Ep 217. Why I'm Preparing My Pantry Differently This Fall

0:00Oh, pantry preparedness. This is something I've talked about so briefly before and it always makes me even nervous to talk about because you all know if you've listened before that I am not a doomsday prepper, but this time of year, every year, I really do think about a lot of pantry preparedness in a lot of different ways. And I think it's important that I share those with you. So that's what we're gonna be talking about today and in the next few episodes as well. You're listening to the Home Set Challenge podcast where no pressure home setting fits into your real life. I'm Brittany, kind of Crunchy Momma and City Home Setter helping you grow, make and prepare without the burnout because I have been there. But I've also discovered a way to integrate home setting into my modern, busy life in a way that feels balanced, fulfilling and joyful. Whether you're working with a backyard, a farm, or even just a balcony, pour yourself a cup of coffee or home grown herbal tea

1:01and settle in. It's time to dig in and grow. I truly think that there's not enough women in the preparedness space. And I actually went to a resilience fair this weekend. I was there with my farm stand and it was all about local community and all of the amazing resources that we have together, which is what I am all about because you all know I live on a quarter acre in the city. I am not gonna be able to do everything myself and honestly, I don't want to do everything myself. I don't want to live off-grid and I don't want to live secluded. Sometimes I like to be secluded, like give me a day in silence to myself, yes. But when the time comes, I would love to be able to utilize all of the amazing resources that my city has. So this was a great fair, but I also got to talk to a lot of other similar-minded people about this kind of thing. And we as women when we prepare,

2:03we prepare for our families and we prepare for our communities. I feel like no offense dudes. I know there's a couple of you listening, but if you've watched any of the dudes in the prep or space on YouTube, which I do sometimes and they have the coolest gear and I love a good gear review. So yeah, I do watch them, but they're usually prepping for Doomsday. They're prepping for, I don't know, hunkering down and of course they do want to protect their families. There's no shade here, but it tends to be from a place of a little bit more, I don't know, scariness or seriousness than I'm really interested in. Like I said, I like to watch them, but I think it's fun to kind of talk about the things that maybe you're thinking about as far as preparedness comes. And no, I don't think that anything is going to hit the fan and I don't even try to think about those things or worry myself over them. But what I do know is that we're finishing up harvest season here in Northeast Ohio. I do still have some tomatoes coming in,

3:05but I have a lot of stuff that I need to deal with my freezer because I tend to freeze all my tomatoes and deal with them later. So for my own self, I need to deal with what I got and that's what I want to help you do. And honestly, the holidays aren't that far away, which is, I don't like to talk about that either. I'm not ready this year. I'm so booked up and that's where I've been. I've been completely overcommitted everyone. I have been overwhelmed and now I'm finally breathing a little bit and realizing that I just need to deal with all of the stuff that I have gathered, that I have been drying, that I have things in oils and, you know, steeping that need dealt with before they mold and the sourdough starter probably needs fed and the kombucha is looking creepy and there's all sorts of things that need dealt with. So that's what I'm gonna be talking about. You know, I'm gonna need that freezer space for the holidays and that's where I was going with that. But, you know, groceries really are getting expensive.

4:07We all know that we can't really fill up a cart the same way that we used to and that's not how I shop anymore, really. And that's what I want to talk about too. And yeah, I don't know what kind of shortages we will or will not have. I know that there's talks with Canada and things might not be available. Canadians, we love you. Most of us Americans love you so much. So thank you for listening. I know I have a lot of Canadian listeners. I don't know. I am so far away from being any, you know, dealing with any of the tariff negotiations or things that's not in my wheelhouse to even follow so much like I would have anything to do with that, right? But I'm not panic buying anything. And honestly, I don't think you need to be either and even in that year, six years ago that I don't like to say out loud because I feel like it like tags something when I say that. But the year that happened when there were some shortages, I know it was scary for a lot of people,

5:08but I feel like for most home steady type people, even though I was living in a rental at the time, I didn't have near the stores that I have now. But I really actually felt like we were okay and I did have a lot of community resources in place, especially with shopping local, with my milk and meat and whatnot. I didn't really experience shortages. So I don't wanna like say that to shade anybody who did and was scared and whatnot. But I want you to know that you don't have to be. Like I really wasn't at that time, even though we were living in a very small space with not a lot on hand. And I don't think you need to be scared now. So I guess that's meant to be encouragement. I don't wanna throw shade in anybody who did feel very scared during that time, but I just want you to know that there is an alternative and if we can deal with all of our own stuff, preserve what we have now, put a little bit extra up and learn about all of our community resources, I really think that we don't need to be scared

6:10when there are shortages and we probably might not even be phased by it. Wouldn't that be amazing, right? So that's what I mean. When I say pantry preparedness, it means being able to make dinner without necessarily having to go to the grocery store for anything. Having food on hand when we're sick and can't get there, dealing just fine if we're snowed in for a couple of days here or I know that there's been hurricanes and a lot of people are dealing without power for a long period of time. And I might not be perfectly prepared for that. I don't know if anybody can be perfectly prepared for that, mostly mentally and emotionally. So that's all on other side of it, but just being able to skip buying something because it's a ridiculous price at the store and you're like, no, thank you, we will do something else. Having ingredients on hand, if you have unexpected guests, getting through the holidays without having to make so many last minute grocery store runs and just having what you've grown or preserved

7:12fresh from your community available in February and not regretting not preserving more, right? I do that too. And I started off the year so strong, harvesting all my herbs and I totally kind of skipped out. And I know that come January, February, I'm going to want to make a bunch of stuff with them and I'm not going to have as much as I wish I did. Happens every year. So whether that means harvesting what you have on your own property or going to a farmer's market or a local farm and grabbing that extra bushel of tomatoes or there's still cucumbers out here, what else do we have out here? I don't know, last squash, I don't really preserve squash, but whatever you like to preserve, maybe grabbing one more and dealing with it now, later you will thank you. So really just think to yourself, if I can't go to the grocery store this week, what would we actually eat? And not really from the case of, I don't put away things in my personal basement pantry

8:16as far as people count. Food for a year, and you need this many calories per person and this many pounds of rice and flour. I don't do that. That's like a lot of specifics for me that I don't really feel like doing. It doesn't mean that I won't ever do it. And if I do, of course you'll be the first to know. You know I'm so honest on here. So I changed my mind on things a lot. I am just living and growing like everybody, right? But I'm not stockpiling anything, I only ever buy what we use. I do have like one tiny five gallon bucket full of my larbag sealed rice and pasta and beans. That's literally it. That's like my proper food that's gonna be there for like 20 years and then I can replenish it. But I probably wouldn't get me that far, but you know, feels good having something rather than nothing. So if you see some pasta on sale or something, go ahead and do that. But for the most part, the rest of my pantry is completely all rotated through.

9:19100%. Stockpiling though, I feel like it can be a waste of money when you're buying weird things that you don't normally eat. Things that might go bad quickly. Just yeah, I doesn't feel prepared to me that way. That just feels like fear and not like actually, you know, I hate going through my pantry and finding like weird things that I bought. And I'm like, how am I gonna cook with this? This was a weird thing. Why did I buy this? Like why did I buy this canned coconut? I don't know, coconut something. I have like all sorts of weird things from random recipes, right? And then later you was like, why? Why did I do that? So, bulk buying like that with weird things that you don't usually use are, it's not cheaper, right? It's more expensive if you're not gonna use it. So if bulk buying doesn't work for you or your brain or your size family, then don't do it. But just buy what you need and use on a regular basis.

10:20I think that that's the most important thing. Not letting things go bad. And knowing how to preserve them before they do go bad if you need to, which is what I like to do with a lot of my stuff coming in. Usually my go-to is freezing pretty much everything. If I buy like a bag of peppers and I can't use them all, I chop them and freeze them. Same goes for a really anti-vegetable. I used to just let produce go bad back in the day. And now I remember like, oh yeah, if I'm not gonna cook it, I could freeze it. And I know that already has the freezer space. I used to not for sure. So learning canning I do think is important. But if you're not up for that skill or you don't wanna do it or you're not there yet, freezing is honestly such a blessing that we have in this modern life to deal with all of our stuff. And then have it later. I love having chopped peppers and onions and garlic right in the freezer, just being on the grab it and throwing it in with some meat on the stove on really busy nights and it's done. And that's that, like love that. So later you will usually thank you for that kind of thing.

11:22So that being said, don't start your preparedness with a shopping trip, start with an inventory. That's usually very simple to do. Like I said, I don't always or ever list out everything that I have. I don't have a physical or digital list of this in any way. I just like to kind of take mental note. So looking at your pantry, your fridge, your freezer and even your garden still. What do I already have? What needs used first? Like what do I need to cook like this week, right? What do I have a major overstock on? And what can I cook from that? What are we constantly running out of that maybe I should think about actually buying in bulk? For me, it's ketchup. I need to go buy more. Like I like the Costco ones. They at least have the simply, I try to get like the simply organic. I don't make my own ketchup. Nobody likes it. I've tried. Yeah, it's too healthy, I guess.

12:22I don't know. We're just doing our thing over here, right? Not everybody. Can be perfect about all things. I'm sure that I could make an unhealthy enough version, but for now, we're still buying the best that we can. So let's see. What ingredients do I need to kind of fill out? Like I have some of this, some of this, some of this, but I really need one more ingredient to kind of make this a full meal. What's taking up freezer space that I need to deal with? Like my two freezers full tomatoes right now. And what could I make shelf stable from what's in my freezer or fridge by canning or dehydrating or whatever you're going to be doing with that? So summer is a really busy time for many people who have a garden and have kids home and all of the things. So my job this summer was really just to get my tomatoes out of the garden before they went bad, getting them to a ripen before her. I bring them into ripen because we have a lot of bugs

13:24and we've had so much rain this year that if I didn't pull them early, they would split. I had so many split tomatoes this year anyway. And now it's gonna be fall-bred in each job to figure out what to do with them. Today I'm gonna be making salsa from the fresh ones that I have on the counter and everything else is gonna be made into enchilada sauce, probably, pieces of sauce or pasta sauce. I don't know if I have enough for both or if I care to make both, I will see. I don't have a huge garden like I said, but I probably do have, I don't know. I should weigh it 40 pounds of tomatoes on me, something like that. It's probably pretty close to that. It might be a little more. I don't know. I'm very bad at estimating. I know that on my counter right now, I got about 12 pounds and then I have a freezer full. So that's where we're at with that. So I probably have about 40 pounds total. So for you, that means looking at what it is abundant now. So after you've made your inventory,

14:26also figure out what you're gonna be dealing with that is abundant either in your own backyard or at the market. It's, I think, going to be so important this winter to feel like we actually did something this summer. And like I said, if you need to, you can even go buy a bush of love tomato somewhere and then freeze them until you can deal with them. But you're gonna wanna get them now before you're gonna have to pay $7 for an heirloom tomato in the winter and it's gonna taste like garbage because it came from thousands of miles away and was picked when it was bright green and it probably had something sprayed on it to turn it red or whatever they do. I don't even know what they do. I probably made that up. But you know what I'm saying? So of course we're gonna be picking our apples right now. Calling to farmers markets still. Here in Northeast Ohio, it's still very abundant. I know if you're more south, it might not be so abundant, it might be in a law or you might be growing again. If you're in the south, even here, there's still so much you can plant in the fall.

15:27So don't, I know that you're tired and that's what happens to me is I get so tired and don't wanna grow more. But literally if the last, like, if the only thing you can muster up to do is pull some dead things out and throw down some lettuce seeds or some carrot seeds, you'll be so happy later. When in October and November now, you're gonna be having some more fresh things from the garden and you really didn't have to do a lot of work. That's what right now I'm so tired. I'm just throwing in like beans. I'm almost to the end of when I could probably plant those and lettuce and anytime I pull something out, I just like literally lazily throw some seeds down and whenever I get, I get. But later me will be thanking me so much and you can seriously grow a lot of these things. You can do cabbage, a lot, just any kind of winter vegetable radishes, beets, all of that can be planted now. And if you're in the South, you can probably still plant cucumbers. I know some people I think could really do tomatoes.

16:28Like there's so much you can do if you live in the South and you just don't think about it because the hardware stores don't sell this stuff. Like if you're going to Home Depot or Lowe's and relying on what they say is in season, you'll be so confused and just it won't be right. It won't be right. So let later you thank you by just planting a few more seeds this year, even if it's just a tiny bit and definitely buying a couple more things to have on hand. I've already bought apples twice to make apple butter for my farm stand, but I know in my heart of hearts I should really go apple picking one more time with the kids and make some applesauce. And I know I have so many tomatoes but I barely got any cucumbers this year. I have so many bugs on my cucumbers. They just didn't come in the way I would like. And I think later me is gonna be really sad if I don't make more pickles. So I think I need to go buy a bunch of cucumbers and make some more pickles. So it's things like that. Think about, I know you're tired.

17:31You don't have to get overwhelmed with it, but sometimes just going to buy the thing and then dealing with it later helps me. So that's probably what I'll be doing. Looking at where my gaps were and my garden this year, I'm really excited. I have a ton of honey nut squash that's gonna about to all turn orange and I'm gonna probably freeze all of it into like soup size soup cube. Like enough, oh my gosh, enough cubes to make soup in batches just because I think that I like making the soups like that. I don't know, squash you're not really supposed to can. There's like weird rules about squash and caning and it's really thick. So I don't usually can a soup of squash. I'm sure that there's recipes where you can, but anyway. Look at what you didn't grow well in your garden this year and maybe think about going somewhere to get some of what you missed out on and start dealing with what you have and plant more if you really can. So for myself, I really don't think about what food

18:34is about to become really expensive. Like I said, I don't follow all of it. I can't follow all of it for my mental health. It's just, I'm not doing it, right? But what is really inexpensive right now is anybody like are there sales on things? I know that here in Northeast Ohio, there's a lot of corn, a lot of corn right now and I know that it's on sale already. So I should probably think about harvesting, not harvesting, buying some of that as I do not grow corn on my property and enjoying it now because the corn and the winter just ain't the same. So that's what I think about is what would I really like to have in the winter? That's just not gonna be so good. Even if it's gonna be cheap or expensive, what's gonna taste like garbage in the winter if I don't preserve fresh now, right? And then I think about when I do have time to deal with whatever I am trying to preserve, I usually try to preserve things. Not just as ingredients, but as more of convenience meals

19:34and this is totally up to you. Some people love preserving tomatoes as they are diced or something, even whole. And if you love doing that, great. It's also a way to, if you really need to preserve them now and you don't have the freezer space to do it quickly and not have to deal with making something else, right? I like to spend the time when I preserve something to make it so I have something on hand easy for meals. So the tomatoes instead of preserving them as diced tomatoes, which if I just buy organic diced tomatoes from Costco, like it's not that expensive, but if you're to buy organic piece of sauce, pinoche sauce and a lot of sauce, solaceous, those are expensive, those value added items are really, really expensive and they're just never as good. So I like to can them as more convenience items like my own sauces and things or soups or whatnot.

20:36Just to have on hand that way instead of whole, but like I said, if you do wanna do ingredients, you can as well, you can freeze the peppers and the onions, but freeze them chopped. So that way it's so easy to make a quick, easy dinner at night. I am running out of breath here, but I'm hoping that all of this is just encouraging you to think about things in a way where it's just like, what would later you think you for? What do you want this winter that you have now, even though you're a little tired of seeing the garden or preserving anything right now, what will later you thank you for? Instead of really thinking, you know, how many meals do I have on hand for this and that and this and that, of course you can do that. There's plenty of resources online if you're interested in doing that. I'm just not your best resource for that. But I do think it's important to think, to figure out, hey, what do I have on hand now that I could make meals from?

21:36I don't wanna have to go to the grocery store every week, going every week is very expensive because if you're anything like me, you add extra things to your cart every time and your kids add even more. And you know, if you can't get to the grocery store, are you gonna have enough on hand to feed your family for a little while, whether that be a week, a month, a year if you wanna go there, you know, whatever far your comfort level is for you. So you can even take 10 to 15 minutes and really inventory your freezer and pantry, like we talked about earlier. And if it makes you feel good to write things down, sometimes I feel good writing things down. Like I said, I'm not making a whole list of everything, but I think this could be valuable. Right down five meals you can make entirely from what you have and maybe those five meals or something that you just wanna have all the ingredients for at any given time at your house, no matter what. Like you always wanna be able to make those five things. List out five foods your house uses constantly. Like what are you buying every single week at the grocery store?

22:37Maybe you wanna think about buying those in bulk or if you see them on sale, then that would be a time to buy them in bulk. Three things you repeatedly run out of. Like what is everybody begging for? What are you running out of? And then three things you have too much of. So remember not to buy more of those things cause nobody is using them. And then write down one thing that you could preserve or make shelf stable this week, whether that's something coming in from the garden fresh or something in your freezer that you need to deal with or even some of those herbs that you have had drying before they get crusty and dusty that you need to deal with. So I hope that that helps you a little bit. I'm gonna be going more specifically into how I am doing these things in the next two episodes. So next episode I'm gonna kinda go shopping but not necessarily in the way that you might be thinking. We're gonna talk about what's worth stocking up on. What isn't when buying in bulk saves money versus when it doesn't for me at least.

23:39And how I decide if something is gonna have space on my shelf at all or whether it's not something that I need to worry about having. And then the episode after that, we will be talking about my end of harvest pantry reset. So I hope that you're looking forward to those. It's just a little pantry preparedness three episode series that I have going on. And I just wanna say I'm so excited to be back and talking with you. My capacity is slowly opening up a little bit. I'm definitely still over committed and you might be able to hear it in my voice a little. I don't know what overwhelmed. There's so many things calling at me right now and that's just life, right? We go through these ebbs and flows. And sometimes when I'm feeling this way, I'm at my capacity. I can't deal with things but then when I get a little bit of space, I feel so good and so blessed that I have taken care of my family by just having

24:39things a little bit more prepared and getting ahead of the grocery list and getting ahead of meal planning and whatnot. And just a little bit of extra preparedness, a little more things on the shelf to give me that piece of mind. So I wanna know, are you worried about upcoming shortages or prices, or things? Are you already feeling it where you live? Come on over to our Facebook group and chat about it. I wanna know where you're at or are you tired of hearing people talk about it and you want me to shut up about it. You can tell me that too. I won't hurt my feelings too bad, maybe. All right friends, until next time. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Thanks so much for joining me for another episode of The Homestead Challenge. I hope you're feeling inspired to take the next step on your homesteading journey. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please leave me a written review. It helps others find the podcast and I love to read what you have to say. It means so much to me.

25:41Let's connect on Instagram at Brittany L. Gibson. Share your favorite takeaways, ask questions, or suggest topics for future episodes. Wanna dive deeper? Join the Homestead Challenge Community over on Facebook to connect with other city and suburban homesteaders just like you. Remember, every small step is progress, keep growing and I'll see you next time. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪