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What's in Your Cupboard?

MikeR

Slightly Addicted
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There are plenty of lists from various other sites floating about the forum telling you what to store and how much, so I'm not going to be too specific. More a general idea of what people here in the UK think is important and if you buy or grow your stores, or like us a mixture of both.
Our own stores are mainly of ingredients. Most of our cooking is done from scratch so it makes sense for us to have what we use. We buy flour in bulk direct from a millers we store large amounts of oil, honey, sugar, raising agents, herbs and spices and some animal fats. Our biggest investment on that score is Slanina or smoked pork fat, it's incredible stuff.
I suppose our biggest investment calorie wise is in our fruit and veg garden. We produce a great deal of the food we eat and preserve almost enough to feed us summer and winter.
We freeze a great deal but we also dehydrate, pickle and ferment as well. How we preserve things depends on which preservation method suits that particular veg. We love fermented Ramsons so always try to get a few jars in, red Cabbage sauerkraut is another favourite, French and runner beans freeze so well and onions, peppers and mushrooms are the best dehydrated, we bottle Tomatoes and make pickles, chutneys and jam.
Meat doesn't really figure in our stored food, apart from SPAM, I love a bit of SPAM;) If there were an event We have the lake for fish, I trap a few Crayfish and grow a lot of drying beans and would rather not get involved in the whole hunting and trapping thing, just me but I'm happy with or without meat in my diet as you can see, we have alternatives.
Our two biggest investments for preserving have been a good electric dehydrator and a couple of hundred Kilner jars.
 
Makes sense, I don't massively stick up for prepping purposes but seem to have a relatively well stocked pantry of dried and tonnes goods, mostly because i cook a lot and always forget what tonnes ingredients I have so buy some more just in case!

I'd add chorizo and corned beef as they have a long shelf life and add flavour!

38
 
Lots of broth mix and veg,chicken and beef stock Cubs.
Rice of all variety and noodles
Month worth of water...used then restocked
Pasta


At the moment I get fresh fruits and veg delivered every second week as my garden is not yet up and running
 
Hmmm, freezer one has our own lamb and chicken and fish that we get given, freezer two has lots of our fruit and veg, freezer three has ready cooked meals because I always cook twice what we need - I have too much frozen stuff and need to get round to other ways of storing. The big shed has potatoes, onions and the remains of the butternut squash and carrots. There several different types of kale, purple sprouting broccoli, turnip and leek in the garden. In the house, flour, rice, pasta, oats, muesli, tinned meat and veg, spices, stock cubes, dried fruit, variety of hot drinks, some dried instant soups and pasta. A secret emergency stash of teabags, hot chocolate, coffee, stock cubes, rice, pasta, granola bars, instant soups. There is some bottled water, water purification tablets and a sky full of water. I think I underestimated when I said I had a months supply, maybe more like six :rolleyes:
 
Makes sense, I don't massively stick up for prepping purposes but seem to have a relatively well stocked pantry of dried and tonnes goods, mostly because i cook a lot and always forget what tonnes ingredients I have so buy some more just in case!

I'd add chorizo and corned beef as they have a long shelf life and add flavour!

38

I'm much the same. Our food supplies are there more because that's how we roll, rather than specifically stored for prepping purposes, which is why it's probably not a typical preppers list. We have been buying our flour in bulk from the millers for some years since we found out that bulk flour from a lot of millers is milled 'as required' and is shipped within days of the grain being milled. Whereas bags of flour can sit on a shelf for months. The difference in taste and performance is amazing. I should add, we keep a lot of sea salt too. Can't ferment without it.
 
Why sea salt?

As sea salt is purer it is more verstile. It can be used as a flavour enhancer, you can use to ferment veg and preserve vegetables and meat in it. As long as you make sure you pick up the one without anti caking agent. If I could get hold of what used to be called block salt I would use that, but I haven't seen that for sale since I was a kid.
 
As sea salt is purer it is more verstile. It can be used as a flavour enhancer, you can use to ferment veg and preserve vegetables and meat in it. As long as you make sure you pick up the one without anti caking agent. If I could get hold of what used to be called block salt I would use that, but I haven't seen that for sale since I was a kid.
That's a common misconception, sea salt is no purer than common cheap cooking salt which is mined from underground (mainly on the French, Swiss, Italian border). Table salt has the anti caking agent to improve flow but this can make brined foodstuffs cloudy, I don't buy it. Weirdly there is no difference between dishwasher salt and cooking salt except the size of the grains, both are absolutely pure. Sea salt often contains trace amounts of iodides added, these have perceived health benefits but I'm unsure what such homeopathic amounts could really achieve beyond actually being an impurity. I've already done this rant in past posts.
 
Instant mash is is a good belly filler but its 'shelf' life is not that great IMHO, so short term yes but long term I will stick to rice and pasta.
 
That's a common misconception, sea salt is no purer than common cheap cooking salt which is mined from underground (mainly on the French, Swiss, Italian border). Table salt has the anti caking agent to improve flow but this can make brined foodstuffs cloudy, I don't buy it. Weirdly there is no difference between dishwasher salt and cooking salt except the size of the grains, both are absolutely pure. Sea salt often contains trace amounts of iodides added, these have perceived health benefits but I'm unsure what such homeopathic amounts could really achieve beyond actually being an impurity. I've already done this rant in past posts.

You're probably right, but I know sea salt works and I'm a creature of habit. :)
 
I have to admit, these days if we need a bit of mash we use a generic instant one.:oopsy: I only grow a few new spuds as we're not keen on potatoes. I'm actually using a packet of sainsburys basics instant mash dated sept 2016 and it's fine.
 
You're probably right, but I know sea salt works and I'm a creature of habit. :)
And if it's your personal preference that's absolutely fine aswell, I'm not criticising your choices, just pointing out that bulk storing plain old cooking salt is cheaper and perfectly adequate if you're on a tight budget.
 
And if it's your personal preference that's absolutely fine aswell, I'm not criticising your choices, just pointing out that bulk storing plain old cooking salt is cheaper and perfectly adequate if you're on a tight budget.

Quite right, I'm not sure about fermenting and salting with table salt though, which is the main reason I store as much sea salt as I do. If I remember, I might try making a jar of sauerkraut with cooking salt and see what happens. It's too cold at the moment to start it off. Someone remind about this when the weather's warmer!
 
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