Friday afternoon, some of the ladies from church got together for some dry pack canning. I meant to take pictures of each step, but I was too busy. Never buy anything bigger than a 25 lb bag of something. I bought my rice in 50 lb bags and spent hours scooping it into cans. If I had bought 25 lb bags, I could've just picked it up and poured it into the cans. Valuable lesson learned. I canned 100 lbs of rice (18 cans), 50 lbs of sugar (8 cans), 32 lbs of dried pinto beans (6 cans with a little left over), 24 lbs of macaroni (7 cans), 16 lbs of quick oats (6 cans), and 5 lbs of potato flakes (6 cans). So I have almost half of my year's supply of food, and I only spent $163.50 on the food. This is one time when it's nice to be single. I can't imagine having to do this for 5 or more people. That could be a little overwhelming. I think I'm going to be able to fit all of mine in my pantry. The rice and pinto beans fit nicely on the left side, along with my 8lbs of salt.
The sugar, quick oats, macaroni, and potato flakes fit nicely on the right side. These corners are kind of hard to get to, so they're a perfect place for food storage.
And if I find another place for my water and chips, the other 8 cases I have yet to fill will fit in the middle. I loose some space because of the extra supports I had to put in to hold up my cansolidators full of canned food. 
I have lots of wasted space in the top of my pantry, so I got the stuff to put another shelf up. (This use to be a bedroom closet. That's why the top shelf has a hook to hold up the clothes bar.) Once I get it up, I'll move lighter things like the potato flakes and quick oats up there to give me more room in the bottom. Eventually, I want to build built in bench seating for two sides of my dinning room table, and that would be a perfect place for my food storage. 
Now I just need to find someone whose going to Atlanta who can pick me up some wheat and powdered milk from the Church's Cannery. There's not anywhere around here to buy wheat, and powdered milk is really expensive. It's much cheaper to get it from the Cannery. I pretty much have my 3 month supply in regular canned food and frozen stuff. So I'm focusing on long term storage for the #10 cans. I'm only canning stuff that lasts for 20-30 years. That way I don't have to worry about rotating it for quite some time. If you want to know more about food storage, check out the links on the right. There are many helpful websites out there, but I don't really like to link ones that sell stuff unless I've bought from them.
The sugar, quick oats, macaroni, and potato flakes fit nicely on the right side. These corners are kind of hard to get to, so they're a perfect place for food storage.
And if I find another place for my water and chips, the other 8 cases I have yet to fill will fit in the middle. I loose some space because of the extra supports I had to put in to hold up my cansolidators full of canned food. I have lots of wasted space in the top of my pantry, so I got the stuff to put another shelf up. (This use to be a bedroom closet. That's why the top shelf has a hook to hold up the clothes bar.) Once I get it up, I'll move lighter things like the potato flakes and quick oats up there to give me more room in the bottom. Eventually, I want to build built in bench seating for two sides of my dinning room table, and that would be a perfect place for my food storage. Now I just need to find someone whose going to Atlanta who can pick me up some wheat and powdered milk from the Church's Cannery. There's not anywhere around here to buy wheat, and powdered milk is really expensive. It's much cheaper to get it from the Cannery. I pretty much have my 3 month supply in regular canned food and frozen stuff. So I'm focusing on long term storage for the #10 cans. I'm only canning stuff that lasts for 20-30 years. That way I don't have to worry about rotating it for quite some time. If you want to know more about food storage, check out the links on the right. There are many helpful websites out there, but I don't really like to link ones that sell stuff unless I've bought from them.
4 comments:
This is awesome Heather! I envy you (but in the good way ;)). You are on the ball! I sooo need to get on the ball myself. Anyway, looks good, and how cool that you were able to do that with other ladies! It's so fun to do that kind of stuff WITH company :).
I am so impressed! You are my inspiration! It is sooo organized. If you need to can again, call me and we can do it together.
Post a Comment