Food Storage and Winter

 She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. Proverbs 31:16


She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household [are] clothed with scarlet.  Proverbs 31:21

Afriend of mine asked about food storage, so I thought I would post some of what we do. 

There are so many different reasons why families practice food storage.  Some times it has to do with people having large families, biblical principles (a good example is Joseph in Genesis 47), locality, emergency preparedness and sometimes a well stocked pantry just puts a smile on a mom's face. 

When we purchased our 20 acres our home wasn't big enough to have a cold storage inside, so out we went.  Our first choice was to place in a root cellar. The hole is dug and ready to go (oh yeah, winter is on the way--project for next year).  So, we took one of the small outbuildings and fit it with shelving.   We use rubbermaid buckets and 5-gallon pails fitted with Gamma Seal Lids to store grains and legumes.  The shelving is able to hold all of our canned foods.  The only problem that we ran into last winter was during the coldest of winter (below zero--doesn't happen often).  We didn't think to insulate the floor and our potatoes were sitting on the floor, so we had some damaged potatoes.  We do keep a small heater in there that runs to keep temperatures just around 40 degrees.  We also store our winter squash and onions (burlap bags).  My husband is in the process of turning a larger room inside of the work shed/his office to move everything into for this winter since the root cellar will not get done before winter starts.

Once a year, usually in the fall, we stock up using our winter shopping list and replenish in late spring.

Canning is a big to-do around here.  Last year, we canned nearly 600 jars of food.  We harvest from our garden and there is an area about 40 minutes from here, Greenbluff, where there is over 30 farms that we usually get our fruit.  I also can dry beans which I use to think was a dumb idea, but I got a little wiser.  Because of where we live and winter, if we just happen to have a big snow, and the electricity goes out, canned bean are easy to open and warm up on the wood stove.  It is also cheaper than buying from the store.  Now that is a good idea.  We usually do pinto (great for refried beans and other stuff), garbanzo (hummus, soups, sandwich fillings etc.), and kidney (great for soups, different vegetarian patties etc.). 

We also dry lots of strawberries, cherries, apples and bananas--great for granola and just eating.

We have a staple home-made food list such as bread, granola, gluten, and other food stuff that we keep in the freezer for use.  That comes in handy during canning season when no one wants to particularly cook and during the winter.

Peek at our shopping list at Consecrated Families.

Food storage is so much fun.  My family claims that I "keep stash."  Yes, I do!!!