My Pantry

I'm really trying to hold myself accountable on my priorities this year. What seems to happen is I start the year with the best of intentions but well, you know where that road leads to right? I've given you one update so far. This post is to give you a peek inside my pantries, yes you read that correctly, and show you the progress I have made! I have always had a fully stocked pantry - what I am doing is converting to organic; as much as I can. Take a look:

North Wall - all glass jars are organic.

Top Shelf - organic noodles. Spices on the right in glass jars are organic.
The small glass jars are garlic powder, cumin and onion powder. Quart jar is chili powder - all organic. I use these to make my own organic taco seasoning.

This self contains my non-instant organic milk powder (left), oats, polenta, corn, green split peas, lentils, yellow split peas - all organic.

L to R: black beans, navy beans, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, instant potatoes (gluten-free soup thickener and my emergency instant baby food.)

L to R: Jell-O (not organic at all), multicolored popcorn, hulled barley, elbow noodles, rice.
Not organic - pizza dough mix I need to use up, salt, instant milk powder.

Top shelf of South Wall: organic chips! The small bags in middle are the gluten-free ones that I keep on hand for family get-togethers. Keep in mind that I order these once a month and my order just came Saturday so it looks like a lot. These will last me through the month, counting Super Bowl, after church snacks and all the Mexican meals we eat.

Here is a view of the whole pantry. Facing East.
You got a shelf by shelf inventory or the North (left) wall.
The wall that's strait ahead (East) is slowly being purged to organic. The far left shelves consit of old mixes, seasoning packs, cans of soup - processed foods.
The middle shelves are cake decorating supplies (top), organic flours and grains (middle two), organic pasta sauces and canned diced green chilies, jalapenos and the like.
The shelves on the right are more baking supplies - some organic some not. Crackers, and mostly organic spices and sugars. Peanutbutter (organic), mayo (organic) and ketchup (not).

The South wall is where our chips are, drink mixes, bottles for making drinks, and things like the popcorn popper, food processor, blender go. Also any paper or plastic (GASP) things go here, too. Ziplocks, tin foil, you get the idea.
That's my main food pantry in a nutshell.

This is getting long, so I'll show you my other pantry another day. It's a fun one filled with all my home-canned goodness!

It should go without saying that the more you cook from scratch the farther your food budget will go. I am living proof of this! There have been months where I got by on less than $500 with 8 of us in the house. I also didn't buy groceries for a month and blogged my experience here under The Island.

I "go grocery shopping" once a month from Azure Standard; which is where I get the bulk of my organic staples. It's also the majority of what I buy. I also order once a month from Melaleuca for our household safe cleaning produts, vitamins and other health products. I go to Costco when needed for produce or paper products but try to limit this to once a month; as well. This leaves the grocery store for other items like Creamer for my DH and meat. I get my bread, usually organic, at the dollar store for $1.25/loaf. I buy 10 loaves at a time and freeze it. I also have a Amish Friendship Start going on my counter that I take from to make cakes, bread and our infamous pancakes that DH makes and they are the best I've ever had! Seriously.