Wassup! So I went to urgent care today to get an ENT referral and they were like "how much have you been in public?" and I was like "this is the first time I've been in a building since Nov 3rd" and they were like "what about food?!" A thread.
We're not preppers (Google it) but we sorta are. There have been parts of my life where going to the grocery store wasn't an option, for financial reasons. Applying that + zero waste + no preprocessed foods = lotta food storage and prep info.
Background: We're two adults that eat gluten-free and primarily vegetarian, with chicken (or spam) maybe 1-2x a week. We eat seasonally meaning we try to eat what is in season, but use the freezer and canning to stretch fruits and veg.
The skinny door cabinet is my dry goods/deep storage. It's dry, cool, and dark. And also large enough to fit an adult human inside if they can get in the door...
Dry beans, lentils, and our 25lb bags of rice (we have two types) are kept here. Also a gallon of local olive oil, apple cider, and popcorn. 5lbs of salt, big bag of GF flour, and my backstock of canned tomatoes from our garden. And squash from the neighbors.
With the Instant Pot to cook with, dry beans are a no brainer. 1lbs of dry beans is equivalent to 4-5 CANS of beans. Two pounds of dry black beans easily fits a mason jar, way way way smaller than the 8-10 cans equivalent.
We have a normal size fridge and top-freezer, and that's where we keep frozen veg from our garden and store, as well as meat (minus the spam..). We do whole chickens instead of buying butchered pieces. We also freeze veg scraps for broth, and cupcakes for emergencies.
We make broth from the bones/spines of the chickens we get, and veg scraps. Usually we get 4 quarts when I make it and I freeze 3 quarts to use whenever. This lasts us quite a while, as I usually use vegetarian bouillon when stuff just wants a cup or two of broth.
I also make big pots of chili every 2-3 weeks, and will often freeze a quart or two for "F*ck It" meals. We eat the chili with rice (a trick my mom taught me) to make it go further. 1 quart of chili is 4 meals with rice. My big batches of chili are often 6 quarts
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Dry lentils and coconut milk are the other big stable. I make lots and lots of curry. I have definitely broken the spine on this book. Best book. So delicious.
Steve nor I can do diary milk, so we do soy, oat, coconut, or almond. All those milks can be shelf stable in some form. Making your own nut milk is easy, though time consuming, but it's 2020 and I have nothing better to do. Plus, the byproduct is nut/oat flour. Seriously, so easy
For snacks, we have apples (which if bought and stored properly will last you months), nuts and granola that I roast myself. Raw nuts can be used for a LOT of things (milk, butter, flour, cheese) and roasted are a great snack. We also have bulk dried fruit to add to granola.
Key ingredients help make a lot of super crazy yummy things. Salt, apple cider, maple syrup, and honey are the basis of a lot of great snacks. And they're all shelf stable if stored properly.
Our spice rack is well stocked and well used. This, and how to use these spices, makes the difference. Forget premade chili spice packets, curry mixes, or taco seasoning. Get good with the base ingredients and you'll never need to buy a packet again.
A lot of this stuff I learned over many years. And I definitely didn't switch to all this in one go. It was slow, easy shifts that started adding up. The Brothers Green (now Pro Home Cooks) YouTube got me the furthest I think, in the beginning https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt_lOWx8jR_MNAJCbcDuZxh-GouBligY1
Sorted Foods had a series they did for a while for non-chefs that was also super helpful. They still do that stuff sometimes:
The biggest thing that pushed us to this lifestyle was to reduce our food packaging waste. Then it was discovering that the food preservatives they put into most things don't agree with Steve's system. Combined with his Celiac's and our drive to support local, here we are.
In the summer months this year, we leaned hard into our garden. We knew in March this wasn't going to be a short thing and doubled the garden because of it. I just picked leaks yesterday and we have garlic and onion going for the spring.
We live in Portland proper, on a .11 acre lot. 1920s suburban, which is pretty urban now. We killed half our lawn to put the garden in in 2016 & I'm debating growing it again. Potato, tomato, lettuce, cauliflower, spinach, brussel sprouts, leeks, garlic, onion, peas, squash..
All of what we're doing isn't hard, just time consuming in small increments you have to plan. It's old school. It's what was standard for HUNDREDS if not thousands of years before capitalism decided to make our lives "easier." This year drives that home.
For example, I spent an hour yesterday putting straw on my garden and planting sprouted sweet potato. That hour means in the spring I'll have rich weed-free soil and sweet potatoes I don't have to think about. That hour yesterday saved me at least 10 hours de-weeding in spring.