I’ll take you through my house (shh…it’s in a bit of disarray!) and show you where I store my food. Now, I haven’t staged this – I simply decided today that I’d show you what an average week looks like for my real food pantry!
Just a couple of things to remember:
- It’s Monday and I don’t clean over the weekend. Hence the mess.
- It’s right after the holidays, hence some of the non real food. 🙂
- I have not grocery shopped in over a week, so I have little on hand.
- I have also run out of a lot of my homemade items so the dressings and condiments you see are all my husband’s store bought stuff. (yes, there are a few things he refuses to eat homemade. Stinker.)
- I was having a bad day last week and running on little sleep, my husband brought ice cream home for me. He gets me.
Donielle Baker
owner and editor of Natural Fertility and Wellness at Natural Fertility and Wellness
I believe women can learn how to heal their bodies & balance their hormones through natural methods. An advocate for natural health, I have a passion for nourishing/real food nutrition and natural living. My personal background includes both infertility and miscarriage and I started Natural Fertility and Wellness in 2008 in order to share all of the information I found helpful in my journey to heal from PCOS and overcome infertility.
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How to make nutritious homemade broth
Please elaborate on the frozen zucchini. How did you freeze it, what will you do with it out of the freezer? I tried to freeze our zucchini harvest 2 yrs ago and it was an EPIC FAIL! It was kind of gross when I took it out, only good for bread but even then soggy.
@kia, I just shred and freeze. It only gets used for muffins and bread – so I’m gonna be baking a lot! One year I tried to squeeze out the excess moisture, but found it was still very wet when thawed, so now I don’t bother! I just thaw and let it sit in the strainer for awhile before I use it.
I just have to say that I appreciate that you didn’t clean to make the video :). It just shows that you’re a real person like the rest of us!! 🙂
@Courtney, lol That’s what I told my husband when he was flabbergasted that I didn’t clean first. Eh – it happens.
Thanks for sharing!! I “toured” my pantry a few months ago on my blog. At that time we had more boxed junk than we do now. I think I only have one box of all that left, actually. I’ve been slowly trying to make more and more at home. We recently made lacto-fermented ketchup and love it so much that Jason said he can never buy Heinz again LOL
I haven’t been able to get mayo down yet though …. need to find a different oil to use because we don’t like it with the extra virgin olive oil. Salad dressings is another thing I need to try to conquer lol
@Brandy, Mayo is definitely on my to do list! I’ve heard the regular olive oil has a better taste and that Chaffin Orchards has a really mellow evoo that works well.
Have a link or care to share your ketchup recipe? I like the stuff I make just fine but my husband is not a fan! 🙂 I need to make more in a couple weeks and thought I might try something a bit different.
@donielle, Thanks for that tip. I was tempted to just give up after 6 unsuccessful tries … but I’ll keep with it. 🙂
I just followed Kelly The Kitchen Kop’s recipe: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2009/11/is-lacto-fermented-homemade-ketchup-worth-the-trouble.html
It’s my first time making any, so I haven’t done any fun tweaking yet lol
Thanks for sharing your home. I love seeing other people’s food storage! I can’t wait to do my canning this year, I’ll be back here for tips I’m sure!
I really enjoyed viewing your pantry and LOVED seeing all your canned goods. You really were busy last year! I agree that it was nice to see that you are real, just like me, with a “lived in” home and a DH that still insists on having his store-bought dressings. Thanks for sharing!
So did I hear correctly – you soak things ahead of time and store them that way???…cause that would be just AMAZING to be able to soak a whole package of brown rice at a time instead of every time I need it.
@Kelli M, You can soak thing ahead of time, but you’ll need to dehydrate them as well. My next venture will be to germinate the rice before we cook it! Supposedly that’s even better than just soaking.
But I do all my nuts and seeds that way, and normally some oats as well.
@donielle,
So you soak and then dehydrate? Do you use a machine or just leave them out to dry?
@Kelli M, Yup! I do have a machine, but you could also use the oven on the lowest temp and just open the door ans stir them around every so often until dry.
@donielle, What kind of peanuts do you buy? Raw skinless and then soak and dry? thanks!
@annalise, Exactly, I buy the raw, skinless ones, soak them, and then dehydrate. 🙂
So where do you get the plastic lids for all those mason jars? And where can I get gallon size mason jars?
(love you website)
@Kimlyn, I got mine from our local supermarket right by the canning supplies. They’re made by Ball, so if you can’t find them locally I’m sure you can somewhere online! And the gallon and half gallon jars I have to get at hardware stores like ACE Hardware. (I have not idea if that store is national though 🙂 Like a small Lowes!