Stocking the Pantry

One of the things I find very helpful in keeping our household orderly (along with menu planning) is to have a well-stocked pantry.  I always like to have jars full of staples on hand - beans, rice, oats, lentils, etc.

Recently I had the opportunity to get some of these staples from a buying club and was pleased to be able to really stock up and get buckets of some things (organic coconut oil and natural peanut butter), big paper bags of other things (french lentils, rolled oats, beans) as well as essential oils, coconut milk and more - all this without having to go to a grocery store.

(even though we've eaten loads of legumes for years this is the first time we've tried French lentils - they're our new favourite)

So along with our cold-room full of preserves and stored veg. we also have a full pantry which means very few trips to the grocery store for us.  This is such a time saver and...frankly, a sanity saver because I find big grocery stores - with their vast array of choices - to be pretty overwhelming and time-consuming places.  Stocking up on all the essentials now means more time outside in the garden in the coming months. 

Stocking up also usually leads to a cooking day when dry pinto beans are turned into jars of re-fried beans and put in the freezer for future use. 

(the boys love to have re-fried beans on hand so they can use them on corn tortillas with our salsa for their lunch)

Rolled oats are made into big jars of granola.  And lentils are made into a favourite - lentil casserole (which we now like even more with French lentils instead of brown lentils).