Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Menu Plan for the Week – And I Am Officially Finished With Our Pantry Challenge

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Since the beginning of January, I have been challenging myself to see if we could live off the food we have in our pantry and freezers – purchasing only fresh produce and dairy products. It’s saved us several hundred dollars and we haven’t starved even a little bit. I have loved getting more creative as I’ve been digging deeper into our bulk food supply to use up the food that has been in storage.

My goal was to continue this challenge through January and into February as long as I could. On February 9, I hereby declared this challenge to be over here in the Coppinger household. It was time to buy pantry items because running out of minced onion, garlic powder, sucanat, pasta, and tapioca – well yikes – how would I make my pudding? :)  One of the biggest ways I save money is by buying food in bulk – as needed – so that I always have a nice supply of all staple food items. So I caved. Here’s what the UPS man brought to my door this week:

I had some credit at iHerb (thanks to those of you who took advantage of the $10 free groceries deal), so I used it to get bulk garlic powder, minced onion, and my favorite brand of sucanat.

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I rounded out this month’s Amazon Subscribe and Save order by getting two cases of Bearitos Organic Tortilla Chips (with a coupon!), a case of Tapioca Pearls, and a case of Organic Delallo Gemelli Pasta. (For whatever reason, that shape of pasta is my favorite right now.)

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I also bought milk and eggs from our farmer friends this week. We have been well stocked on fresh fruits and vegetables with my huge grocery store purchase last week, plus our Bountiful Basket delivery (need I remind you of my 36 crowns of broccoli?). I did send Matt and Elias to the store yesterday to pick up a few items (their first price-matching experience!), but we’ve all be a little under the weather, so I didn’t get a picture of their purchase. They picked up apples, pears, cucumbers, avocados, and grape tomatoes for great prices.

Here is how our menu this week is looking:

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

Fruit and Veggie Side Dishes (I serve 1-4 with each meal)

What do you have on your menu this week? Did you do a pantry/freezer challenge the past month or two?

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Buying In Bulk – Gallons of Maple Syrup and Honey

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I’m working through a series in buying whole foods in bulk!
If you haven’t read them yet, you may be interested in : 
Why I Buy in Bulk and Buying in Bulk:  Do You Have the Space?

It’s almost Maple Syrup Day!! That’s not a national holiday (that I know of) – just the one Thursday every July that I buy three gallons of maple syrup. Why? Because that’s when the “maple syrup people” come to our Farmer’s Market for their once a year stop in my town. I buy what I hope will last me the year (although this year it didn’t, and I had to grab some from Amazon to get us by).

People have looked at me a little funny as I walk away with so much maple syrup, wondering why I would possibly want so much. Well, because we’re a family of six, because we have a lot of company, because we use it on our pancakes and waffles and french toast and in our milk shakes and soothers and in several other recipes. The maple syrup they bring to the Farmer’s Market is pure – I trust this family. Maple syrup is one of my top sweeteners of choice, and buying three gallons at a time saves me quite a bit of money and time. If I buy my year’s supply of maple syrup in July at the Farmer’s Market, I don’t have to think about maple syrup again until well…this year, it lasted us until May. 

I do the same thing with our hard white wheat berries, buying our entire year’s supply in February when my friend organizes a big truck delivery of the wonderful golden kernels. If you haven’t read my exclusive interview with myself after I purchased 500 pounds of wheat at one time, you may find it helpful – or at least amusing.

Do I buy everything in 365 day quantities? No. But with things like wheat and maple syrup, it just sort of makes sense for me to do it this way.  When I know it’s something we use continually, when I find a great price, when I know I may have a harder time getting my hands on a certain product – I stock up.

Take honey for example (because I thought you might need yet another sweet and sticky example after reading about maple syrup). Our “honey man” harvests a very limited quantity of raw, pure honey each fall. If I don’t buy all the honey I’ll need for the year in September, he’ll likely not have any more for me later. It makes sense for me to buy a year’s supply at once. 

I also do this with produce during the summer and fall. I know we’ll be needing 52 weeks worth of corn, green beans, tomato sauce, tomato soup, applesauce, peaches and pears…so I plant my garden and make my local farm produce purchases accordingly. (I also keep my nose the the ground – or is that my ear? I forget – and snatch all kinds of free produce people are happy to part with when they are feeling overloaded.)  During the months of July, August and September, we are crazy busy with preserving – either canning or freezing – our year’s supply of corn, green beans – all the foods I just mentioned. It just makes sense for our family.

I’m sure some of you are wondering:  How do we afford to buy such large quantities of maple syrup, wheat, honey, etc. at one time?  Here are two posts that might help answer that question:  How I Grocery Shop and Our 2011 Grocery Budget. I’ll be a little more specific about this topic next week! (to be continued…)

I’m curious if you buy a year’s supply of anything, or if you prefer buying smaller quantities?

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How I Store Bulk Food

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I received my Azure Standard food co-op order last week…one of my favorite days of the month! It’s slightly ridiculous how much I get a thrill out of boxes and bags of food. I know not everyone  has the storage space to purchase food in bulk…but this method works very well for me and I am so thankful to have this option.

As I mentioned several months ago in this post about why I buy bulk food, I don’t just buy in bulk to save money. Saving money is a wonderful perk, but I also find that buying in bulk makes cooking so much simpler for me. I don’t have to think so hard or shop so often. I buy large quantities of food items, enough to last much longer than a week. This way, I save on gas, time, energy and brain power.

I am often asked how I store my bulk purchases. Here is a little bit of explanation for what works well for me for bulk food storage:

I could just leave the food right in their bags, but I don’t feel comfortable with that for sevaral reasons. We’ve had trouble with mice in the past. Yowza, there’s not much that makes me more frustrated in the kitchen that seeing that those little rodents have gotten into and pooped in my oats. What a waste! Beyond mice, we find that if we don’t transfer food out of their bags and into something more properly sealed, it is easier for bugs to get in and ruin food.

In addition…I just feel like buckets and containers are easier to stack and store than bags. I know I’m a nerd…but I LIKE the way food looks when it’s poured into nice jars and jugs. Crumpled up bags don’t look nearly as cute in my pantry.

When my bulk purchases arrive, out come my jars, buckets and containers. I’ve accumulate quite a nice collection through the years, purchased from garage sales, Walmart or the dollar store. You know how I LOVE jars.  And in general, I avoid plastics. However, for dry food that isn’t as likely to absorb chemicals from the plastic, I’m okay with using plastic containers for bulk storage.

I take a few minutes to scoop out the sea salt or sucanat or wheat or oats or whatever dry bulk item I’ve purchased into large storage containers.

From those, I will funnel smaller amounts into smaller jars for simple cooking use. I  keep these smaller jars in the cupboard right above my stove so I can easily grab them while I’m cooking. As they get low, I refill them from their larger storage container.

Once I have everything divided into the appropriate jars and containers (I stare at it in happiness for a while and then) I put them all away in either my storage room, or in my pantry if there is space.

I especially like to keep my nicest jars full of dry bulk items like beans, rice, popcorn and pasta in my pantry door where it looks pretty everytime I open it!

You may also want to read about how I store bulk grain. And, if you’d like to see a more thorough view of my whole kitchen, I invite you to join me on my kitchen tour!

Do you buy in bulk? What have you found that works best for you to store your bulk food?

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