Pantry Liberation

In real life I am still cleaning.  This time in the dining room.  Despite the fact that my arm has been kicking off for the past few days.  I have found though that having the hot water bottle on the bit that is most painful is actually helping to soothe everything down.  The hot bottle gets switched around a bit as last night the small of my back (where the bone is slightly out of alignment) decided to kick off.  Probably all the bending and running up and downstairs beginning to take its toll.  Despite the inflammation I am managing to keep on top of it, together with the regular upward stretches throughout the day and rotation of the arms as well seems to be keeping a lid on it.  I mention this as it has helped me immensely and I did not know whether it would help anyone else out there.  I am still doing the exercises the Physio gave me, however these are ones that I have come up with and seem to be helping me.  Physio was okay with this for me.

I know I have battered the blog this week with posts about the Pantry but I am so chuffed with how things have panned out.  There will be a full post up shortly showing the fully sorted Pantry.  The Pantry is unfortunately too small to hold everything.  I had hoped to be able to get some of my jars off the Dresser into the Pantry, but for the time being they are going to have to stay where they are.  I am currently dealing with the Dressers in the Dining room and so as this forms part of the Pantry process.  So once this is completed the main post on the Pantry will follow fairly shortly after. 

The most rewarding thing for me in cleaning up the Pantry act, has been the fact that I have had far more available to me in there than I had first thought. To tell the truth I thought I had hardly got anything and was a little perturbed about this to say the least. I am deeply grateful for what I have located in the whole exercise.  With everything scattered around I had no idea what was there apart from odd bits and bobs. This also shows me that in a roundabout way that I have managed for the best part despite few funds been able to top up on practical ingredients as I have gone along without having to spend pounds and pounds.  Just a few considered choices have made all the difference.  It will also help me making considered choices as to what preserves are made this year from fresh ingredients.  I have Marmalade to make both Lemon, Lemon and Ginger and some Seville Orange Marmalade.  I will probably try and complete one item a day rather than several in one go to see if I can get on better and keep control of the tidiness in the kitchen as well.

I have a couple of smaller tubs in the Pantry as well as a big one with loads of dry ingredients in which are to be decanted into jars during the week.  I am going to put all my baking stuff in these two tubs so that they can be accessed easily.   I am after all a cake girl and have a sweet tooth.  I am hoping to get into full swing on the baking front again shortly as well.

Now I have always been an ingredients girl preferring to buy in reasonable quantities where I can.  I do not go to that many supermarkets probably Co-Op and Waitrose and occasionally Morrisons and Aldi.  However one thing I have noticed is that items such as rice for puddings you very rarely see apart from in tins.  Now I prefer to buy the grains and make my own.  I do not really do tinned rice.  G does but I prefer proper pudding.  Do not often see ground rice (which can be used as a substitute for ground almonds in cooking), fine Semolina for puddings, dried chick peas, peas, lentils etc. Sometimes you see the Scotch Broth soup mix. Waitrose have a nice selection but not as much as they used to. A lot of these ingredients are good for you and bulk meals out quite a bit.  What happened to that kind of availability. However, I have found that my local Asian shop has a lot of these ingredients in-store plus a load more to investigate and the prices are not horrendous.  They also come in the kind of amounts I had in mind and which do not break the bank.  I buy my dried chick peas from there, red kidney beans for Chilli, Semolina for puddings and homemade pasta, sweetcorn for turning into popcorn, gram flour for making Bhaji and Samosas. Lots of different Rice to choose from, flavoured jelly crystals.  Coconut oil, almond oil etc.  Well worth having a look and trying things to see if they work for you.

Although not doing much on Friday, I started to go through the extra box of items that I found on Thursday.  I have a lot of baking stuff spices, herbs, condiments in that box.  I have also started writing a shopping list for the end of the month.  The following items have been identified as needing replacing/topping up.  Whether will get all this month is hit and miss, but at least I am able to regain a modicum of control by buying in a few items at a time which is better than nothing.  With considered use whilst building up the Pantry you can soon get a sizeable stock of items.

Things I need to buy:

Nuts - all sorts as we love Nuts to eat as well as used in baking and I love homemade peanut butter as well.

Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce

Stock Pots, chicken and beef (I have veggie ones)

Oxo Beef and Chicken Powder

Marigold Stock Powder (a big tub of) - I particularly like this as it adds a lot of flavour to gravy and soups.

I do have my homemade stock in the Pantry in any event but I do like to flavour things up quite a bit.

Dried Dates.

Cornflour

Arrowroot

Malt Extract

Sugar - White, Muscovado and Brown.  (Yes I know can make my own brown sugar from plain white sugar and Molasses).

Dried Milk (I haver been buying a packet of this monthly).  I used it in cooking for puddings during the month, but I do like to have a stash of this to hand.

Evaporated Milk

Tins of Sterilised Cream (a weakness of mine)

8 cartons of UHT milk.  Predominantly for making yogurt. Probably will not buy this the month after, but maybe the month after that.  So not everything needs to be bought monthly. However I will have it in for when I want to make it.  I normally make at least a litre of yogurt a week.

Vanilla Pods

Cooking chocolate, Dairy, Dark and White

Chestnut Puree for puddings

Coconut Oil for cooking

Almond Oil for salads and dressings

Concentrated Tomato Paste (in little tins)

Garlic Paste

There are a lot of things I need to make.  They may not all get made however this is just a general list of those items I am interested in making in the next few weeks.  Will see how we get on.

Souper Mix

Granola

Vanilla Sugar

Vanilla Extract

Orange Sugar

Lemon Sugar

Lime Sugar

Grapefruit Sugar

Mixed Citrus Sugar

Peanut Butter

Homemade Chocolate Spread

Oat Milk

Dried Celery

Dried Lemons

Dried Oranges

Dried Lime Slices

Dried Apples

Dried Leeks

Some Chutney

Vin D'Orange

Dried Apricot Wine

Ginger Wine

Lemon Marmalade

Seville Orange Marmalade

Hoping to get some frozen strawberries to make some Strawberry jam as well as have run out.

That is more than enough on the shopping list and also on to the make list.  In reality I may not get much bought or indeed made, but it is a constant reminder for me of the things that need to be there.

Right am off into the Ether. Plenty to do as usual and keep me out of mischief or get me into it.  Feeling very grateful for the Pantry at the moment.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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