I have been giving a lot of extra thought to the food portion of the Riot since Saturday. Why Saturday? HM and I made our once monthly trip to the supermarket. It is an overwhelming experience that I hope to repeat only 4 times a year beginning in 2008. There were so many people, so many noises, and so many choices. I was dismayed to see the price increases and wonder what increases there will be the next time I shop.
I have always kept a stocked pantry at this house. It is a form of financial and physical security. CK lost his job a few years ago and we were able to eat the staples for a year before needing to replace them. It also helps because we eat this year on last year’s prices. I have a master list that tells me what has been opened and how much we use of each product in a year.
A lot of my pantry is homegrown. The Garden tab at the top of the page will tell you what we grow. We preserve much of that dehydrated (makes great soups and herbal teas in the winter), canned (jelly, jam, pickles, whole fruit), frozen (only what fits above the refrigerator–mostly green beans).
Fruit: We eat as much fresh as possible while things are in season. We buy a year’s supply from vendors at the farmer’s market and preserve it by making jam, fruit juice , fruit in syrup, and dehydration. We typically have: strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, apples, persimmons, and grapes. I keep 40 jars of canned fruit and 3-4 quarts of dehydrated fruit for each type. That gives us 1 serving of each fruit a week. That is supplemented by OJ and bananas in the Fall and Winter; lemons and raisins year round; melons in the late Spring and Summer. This year we experimented with melons and hope to have production at full next summer. Canned fruits are stored in a hall closet fitted with shelves just like my kitchen pantry. We average 2 fruit servings a day year round.
Vegetables: Our list of vegetables is quite extensive. It is also carefully planned so that seed saving is easier. I don’t have any two varieties from the same species unless they can be isolated to keep from having cross-pollination. We eat it only in season and only if it could be grown in our yard (Except for avocados, which I suppose are technically a fruit, but we use them as a vegetable. Each month I buy 4 avocados so they don’t comprise a large portion of our diet.) Our primary way of preserving vegetables is dehydration. A year’s worth of dehydrated vegetables only takes one shelf in my kitchen pantry. We eat a lot of soup! We average 3 servings of vegetables a day year round.
Herbs and Other Flavorings: HM is the “Queen of the Herb Garden.” I try to stay out of her way. I’ll help weed, but otherwise I’m hopeless. Herb gardens are beautiful. There are so many colors, textures, and smells. HM keeps us well stocked with dried herbs for teas (nothing better than peppermint tea when your stomach is upset) and flavorings. We dry 2 quarts of each herb and that easily lasts a year. We dry 10 bunches of garlic and 100 onions a year. It helps when your diet is basic to have a variety of flavors to add to the meal. We do buy olive oil, canola oil, mustard, ketchup, vinegar, tahini, rooibos tea (with flavors. Bought in bulk from Adagio), honey (from a local beekeeper, and hoping to add to our homestead in the Spring), salt and pepper.
Protein: Our protein comes from eggs (from our chickens), beans (learning to grow in yearly batches and purchased in 25 pound bags from the coop), an occasional chicken, and cheese (currently buying from the store because I don’t have a milking goat this year). We also get plenty of protein from the veggies and grains that we eat. We are down to 8 chickens laying 6 eggs a day and that seems to be plenty for our family. None of us eats eggs on a daily basis. The eggs and cheese are about the only thing in our refrigerator anymore. The dried beans are stored in food grade plastic buckets with airtight lids in the project room. I am thinking about building another pantry in there. That way guests don’t have to see a stack of white buckets covered by a quilt anymore. We average 3 protein servings a day year round.
Grains: Next year will be the first year we’ll try to grow grain. I am excited about the possibility. Right now I buy a year’s supply of rice, wheat and oats each Fall. Our family doesn’t eat much grain anymore. 5 pounds of popcorn, 10 pounds of cornmeal, 50 pounds of rice, 100 pounds of oats, and 100 pounds of wheat will last a year. The grains are stored in food grade plastic buckets in the project room and a small amount is stored in the kitchen pantry. We eat the oats as oatmeal and granola, the wheat as pancakes, flatbread, tortillas, and bread, rice is eaten as well . . . rice. Although Evan just sent a recipe for rice milk that I really want to try tomorrow. We average 4 (girls) to 6 (men) servings of grain a day year round.
How it Fits into the Riot goal: 12 food servings a day (+ flavorings). 5.5 servings are homegrown or local (46%), 5 servings are bulk foods (42%) , and 1.5 are non-local and non-bulk (12%).
What I need to do: coming soon
How I Pull it All Together: coming soon
This is what 5000 pounds of hay looks like. Normally this wouldn’t be something to write home about, but this year’s weather hasn’t been the best for hay. Too hot. Too dry. Many farmers are only getting half the normal hay harvest. We are fortunate that “Hay Bob” keeps us at the top of his list. The field where he cuts our hay is near a creek bed so it get watered as the surrounding area drains into the creek. I love to walk past the hay field and see the combination of plants growing. It gives me a sense of security.
Remember my statement about no new clutter? I lied. Tomorrow I will be picking up some new editions to our little homestead. We will be bringing home 2 Shetland x Finnsheep ewes. In October we’ll bring home a boyfriend for the girls. We have been planning to add sheep for a little over a year. CK is very patient with me, he just sort of shrugged and said, “What do we need?” The best part is we have everything we need for the sheep.
