Plotting and Planning and Pantry Items

 I am looking at a better way of getting myself organised at home in that I want to try out new to me things and particularly on new recipes.  At the moment I am particularly drawn to Vegan recipes and sweets.  Some of those ingredients I do not hold in as standard.  However I thought that if I experimented and tried more newer recipes I would indeed be able to work out what ingredients I personally need to hold in-house in my Pantry to make the recipes I like on a more regular basis.  A good way of switching up the diet a bit in any event.

Sometimes you cannot achieve everything in one go and little baby steps are the way forward until everything is ready to come together.  I am a big believer in that.  

I am also however looking not to buy pre-made items quite so much and I want to where I can make my own accompaniments. I am at this point talking about things like Pitta and Naan breads, Crumpets, Sourdough bread which I am going to have another go at in due course.  I shall of course still buy some items until I am ready to get stuck in and experiment.  Have to be sensible about this at the end of the day.

I therefore have my scribble pad.  It contains notes for posts on the blog, it contains recipes so that I can have them to hand in the kitchen and I am starting to keep a note of recipes I like the look of on there as well.  At some point I will turn them into laminated recipe sheets which I intend to keep in a folder.  That will be sometime off though as we have other priorities in front of a new printer cartridge(s) at the present time.  I am finding this helpful, as today will be a shopping day and I have a recipe for turning my biscuit crumb into a pudding and a cake slice.  I will therefore be able to obtain the cream cheese, cream and milk that I need to achieve this. So sorting out some of the recipes in advance will help with the shopping list.  Shopping trip carried out, more on that tomorrow.  However did manage to get my cream cheese and the milk.  Now to get the cream.

I have roasted the Pumpkin in readiness for turning it into a soup for storing on the Pantry shelf by heat processing. The soup will be made and then bottled up and processed tomorrow. It will entail using some of my homemade stock. One of the perks of keeping a good quantity of homemade stock on the Pantry shelf.  I am also hoping to get the new potatoes bottled as well. 

I also intend to buy in some Squash from the Veg shop/Greengrocer to also preserve for "Pumpkin" pie and for adding to vegetable soups etc.  I will also have a look to see what else they have to start making a few things for the shelf as I go along as well.  For instance I need Lemons to make Lemon sugar which I have found I use an awful lot of both in baking and for Pancakes!

Creating my own Pantry items is a big part of where I want to be this year - or at least as much as I can afford in any event.  Real life does not always oblige and sometimes  you have to work with what you have a bit at a time.  In fairness though that can be very satisfying managing to achieve things in tough times.  There is always something that can be done though.

There are also out there on the Internet many recipes for making your own Pantry replacements such as making your own Brown Sugar or Custard powder, Pancake mix or Pudding mix plus a whole load more items.  I intended a while back to set too and make some basics I use, but am now thinking that I will have to set quite a period of time aside to do this, probably a day at a time bearing in mind what I need to get made for ease of use.  This all boils down to organisation of items or set things in blocks or tranches when time is of the essence and replenishing items becomes a necessity especially when so much else is going on.

This has all stemmed from cleaning and sorting out the Pantry.  I can find things now, and put things back easily but I still have a long way to go with what I would like to achieve overall. There are still items to be sorted and still more items to be added to jars. New to me jars are on the list to obtain so that I can extend the jar collection on the Dresser to both Dressers due to the lack of space in the Pantry.  I am particularly after the Douwe Egbert coffee jars.  Will have to keep a look out.

As usual there are lots of other things going on around the periphery of what I am trying to achieve as well.  Some things are having to wait for completion though as I cannot locate items which I have to finish certain things off.  Still loads of sorting to do however more about that another day.

For the best part I am happier with how things are progressing at the moment when it comes to house things than I have been in a long time.  Other things are as they are, and cannot be helped for one reason or another.  I also want to get some seeds sown as well so am hoping the weather will fine up a bit more in the coming weeks. I am learning not to have expectations of myself these days because each time I do they are never really achieved and then that gets me down and I feel like a bit of a failure at the end of it despite all the effort that has gone into it. I will keep creeping along though.  Giving in is not in my vocabulary!

Tea tonight was a couple of Beefburger buns with fried onion and sliced cheese.  Did the trick they were very tasty although I could only eat one.

Have a lovely evening everyone.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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