What is a well-stocked pantry?  And how should it be maintained?  Over the last year many of us have reduced the number of trips to stores in person, or we have started ordering more things for delivery. In short, you need a pantry that filled with the necessities, and often used items for your household.  It is not going to the same as mine, or as your neighbors.   Then round it out with a few items that you may not normally buy, just in case.

What is a Pantry?

 For the lucky, it is a walk-in room off or near your kitchen.  For me, it is one big cupboard in my kitchen, and 2 racks and 2 freezers in the laundry room. For someone else, the pantry might be tucked under a staircase, or a bookshelf in the hallway, or an old pie cupboard in the basement.  Some store extra dry good in plastic bins under a bed.  A pantry is wherever you can collect and store food in an accessible manner.

Second, a pantry is not just your canned and dry goods.  Your refrigerator and freezer are part of the pantry, as is a root cellar or other places you might store produce.  The smoked or salted meat is part of your pantry.  Canned and dry goods (like flour) start the pantry, and then extensions in other places add to it.

The goal in having a well-stocked pantry is to be able to feed your family without going shopping.  Your pantry needs to hold whatever goods and kinds of food your family eats regularly. It is the ability to open a cookbook, and say “Yes, I have all those ingredients so I can make this”.  

My shopping trips might be only once or twice a month. My meat supply is in my freezer.  I might buy a half of a steer to keep lots of beef on hand; you might have a lot of venison, or butcher a hog.   To supplement fresh food, you might use a delivery service like Misfits Market (https://www.misfitsmarket.com/?promo=COOKWME-NX3NKU  – save $10 off your first box), or Farmbox Direct.  When that box of produce arrives, you are replenishing regularly eaten foods.  I garden to grow my own produce in the summer, and can or freeze vegetables to add to my pantry for winter.

How long can you go?

Many women will do a “Pantry Challenge”: Eating only from your pantry for several weeks, or even months, to use up food before it becomes too old.  The meal plans and menus will all be based around what is in your cupboard and freezer.  This is a good thing to do when all shelves are full, and the freezer bulging, when you have no more places to put food!  Learn to use what you already have.

Plan to restock items when you find sales or bargains.  Shopping in bulk often lowers costs.  I find going to a butcher and buying meat packages (a combination of beef, chicken, and pork, or just one kind of protein in bulk) or buying a quarter of a cow can last me for months, and I don’t worry about finding meat sales.  In the event I am out shopping and see a real bargain, I can buy a few individuals pieces of meat to put in the freezer or use immediately for dinner.  I buy flour in 25 or 50 pound bags, because I bake a lot. 

How can a Well-Stocked Pantry Help?

Besides having food on hand to cook with, I find I really do not have to go to the store as often, and that I spend less money when I do go.  Since I usually have a lot of meat on hand, the only protein I buy is something fresh:  fish, crab, or a special piece of meat, like a prime rib.  Maybe deli meat for sandwiches.

Over the last few months, I started ordering online, and picking up at the front of the store.  Many large companies offer this now – Walmart is my favorite, along with BJ’s.   I save a lot of time by not traveling to the store, going up and down aisles searching for items, and I eliminate the emotional spur of the moment spending I used to fall prey to.  I use an app on my phone, and start adding items to my cart when I run low or need something I am out of.

Keeping a List and Inventory

To keep your pantry in good shape, start by making a list of what is currently in there.  I mean, take everything out and make a list.  You will find things purchased without a plan, that have sat in there for weeks (or longer).  If the expiration dates are still good, donate it to a food pantry.  If it has not been used by now, it probably won’t’ be.

My mantra is “Like Thing Together”.  Organize your shelves by like item.  In other words, all my flours are in the same place.  Sauces are on all the same shelf.  Baking items like baking powder and baking soda, vanilla and cocoa powder are, for me, all stored together.  Pasta is all together.  Canned goods are shelved together, although I keep tomato goods separately as I use them so often. This allows me look and know what I have without searching in half a dozen places.  If there is a blank spot on a shelf, I know what should be there and then add it to my shopping list.

Once you have your list of required goods to keep on hand, make another list of what is missing.  In other words, if you must go a month without shopping, what else would you need to buy?

Now you have a Master Pantry list.

Next week, more about how to organize your pantry and how to use your master list.

Tell me please, what makes up your pantry? And how do you keep track of items in it?