Our Pantry

Now that spring is here and fresh veggies are starting to show up, it's nice to be able to get away from the winter pantry a bit. We did, however, take some time recently to make a few upgrades. We used to keep everything on two small bookshelves, but now we've moved it all together onto some sturdy permanent shelving with a sheet to block our jarred goods from the little sunlight in our basement.

There are probably enough beans here to last us about 7 months if we ate them everyday. Beans are great because they're really nutritious, versatile, good for storage, and very cheap even when you buy organic. We've started buying bulk dried goods like these from Amazon because of their new "subscribe and save" feature that makes them even cheaper than buying from the local grocery store, plus they have organic products we just can't find around here.

We also keep sunflower and sesame seeds, olive oil, sardines, canned milk and tomatoes, salt, sugar, coffee, peanuts and peanut butter, vinegar, pickles, jams, water, juice, and some convenience items in our pantry. Along with the frozen meats, seafood, and produce in the freezer, the eggs from our hens, the fresh veggies from our garden, and our well-stocked spice cabinet, I really only have to buy dairy on a weekly basis and I never have to worry about being able to pull together a meal!