Category: food storage

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The pantry is Go!

I remember writing about my desire for a pantry three years ago when we were designing the house. Ive always yearned for somewhere dedicated to store food.

When we identified a small area in the house plans that had no natural light and could be used as a pantry, I was there. Who needs another metre or so on their bathroom? This was far more important!

It’s always seemed sensible to me, and even more so since living through a highland winter or two, to have longer term stocks of dried or canned supplies in case of emergency or not being able to get to the shops because of the weather.

Besides, buying in bulk is nearly always more cost effective than in small quantities.

I’ve always been this way. Squirrelling away lentils, flour and dried beans in any spare corner of the kitchen that I could find. Any shelves in proximity to the kitchen not taken up by books have been filled with jars, cans and packets.

This desire has been heightened even further since growing our own vegetables on the croft. It’s true that there’s nothing as satisfying as eating your own organic produce. For the last two years I’ve held back the quantities that we’ve grown because we’ve had no way of storing any surplus.

I’ve been interested to learn about methods of food preservation and follow a number of self sufficiency bloggers in envy as they fill row after row of shelves in their cellars with their own canned produce.

Today was the day. I felt like cutting a red ribbon to launch her! The shelves went in and with lights and power the room is fully functional at last. The pantry is operational!

No small room with bare shelves has ever created so much excitement in a house as this one. I can’t wait to start organising and filling it.

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Small, disorganised and evil

We have reached peak storage capacity here in the caravan after two years of occupation. We are officially full.

The tiny kitchen has very limited cupboardage and what there is is highly inaccessible. Things get stuffed into every available crevice, causing carnage whilst cooking and frustration in searching for ingredients that I’m sure that I have, but can’t find.

The tiny kitchen in the caravan

As the day started with torrential rain and it was definitely one for indoor entertainment I took a deep breath and decided to make a start on sorting out the cupboards.

It won’t be long until we move things into the kitchen and pantry in the house and I figured that a bit of work now wouldn’t be time wasted.

It’s the small cupboard that holds what I call “miscellaneous cooking stuff”. Basically an overspill of everything else. Tubs of spices, bags of sea salt, containers of currants, pine nuts and ground almonds. That sort of miscellaneous. It’s small, disorganised and evil. Impossible to extract anything without a landslide.

Over the last two years things have got buried, packets opened and not properly resealed, and I had no idea what lurked beneath the first two rows of stuff.

In I went.

There were mysteries in there, dear reader.

Three tubs of custard powder, all opened and about a third empty. The remnants of winter trifles, I could only imagine.

Several bags of sea salt. I vaguely remember buying lots for pickling and clearly not using as much as I thought I’d need.

More pink peppercorns than I could feasibly use in a lifetime.

A tub of smoked paprika that I’d lost a year ago.

A bag of currants so old that it had shrivelled into something that looked like mice droppings. Hmm.

Tidiness!

I’m feeling triumphant, even if it is only one small cupboard. A good use of an hour of my time.

I need a labelling machine.

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Top barn

The barn build started this week. This is something we wish we’d had the time to do earlier in the process of setting up the croft, but at least it’s going up now!

It was chosen for its strength rather than its looks, as you’ll see from the photos here. Now that the panels are going on it looks like a huge sea container.

Perched atop the windiest part of this exposed hillside it needed to be strong enough to withstand our 90 mph gales without flinching. Two years living on the croft has taught us not to underestimate the winter storms when they come, as they do every year.

This barn is industrially rated for high winds and is constructed of insulated steel panels. As soon as the guys started to put it up it became clear that it was a substantial construction, which is a good thing, and exactly as planned, as the winds here would flatten a lesser building in the first storm.

Big bolts

It’ll serve multiple purposes. Part of it will be a workshop for husbands build and carpentry equipment, part storage of croft produce like potatoes and root vegetables, as well as storage of boxes and spare stuff from the house, and part equipment/car cover with a roll top door at one end.

I can’t help feeling that despite its enormous size that we’re going to fill it…

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Peachy galette

I’m not the most organised of cooks. I often get a sweet craving come over me and I’ll be tempted to make a dessert, but will have to improvise with what I have in the cupboard or fridge.

Our restricted storage capacity in the caravan fridge is probably what’s keeping me alive and avoiding a massively early death through my over-consumption of sweet things.

Because if I had all possible ingredients to hand I’d probably make a dessert every evening. Which is not good. Note to self: the pantry you’re building may not be such a good idea for the remains of your waistline… Fill it with beans and pickles, woman, if you value your life…

As the clock ticked around to about 4pm today I started thinking about supper, and I really fancied something sweet.

I found a punnet of rather hard peaches and a roll of ready made puff pastry lurking in a dark recess of the fridge. They were behind the bags of kale and chard, which glowed with health and reproachment. I also just happened to have a tub of mascarpone left over from some previous excess. I could make a peach galette!

Peach galette. No judging please..

In the UK, and especially here in Scotland, we don’t have the tradition of peach pies that I often see in the United States. Peaches are a rather exotic, imported fruit here (which I am determined to grow in my polytunnel one day. We must be independent in good fruit. But I digress).

A galette is a rather pretentious name for a slab of pastry, crimped up around the edges of creamy mascarpone egg custard and a pile of sugared, sliced peaches. It sounds so much more exotic than it actually is. It’s raggedy and rustic and delicious.

I couldn’t be bothered with forming a proper pie today anyway. Rough edges and random piles of fruit seemed like a perfect idea. I can do piling and sugaring, I thought.

Nay problem.

The remains..

And so I did. And so we followed a healthy stir fry with a crusty, cinnamon scented, custardy, sweet peach galette.

It gladdened the heart. Which compensates for the expansion of the waistline, I’m almost sure…

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Caravan food

The caravan has a tiny kitchen, with three working gas burners and a very small electric oven. It’s lack of storage space has meant that we have no room for electrical appliances like mixers or blenders, making everything a manual process when it comes to food preparation . So, meals have to be simple.

But that doesn’t mean that they can’t be good. We’re working hard on the house and croft, and we need sustenance. An army marches on its stomach!

I’ve looked back at some of the meals that we’ve produced in the caravan with our one baking tin and I’m pleased to see that we’ve actually managed OK.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that we seem to be heavy on the sweet treats! No apologies for that. It’s true to say that this build is being fuelled by cake…

Bakewell tart
Sourdough from the Mallaig bakery with homemade houmous
Strawberry slab cake
Lunch butties with crispy chicken
Turkish bean salad
Chocolate cake
Teatime flapjacks
Cheese and chive scones
Local rope grown mussels
Lentil, garlic & veg soup
Pear pancakes with Greek Yoghurt & Honey
Soy marinated sesame salmon
Cranachan
Lentil dhal
Baklava
Thai salmon ready for baking
Local langoustines
Breakfast of champions
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Snow on the croft

We awoke this morning to a white blanket of snow over everything again. The temperatures had fallen overnight and it had snowed for several hours.

Getting up and started is the hardest thing when it’s cold like this.

Breakfast was taken by the fire with both of us wrapped up in a blanket, bobble hats and fingerless gloves until the fire gradually warmed the room.

We watched as the light changed constantly around us, the skies moving from thunderous grey to bright blue and back again as the storm fronts raced across the sky.

The snow is properly deep now, and the access track to the croft is icy and compacted and probably impassable for the moment, unless it was an emergency.

This would of course happen as I was about to replenish food stores with my regular shop, but we have plenty of stores, and bread flour and yeast to make rolls. The small oven here would struggle with a big loaf but it manages rolls and smaller breads just fine.

I’ve been baking every day, and making soup, curries and stews to make sure that we stay warm.

I know that this would send some people absolutely stir crazy, but I quite like it. It’s quiet and cosy. We have the work on the house, our books, cooking and seed planning and planting to keep us busy.

Contentment.

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Powered by Flapjacks

I have many half packets of nuts and dried fruits that travelled with us from London, and which I don’t really have space for in this little caravan kitchen.

Oatmeal, dried apricots, pecans.. So I made flapjacks.

I’m not going to pretend that these are healthy with the amount of butter and golden syrup that they contain, which is more than the oatmeal could ever compensate for!

But as a pick-me-up, elevenses, or snack when energy levels are getting a bit low, they hit the spot.

Powered by flapjacks.

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Once around the slow cooker

Two chicken breasts, a pepper, and a non-working oven? No problem as long as you have store cupboard staples and a slow cooker.

Spicy chicken with tomato and peppers cooked in the slow cooker for four hours with basmati rice to the rescue for dinner.

Husband brought in the box with my kitchen spices today for unpacking.

As I unpacked I added in a generous scoop of dried chilli flakes, a tin of chopped tomatoes, smoked paprika, onion, far too much garlic to be sociable, smoked salt flakes and a little sugar.

Luckily he didn’t bring in the canned goods box or I might have been tempted to chuck in some tinned pineapple. Maybe that would have been a step too far.. 😏 A tin of borlotti or butter beans would however have been a worthy addition.

The slow cooker did the rest.

Served with a spoonful of Greek yoghurt as a balm to the heat, it was one of those ‘once around the cupboard’ dinners that went down well after a long day.

I can’t wait to source some local venison to make a venison stew soon. I’m sure that there is a bottle of port in the boxes somewhere found at the back of one of the London kitchen cupboards before we moved. I’m thinking beef bourgignon but with venison. And mashed potatoes.

We are eating out of bowls most of the time now, like four year olds. It’s just easier.

Just don’t ask me for chicken dippers.

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Curbing instincts

Knowing that we’ll soon be moving into the static, which has a tiny kitchen with very little storage space, means that I’m having to curb my tendency to stash food for emergencies such as the next zombie invasion or pandemic.

The current Covid-19 situation has only reinforced what I recognise is deep-set behaviour to store for bad times.

Every time I see a 10kg sack of basmati rice or puy lentils on sale I have to physically restrain myself from buying them. The instinct to stock up is strong, but there’s no logic in more dried goods sitting in storage with the furniture for six months whilst we complete the build.

There simply isn’t anywhere to put them.

I grit my teeth and tell myself that there will be the chance to fully stack that pantry once it’s built and ready to take supplies. And not a moment sooner.

I think I’m on the spectrum somewhere (aren’t we all in some way, I guess?) but it gives me great satisfaction to list what the pantry will eventually hold. I haven’t confessed to husband yet, but I’ve got LISTS of proposed purchases.

I’ve been looking at labelling systems, storage jars and boxes, and what shelving we’ll need…😂

It maybe the smallest room in the house, but I’m planning to make every inch of the storage work, and I can’t wait to add homemade jams, pickles and cordials to the stash next summer to see us through those long, dark, wet Scottish winters.