Happiness is a Full Larder

Over the next two weeks I've decided to make a conscientious effort to fill my larder (I use the word larder loosely, what I really mean are my kitchen cupboards and my freezer)! Oh, for a real larder...I could write a poem about real larders! Having a full stock of food and household goods readily at hand will, I believe, help with the smooth running of my home. I'll outline my reasons below.

Health
Just before Easter I contracted bronchitis/pneumonia. I was out of action for nearly a month, and like many people nowadays I live far away from extended family and only have a limited number of people who are able to help me in a crisis. This meant that the DH had not only to shop for food, on his way home from work, but cook it also. Now, DH is a competent cook, but after a full day at work and a fight around the supermarket he really only felt able to make something relatively simple. And soon we were running out of healthy ideas for evening meals...needless to say I do not want to see another ready-cooked supermarket chicken for a long time to come! A good stock of home-cooked meals in the freezer would've really helped him in that situation, as would plenty of pasta and tinned tomatoes and Parmesan cheese in the fridge and cupboards. However, it is not only useful to have a food stock because the health of "the chief cook and bottle washer" may not be good, but also if you are having to nurse sick children, poorly husband and perhaps even sick friends and neighbours. If you have been doing your Florence Nightingale bit all day it is nice to have nothing to do but heat up a meal in the evening.

Wealth
Clever stockpilers know that if they do their job well they will never have to pay top price for staple foods. If you hunt out two for one offers, half price offers and cut price offers (where food will soon be passing its sell-by-date) then you will end up with a larder full of frugal food. However, be careful, as some offers aren't worth your bother. So it is probably not a good idea to buy two for one crisps if, like us, you are just going to eat double the amount of crisps (potato chips) in one week! I do not buy half price baked goods for this reason too! My advice is simply to look out for things you usually buy, and if they are half price buy twice as much as usual and pop the excess in the freezer. If you do this each time you shop, you will end up with a larder so fine and stuffed it would make a Hobbit proud.

Happpines
My weekends are always busy. I tutor on a Saturday morning, and my DH always likes to take us out on a Saturday afternoon and on Sunday morning there is always church and a pint at the pub, so weekend meals are often rushed and none too healthy! What I really need is a freezer full of home-made ready-meals which I can defrost and re-heat on a Saturday evening and Sunday lunch-time. This would free us up a little, and I feel so much happier when I know that there is a proper meal all prepared after we've come home from being out and about. Also, It is a good idea to freeze seasonal food. Last year I froze lots of stewed blackberry and apple and it was a real treat to eat it in a pie mid-January or late April...it was free too! Freezing my excess baking may also help ease the busy-ness of a weekend. It's tiresome to run out of bread on a Sunday tea-time and wouldn't it be a nice feeling to know that you have one or two cakes stowed away, to be taken out of the freezer at lunch-time and defrosted for tea-time. If I did this, had a bit of forethought, my Sunday's *really* would be days of rest! Oh, and there are some days of the month where it would be nice to take a day off (if you know what I mean) and read or craft, rather than cook and clean...on those days it would be nice just to pull something out of the freezer!

Things to Stockpile in May

• Homemade bread for the freezer.
• Homemade cakes (made by the creaming method, these freeze well and plain cakes do not)
• Homemade ready meals; lasagnas, casseroles, curries and braises all make good ready meals as they can take both the freezing process and the re-heating process without either going smushy or toughening up.
• Rhubarb is seasonal. Stew and freeze or can it or jam it! The pink stuff is very snazzy and you can get it cheap from "pick your own" farms if you don't grow it.
• Elderflowers are now out. Make them into cordial (and freeze if you don't bottle) or make it into a jelly or wine!
  
• Lamb is also seasonal, look out for freezer packs of the cheaper cuts (shoulder, neck) in farm shops. My farm shop will sell a whole lamb, which both the DH and I are tempted by...but I'm not sure we'd fit it in the freezer!
• Half price minced beef and lamb, probably from the supermarket.
• Butcher's offers. If I buy £10 worth of meat from my local butcher I get 1 lb of butcher's sausages free! Look out for offers on the blackboards butchers put outside their shops, many of them will have what they call "barbecue" offers on this time of year...lots of meat worth freezing, good quality too.
• Pastry. Both shortcrust and flaky pastry freeze very well. And, when a stew becomes a pie we have happy faces all round!
• Broad beans from the garden. Soon I will be sick of broad beans, but if I freeze my excess (after par boiling them) I will be very grateful for a few broad beans when the over-abundance is forgotten in September!
• Loo roll. There is no escaping the need for loo roll and if you see it on offer buy it, it will save you a fortune! Why is loo roll so expensive?

Organising Yourself
I am the last person to give advice on organisation...when God dealt out good legs and organisational skills I was right back of the queue! However, it makes sense to me to have a baking day in which you plan to freeze half of what you make. Also, a cooking day too, where you plan to make three lasagnas and three curries, freezing half of what you make. You won't need to have these mammoth cooking days too often to make a difference to your larder, twice a month perhaps? Shopping days should also be planned in, as you will need to plan what you need if you are cooking in advance, and plan which shops you visit according to any offers you see in the local papers.

Anyway, I hope to be nicely stockpiled for the summer. So main meals can revolve around what is ready for picking in the garden and what is plentiful in my freezer. This will free me up to do seasonal kitchen jobs; canning, brewing (yes, I am making wine...more on that later!) and jamming. And, importantly give me a certain amount of freedom for summertime "spur of the moment" trips and outings. Oh, and please let me know any tips and ideas you have on the whole subject.