Want To Thrive During Tough Times? Stock These 10 Essential Foods!

- Want to thrive during tough times? Then be sure to stock these 10 essential foods. (gentle music) Hi sweet friends, I'm Mary and welcome to Mary's Nest, where I teach traditional cooking skills for making nutrient dense foods like bone broth, ferment sourdough, and more. So if you enjoy learning how to be a modern pioneer in the kitchen, consider subscribing to my channel. And don't forget to click on the little notification bell below. That'll let you know every time I upload a new video. If at any time you want to jump ahead in this video, be sure to check the description or the pin comment where I'll list all the chapter timestamps. Well, we never know when tough times are going to hit. It could be on a personal level or a more national level or even a global level like what we went through in 2020. Today, what I want to share with you are the 10 categories of foods that homemakers during the Great Depression stocked in their pantries. This allowed them to create meals no matter what their situation was. And developing these habits of stocking these 10 categories of foods, also allowed them to thrive during World War II. Foods may be expensive, they may be rationed, or they simply may not be available. And that's something that we learned starting in 2020. We found that sometimes foods simply weren't available, or we found that grocery stores, in essence were rationing foods allowing you to only maybe buy one or two particular items at a time. So even though maybe very specific foods were slightly different in the 1930s and the 1940s, for the most part, these categories of foods are very similar. So let's get started with category number one. Always be sure to stock alternative sweeteners. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, homemakers had very tight budgets and at time, sugar, white sugar might be expensive or they may be waiting on a relief line and had to accept whatever type of sweetener the particular government agency was passing out to them. So home cooks during that era had to figure out how to cook and bake with different types of sweeteners other than white sugar. Now this is actually a boon to those of us who run traditional foods kitchens because we want to phase out white sugar over time and phase in alternate sweeteners that are more nutritious. Now, does that mean we don't want to have any white sugar in our kitchen? No, just like home cooks of the 1930s, we want to make sure that we do have some white sugar for our home canning needs, and that's what actually the government encouraged home cooks to do to conserve their white sugar for what they might need when they were making jams, jellies, pickles, whatever the case may be, that required white sugar for the home canning process. And as traditional home cooks, white sugar can always serve the role of helping us when we're making a homemade fruit, scrap vinegar or a ginger bug to make homemade sodas and so on and so forth. So yes, definitely you can stock a little bit of white sugar in your pantry, but also start to think about alternative sweeteners because that number one helps your traditional foods kitchen. It helps you on your journey to creating a more traditional foods kitchen. And second, it's always good to know how to cook and bake with alternative sweeteners to improve our nutrition and to also have these foods available to us when white sugar is not available. Or if for any reason the cost of white sugar just goes through the roof. And I just want to take a second to quickly discuss what I mean when I talk about creating a pantry similar to those that we would refer to as a Depression era pantry. If you've been with me a while, you know that I often use the term the four Corners Pantry and what that refers to, if you're new here, first of all, welcome. But if you're new here, the Four Corners Pantry means the working pantry, that closet or cabinet, whatever the case may be in your kitchen that you access usually every day when you're making meals. The second corner will be your refrigerator, the third corner will be your freezer. And then the fourth corner is your extended pantry or what we nickname the prepper pantry. But the extended pantry is even really more than just a prepper pantry. But when we're talking about the Depression era pantry, we're talking about what foods we can stock in our working pantry and then backup foods in our extended or prepper pantry to help us make meals, whatever may come our way. But it's very important here for me to stress, this is not about hoarding, this is about stocking our working pantries and stocking our extended pantries little by little. And I have a whole series of videos on how to do this for as little as an extra $5 a week added to your grocery budget. But that's what you want to do. You want to start stocking little by little by little so that you build up a supply of food that you're comfortable with. It could be a couple of weeks, a couple of months, or at least one year's worth of food. This way, when a trouble strikes, you don't need to be the person rushing to the grocery store and trying to clear the shelves or arriving at the grocery store to find the shelves already cleared. You are not doing that. You are simply shopping each week or month depending on how you do your grocery shopping, and you're adding a few extra items to your cart. And over time, you will be amazed at how quickly you can build up a significant supply of food so that you never have to be someone who's rushing out at the last minute. You're never hoarding, you're never doing any of that. You're simply preparing a working pantry and an extended pantry or a prepper pantry little by little so that you can cope with whatever difficulty may come your way. Now, let's talk about these alternate sweeteners. Some of these are very common, very easy to find at your grocery store, and they were very common to our moms and our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers during the Depression as well as during World War II. And I have a lot of recipes that I've put all together in a playlist for you, and I'll be sure to link to those in the description, underneath this video as well as the pin comment where I show you how to cook and bake with these alternate sweeteners and specifically molasses. Since molasses was a very common sweetener used during the Great Depression and World War II. In World War II, it wasn't so much the concern that people didn't have money or that people couldn't afford white sugar. Most people were working and so they could afford white sugar, but the drawback was that most of the white sugar, along with most of the wheat, the flour which we'll talk about in a minute, was sent overseas to feed the troops and our allies. So white sugar was rationed, and again, home cooks were encouraged to save that for their home canning purposes or use in very limited quantities because the sugar that they could get through rationing was in a limited quantity. So when they went to Sweden things they often used molasses, which was both common and inexpensive. So it's kind of the best of both worlds. It was very good during the Depression and it was very good during World War II. And as a matter of fact, and if you've been with me a while, you know I've shared this with you in the past, my grandmother exclusively used molasses as her sweetener. So this is a wonderful sweetener to keep on hand and it's very nutritious, it's rich in iron. And so that can be a supplement to your diet if you're ever going through very difficult budgetary times and you don't have a lot of meats in your meals. My mother often when I was a little girl, would put a teaspoon of molasses in a small glass of milk and have me drink that every day to make sure that I was in fact getting enough iron when her grocery budget was very tight. So that's something to keep in mind. Other sweeteners that are usually very handy and very easy to get are honey, this is sort of a creamed honey. And then over here I have a more pourable liquid honey, this is excellent to keep on hand as well. Now, there's also things like sorghum syrup and rice syrup. These are definitely things that you can consider adding to your working pantry and your extended pantry. And some of the things we have today that are more common to us and would've been less common if even known during the 1930s and 1940s are things like coconut sugar and then sucanat. Some of you, depending where you live in the world may know this as rapadura. This is simply sugarcane juice that's been dried. It's very unprocessed, so it still has a lot of the nutrients in place and coconut sugar is very nutritious as well. Over here, another liquid sweetener that's great to have and this is fairly affordable and I've been seeing this showing up at grocery stores. It's becoming a little more common and that's a date syrup, and this is very tasty. And although very similar darkened color like molasses, I find the flavor a little more mild. And then also you can use coconut syrup, this like the dried or the crystallized form of coconut sugar both can come in very handy. These, I know a lot of people who follow the glycemic index, like the idea of using coconut syrup or coconut sugar because it is low on the glycemic index. So these are some options for you, especially, as you move along on the continuum, so to speak, from a processed foods kitchen where you're buying more prepared foods and all of that and you're moving towards creating more of a traditional foods kitchen. Starting with honey and molasses is very easy. Those are very available. I have a lot of recipes for you on how to cook with these as well as just the internet in general has a lot of recipes on how to make various baked goods using molasses or honey. But then as you move farther along on your traditional foods journey, experimenting with some of these things like date syrup, like coconut syrup, sucanat is very common. This is very easy. It's a one-to-one replacement with white sugar and as is coconut sugar. So definitely think about as you progress on your journey, stocking some more of these alternative sweeteners. Now, what's great about all of these? I really consider these what I would refer to as forever foods. Even though yes, they're going to have best buy dates on them because that's something that the various food industries feel it's important to put on their packaging, because their best buy date indicates that that's maybe when the particular food is the most nutritious, the most flavorful, so on and so forth. Here in the United States, the US Department of Agriculture has put out publications discussing what exactly the best buy date means. And they've also stated in their various documents that food is good well past the best buy date. That yes, it may degrade a little in nutrition, it may degrade a little bit in appearance, it may degrade a little bit in flavor, but it doesn't go bad. It's not necessarily going to make you sick. So that is something that's good to keep in mind when you're stocking foods, especially in your extended or prepper pantry, that some of these do actually have very long shelf lives. Now, there is a caveat with that you do have to store them correctly. You want to keep them in a cool dry place and certainly if the packaging is ever damaged because you want to keep them in their original packaging, if the packaging is damaged in any way, then yes, the food may be compromised. And yes, you would want to discard it because eating it may make you ill. So storing everything in a nice, cool, dark dry place and basically keeping it unopened can keep it fresh for a very long time. But what is nice about all of these is that when you do open them, they can still be stored in your working pantry. They're not going to take up room in your refrigerator or freezer. And that is the only reason why I don't have maple syrup here. Technically, I consider maple syrup a forever food if it's unopened. Once you open it because it does have a higher water content than a lot of these type of sweeteners, you will want to refrigerate it because it may develop mold if it's just stored opened in your working pantry. But you could certainly consider adding that as an alternative sweetener and keeping it unopened in your extended pantry. But once you open it, be sure to refrigerate it. And the nice thing about how we as traditional home cooks go about stocking our working pantry and our prepper pantry, when we are just adding things little by little to our grocery cart, we can shop the sales, the coupons and the Clearance Aisle, never underestimate your Clearance Aisle. As a matter of fact, I will show you that I found this molasses and they had a whole bunch at my local HEB. Those of you who live in central Texas know that I shop at HEB and I talk about HEB a lot, not sponsored, I just like their grocery store. But at my local grocery store and pretty much all the HEBs that I've ever visited have a Clearance Aisle or a clearance end cap. And I always check that first. That's the first place that I'll go in my grocery store just to see what they might have. It's hit or miss. Sometimes I get very lucky. Other times there's really nothing that I could use. But one time they did have this molasses and what a nice molasses this is. It's a just an unsulphured organic molasses. And I like the unsulphured molasses. This is made from the mature sugar cane. If you don't really see sulphured molasses, at least I don't see that at my local grocery store. What that means is they've used the immature sugar cane to make the molasses and so they have to add sulfur to it to preserve it, whereas mature sugar cane doesn't need to be sulphured. And the less additions we have whenever we're buying anything for our traditional foods kitchen, the better. And as I said, this one is unsulphured and it was organic and it was at the Clearance Aisle and it was only a $43. And so I was very happy to find this and they had like cases of it. And so I got a couple and I've got this one has been opened and and used when I was sharing with you recently how to make the war cake and how to make the peanut butter bread. I'll be sure to link to those videos and they have principle recipes. But I bought a couple that I've gotten my extended pantry 'cause this was a very goodbye and the reason I like the unsulphured molasses is it has a mild flavor. If you're going to be baking or cooking with molasses, I highly recommend using unsulphured molasses. Black strap molasses, yes, is more nutritious but it's also more concentrated because I believe black strap molasses is boiled down three times. If you know more about the process of making black strap molasses, be sure to share that in the comments below. But because of that concentration, the taste is rather strong and the taste can to many appear bitter. And so that can transfer into your baked goods. But I have found that baking with unsulphured molasses does not transfer a strong molasses flavor at all. I found both in the peanut butter bread, the peanut butter, the peanut butter flavor really came through beautifully. And in the war cake, I didn't taste the molasses at all. There's so many wonderful spices added to it. So definitely keep your eyes open for unsulphured molasses. I highly recommend using it. And the nice thing about using unsulphured molasses is that this is very easy to cook and bake with. You can a must have I in my humble opinion for baked beans and barbecue sauces. But if you are of the mindset or the camp so to speak, of people who don't like to cook or heat honey, then molasses should become your go-to sweetener as an alternative to using white sugar in your recipes. When I bake with honey, I generally look for something that is a pourable honey and this is raw and unfiltered. I just got a goodbye on this. It's the Kirkland brand, so I've got this. But generally if it's just a regular pourable honey, I don't worry if it's raw or unfiltered or any of that, especially if I'm going to be heating it because yes, heating does damage the various benefits that raw and unfiltered honey offer. But if I can find a local honey, we have a honey company that's right up here, right up the road outside of Austin in Round Rock and they have a nice honey and I know that it's not been cut with anything else. I know you have to be careful. Some honeys at the grocery store can be a little misleading because they may not necessarily just be pure honey, but if you're comfortable baking with honey and you find just a pourable honey doesn't need to be raw, doesn't need to be unfiltered, but just make sure that you're buying it from a source that it is actually honey. But I recommend when it comes to the raw and the unfiltered that we do reserve this for situations where we're not going to be heating it. Now don't worry, you don't need to write any of this down because I'm going to have a free download for you, no email required that you can print out over on my website, I'll list all the 10 categories of foods that you want to stock in your pantry and in your prepper pantry. And I'll also spread it out over the course of four weeks where you can check off what you've bought to add to your pantry little by little. Number two for your Depression era pantry, alternate flours and whole grains. Now during the Great Depression as well as going into World War II, sometimes white flour was not always available. It either might be expensive, it might be difficult to find or going into World War II as we discussed with the sugar. It may also have been rationed. So often home cooks during those eras needed to learn how to bake and cook with alternate flours and alternate whole grains. But just like was the case with white sugar and how home cooks needed to learn how to bake and cook with alternate sweeteners, learning how to bake and cook with alternate flours and alternate whole grains is also a boon to those of us who run a traditional foods kitchen because we want to move away from always relying on white flour or bread flour where all the brand in the germ, all the nutrition has been sifted out of. And also as we learned from 2020, it wasn't always easy to find all-purpose flour or to find bread flour or to find yeast for that matter. So fashioning our pantries and our extended or prepper pantry similar to those home cooks who were creating their Depression era pantries and their World War II pantries, can be very beneficial to us as well. Stocking alternate flours and alternate whole grains can see us through those times when we can't get all-purpose flour or we can't get bread flour, but it also helps us create more nutritious baked goods. Now yes, if you're doing a lot of sourdough and you're improving its nutrition, you're improving the nutrition of all-purpose flour and bread flour by making sourdough bread out of it, that's great. But what if we can't find the all-purpose flour and we can't find the bread flour, but we can find and stock alternate flours and alternate whole grains. Learning how to bake with these can get us through very difficult times. I have a whole series of videos where I talk about how to properly store food in general in your proper pantry and specifically a video that focuses on storing whole grains. And then I have another video, and I'll put this all in a playlist for you, where I show how to grind whole grains using different types of equipment. Now yes, I believe in having a manual grain grinder or a grain mill, and I think that's very important, especially during power outages. However, I did a lot of research before I bought an electric grade mill and those of you who have been with me for a while know that I love my mock mill. And if that's something you're ever interested in looking into, be sure to check the description underneath this video where I'll have a link that'll provide you with a discount coupon code if that's something you ever want to consider buying. It's a discount coupon code for the mock mill. So whenever we can save some money, that's a good thing. And know that I did buy my mock mill that was not given to me and I did a lot of research and I was so pleased with it that I contacted the company and they were very generous to offer a discount coupon code for my viewers. So definitely take advantage of that if you find you want to stock hole grains like I do, and you want to be able to grind those and mill them into fresh flour. And the other thing that's really nice about stocking whole grain, is that whole grain can be used in many different ways. Yes, you can grind it to make flour that you can then bake with. However, you can also cook whole grain. You can cook it in the same way you would cook rice and then you can have ribes that you cook. You can eat them cold in a salad, you can eat them warm with butter and sea salt. All of these things like the ribes over here I've got, I'm not sure if you can see this, I've got whole oats also known as oat groats, rye berries. Also the old fashioned way of referring to them are rye groats. But you can have whole wheat, you can whole wheat berries, you can have einkorn berries, you can have spelt berries, you can have red over here I've got a package of emmer. This is also an ancient grain, often not as popularly spoken about like spelt and einkorn, but emmer is also an ancient grain. You might also know it as farrow or media farrow, the medium farrow eikorn's, your smallest emmer's, your medium and spelt as your larger. And often all three are referred to as farrow with just an indication in the front of whether it's pikolo like the small, the medium or the grande, the grand farrow, and which is spelt. But emmer is commonly in Italy as a grain. And you can just boil this up and toss it with butter and salt. It's delicious and you can even cook it with bone broth to put even more nutrition into it. So having whole grains on hand is an excellent resource in the event that you don't have any flour or you can't get any flour because you now have the whole grain that you can grind into flour, but that you can also use in other ways to feed yourself, your family and your friends. And having whole oat groats on hand is really fantastic because you can just cook this up and serve it like you would rice in a savory way. You can toast this in the oven and then you can use like a little coffee mill type grinder. Just one of those little ones can turn it into your own homemade steel cut oats. And then you can cook that into oatmeal. I have a video where I show you how to do that. It's going to be some of the tastiest oatmeal you've ever had. Now, let's talk about the flours. Now flours, when their whole grain flours don't have the same shelf life as the whole grain, the actual whole oat groat or the rye groat or the wheat berry, whatever you're storing. And the reason is the whole grain contains oils. And when you grind a whole grain into flour and you're not sifting out the brand in the germ as is done mechanically in the factory, when then when you buy all-purpose flour or bread flour which can last a little longer on your shelf, whole grain still contain that brand in the germ and the oils that accompany them. And those oils can go rancid quicker than just your plain all-purpose or bread flour that's had that all sifted out. So I personally find, this is my humble opinion, keeping whole grain flours longer than six months I find can begin to take on the odor or the the rancid odor. And so you want to be careful with that. Some people will say that there's last one year. Now, should you be putting them in the refrigerator in the freezer? I don't really like doing that. I find it affects the moisture content, which then affects how they bake. So I will just store them in a cool dry place and try to use my flours up within six months. Now I do stock both, but you'll notice when it comes to flour, I've got some spelled flour here. I also stock a lot of spelt berries. So I'll just grind the spelt berries when I want to make spelt flour. However, if I find some spelt flour and it's a goodbye or it's on sale, I'll buy something like this and I will go ahead and put this in my working pantry, not in my extended pantry because I want to use this up quickly. But it's very convenient and it's very handy. So by all means, can you stock whole grain flours? Yes. But I highly recommend that you keep them in your working pantry. And if you require only baking in your home with gluten-free flours, you may want to consider stocking those gluten-free grains. And I have a video where I go over all of this for you, all the whole bandwagon, so to speak, of gluten-free grains. And I'll be sure to link to that if you're interested. But again, if you want to buy various gluten-free flours like this one is made from chickpeas and I will just store something like this right in my working pantry. Now, we're not a gluten-free household, but there are some fun recipes to make of various things that require chickpea flour. So I will keep this handy, but if you want to buy the chickpeas and that you have dried and you want to grind them into flour, that's also an option. Now during the Great Depression and during World War II, home cooks were baking with many alternate grains. Rye was very popular, corn was very popular. Barley buckwheat, a very broad selection of whole grains were available to these home cooks. And there were a lot of pamphlets coming out from the food companies or from the government that were teaching home cooks how to bake with these alternate grains. So we're very blessed today to have access to all of those as well as the whole plethora of whole grain recipes that have come out and been developed ever since then. And we can even go thanks to the internet all the ways back to ancient times and see the various recipes that people were making using whole grains and whole grain flours. So cornmeal was very popular as an alternate flour, as was rye. But I also like to stock, and this is probably something that you want to think about, is stocking masa harina. And this is a type of corn meal flour that is specifically made for making corn tortillas, which of course in Texas is very popular, but I think that's almost become very popular around the world today. But if you're running a traditional foods kitchen and you rely on consuming a lot of corn products, Masa harina is a very good flour to consider stocking as opposed to just plain corn meal. And the reason is, if you're a fan of reading the Western a Price Foundation site and their journal is that masa harina is treated with a solution of lime. Now, this is not lime as in the green fruit, this is lime as the mineral that comes from the rock. So, and the reason that is done is that in societies and traditional cultures that survived on primarily corn products, they needed to process their corn with lime to release the nutrients in it because nutrients can be bound up in corn. That can be difficult for our digestive systems to be able to access and absorb. Now is this a problem if you have a very varied diet and you're not just relying on corn as your main source of food? It's not a concern. However, if corn is the main source of nutrition in your diet, you want to make sure that you're using a corn product that has been processed with lime. So that's something that's important to keep in mind. Another grain I have here is barley. Now this is hulled barley, it's organic and it's whole. And again, I'm not brand loyal. I buy what I can find on sale or what's available. Barley is wonderful. You can cook this up as a grain, toss it with butter and salt or cook it in bone broth, make a very nutritious side dish, but it can also be ground into flour. Buckwheat as well. I don't have buck weed here, but if you like the taste of buckwheat, that's a terrific grain to keep on hand. Both to serve in the form of the traditional dish known as kasha, or to simply grind and use as a flour. I've also got over here millet. This is something that my mom, when she could get millet enjoyed using because this was something she was exposed to being of Northern Italian heritage and she would bake with some millet. She would also make this as a grain side dish. If you like things like quinoa or couscous, I think you'll enjoy millet. It's very small like that. And again, it's very versatile. There's a lot you can do with it. I've also got over here, I got this bag kamut. And this is also somewhat of an in the genre of ancient grains. It just not often discussed when you talk of the three major ancient grains like you know, as we mentioned earlier, einkorn, emmer and spelt. But again, as I said, I'm not going to be brand loyal and I'm not going to necessarily be specifically product loyal. If I can find a whole grain that's a good price, I'm going to go ahead and purchase that and keep that in my extended pantry so that I always have some sort of wheat product, an ancient wheat product that I can bake with. And as a traditional foods cook, I really like to rely more on the ancient grains 'cause they do tend to be more nutritious and more easily digested by our digestive systems. And so that's something that I look for. I generally don't stock a lot of wheat berries, red hulled wheat. I don't stock a lot of soft white wheat. That tends to be more of a pastry flour I find spelt, makes spelt and iron corn low and gluten. I find they work great in pastries and you can sift out if you grind it yourself, you can use sifter that are very reasonable and you can sift out some of the brand in the germ to create somewhat of an all-purpose form of flour of spelt or einkorn. And I find those work beautifully. I have videos where I show you how to do all of this and I find those work beautifully in pastries. Also, I find that having ancient grains in a traditional foods kitchen gives me the comfort level or the knowledge level of knowing that I'm serving to myself, my family, and my friends foods that are more nutritious than the more hybridized wheats. So that's why I tend to not rely on stocking a lot of hulled red wheat berries, which is usually what your typical whole wheat flour at the grocery store is made from. Today, there's also the hulled white wheat berries that what's referred to as the white hole wheat. It is a whole grain flour, but it's white and the the actual grain is a little lighter in color. Not that a red wheat berry really looks red, it's just more of a darker brown. And the hard white wheat berry is a little lighter in color. It makes a little lighter flour, makes a little lighter baked good, but one that is still whole grain. But even so those are modern wheats. So I tend not to stock those. But if that's something that you want, by all means stock the whole grain and consider looking into having some type of grain mill so that you can grind your flour fresh. And yes, are there differences when you bake with freshly milled flour as opposed to store bought flour? Yes. And I actually went into a lot of discussion about that in my war cake video, the video that I recently put out. And the answer is there's no real clear answer. And it a lot depends on what type of grain you're grinding, whether it's a very thirsty grain or whether it's a more high moisture grain. Do you need to add a little extra water? Do you need to pull back a little on the water? There's a lot going on when it comes to baking with freshly milled flour because a lot depends on what type of grain you're baking with. Most of the advice shared on the internet will usually refer to someone who's baking with freshly milled flour from hulled red wheat berries. Maybe there's some information on baking with hulled white wheat berries. And maybe there's a little bit of information on if you're baking with flour milled from soft white wheat berries. However, when you get into the ancient grains, ancient grains generally require a little less moisture than the modern grains. But also, and I really just say may and generally and possibly a lot when it comes to this because there are so many variables, but generally freshly milled grains will require a little extra moisture. However, how much moisture is required will often depend on what type of grain you're grinding. And your ancient grains tend to require less additional moisture than your more modern grains. But again, this is why we want to stock our pantries with a variety of things, learn how to bake with a variety of grains, learn how to bake with a variety of freshly milled flours so that we're never in a situation where all of a sudden there's an emergency or difficulty finding one grain or one flour versus another. We've already tested these things, we've already tried baking with these things. We have a knowledge, we have our kitchen journal, hopefully you've started your kitchen journal. I'll be sure to link to that video where I show you mine and I go over all the benefits of having a kitchen journal where you record all of your experiences, which helps you become better and better and better at cooking traditional foods, at creating a traditional foods kitchen. So know that through a little trial and error, you are going to learn how much liquid you're going to need to add to your freshly milled flour versus store bought flour. As I said, a lot depends on the grain, a lot depends on the conditions in your kitchen, on the conditions outside the weather, which affects the conditions in your kitchen, where you live in the world. All of these things are variables. And that's why through a little trial and error, you're going to try to bake bread and you're going to add the moisture that you think is appropriate or maybe in the recipe that you're following, then you're going to have your baked good and you're going to see your baked good and you're going to go, a little dry, maybe next time I need to add a little water. It's a little dense, it's a little like mushy or whatever the case may be inside, then you know you're going to pull back on the water and you're going to record all of this in your kitchen journal so that you're going to become better and better at becoming a traditional foods cook. And you're going to be more prepared for whatever comes your way because all of this, all of the knowledge that we develop and that we learn in our traditional foods kitchen when it comes to stocking our four corners pantry, when it comes to creating a Depression era pantry is going to always be valuable to us and help us always be prepared whatever is thrown our way. And I think if we learned anything from 2020, we don't know what's coming down the pike. We don't know if there's going to be illness, we don't know if there's going to be bad weather. We've certainly had plenty of it here in central Texas. We don't know if there's going to be job loss. We don't know if there's going to be inflation. We don't know if there's going to be shortages or supply chain problems. We've had so much going on over the last few years, it can have your head spinning. But if you always keep busy, if you always work, if you're always being a productive member of society, as my parents always love to say, you will be prepared for whatever comes your way. And that's why we're discussing what we need to have in our pantries to be prepared. Now, speaking of all these grains and speaking of being prepared, if you can get your hands on a nice little package of yeast like this, this is something that yes you can store in your extended pantry or you can even put this unopened into your refrigerator or into your freezer. Once opened, I highly recommend putting it in your freezer to extend its life as long as possible. Can you buy the little packets? Sure. But having something like this is backup is going to come in very handy, when if we go through another situation like 2020 and we have a shortage of yeast and you like to make yeasted breads, having something like this will serve you very well. Now, I like to do a lot of sourdough. And also speaking of this, if you're new to baking breads and you want a recipe for how to make a yeasted sandwich bread, if we're in a situation where there's no sandwich bread on the shelves, I have a recipe for you. It's very popular. You will love making that bread. If you've never made bread before, I can almost say with a certain level of certainty, it's a foolproof bread, you can't go wrong with it and I'll be sure to link to that. But having a large package like this, tuck it in your freezer or tuck it in your extended pantry, this is going to last you a long time. Now, as I mentioned, I like to do sourdough. What is a smart way to preserve your starter if you're not baking regularly? And even if you are baking regularly, when you've got a wonderful, beautiful, bubbly sourdough starter, take some of it, spread it out on some parchment paper and just pop it into your oven. Even just with the pilot light on, with the electric light on. You might even, depending on what time of year it is. And if it's very warm in your kitchen, spread it out as thin as you can on some parchment paper that you've put onto a baking sheet. Let it dry and then you're basically dehydrating it, then crack it up, put it in a jar and store it in your prepper pantry or your extended pantry. And the reason you want to do that is if your sourdough starter ever fails you, you've got backup and it can be easily rehydrated and bubbly again. And we've learned this from many a prospector up in Alaska who would use their sourdough discard to actually, what would you call like pack holes in their cabins to keep the draft out. And if for any reason their sourdough starter failed them, they would literally just chip out some of what they had used as the sort of mortar between their logs in their cabin and rehydrate it and get it going again. And we can learn from that and we can do the same thing. So be sure to always have something, some dried sourdough starter in your extended pantry. And if you're the type of person who's not baking every day, don't worry about your sourdough starter, put it in the refrigerator, it'll do just fine. And you can leave it in there if you put it in your refrigerator, I generally recommend feeding it once a week, but even if you forget about it, even after two months, there's a pretty good chance you can definitely get it going and getting it bubbly again. It may form some liquid on top that's known as hooch. You can just stir that right back in if you want. If you like a nice sour sourdough. If you don't like a nice sour sourdough, you like a more mild sourdough, just pour the hooch off. But then start feeding your your sourdough starter. I'm confident that within a few days it's going to be bubbly again. And I have videos for you, multiple videos on how to make what I call a full-proof sourdough starter. If you've got some rye flour. Rye flour contains something that yeast loves. And that's why if you've ever struggled with making a sourdough starter, some rye flour, especially if it's freshly milled, but even if you're just buying some at the grocery store, you will be able to make a sourdough starter. But I also have videos on how to just do this with all purpose flour. And I go over a ton of questions that you may have, especially if you're new to making sourdough starter and it I go through dealing with all the trials and tribulations, all the little troubles that may arise and how to fix it, but don't throw it out. I really feel in most cases, no matter what's gone wrong with your sourdough starter, it can be salvaged. And if you have salvaged many a sourdough starter, let me know in the comments below. And also be sure to read the comments. If all of this is new to you, the pantry and baking with alternative grains, baking or cooking with alternative sweeteners, stocking a pantry, creating a traditional foods kitchen, you will love reading what everyone shares in the comments. We have a wonderful community here and everyone is so generous and so free in sharing their knowledge. So be sure to check the comments, put your questions down there, we're all here to help you, especially if you're new to this. Now, I just want to mention one thing about keeping Semolina a flour on hand. This is a wonderful flour to keep on hand if you like to make homemade pasta. You should not be using all-purpose flour to make homemade pasta. If you've ever looked at the spaghetti boxes at your local grocery store, the first ingredient will usually say Durham Semolina. And that is exactly what this is. And what you want to make your homemade pasta with. It's much more nutritious than all-purpose flour. What Semolina is, is the middlings, as it's referred to when Durham flour is milled into a more all-purpose form of flour. And these middlings have a little bit of the brand, a little bit of the germ, a little bit of the endosperm. It's sort of a mixture, but Semolina is very nutritious. So be sure to keep some Semolina on hand for making your homemade pasta. Now, even though this isn't a grain, I wanted to cover this under category two because during the Depression and during World War II, home cooks were often encouraged to bake their baked goods using some potatoes. Now if you can store whole potatoes, that's fantastic. If you have a cool dry place, maybe a root cell or something like that where they can be stored well and they can be prevented from sprouting, so on and so forth, going rot and whatnot, definitely stock potatoes. If not, if you don't have a place like that to store your potatoes, being able to keep some potato flakes on hand is a wonderful option. Not only can you use this to make mashed potatoes, you can also mix a little bit in water to feed your sourdough starter, but you can also use this in place of some of the flour in your baked goods. My friend Michelle, shows you how to bake with potatoes. She's over at chocolate box cottage and I will be sure to put the link to her recipe and her video in the description underneath this video or in the pin comment might be easier for you to access. But learning how to substitute some flour with either some mashed potatoes or some potato flakes like this is really going to be a boon to your traditional foods kitchen. It's going to help you save money, it's going to add nutrition. Potatoes are very nutritious. It's going to add nutrition to your baked goods, and it's going to help you learn how to limit using white flour or bread flour in your various recipes. And it's also going to help you preserve some of your whole grain when you're baking with whole grain flour that you've milled from your whole grains that you're storing. So potatoes and potato flakes can be a boon to the traditional foods kitchen and also a boon to your grocery budget and preserving your money. Category number three, rice and dried beans. First, let's take a minute to talk about rice. When I stock rice for both my working pantry and my extended or prepper pantry, I really like to stock white rice for a couple of reasons. Number one, it's what my husband prefers, but number two, it stores much better and much longer than brown rice. Brown rice contains all of the oils in it because all of the branna and germer in place. And what happens is, even though it's kept in its whole form and not say for example, been ground into a flour, even in its whole form, rice, brown rice tends to go rancid much quicker than white rice. So if you like to only eat brown rice, I highly recommend stocking it just for your working pantry, unless you go through a lot and you'll be going through it within three to six months, then go ahead and add some to your extended pantry. However, you always want to be definitely working first in first out, so to speak, in your extended pantry, to make sure that you don't have a lot of brown rice building up in your extended pantry that's most likely going to go rancid. Now I know you may be saying, "Oh, Mary, but white rice is not very nutritious." And I totally understand that. However, it can be a wonderful vehicle for getting other nutritious foods into your body. And let me explain. You can make rice, as I talked earlier about when cooking whole grains, you can cook white rice in bone broth or some sort of other broth in place of using water. So you could use a bone broth or you could use just a simple broth, or you could use one of the super mineral broths that I've taught you how to make. I'll be sure to link to those in the description. And if I ever run out of room in the description because you are confined to a certain length of information that you can put in there, I'll always have everything in the pinned comment where I have a lot more room to work with. And then of course, you can always click on the link I put for the corresponding blog post to this video where I have all of the information and more. So you can cook this in some sort of liquid that's very nutritious. You can add a little butter, you can add a little gee, you can add some sea salt for minerals. So there's a lot that you can do to pump up the nutrition of white rice and it can just be a very filling food and something to keep on hand for especially when your grocery budget might be tight and you need to kind of extend or fill out a meal. Rice can come in very handy. And using some bone broth in place of water can also be very affordable because if you make chicken bone broth from the carcass of your chicken, which I've shown you how to do in the past, it literally costs pennies to make. You're going to be using vegetable scraps and a chicken carcass, and you have this wonderful nutritious bone broth that now can pump up all the nutrition of white rice. Now, I'm not brand loyal. We do like this Basmati rice, and if I see this on sale at my grocery store, I'll buy it a while back, they had this particular rice for sisters. I, again, none of these brands are sponsored of anything I'm going to show you. And I'm not brand loyal, I just buy what's ever on sale or on clearance, or sometimes my grocery store will be discontinuing something and they'll really slash the price. And the price was really slashed on this particular brand. So I bought a couple of bags of this when this was on sale, I bought it. And I want to take a minute to talk about organic, 'cause I know many of you will say, "Oh, Mary, you show a lot of organic products." I can't afford organic, or whatever the case may be. Don't worry about it. Buy what's in your budget. And I've shared this with you many times before. I don't believe in going and spending above your grocery budget. That causes stress and stress isn't good for anything. And I'm a firm believer that it, once you're under a lot of stress, it doesn't matter what you eat, stress as you often hear doctors say, stress is a killer. I believe that. And so I think it's more important to stay within your grocery budget. And the only reason you'll see, I will often have a lot of organic things, and that's because my grocery chain, HEB, where I shop, is on this mission to carry a lot of organic foods. And often that may often be the only choice that I have is for something that's organic. And they really are on a big mission to have a lot of organic foods and to make them very affordable and be able to compete with stores like Whole Foods and whatnot so that people will shop just at HEB and not feel they need to go to other stores like a Whole Foods. So that is why you will often see me having a lot of organic products. It's only because that's what my grocery store has set a mission for and carries a lot of. But I want to let you know, don't worry if you can't afford to buy organic or if your grocery store is not like an HEB that's really pushing organics and making them very affordable. Organic, there's a lot of misnomers often that surround the term organic. Organic doesn't mean that it's pesticide free. The other day I was shopping and I heard a mother talking to her daughter and she was saying, "Oh, we buy organic was cute." They were in the produce section. It reminded me back in the day when I would shop with my son and explain things to him about food. And she was saying that, "Oh, we like to buy organic because it doesn't have any pesticides on it." And I think most people believe that. And there's nothing wrong with believing that. It's kind of what many of us have been told. But I started researching it and I discovered that organic doesn't mean pesticide free, it just means treated with pesticides that are approved by whomever the governing body of overall of that is, at least here in the United States. And those pesticides that are allowed are supposed to be maybe less harmful to the environment, less harmful to us, whatever the case may be. But large producers of food would not be able to necessarily grow those large amounts of food if they couldn't use some sort of pesticide. Maybe it's a natural pesticide, maybe it's a pesticide that's been very tested over the years to not be particularly harmful to one's health, whatever the case may be. However, don't worry if you can't buy organic because it can be very detrimental to one's health specifically if you are not buying, for example, fresh fruits and vegetables because you say, "Well, I can't afford the organic and I certainly don't want to buy the non-organic." So then you wind up eating no fresh fruits and vegetables, and that's not good for you. If you're extremely concerned about pesticides, then look for things like what's referred to as the Clean 15. And this is a, you can find this on many websites on the internet. And the Clean 15 are generally a list of fruits and vegetables that have the least amount of pesticides on them. They're not organic, but they have the least amount of pesticides on them. So you can feel maybe a little better that they'll be a little healthier, whatever the case may be. But bottom line is don't stress about it. Wash your fresh fruits and vegetables. There are a lot of things on the internet that explain about maybe using vinegar, white vinegar to clean it. And that may help remove some of the pesticides, maybe baking soda, maybe a combination, whatever the case may be. What's most important as traditional foods home cooks, is that we buy real food and we prepare it it to maximize it, the nutritional absorption for our bodies and that we sit down and that we eat our food calmly and I to improve our digestion as much as possible. So don't worry about buying non-organic. I want to really reassure you about that. Buy what's in your budget. So that's what I do with white rice. Now, if you can find really good bargains on really big bags of white rice, if you belong to some of the warehouse stores like a Costco or a Sam's Club, you can sometimes get very good buys there. I have seen the price of white rice really ticked up. If you've seen some of my Costco videos I've shared with you that I am surprised often how expensive it is. But if I do see something that's a very good buy, I definitely would consider buying it. But again, I'll also buy these smaller packages if it's available. Sometimes the white rice is all sold out at the big box stores, and if I see these smaller packages and they're for a really good price at my grocery store, this is what I'll stock up on. I'll get an extra bag or I'll buy two or three bags and then I'll just fill my container and I keep this right on my kitchen island, and I'll often make rice once or twice a week. But again, I'm always replacing the water with some type of broth to increase its nutrition. And when it comes to beans, again, just a variety of beans that I like to keep on hand, I like to keep dried beans, they store beautifully. There's some wonderful studies that various scientists have done where they took beans, dried beans that were like, I forget what it was, they were really old, like 80 years old or something. And they cooked them up. Yes, they did take longer to cook, but they cooked them up and then they cooked up fresher beans and they served them to these test panels. And it was so cute because the people were eating them and they were basically saying, "Eh, they taste pretty much the same." They didn't know which ones were fresh and which ones are old. But for the most part, they found that the taste was relatively similar. Now nutritionally, do the older beans lose some nutrition? Yes, but again, as I shared with you, the US Department of Agriculture, when it comes to foods like this, says they don't go bad per se. They just lose some of their nutritional value. So again, you always want to be storing your dried foods properly to extend their shelf life. And then you want to cook them in the most nutritional way to maximize their nutrition. I have a video where I show you how to cook beans, I think it's like ow to cook beans the right way. I'll be sure to link to it. And it talks about how to probably soak them and sprout them if you want to take the extra step. And that's what it's all about. It's all about cooking our food the way traditional cultures cooked their food to make sure that they were maximizing the amount of nutrition they could absorb from the food that they were receiving. And that's especially important during tough times. During those times when the food we are bringing into our home may be somewhat limited for whatever reason, shortages, supply chain problems, limits on what the grocery store is allowing us to buy because of supply chain problems and so on and so forth. The simple reason that we may be living like we are now through inflationary times when groceries are very expensive. So whatever we do serve ourselves, our friends, our family, we want to make sure that we are maximizing the nutrition that we can extract from the foods that we are eating. And so over here I've got some navy beans. These are wonderful for making baked beans, wonderful in soups, the only real extra thing you need to remember is if you want to use them, you just need to remember to soak them. And then I said, if you want to go the extra step and let them sprout too, but even just a good overnight or a 24 hour soak can do wonders. And then once you cook them up, you can keep them in your refrigerator for a few days or you can freeze them in portions that would be appropriate for you to use going forward either for a meal or for a soup. So know that if you buy this, this is going to be very reasonably priced and then you can prepare them in advance so that you have in essence beans that are are ready for you as if you were just opening a can of beans. And what I've got here are pinto beans. We love pinto beans and I have a recipe for making these in the instant pot. If you've got an instant pot, it's so easy to make. I do like to soak them in advance, although you can cook beans in the instant pot without soaking them in in advance. But I do, just from the nutritional standpoint, I do like to soak them in advance and then I'll go ahead and cook them in the instant pot and they're delicious. I'll be sure to share that recipe. Now under the umbrella, so to speak of beans, I just want to mention lentils as well. These are great for stocking in your pantry. They have a long shelf life and they're just so versatile. I love lentil soup. You can cook them up and toss them in a salad, in a cold salad in the summertime, a little oil and vinegar, they're delicious and lentils are very nutritious. They're also a lot easier to cook in the event that you forget to soak your beans or you've run out of whatever be soaked and cooked beans you might have that you put in your freezer. But you want something that does give that sort of toothsome or hardy feel to a meal. Lentils are great. I don't think that it's as necessary nutritionally to soak them in advance. And you can just go ahead and cook them. These will cook very quickly. You don't need to soak them in advance the way you do dried beans. Some people from a nutritional standpoint will say, "Well, I like to soak them and make the nutrients from them more absorbable." That's definitely a good thing. I do think that it's worth experimenting with because I find too much soaking of lentils can make them less usable. Now if you're doing a soup, yes, you can soak them overnight to maximize their nutrition and then use them to make a lentil soup. If you're going to be using lentils to toss in a salad so that you still want them to have some good texture, some firmness to them, I think just cooking them up right away, you can always cook them in a little bone broth or broth or super mineral broth if you want to keep it more vegetarian. And then tossing them into, with a little oil and vinegar, making a little salad like that, like you might with any grain, quinoa, couscous, if you want to do a tabori, but instead of the cracked wheat, you want to use lentils, that can be wonderful. So I love lentils, so I always like to make sure that I do stock some of these. Now, these are all the things that are dried. They're very affordable, they're very easy to keep, whether in your working pantry or your extended pantry, they have long shelf life, so on and so forth. But from a convenience standpoint, if you want to keep some canned beans on hand, I am definitely a supporter of that. I'm not going to criticize you, I know I was basically talking about rice and dried beans, but I do feel that if you can find some good buys on beans that are in the can, these to me are convenience food. And as I said, the US Department of Agriculture will say that stored correctly and if the can is in good working condition, this has a very long shelf life way past the best buy date. The only thing that you may find is some degrading in nutrition and taste. So that's, you're going to have to kind of play it by ear. Also something that I want to mention to you, you will see that some cans are just a can. You're going to need a can opener to open this. And that's another thing when we talk in some of my videos where I go over more details about being prepared and stocking your prepper pantry, I always say make sure you put a can opener in there. But some cans do come like this with the pull tab. And through some research I've learned that the shelf life of in terms of, as I said, the US Department of Agriculture will say, these are fine, pass the best buy date. However, after doing some research, I discovered that the nutritional value, texture, taste, so on and so forth, may be preserved better in your traditional can that these pop top type cans may not preserve the food as well as the traditional cans. So if you've read that, share in the comments below, I'd like to know what maybe you've learned about that. I found that very interesting. And so I do always like to share that whenever I talk about canned goods, because we want to make sure, especially when it comes to our prepper pantry, our extended pantry, we want to make sure that we're stocking foods that really can last a long time and can last a long time in terms of their nutritional value and in terms of their taste and so on and so forth. So definitely I'm not opposed to, as you can see, I've got canned beans right here. I do consider them a convenience food. So along with your rice and your dried beans, your dried lentils, by all means consider putting some canned beans into your pantry as well. And canned goods, no matter what type of canned goods you stock, is something that we can really learn from. When we look back at the Depression, when we look back at World War II, how home cooks were stocking their pantries, the depression era pantry had a lot of canned goods. Canned goods were available because they were easy to sell to the home cook in terms of not only convenience but also availability because canned goods are bulky and heavy. And this is something I wanted to share with you about potatoes as well. So these were less likely, especially during the war, during World War II, world War I as well to be shipped overseas. So canned goods were more available to home cooks just like potatoes. And that's why I mentioned about potatoes being used for baked goods and the government here in the United States encouraging home cooks to learn how to not only cook with potatoes in very inventive and clever ways as well as delicious ways, but also how to use potatoes when baking bread in place of flour to conserve the flour. And the reason was there was an abundance of potatoes here in the United States because they were bulky and heavy and less likely to be shipped overseas. Things to be shipped overseas were foods that people needed right away and that could be made into bread. Bread was very and much in need along with other foods as well. But potatoes and canned goods would've taken up a lot of space for other foods that were what was desired for the needs for the troops and our allies. So canned goods and potatoes were something that would've been very common in a Depression era pantry or in a World War II pantry. And speaking of cans, number four is canned fruits and vegetables. And within this category I'd also include jarred fruits and vegetables. Having canned fruits and vegetables on hand is very important, especially for our extended or prepper pantries because when fresh fruits and vegetables may become too expensive or may be difficult to get or may simply be out of season, having things in cans can help fill out your meals. Now, if you're growing your own produce or you can get really good buys on cases of produce at the farmer's market and you're doing a lot of home canning, all the better. But if you're not doing that or you simply just want to have additional canned food to back up your home canned food, definitely finding different types of fruits and vegetables in the can when they're on sale is a great way to start stocking up for food that you may need during tough times. And speaking of home canning, if that's something that you're interested in learning about, I have a whole playlist where I walk you through very detailed videos on how to home can. And I think that you'll find it very helpful. They're truly like what you might call like a masterclass on home canning. And I have it all combined in a playlist for you. So I'll be sure to link to that in the description and the pin comment, if you want to start home canning, and this is as we go into the summer and we'll be growing a lot of things and then at harvest time we'll be home canning a lot of things. This can be a wonderful skill for you to learn. This is really not only gardening, but home canning are skills that are just invaluable and can always help you become a more prepared person. And speaking of gardening, if you like to garden or if you're thinking about getting into gardening, Survival Garden Seeds is a great place, a great company to buy seeds from. Their seeds are non-GMO, non-hybrid, they're heirloom seeds and they can last up to eight years and they have three wonderful collections of seeds. And what's even better is that they have provided a discount coupon code for my viewers. So I will be sure to put a link to that in the description and in the pin comment, definitely check out Survival Garden Seeds. They're collections are terrific and they're so affordable, they make wonderful gifts and they make wonderful seeds to grow now as well as to store in your extended or prepper pantry. But no matter what you do, if you garden great, if you shop at the farmer's market to buy and bulk, great. If you home can canned, great, definitely consider keeping some canned goods on hand as well. Store bought canned goods, I like to keep fruit. I usually have peaches and pears. These are wonderful topped on oatmeal. And again, I just want to show you, I am not brand loyal. I've got the Hill Country Fare brand here, which is HEB brand and then I've got more of the name brand. It really was a matter of what was on sale or what I had a coupon for. Any type of vegetables that you can find in addition to having some canned beans, maybe some canned corn, things like that. Having canned string beans is wonderful. Also, canned tomatoes in any form, these baby roams are adorable. I got these because they were on sale, they had a coupon. And the same with these crushed tomatoes. Tomatoes in any form are going to be wonderful 'cause tomatoes are a meal extender. You can fill things out with tomatoes and pull back on your more expensive items like meat. And I have a video where I share with you my top favorite, I think they're my seven favorite meal extenders, like tomatoes, like oats that we talked about earlier. And I will definitely link to that video and anytime I mention a video, I know I get a little repetitive saying I'll link to it. Know that anytime I mention a video in a video, I will always put a link to it. Whether I say that I'm putting a link or not, I'll always put a link in the description or in the pin comment so that you can check those out if it's a subject that interests you. Also, in addition to canned items, if you can find tomatoes in a jar, there are even fruits sold in jars now. This is very nice if you find that you prefer to store glass as opposed to things in cans. There are a lot of options today, and this again, you'll get a kick out of this. I found this on the Clearance Aisle at my local grocery store and this is actually a tomato sauce. Again, this is a convenience food. I make most of my tomato sauce homemade, but every once in a while, if you're tired, maybe if you're under the weather and your family's got to do the cooking and maybe they're generally not the as I refer to myself as the chief cook and bottle washer in the family, if they're not experienced home cooks, if that's really not their job in the family, my husband can cook a few things, but cooking is not his main responsibility. It's not his main role in the family. The same with my son when he's visiting, certainly there are things he can cook, but that's not his main job in the family. And so having things like this that they can boil up some pasta, this came in especially helpful when I had that pesky virus back in 2021 and I was under the weather for about a week. Having a jarred tomato sauce can come in very handy for my family because they can boil up a little pasta, warm up some pasta sauce and they're all set. Now yes, do I keep some homemade pasta sauces in my freezer? Yes, definitely. I think right now I've got two frozen packages of a wonderful bolt homemade bolognese sauce. However, if they just want to be fast, fast and maybe they've not thought to defrost that, pop this open. I got this on clearance for a $1.63. I know normally this is a very expensive pasta sauce, so you don't necessarily need to buy this one, but any pasta sauce that you see on sale at your grocery store, pick up a couple of jars, put it in your working pantry if you rely on something like this on a regular basis or put it into your extended pantry if you only use it, as a real convenience food or in an emergency. And again, but always be remembering the first and first out. Always be doing an inventory of your pantry and that's the whole four Corners Pantry so that you know what you have. And if you have food that you've put in your extended pantry that you're using on a regular basis to restock your working pantry, that's great. But if you also have some foods in your extended pantry that you've basically put in there, for emergencies or for backups when maybe you're not feeling well or maybe when you just haven't gotten around to making things homemade, make sure that you rotate those two into your working pantry. And I want to mention I have a great download for you, it's free, no email required, nothing like that. And you can just go over to my website, I'll put a link below and you can print out inventory sheets for the whole four corners pantry and inventory for your working pantry and inventory for your fridge, for your freezer, and for your extended or prepper pantry. And then I have a shopping list that corresponds with your inventory so that you can start using your shopping list to put down those things that maybe you need to replenish in one of the four corners of your four corners pantry and how to do that over time so you're not having to bust the budget, as I often say by replenishing a lot in one fell swoop. I give you time to replenish these things over a various number of weeks. And so I think that those downloads can be extremely helpful to you to keep on top of your inventory. I make it very easy for you to do the inventory and I make it very easy for you to keep track of what you need to replenish in your four corners pantry. So be sure to download that. I think that you will find that so helpful. And no email, you just click on it, boom, it's right there and you can download it. So be sure to keep some canned goods in both your working pantry and your prepper pantry. Number five, canned meats, chicken and fish. Now, what I have here is primarily some canned chicken and then various canned fish. I don't have any canned meat like a roast beef in the can because I've simply not been able to get it. This is a sign, as I mentioned earlier, of things that may be in short supply for various reasons, but if you like to keep meat on hand, make sure that you're always keeping an eye out for it. And if you do run across some canned meat like a canned roast beef, be sure to stock that both in your working pantry and in your pepper pantry. Now, we really enjoy canned fish, so I always like to keep a good supply of that on hand. I also like to keep some canned chicken on hand because this is great for adding to soups and also making chicken patties. And I have recipes for all of this. And again, I'll link to the videos. Now it is shocking how high canned chicken has gone up in price. So I have what I can afford, but I don't have a lot of it. If it ever comes back down in price, I'll definitely buy a little more to put in my extended pantry because this is very much a wonderful convenience food. But I don't know how it is in your area. I'd love to hear in the comments below. But in our area, canned chicken is more than doubled in price. So it's quite shocking. You used to be able to get six cans of canned chicken for around $9. Now six cans of canned chicken can run over $20. So that's a significant increase in price and also one that makes it less valuable to stock because I would rather buy a whole chicken and then use the various little bits and bobs that I can pull off of it after we've eaten some of it. I'll buy like a whole roast chicken and then after we've eaten some of it, we'll have the leftovers and then any little bits and bobs I have leftover on it, I'll pull those off and use those in a soup. But yes, this is very convenient. So I do keep a few cans on hand, but again, I have to be very judicious about it in terms of how I allot how much I'm going to buy based on my grocery budget because it is quite expensive. Canned fish on the other hand is a little more reasonable. It has gone up in price. I'm a little surprised kippers have actually doubled in price, however, they were 98 cents and now we pay about a $1.98 for them. So they're still relatively reasonable since they're very nutritious. This is a nutrient dense food. It's very high on omega-3 and we find them very tasty if you've not tried them. I know some of you'll say Mary Kippers, what the heck a Kippers? It's smoked herring, it's really delicious. And we will serve this with some rice that I've cooked, as I mentioned earlier, white rice that I've cooked in broth with some butter and some sea salt. We'll have our kippers and then I'll serve maybe some pickled or fermented vegetables on the sides. Very nutritious, very nutrient dense, nutrient rich meal and a relatively affordable meal. Now, I do have some salmon here. I don't have a lot of salmon, canned salmon, maybe you've noticed this in your area as well has become quite costly. But we can enjoy this right out of the can. Or I can use this to make salmon patties. Again, you know I have recipes for all of this for you. Salmon patties are delicious and I really enjoy them. But as the price of salmon has gone up, I've noticed that you're seeing more and more recipes of for tuna patties and I'm looking forward to giving those a try. And I've got these cans of tuna that I found I believe at Costco. These were an excellent buy. I think this came in at less or maybe like right around a dollar, a little more maybe than a dollar a can. I think maybe I got this whole thing for $9 and something, I can't remember exactly, but it was an outstanding buy, it was on sale. So I stocked up on that. And then I had also found on sale some of these little packages. These are great if you want to take lunch on the go with you. And then I can also use these, I've used these to make 'cause I got a real goodbye on these and I've used some of these. Here's one that I got at HEB, this is a chunk light. I also got this at HEB and it was like an excellent price and I've used some of these to make a tuna noodle casserole. It was cheaper than buying the cans of tuna, although this was an outstanding buy. So I'll definitely be using this, but here I've got some salmon. And these were also, I got these at HEB. I think you see these at all the grocery stores and they're at Aldi's too. And at Aldi's they're very reasonable. And so I'll just open these and I'll go ahead because they run me less than the canned salmon and I'll use these to make salmon patties. And so as I said, I've used some of these to make tuna noodle casserole as well as the the 1930s Depression era tuna pie. I've got a video for you on that with a printable recipe. If you've not tried that tuna pie, it's so delicious. And if you're one of the people who in the past maybe didn't like tuna noodle casserole, my son was never a real fan of tuna noodle casserole, but I made that tuna pie, he inhaled it, he said it was so delicious. So I'll just go ahead and use some of this to make another tuna pie or a tuna noodle casserole. Also, I've got some mackerel in a can here. It's a little different than the kippers, but these were on sale at our grocery store and they're very tasty. They put some like red peppers and olives, they have different varieties. This particular brand, if they carry this at your grocery store, I recommend this highly. It's very tasty. We're also experimenting with sardines from this particular brand. This was on sale at our grocery store. We've not tried these yet, so I'll keep you posted, but I'll betcha they're delicious. Now, if you're saying, "Mary, I'm not a fan of sardines or I don't know, I've never tried them." Whatever the case may be, I highly recommend that you try the recipe that I share with you here on YouTube. And I also have the principal recipe over on my website. So many of you, it makes me so happy when this happens because sardines are a wonderful nutrient rich food. They're very rich in omega-3 and they're relatively inexpensive. And that's really the best of both worlds when you find a nutrient dense food and one that's affordable. And this is what was so wonderful that during the Depression, often when people needed to change the type of foods they were eating, and then especially going into World War II, also having to either continue with eating these different foods or trying and experimenting with new foods, the foods that they were often having to experiment with were actually more nutritious than what they were eating. And so that's why the Depression era pantry or the World War II pantry can be so educational for those of us who want to have a traditional foods pantry today and run a traditional foods kitchen. But I show you how to prepare sardines in a way that is so tasty. And I love it because many of you'll come back to me and say, "Mary, I trusted you. I didn't never like sardines or I would just look at them and I couldn't even imagine eating them. But I trusted you. I made them the way that you showed me how to make them and they were delicious. And now you're all eating them." And that brings me so much joy because it's such a nutrient dense food and I know that you're getting a lot of good nutrition, and sardines are still relatively affordable. And if you can find them, if your grocery store, I actually got this at my grocery store, this is not from a big bucks store. If you can find them where they put four cans in a box like this, it's a little less expensive pronounce than just buying the individual box. So keep keeping a lookout for this because once you find you like sardines, and I can eat them right out of the can, I love them. And my father used to say that if you put sardines with red pickled onions on dry bread, that's just got to be one of the most delicious sandwiches in the world. So give that a try too. They're wonderful with red pickled onions. So keep your eyes open. Here is, this is another brand of kipper snacks. As I said, we're not brand loyal. We find pretty much all kippers taste the same, they taste great and we really just go buy what's on sale or that we have a coupon with and then we'll just stock up. And what's nice is all of these do have a very long shelf life. They have very extended out, so to speak, best buy dates. So that's good right there. And then as we've discussed with the US Department of Agriculture, that canned goods really in their opinion don't go bad. They just may degrade a little in nutrition. So stocking up on canned foods like this that are high in protein and others specifically that are high in the omega-3, you may be wondering, "Mary, why are you stressing this omega-3 business?" If you're new to running a traditional foods kitchen, omega-3 is an essential fatty acid. Often you'll hear of it being spoken of, it contained in salmon, it's very good. Scientists tell us it's very good for heart health, it's very good for our brain, it's just very good for our overall nutrition. But buying fresh salmon is not always something that's available to everyone. Fresh salmon can be very expensive, even canned salmon is becoming very expensive. But the good news is there are a lot of other fish like kippers the macro, both high in omega-3s and both affordable. Sardines, very rich in omega-3. So there are options available to you that'll fit within your grocery budget and that are very nutritious and that are high in omega-3s. These are all nutrient dense foods. And if a lot of foods like this are new to you, I highly recommend that before you try to stock up, just buy one can and try it and see what you think. If you don't like it, you don't have to rush out and say, "Oh, well I better have it just in case." There is a certain extent to the truth of buy what you think you're going to eat, but also as you are moving along your continuum of creating a traditional foods kitchen, you want to try different nutrient dense and nutrient rich foods because it's important to be moving along on your journey to having better foods in your kitchen. And better foods don't always mean more expensive foods. You often find as you move away from buying all of the processed foods, all of the pre-prepared foods, you actually find that you're cooking more. And when you cook more, when you cook whole foods more like a whole chicken for example, you start to save money and then you're able to move the monies around in your grocery budget to afford a little better food. And that might simply mean in terms of better food, maybe buying a pastured chicken as opposed to a grocery store chicken. But don't worry if what's in your budget right now is just a plain old grocery store chicken. I'm a firm believer in cooking any whole chicken is going to be better for you than driving through a fast food line and getting something from a fast food restaurant. It's real food, you sit down, you eat it, you enjoy it, you digest it, and it can be a boon to your good health. So if these foods are new to you, just start trying them. Experiment with some of the recipes I share with you. Experiment with other recipes you may find on the internet and see a way that you can prepare these foods that you find tasty. And then they are going to become regular foods that you're going to be rotating through your various meals. And then they're going to become foods because you're rotating them through your meals that you're going to be stocking these in your working pantry and in your prepper extended pantry. And it's all about learning how to cook with different foods that we may need to know how to cook with because that's what may be available to us when other foods that maybe we've cooked with in the past or other foods that were more available to us in the past, whatever it might be, maybe they're no longer available, maybe they're too expensive, maybe they're in short supply, maybe they're rationed at the grocery store. Maybe the grocery store has signs on the things that you like that says only buy two this time or only buy one this time, one per family, whatever the case may be. So that's why we always want to be broadening our horizons, so to speak, in terms of what we learn to develop a taste for what we learn to be able to prepare that we like, and then what we can stock in our pantries so that we're prepared for whatever happens. Number six, tea and coffee. Now I know maybe some of you are laughing at me, but given that I'm the girl with two coffee pots, you know that if I'm going to talk about anything stocking in your pantry to survive tough times, I'm definitely going to include coffee. But there's something that I want to share with you about stocking coffee and tea that I think is important and something that we can really look back to from during the Depression and during World War II. And that's an ingredient or stocking an ingredient in our pantries that we may not be immediately familiar with. And that is something called chicory. Now, when coffee was expensive or rationed as it was during World War II, chicory became very popular because you can turn it into a beverage that's somewhat similar to coffee. Chicory is an herb and it has a little bit of a bitter coffee type flavor to it. Now I will be honest with you, it may be straight up a little bit of an acquired taste. However, you can take your coffee, and this was commonly done both during the Depression and World War II. If people did have coffee, they might cut their coffee with half chicory and half coffee. This helped preserve and stretch make their coffee last longer. And they found that by mixing the two, the flavor was something that was familiar and comforting to them. Some people would just duke trickery straight up and they were fine with it. My maternal grandmother, Louise, didn't like just chicory. So she would mix when she could get coffee, she would mix chicory with coffee and then she would enjoy that. So I definitely recommend starting to stock some chicory and initially just buy a small amount and try making a brew of it and see if you like it, you can brew it the same way you would brew coffee depending on what type of chicory you have. It's also can be somewhat of an instant beverage as well, like instant coffee, which we'll talk about in a minute. But you can also brew it in your coffee pot, whatever way that you want to prepare it and try it out, see what you think of it and try mixing it with coffee. This is really one of those things that I find is very much a preparedness type of beverage or type food. Having chicory in your repertoire and seeing if it's something that you like may help you save money when coffee is very expensive or just in short supply, and maybe you're going to have to be drinking chicory if you don't have a lot of coffee available to you. But, so I do feel that that's something that is definitely worth experimenting with and preparing for. And what's also nice about chicory, chicory is what's known as a prebiotic. And prebiotics are foods, herb, spices, variety of things. But prebiotics are things that are food for probiotics. And probiotics, as we know are good bacteria that keep our gut, our digestive system healthy. But in order to keep those probiotics thriving, we need to make sure that they have food to eat and they like prebiotics. So by incorporating chicory into your diet, you can't go wrong because you're going to be improving your gut health. So that's a wonderful side effect of all of this. Now, let's talk about storing coffee, definitely for the long term. I've got my coffee beans right here to show you. I store both the decaf coffee beans. My husband likes decaf coffee as well as the caffeinated beans. And so this is just a batch that I keep in my kitchen ready to grind and make our morning coffee with. I do have other beans stored in my extended pantry that I then can refill here in my working pantry. And I keep those in the original bags that they came in. They're often vacuum packed and they feel very hard like a brick. And I'll keep those beans stored just as they come, from the store or I often find those big bags of beans at the big box stores wherever I find them. Wherever I can get the best price, I just pack them into, in their original packaging. But I'll pack them into a five gallon bucket, seal it up and keep it as fresh as I can for as long as I can. And especially, if I find a goodbye for a while I was finding, I think it was at Sam's Club coffee beans that I liked very much. And so each time I'd stop at Sam's while they were on sale, I'd pick up two or three bags and then I would pack those into a white storage bucket and that was a good savings. And then it's nice because if there is a run on coffee at the grocery store, you've got your beans, you don't have to worry. The other thing I highly recommend, and as you'll see I have both the decaf here and I think and this one's is caffeinated. I highly recommend these instant coffees. They're freeze dried today and in modern times and they're greatly improved in flavor. But what's even better about these, these are literally forever foods. As long as you don't open this, you can put this in your extended or prepper pantry and you can open it in like 25 years from now and make yourself a cup of coffee. So I definitely recommend for emergencies if you're a coffee drinker, if you enjoy having a hot beverage and specifically a hot beverage of coffee, whatever the circumstances may be, having some freeze dried both decaff and caffeinated, whatever people drink in your household, having these in your prepper pantry can really be a wonderful godsend. Also in my working pantry, I do like to keep a couple of bags of freshly ground coffee. This is very hard, it's like a brick because it's been sealed very well and so it does stay fresh and I like to have these so that if I'm tired or I've forgotten, I've just not gotten around to grinding the beans and as I said, I'm tired or it's like last minute and I just want to make a cup of coffee. I really like having the pre-ground coffee on hand. And so I'll keep a few of these in my working pantry and I'll just keep an eye on them and I'll make sure to use them up before they get past their best buy date. Because even though technically yes, they're still going to be fine past their best buy date, they're going to be best before their best buy date because it is coffee, it's something that's ground. Just like in the case of when I talked about flour and different things like that, that have already been ground, I personally think is my humble opinion that if you try to use them up within a year, within their best buy date, they are going to taste better and just be fresher. So I do keep a few of those in my working pantry. Now, during the Depression, when people and also during World War II when home cooks may have been having to rely on just chicory, they were also turning to teas. Now, caffeinated tea like your Earl Gray or what I've got here, the English Breakfast even these may have not been readily available. So relying, especially if people had gardens, relying on some herbs to make a nice hot beverage was also a popular thing to do. So if you grow some herbs, mint is easy to grow, it grows like a weed. You can even just grow it. If you just have a a windowsill garden, it's very easy to grow and you can make wonderful mint tea with it. And mint tea is very wonderful for the digestive system in that it can help you digest, after a heavy meal or if you're having a little indigestion, it can be very comforting if mint agrees with you. But also just keeping some herb teas on hand can be wonderful to do too. I've found these organic India teas at my local grocery store and they're so tasty and something they're made with tulsi, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, which is a form of basil, it's holy basil and it's very good for your health from what I've read about it. I have flavored ones here, but if you just buy the plain tulsi, I have to tell you it tastes like regular caffeinated tea. So if tea is ever, if you like tea and it's in short supply or it's become very expensive and you can find tulsi and it's more reasonable, it's amazing to me. I was very surprised the first time I made just plain old tulsi tea. I felt like I was drinking regular tea. And so like black tea and so definitely keep that in mind, something to keep in your extended pantry and tea can last a very long time when just store it well. And if you have the ability to use like a food saver, if it just comes in a box like this and the teabags are not like sealed in little foil, packages like some tea companies will do, if they're just in paper packages, you can go and just put them into like a food saver type bag, just to keep out air, to really keep them fresh. But I find even just in their box, they stay pretty fresh. At least that's been my experience even past their best buy date. But I do keep everything stored in a cool dark dry place. But this lemon ginger, tulsi, lemon ginger is very flavorful. And this one, although I like to make a homemade blend, if you've seen my video where I share with you how to make a homemade blend of what I call good night's sleep tea, it's very easy to make. I think you'll enjoy that recipe. But this is one that has the tulsi in it and it's very tasty. And so I don't mind this at all. In a pinch if you can't get regular tea or regular tea is expensive again, even though maybe these things are available to us when they were not necessarily immediately available during the Depression or during World War II, again, it's all about being prepared. We don't know what the future holds. We don't know if coffee and tea will be easily available or readily available. And so finding out the herb teas that we like, which may be more likely to be available is a good thing and it's a good way to be prepared for whatever may come our way. I just want to mention this is not related to coffee and tea per se, but in a sense it's sort of distantly related. If you like to add some type of milk or cream to your coffee or to your tea, you can certainly keep some powdered milk or dried milk in your extended pantry. And I've talked about this in previous videos, certainly you can find that very easily at most grocery stores, it's often in the baking section. But if you can find some that's low temp dried or even whole milk or whole cream that's been a low temp dried, that's wonderful to store. Now keep in mind the ones that do contain the fat, the ones that are based on whole milk or cream, are going to have a shorter shelf life than your skim milk or fat-free, depending what term you use, your skim milk or your fat-free milk that's been dried and turned into a powder that's going to have a much longer shelf life. But those are certainly wonderful to keep in your prepper pantry for when you, if you like to have some milk in your coffee or your tea or you want to be able to make some type of milk to drink when maybe you can't get out or you don't have immediate access to fresh milk. So these are all things to be thinking about and that I share in great detail with you about varieties and brands and all of that to find these type of products. In my previous videos that I have in that playlist that I mentioned earlier where I talk about, where I really go into detail about how to develop and how to stock an extended pantry and not just your prepper pantry, which tends to focus a lot on food. I talk about how to carve out an area of your extended pantry to create an emergency or a survival pantry. And that's where you're going to be stocking foods that can be prepared no matter what situation you're in, if you have no electricity, if you have no clean running water, I show you what to buy and to stock for two weeks and then I provide you with a meal plan on how to prepare these foods over one week. And then you if you're stranded for another week, it'll show you how to prepare these foods for you would just follow the same meal plan again. But I go through breakfast, lunch, and dinner so I don't leave you strand, you follow the shopping list, you buy those foods. I recommend just putting everything in a box along with the supplies that you're going to need and just carving out an area in your extended pantry, put in the meal plan. And that way if you find yourself in a situation like we did where we were without, for the most part electricity for about a week and there was a terrible ice storm, there was no leaving the house. And thank goodness for having an emergency or survival pantry that was able to get us through and have what we needed to eat, because not having electricity, I wasn't cooking in the traditional way and with such bad weather outside, I couldn't really get to a grill to even cook outside. And I have a video where I show you all the things that I think are so important to stock for an emergency or survival situation. And I have the food for you there and I have the meal plan and then I have other videos where I show you all the various equipment that is very important especially, and I know this has been so popular with so many of you and I'll remember to put a link in the description below the device that you can put on your refrigerator and you have two other little devices, one that goes into your refrigerator and one that goes into your freezer. And the little device that is magnetized and sticks to the front of your refrigerator monitors what the temperature is in your fridge, in your freezer. That came in so handy because it was very cold and icy outside. And when the temperature in our refrigerator and freezer based on this monitor that we were looking at rose above acceptable temperatures, we put everything outside because it was only four degrees outside. So that is such a great tool to keep on, or your equipment, I'm not quite sure what would be the technological equipment to keep on hand. It runs on batteries, you don't have to worry about electricity and it can really help you to know how best to monitor everything. And if say it's warm, hopefully you've purchased a cooler. I talk about that and the different types of coolers and what if you need to keep medication cold. And I talk about solar power stations and solar powered coolers. There's so much to know to be prepared for any type of situation. That's very important because is the homemaker, because of the home cook. If you are in charge of the prepper pantry, you're in charge of so much more. And it's very important that you are prepared not just with extra food, that you're prepared with all the proper equipment that you need to deal with an emergency situation in your home and that you have the various equipment you need to help who's ever in your home. For example, as I mentioned earlier, like maybe you have medication that needs to be kept cold for someone in your family. So it's all these different things that play a significant role that the homemaker needs to be prepared for. But getting back to talking about some creamer for your coffee or tea, I like to keep coconut cream. And then over here I've got coconut milk, I've got two. Again, I'm not brand loyal. I buy what's ever on sale. I've got two cans of coconut milk here and coconut cream and I like these. Now certainly, you could have the powdered milk as we mentioned earlier. You could have canned evaporated milk, you could have canned condensed milk. The condensed milk is sweetened if you like a little sweet flavor in your coffee. But I really like the coconut milk and the coconut cream. They come canned. They have a very long shelf life. And I know that I've got these handy to use in any way where I might need something that is in the cream or milk family. These are non-dairy. That's another thing to keep in mind. We are not a dairy free home. We do use regular dairy, but these just store well. But if you have a non-dairy home, these can come in very handy. So think about coconut cream, coconut milk there. There's also powdered coconuts that have powdered coconut that has a good shelf life. And then if you want the extract you of coconut milk and coconut powder, that's often referred to as MCT, like medium chain triglycerides. I think his hands were coconut powder. If you want something like that, you can also stock that in your extended pantry. It's got a pretty good shelf life. And now number seven, for your Depression era pantry pasta or as it was known back then, macaroni. Pasta is a great thing to keep in your working pantry and your extended pantry. And the reason is it's got a very long shelf life. It's non-perishable and it's actually more nutritious than many of us realize. As I mentioned earlier when we were talking about using alternate grains and baking and cooking pasta is made from Semolina Durham Semolina, and it's the middlings, as I explained earlier, that is a byproduct of milling Durham flour. And these middlings are actually very nutritious and they also when ground into a flour to make pasta out of, have a nice consistency that gives pasta, that wonderful toothsome or aldente quality when cooked, when cooked appropriately. When you look back in old cookbooks from the Depression era or from World War II, you'll often see a recipe that's titled Fishcakes and Spaghetti. And this was a popular combination, which may seem a little odd to us, but these were foods that were affordable during the Depression and available during World War II. And there were a chain of cafeterias that I bet you some of you'll recognize the name called the automat. My father actually took me to an automat in New York City and basically what it was was just a wall of machines that had little windows in them and you could buy what was in the window and it would have all different types of foods that were available in that particular time period. Well, during the Depression, during World War II, the automats would carry something called fishcakes and spaghetti. But the important thing to remember is that macaroni or any pasta product can really help fill out a meal when your money is tight because pasta for the most part, it comes in a variety of shapes and sizes today can be very affordable. I often look for brands that are from Italy, but there are other brands that are made in different countries that are also very good. But the most important thing that you want to focus on is that the pasta that you're buying be made with Durham Semolina. Now, these that I have right here, these whoops the shells, and I've got some spaghetti, I've got some angel hair and I've got this wonderful orzo, this is a great shape. If you want a change of pace from rice because it's very small almost with a similar shape to rice. And that can make a wonderful side dish. You can chop up some vegetables with it. It's very lovely to work with. It's also great for adding to soups. And this pasta is actually an egg pasta. So you've got even a little bit more of added nutrition, but whatever way you go, you can't go wrong by making sure that you have a substantial collection or varieties, so to speak, of different shapes of pasta. Because every dinner that you serve can in one way or another, incorporates some pasta when your budget is very tight. And in many ways, pasta can serve as a vehicle similar to white rice, to helping get a lot of good nutrition into your family. You can take spaghetti and you can make a sauce that is basically just some olive oil and some lemon maybe, and some mashed anchovies, which are very rich in omega-3s. All your little small fishes tend to be rich in omega-3s. And you can mash up those anchovies and then toss that sauce with pasta. And it's just going to give a lovely little bit of saltiness flavor to the sauce that you've made with the olive oil, lemon, you can sometimes add capers, you can jazz it up a bit, but those anchovies are going to give that nice saltiness to it and yet add a lot of nutrition, especially in situations where maybe you're not accustomed to eating anchovies, nor is your family and friends, but you can kind of sneak them in a little into a pasta dish that's actually, if you've ever had it, is absolutely delicious. Also, spaghetti can serve as a wonderful vehicle or other shapes of pasta as well to incorporate organ meats into your diet. Well, how do you do that? When you make your sauce, your tomato sauce and you turn it into a bolognese where you're adding ground beef and sausage, flavorful meats, you can also sneak in a little ground organ meat. You can sneak in a little liver, a little heart, a little bit of kidney, any of the various organ meats that again, are like anchovies, are very nutrient dense. And they're foods that we don't get enough of in our diets anymore in our modern American diets. So being able to sneak them into something that's very flavorful and somewhat masks their taste, if it's not a taste that your palate has become accustomed to, can be a great way to introduce these nutrient dense foods to your palate. Now, or I guess it, I should say, to your body in essence, because your palate is not so much going to taste them 'cause they're being disguised. And you can start with a very small amount in your bolognese, in your meat sauce. And then over time you can increase it a little more. And next thing you know you're going to be making my beef liver nuggets and dipping them in fermented ketchup and loving them. But these type of things like rice and pasta are wonderful vehicles for introducing different types of traditional foods, different types of nutrient rich foods, different types of nutrient dense foods into your diet. Number eight, peanut butter. During the Depression butter was expensive. So when you look back in various pamphlets from the federal government or from food companies, they encouraged people to use peanut butter when baking in place of butter and other more costly oils. And then the same held true during World War II, which followed the Great Depression because butter again was rationed and cooking oils were encouraged to be limited in use. So peanut butter once again came to the rescue and people would use peanut butter to make a whole host of things. And just like I shared with you in a few videos back, peanut butter bread was one of the most popular things to make with peanut butter during the Great Depression and World War II. And if you've never had peanut butter, and be sure to make it the old fashioned way with molasses as well, it's delicious. Now, I don't have a separate category for jams and jellies, but I couldn't mention peanut butter without mentioning them as well. Now these are store bought versions during the Depression. Many a home cook made homemade jams and jellies and they were also rationed during World War II if they came from the store. So again, home cooks were making homemade jams and jellies and then home canning them. And I have a number of recipes for you for how to make jam. I have a low sugar version and I also have a no-sugar version, so be sure to check those out. And I also have a recipe for how to make homemade marmalade. And it's actually a lot easier than you think. And both of these recipes, the jam recipes as well as the marmalade recipe, comes with water bath canning instructions. And I walk you through the whole process step by step. So if you do come into a windfall of either citrus or different types of berries, be sure to consider making some of your own homemade jams and marmalades and then water bath canning them so that you can store them not only in your working pantry but in your prepper pantry. And from the standpoint of a traditional foods kitchen. When you're shopping for peanut butter, try to find one that is basically just peanuts and salt, roasted peanuts and salt. And the reason is you do not want to be bringing peanut butter into your traditional foods kitchen that's loaded with various highly processed oils or a lot of white sugar. And the other nice thing about buying a very natural peanut butter one that has just roasted peanuts and salt, it's much more similar to the peanut butter that people homemakers had during the Great Depression and World War II. They had what was basically a chunky peanut butter and one that didn't have added sugar or anything else added to it. And so when you use it to recreate these things like peanut butter, bread and other recipes from the 1930s and '40s, it's going to be very similar to what these previous home cooks we're making. And it's nice, it brings a certain amount of authenticity to the foods that you're recreating. Number nine, is popcorn. Now can you store whole grain corn that you can then grind and make corn meal? Yes, but popcorn corn specifically grown to be popcorn, which you pop and eat is a snack is different. And popcorn like this basically is a forever food. So this is definitely the type of food that not only do you want to have in your working pantry just for fun and to enjoy as a nutritious snack, you also want to make sure that you've got some popcorn stored in your prepper pantry, not only to refill your working pantry, but also maybe as part of your emergency or your survival pantry since it does have such an extended life in maybe your forever food collection. And what's great about popcorn is in many ways this can be similar to pasta and white rice to be used as a vehicle to get more nutrient dense foods into our diet. And how is that? Because you want to pop popcorn in tallow. Now what is tallow? If you've been with me for a while, you know that tallow is rendered from suet and suet is the fat that surrounds the organs of the cow. Once suet is rendered into tallow, it has a very high smoke point and it also has a very long shelf life and it's perfect for deep frying or popping corn. And tallow is a nutrient dense food. It's very rich in vitamins and often vitamins that we may be lacking in our modern diets. So you can take popcorn, pop it in tallow, and sprinkle it with sea salt and you've got something that's nutrient dense and you can even take it one step further by sprinkling it with a seasoning that you make. And you can make this seasoning with nutrient rich foods. You can make the seasoning with like ground up kelp or other types of seaweed. You can make a seasoning with ground up herbs. You know herbs have wonderful nutritional properties, healing properties, anti-inflammatory properties, antiviral, antimicrobial, herbs are amazing. And the same holds true for spices. So you can make these different types of seasonings and then sprinkle them on this popcorn that you've popped in tallow. And then you can also pour some melted butter on it to really increase the nutrient density of your snack. So make sure that you have a good supply of popcorn on hand. Have some in your working pantry for your everyday snacks. You can make it as we shared very nutritious. And then make sure that you've got some in your prepper pantry, not only to refill your working pantry, but also just to have some backup some emergency food, popcorn will never steer you wrong. It seems like a treat, but it's actually very nutritious and you can make it even more nutritious by popping it in the right fat and seasoning it appropriately. Now, before we move on to number 10, I just want to mention that I've got some bonus tips for you for when it comes to stocking a Depression era style pantry. So be sure to stay tuned for that. Number 10, are shelf-stable fats. Now during the depression butter was expensive and as I shared earlier, a lot of home cooks were relying on peanut butter to fill the need of fat. They also saved any fat drippings from any type of meat-based product that they were cooking. So if they were cooking up a little bacon, if they had that, they'd save the bacon grease. If they were cooking up a little sausage like my grandmother would do, she'd save that grease that would come off the sausage. If she roasted a lamb, a leg of lamb, a leg of mutton, the older lamb which was inexpensive, she'd save the fat that would render off of that. My other grandmother, my grandmother Mary, if she had a pork roast, she would roast that in the oven and the fat would render 'cause she had the roast with the fat and then the skin on top. And that fat would render, it's a form of lard. She would save that and use that. And so home cooks were very, very frugal and very careful about an about saving any type of fat from any meat product, including the fat that would render if they were roasting a chicken. All of this was saved and all of this was used in some form of cooking or baking. Then fast forward to World War II and fats were rationed and homemakers were encouraged to turn in any fat they had to their butcher who would then pay them a little bit for it. And then that fat was used for the war effort in one way or another by the military. But what they would do is they would use the fat to the point where they felt that maybe it was getting a little past their prime. And then they would filter out, strain out the various bits and bobs and then bring that to the butcher and then that would be then handed over to the military and they could use it to grease machinery and so on and so forth. And often when you look at recipes, even going back to World War I as well as World War II, the fat in various recipes was often pulled back. You'll see this in the video that I shared with you last week where I showed you how to make war cake. Originally that recipe called for only two tablespoons of fat. Now later recipes because war cake has stayed very popular, that amount of fat has been increased to about a half a cup to make a nice flavorful and moist cake. But during the wars, they were only using two tablespoons 'cause they were encouraged to use less fat and then turn over any fat that they didn't need. Well, in essence, not that they didn't necessarily need it, but that it was getting a little past its prime 'cause fat can develop some rancidity when used over and over again. And because they were patriotic and wanted to support the war effort, they would turn in that fat but they would get paid for it. And that money was very helpful to them to buy the groceries they needed to run their kitchens. Now you can certainly find suet and render it into tallow. You can also find pork fat, whether it's the back fat or the leaf fat, what's referred to as the fat that's around the organs of the pig and then you can render that. Always the fat that surrounds the organs of the animal, whether it's suet or leaf fat, is going to be less odorous than fat from other parts of the animal, whether it's the back fat from the pig or fat cutoff of various cuts of beef. So leaf lard, as it is known and tallow from the cow are very prized fats for cooking and baking because they're less odorous. And I have videos where I show you how to render both leaf fat, but it can also be the same rules can be applied to rendering back fat if that's all that you have. And I also show you how to render suet into tallow. But again, the same rules of rendering suet into tallow can be applied if you just have some general cuts of beef fat. And as I said, it's not difficult to do and it's definitely a skill that I think is very important to learn because both lard and tallow are nutrient dense foods and foods that you should be cooking with and working into your traditional foods kitchen menu plan. And the nice thing about tallow is real tallow, tallow that's been rendered from suet is very hard and it's very shelf stable so you don't necessarily have to refrigerate it, it should stay fresh for about a year, kept at room temperature. Leaf Lord is not as shelf stable and I generally like to refrigerate it. Some people will say that you can leave it out at room temperature for about six months, but I've generally always refrigerated my lard. But I wanted you to know that some people do leave it at room temperature for at least six months. But two additional fats that you really want to think about storing in your extended pantry, your prepper pantry as well as your working pantry are ghee and coconut oil. Unopened, these are both very shelf stable. Many will call these forever foods. Now, does the nutrition degrade over time? Yes. Do I consider ghee a forever food? I'm not sure I'm a hundred percent convinced but unopened and kept it room temperature because all of the milk solids have been removed. What ghee is, if you're not familiar with it, is it's a form of clarified butter. It's basically butter that's been melted down. The fat solids are allowed to brown a little bit but not burn just to brown enough to give some flavor. And so then the oil that you're draining off, in essence a butter oil is this butter that's been clarified. The milk solids have been clarified out and it's the milk solids that would've gone rancid. So now you're dealing with a much more shelf stable form of butter. So if you keep this unopened, I like to buy some store bought, ghee, we'll talk about homemade ghee in a minute I like to buy some store bought ghee and basically put this in my extended pantry and just leave it there until I feel I really need it because I've not been maybe able to make some homemade ghee. And as I said, I'm completely comfortable keeping this well past the best buy date. If forever, I'm not sure. But I definitely think it can last a lot longer than what the best buy date indicates. And the same is true of coconut oil. And what I find really nice about coconut oil is that my experience has been it's it's extremely shelf stable. You can store this in New York extended pantry, you can open this, use it, even opened, but obviously with the lid on I store it right in my working pantry. I don't feel a need to refrigerate this and it's easy to work with. It stays nice and soft and yet I've never found this to take on a rancid odor. So I think that coconut oil is quite shelf stable and these are basically solid fats and you always find that solid fats are more saturated than or they're rich in saturated fats than your liquid oils. And saturated fats do tend to be more shelf stable than your liquid fats. Now, what about olive oil? Olive oil is one of the few liquid oils that I do like to keep on hand, but I only store olive oil in my working pantry and I use it up relatively quickly because I do find that olive oil can go rancid relatively quickly. And a good way to test your olive oil is to put a little bit between the palm of your hands, rub it together and then smell it. If it smells off with something not right or you don't find the smell pleasant, it's probably gone rancid. If it smells like very fresh, very if a aroma can have the description green, if it smells somewhat herbaceous like an herbal or green, it's probably fresh and fine to use. So I have found, generally I like to make sure that once I open a bottle of olive oil, that I'm using it up in three to six months and I use a lot of olive oil, but I also buy smaller bottles. And this way that allows me flexibility to use it up relatively quickly. Now can you make ghee going back to talking about ghee? Yes. It's very easy to make. Basically you're just melting butter, letting the milk solids drop to the bottom of the pan, allowing them to brown a little if you don't let them brown at all and scoop them out right away, that's basically clarified butter. What is commonly used in French cooking, if you allow the milk solids to brown up a little bit and flavor the butter oil, then it becomes ghee. And you often hear gee being used very commonly in Indian cooking, but it's beautifully flavored because of the little bit of browning of the milk solids and can be used in various cooking applications. It's got a good smoke point just like coconut oil has a good smoke point. And smoke point, meaning the temperature at which you can heat these oils before they burn. I don't necessarily recommend frying with them. I think you're always better off frying and tallow, especially since gee and coconut oil tend to be more costly, I would say per ounce, even if you make it homemade, I would say it's more costly per ounce than tallow. So I reserve these more for sauteing and the bonus item, some salt, pepper and various other seasonings. With the previous 10 items we covered, having salt, pepper and seasonings can help really round out the meals that you'll be able to make with those initial 10 items. Now I like using both the Celtic sea salt as well as the Redmond real salt. These are wonderful. If you're at the point where you're on your traditional foods journey and you're making ferments, these type of salts are exactly what you want. And the reason that you want these is because they have no additional ingredients other than just salt. If you have salts that have chemicals in them or anticaking agents, things like that, that can impede the fermentation process. And whenever we're fermenting, we want to give ourselves as much success as we can as possible. And having the right salt can make all the difference in the world. And if you like using Redmond real salt, I'll be sure to put a a link in the description below where I have a coupon code for you to get a discount off of that if you decide to buy that. And as I said, none of this is sponsored. I bought this Redmond real salt myself. But whenever I find a product that I like, I always contact the company and ask them if they'll provide a discount code for you. And so Redmond real salt was great to do that. But in any event, some other things, always you can never go wrong with having black pepper. I like to have the peppercorns, they stay nice and fresh and then I just put them in a pepper mill and I grind them and I'm all set. I buy these larger containers at places like Costco or Sam's Club. I've also got some red pepper flakes here. They're always nice if you like spice. And I've got here just a basic no salt seasoning. And what's so nice about this is you can control the amount of salt and what type of salt you want to put in your seasoning. And yet this has kind of a little bit of everything. So I find this very versatile. And I just want to mention talking about Clearance Aisles. As I've shared with you earlier, I found this beautiful. The box is all bashed up, but the packaging inside that's holding the salt is completely fine. And this is a Maldon sea salt flakes. These are normally very expensive and I usually don't have them in my traditional foods kitchen, although I love them, especially sprinkled on things like focaccia, which the dimpled bread with olive oil and sea salt, that's Italian can be very delicious. And this on clearance was just a $1.34. And those of you who have shopped for Maldan know that that's a really good buy. And this is one of those homemade seasonings that I was talking about. And this is made with some seaweed. It's actually got some kelp in here and it's all ground up so you never notice it, but you get the benefit of getting a little iodine into your diet if you need that. And this is wonderful for sprinkling on the popcorn as I mentioned earlier. Plus I have a video on how to make this. Plus I have a video where I show you how to make a whole host of homemade seasonings. They're so easy to make and they're so helpful for you because when you make them homemade, you control exactly what goes into them and you don't have to worry about any things like monosodium glutamate, MSG if that causes you trouble. And different things like anticaking agents or citric acid. Some people don't like to have that in their seasoning blends. So be sure to check out that video and I have a printable recipe for you and make it very easy for you and you can start making your homemade seasonings right away. And that'll be wonderful for you to include not only in your working pantry, but all the various supplies and ingredients that you'll want to have on hand to make your homemade seasoning so that you don't run out. You'll want to go ahead and have those in your extended pantry. Now if you'd like more information on how to stock your four corners pantry with an emphasis on how to create and stock your prepper pantry, be sure to click on this video over here where I have a full playlist that covers all the ins and outs of the prepper pantry, plus how to best store your food to extended its shelf life. And I look forward to seeing you over there in my Texas Hill Country Kitchen. Love and God bless.

Channel: Mary's Nest

Views: 143,565

Keywords: Depression Era Pantry, Great Depression Era Pantry, Prepper Pantry, Pantry, How to Stock a Depression Era Pantry, How to Stock a Great Depression Era Pantry, great depression pantry, great depression cooking, four corners pantry, food shortage, emergency preparedness, preparedness, long term food storage, prepper pantry stock up, How to stock a Great Depression Pantry

Id: b6gPzpqpEGU

Length: 142min 54sec (8574 seconds)

Published: Sat May 20 2023