Saturday, January 9, 2010

Buckets and my make-shift pantry...

I love glass jars.....but I also love buckets! Wanna see 'em and what I keep in them?The above is the bottom of a big metal rack/shelves, that sits in my dining area and it also houses my dishes and glass bake-ware.
Here's what is in these buckets: oats, popcorn, plain flour, and powdered sugar.

These are actually in my living room. Eyesore, I know but, hey, I can't complain... we have food!
Here's what these buckets are normally filled with: 2 wheat, one pinto beans, 1 unbleached flour, 2 self-rising flour, 1 cane sugar, and one with nuts.

This is my make-shift pantry/laundry room and pardon the puppy box!
On the bottom are some more buckets and mason jars filled with goodies. One of the upper shelves is also half-filled with home canned goodies. (And let's not forget about the two flats of homemade pickles under one of the boy's beds downstairs! Have I told you that story? Remind me to!) In the buckets are; popcorn, more cane sugar, more oats, and some flour. These buckets are smaller and are for quick use.
On the upper shelf in the red bins are more beans, grains such as brown rice, millet, barley, steel cut oats, couscous, and various pastas. The dried beans on hand are; green split peas, lentils, black beans, red beans, garbanzo beans, white beans and there may be some dried cranberry and lima beans.
The other shelves have all sorts of things such as; dried fruits, olive oil, cornmeal, mustard, mayo, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, honey, corn tortillas, canned tomatoes, wheat pasta, egg noodles, HFCS free organic ketchup, and some other things that might be no-nos. ;-)
I also have a rack on the wall in the dining area for canned goods and a rack for spices.

I have been trying to practice some food storage tips that I've learned from Brandy, so I have began to try to set aside $5 or $10 every other month, and buy canned goods to store underneath one of the beds downstairs.

Some of my buckets came from the local donut shop.
Some of what's in them, I found on clearance at various places.
My favorite place for "bucket-fillers" is the local Cash-n-Carry.
I found a 50lb sack of self-rising flour for $15 the other day. It seems the corner had been
torn during shipping and was quickly taped up, and the price had been marked down because of that. I've also picked up powdered sugar and pinto beans there, that had also been damaged during shipping and taped up. Very good deals, and I've never had any trouble with the product.
-remind me to tell you the pickle story some time!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

WOW! Thanks so much for sharing! I love storage buckets and jars as well and hope to fill them up soon as alot of mine are empty. I am Lord willing going to be able to add to the pantry at tax time. We try to do this every year with items that are fairly expensive but things we use often such as, olive oil, and hopefully this year, coconut oil,natural sweetners, wheat berries,and natural soaps and dishwashing products..DR. Bonners or Dr. woods things.
Thanks so much for sharing your pantry! It is very organized and pretty!
Joy

Donna said...

Sounds like you have some great plans! Woo hoo!

I've been doing some research, and according to the company that makes them, the WHITE (not colored) buckets at Walmart in the paint area, are food grade. They have a 2 on the bottom in a triangle. They are empty and lids are sold separate beside them. ...Cheapest ones that I've found so far :-)

Unknown said...

Oh man thanks so much I have been begging them from our Walmart bakery and the lids don't always snap down real tight shut. So I will have to check those out for sure!

Unknown said...

Oh man thanks so much I have been begging them from our Walmart bakery and the lids don't always snap down real tight shut. So I will have to check those out for sure!