What do you do when you have a small house and no pantry? Today’s $20/$20 Challenge submission shows you. Here’s Stephanie’s story:
Hi Mavis!
I’m sending you some pictures of my pantry and food storage for the $20/$20 Challenge.
We live in a relatively small house and I do not have a dedicated pantry. I have two cabinets that I store my dry goods in. As you can see, my one cabinet is being overtaken by spices! I love to cook, and cook almost every single meal we eat. As a result, I use a lot of spices to flavor our food! There’s nothing worse than boring food!
I don’t keep a “deep pantry,” but shop the sales for what I need each week {beyond staples, which I do try to keep on hand}. We are a small family of three – my husband and I, and our daughter who is almost 6 – so buying in bulk isn’t always the best for us, though I do buy occasionally from a food buying group.
I love to try new things, and right now I have olives curing on my counter. I special ordered them from California in October, and if all goes well and to plan, by May we will have a lot of delicious olives!
My husband is an avid gardener, and this picture shows just one day’s picking last summer. We live in Michigan and right now we are covered in snow and pining for summer. But, we do have summer produce to cheer us up! I spent the late summer and fall canning to my heart’s delight. I canned 344 jars of food in 2014. Much of that was from our own garden, though we did take advantage of the lovely fruit crops Michigan has {strawberries, cherries, blueberries, peaches, and apples}, and put those up as well.
My husband built shelves in our basement to hold all the canned goods. This picture doesn’t truly show all the fruits of my labor; I never got a picture when I was “done” canning, and we have been eating canned goods all winter. I keep careful records of what I can {recipes, number of jars of each item} and plan to only can what we will eat in one year. I haven’t had to buy tomato products from the grocery store for several years now, and I keep adding recipes to my arsenal each summer.
Thanks, Mavis!
Tammy
Are you getting your pantries camera ready? You can participate in the $20/$20 Challenge by simply sending in pictures of your pantry. Find out more about the $20/$20 Challenge: Show Your Pantry – Fill a Pantry!
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Madam Chow says
I love those shelves! I would be interested to know where you ordered the olives from, because curing them is something I’ve wanted to try for ages!
felicia says
Would love to know how big of a garden Stephanie has! I got pretty close making it all winter without buying tomato products hoping this year we make it completely through!
Tammy says
Hi! Somehow “Stephanie” got interjected at one point. 😉 Our garden is not very big – we do what we can on the side of our house. You can see pictures here: http://lovetocrochetandknit.blogspot.com/2014/06/our-garden.html
kristina says
Wow! That was a fabulous 20/20 pantry challenge post. Love it~
k
Lisa L says
I would love to know what she does to elevate the rows of spices so they can be seen. They are clearly tiered but I want to know how!
Tammy says
They are just shelves from Meijer/Walmart – they’re usually with the other organizing stuff. I have two different ones to accommodate most of my spices!
Anita says
I see a lot of Aldi products in there. I love Aldi and shop there for about 90% of what we use. Saves us A LOT of money! Thanks for the peek into your “no-pantry pantry.” 🙂
Vanessa says
I would love to see some of your canning recipes, Tammy!
Linda says
Love your pantry! I am intrigued by your olive project and would love to know more about it! Would you be willing to share your olive source and how to technique? Thanks?
Caroline says
I’m with Vanessa – please share some of your canning recipes, Tammy!
felicia says
Good job. Keeping a young family fed with three home cooked meals a day is no easy chore. LOVE the tomatoes.
Mary Reidler says
Wow I am so jealous! Beautiful veges. And all the canning and olive marinating. Yum!