The Basic Pantry List

What should you have in your pantry to be prepared? Having a number of basic items in your pantry can mean the difference between eating and not eating in the event that a disaster or hard time strike your family. These basic items can be combined into many different meals, so you should always have them on hand. Here are just some reasons why having an emergency pantry could come in handy. If you lose your employment and have to make do on a limited or absent income If there is a disruption in the supply chain that makes getting … Continue reading →

Fill Your Pantry Now for the Leaner Months

Right now, stores are overflowing with food stock and great food bargains. If you fill your freezer and pantry now, you’ll be able to get through the leaner months that are coming soon. Why Should You Fill Your Pantry Now? There are a couple of reasons why filling your pantry and freezer now will help you to be prepared for later. The first is availability. Stores anticipate selling more food in December and less in January when the perceived demand is not there. This means that some of your favorite foods, especially holiday-related foods may not be available later. If … Continue reading →

Some Different Ways to Heat Food in an Emergency

If weather or another emergency prevents you from cooking and heating your food normally, you’ll have to find other ways of doing so. Here are some ideas to have on hand. Each may require a little preparation or supplies that you can put into place now. Be prepared, and you’ll be ahead of the game if an emergency should strike. We keep a small house generator available, along with the gas it needs, and we run it intermittently as needed. Living in a semi-rural area with above-ground wiring, we have our fair share of power outages in any given year. … Continue reading →

Pantry Meals: Vegetarian Chili

Pantry meals are meals that can be put together using only nonperishable food items. Having a few of these meals on hand means you will always have an easy homemade meal ready to be prepared, without having to go to the grocery store or buy take-out. More importantly, stocking up on food can help you to be prepared for an emergency when you cannot make it to the store. To learn more about pantry cooking as a method of long-term food storage, click here. The recipe below is for vegetarian chili. Modify it to your family’s personal tastes before you … Continue reading →

Cooking by Numbers Makes Pantry Shopping Easy!

Imagine being snowed in and not knowing what to cook? This great resource makes it easy to just whip something together from items in your pantry. If you have been following my blog, you know that I have been trying to use up some of my food stockpile before I move. I have been doing this through a self-imposed pantry challenge, well, one of my good friends, Kelly, who has been reading my blogs has just alerted me to a great website that will make my life a lot easier, when it comes to pulling ingredients from my pantry. The … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: Falling Off of the Wagon

How many individual packets of sugar does it take to make a half a cup? I’m proud, well, almost proud, to say I now know the answer. I officially ended our pantry challenge when I asked my husband to bring home a bag of sugar (and cold cuts and bread and milk and diapers). My moment of defeat came yesterday when I was faced with fact that it is already February, and we haven’t brought in the class snack for Andrew’s Kindergarten class. Not a problem, I thought, I’ll just make some sugar cookies. I got out the cookie cutters, … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: What You Can Do with A Box of Potatoes

From the back of the pantry, hiding from the warm yellow light of the kitchen sits a lone box of instant mashed potatoes. How this box of potatoes got there is a bit of a mystery. I always make mashed potatoes from scratch, since real potatoes are so inexpensively frugal, especially when they are on sale for buy one bag and get one free. It is not unusual for me to have two 5- or 10- pound bags of potatoes available. So where did the…gasp…instant potatoes come from? My best conclusion is to blame it on my husband. No, no, … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: Campbell’s to The Rescue!

What do you do when you have a ton of canned soup? Visit the Campbell’s recipe site of course! Another day of my pantry challenge. We are still doing pretty well with using our stock. One of the things I forgot to mention is that we very rarely eat red meat in our house, so you will see a lot of chicken, bean, pasta and vegetables dishes. Although with not buying any produce, the vegetables are scarce. I may break down this week and get some fresh fruits and veggies, because of the health factor. For breakfast, we had some … Continue reading →

Pantry Meals: Easy Fried Burritos

What is pantry cooking? Put simply, it’s preparing meals with nonperishable food items that you can keep in your pantry. It is a great idea to have on-hand ingredients for at least a few meals. In the event of an emergency or if you just don’t want to take a trip to the grocery store, you have what you need to make a great meal for your family with what you have on hand. If you are interested in building a year’s supply of food, pantry cooking is the option that I recommend. Here is a great recipe for fried … Continue reading →

Pantry Cooking: Six Can Chicken Tortilla Soup

Are you looking for a great-tasting meal with ingredients that you can always keep on hand? Try this recipe for chicken tortilla soup. It’s pretty much as easy as a recipe can get and still be called homemade. Just keep the ingredients on hand in your pantry and you will always have a simple go-to recipe for those hectic days when your only other option would be take-out. If you are working on storing food for emergencies, this is a great pantry-cooking meal. And unlike many other pantry cooking meals, this recipe has simple ingredients that you can find easily … Continue reading →