just 4 U coupon)
• 1 package of Ortega Taco Shells 1.57 (Just 4 U personalized price).    

The boullion:  I got my six tins for 13.57.  It's a bit higher now, but still worth it.

Yes, I consider bouillon a pantry staple.  What do I use it for?  Well, a few of my favorites are adding it into water before you cook rice in it, which makes an excellent change up to plain old rice.  I also like to cook some noodles and then add the noodles to some bouillon when I'm not feeling well.  Kind of my own version of ramen noodles, but better for you (as the Massel brand of bouillon is low sodium and more allergy friendly than traditional bouillon).  If you don't want to buy tins of bouillon and don't have allergies to worry about (or aren't concerned about sodium intake), you can look for bouillon cubes or powder at your local store and such.

The Custard Powder:  I have recipes from some recipe books I love that call for custard powder, so I ordered it online.  I got a can for 5.00 with free shipping (course it shipped from Great Britain, so it took a while to get here).  I think something like this would be a great pantry staple as it doesn't take much powder to make the custard.

The Wet Wipes:  We go through a lot of wet wipes around here with the kids, so I always grab these when they are on 5.00 special.

The Fruitables and Nature Valley Breakfast Biscuits:  These were free with Just 4 U Coupons I loaded on my shopping card.  Since my daughter has slowly lost a corn allergy/sensitivity she had, I figure trying her on this juice for lunches is worth a shot (especially since the Honest Kids juice pouches I have been buying her forever are now up to 6.00 and some change...she only likes the orange flavor.  Just ugh.).  The Breakfast Biscuits are going to just be used by my husband when he needs a quick breakfast for the road as my son isn't allowed NEAR them with his allergies.  Really, these are NOT normally things I'd have in my pantry, but since they were free and they ARE going in the pantry, I thought I'd include them.


The Taco Shells:  I keep at least a couple of boxes of these in the pantry, normally, for taco nights.  So, one box down. 

Total spent: 25.14

So, I still have 4.05 left over in my "overage cushion" and got an okay amount of things to go in the pantry this week.  While I love the bulk items to resupply the pantry, it does eat into a 25.00 per week budget.

Rebuilding a Pantry for 25.00 a week

25.00 a week to rebuild a pantry.  I know, seems a bit high doesn't it?  How did I come up with 25.00 as my goal for refilling a (very) empty pantry?  Easy.

1.  25.00 will buy a decent amount of things on sale OR can be used to buy bulk items like flour or sugar without breaking the bank.

2.  I had 25.00 to spare per week because that was 1/2 of the money I was spending on diapers for my son now that he's pretty much potty trained (he's six and autistic, so I was thrilled when this step entered our lives :).

If you don't have 25.00 to spend on rebuilding your pantry, my suggestion would be to figure out what you CAN eek out of your meager budget and make it work.  Could you skip a week without having to buy meat to use that money for something else?  Instead of buying the kids potato chips for their lunches could you get away with something different but cheaper?  Even if it's only 10.00, 10.00 will buy you ten cans of fruit or vegetables on sale (or if you have a bulk store near by like I do, you could get 12 cans on sale for 7.99 if you buy a flat, etc), or 8 bags of frozen veggies to restock your freezer.  Get what I mean?

So, anyway, this is what I bought this week with my 25.00.  What I ended up doing was that I haven't had to buy diapers the last month because of the son potty training, but I kept my grocery budget (currently sitting at 150.00 a week for my family of four) the same and deducted the 25.00 per week from that.

The past four weeks I bought different things to rebuild my pantry and freezer (both of which were sitting pretty much completely empty when I started)...

Week 1:  Bought two flats of green beans, 12 cans each, for 7.99 a piece on sale at Three Bears (our local bulk store that doesn't require membership fees).  Saved the rest for the next week.  So, I spent 14.98 and had 10.02 left for the next week.

Week 2:  Got 12 boxes of rice pasta from Amazon for 27.15 on sale (it's more expensive now sadly).  So, I used part of the 10.00 from the previous week to make up the difference.  Although I still had 7.87 left from the previous week after I made up the overage.

Week 3:  Bought one flat of fruit cocktail from Three Bears for 11.00 and some change.  And also bought 30 lbs of sugar for 5.00 per bag at Carrs with Just 4 U savings (it's an E-Coupon program that I love.  I get "individualized prices" based on my shopping history with them and they are good deals!).  Total 26.00 for that week.  Overage left from previous weeks 6.87.

Week 4:  Bought five value packs of chicken, as heavy as I could possibly find, at Carrs during 5.00 Friday.  Spent a total of 25.00 on chicken and filled one shelf of my freezer with chicken thighs and drumsticks.  It was a good day! 

And so here we are on week five.  What I got in all it's miscellaneous glory is above.  I shopped at a combination of Carrs (5.00 Fridays rock) and Three Bears (where I tend to go to find cheap cleaners and such).

So a quick breakdown of what I got?

• 1 container cat litter:  5.00 on sale because of 5.00 Fridays.  This is actually a stock up price for me.  I had some in my laundry room already, but I'm determined not to run out of cat litter and have to buy it at regular prices again.  Man it's expensive regular price and you literally throw that money away!
• 1 two lb. bag of brown sugar.  2.26 (Just 4 U personalized price) at Carrs.
• 1 Welch's Farmer's Market Grape Juice (all natural not from concentrate, yada yada):  2.50 on sale at Carrs (I've been trying as part of my normal grocery budget to pick up at least one container of juice per week to try and get my daughter to drink more of that and less other things that aren't so good for her, like soda)
• 1 container of Kleenex (we all have colds right now):  1.25 (Just 4 U personalized price)
• 2 containers of vegetable oil:  On sale 2 for 5.00 at Carrs (daughter requested fried chicken and I was also out, so I got two.  Great price, too!)
• 1 can refried beans .99 (Just 4 U personalized price)
• 1 package Guittard Baking Chips 3.50 on sale (son is deadly allergic to peanuts and these are one of the few types of chocolate chips that are peanut free).
• 1 container of generic Lysol 1.50 (at Three Bears)
• 1 container generic Windex 2.50 (at Three Bears on sale)
• 1 Scotchbrite sponge .69 (regular price Three Bears)
• 2 pack Latex gloves (planning on doing more in depth cleaning with things like Borax around here) 2.49 (Three Bears)

Total spent all together:  27.68  So once I took the overage from what I'd had left over from previous weeks I end up with 4.19 left as my "overage cushion" as I like to call it.