Homemade Archives - Wolf Pack Woodcraft

A big part of prepping is your pantry and knowing what to stockpile. Years ago I wrote a post on building your stockpile. However, I have learned a lot since that initial post, here are a few more ways to build your pantry.

How are you supposed to know what to stockpile?

At our home, we call it The Menu, this book is where we store all our favorite and frequented meals. If you are just starting, use note cards or notebook paper. The important thing is to make sure you write down what you are making and eating. When you have done this for a month you can look through your notes and find common ingredients, this is your starting point. Ingredients and spices that you use often and are comfortable with, should be your baseline.

How to build your pantry

Now that you have your list of the most used ingredients, you need to purchase them to stockpile. This can be done in a few ways, and as fast or slow as your budget allows. Start by buying an extra box or two on regular grocery shopping trips. My four favorite ways are listed below:

Warehouse Clubs –

We love Sam’s club and that is our go-to for our bulk grocery items. Flour, rice, different sugars, and even meat are great to stock up on here. There are different tiers of memberships and you can usually find a discount for your first year (i.e. a free year to try it out.) We for sure go twice a year, with these closest store being a hour and a half from us, but you can adjust this to your family’s needs.

Subscribe and Save Shipments –

There are a lot of websites where you can sign up for specific items to be sent on a regular basis, this setting normally comes with a discount. For the most part we use Amazon for Subscribe and Save of spices, different sauces, cleaning supplies and even personal hygiene items. There is an option to adjust the frequency and Subscribe and Save can often save you 15% on a regular basis, with an initial discount on top of that when you set it up. Another retailer we use for this is PetSmart with our dog’s food.

Shopping Sales and Clearance –

This is one way to save money that never changes for us. Always hit up grocery clearance for damaged packaging or brand relabeling. Another tip on grocery clearance is to make sure and check it out for one to three days following a storm, this is when I find the deepest discounts on fresh food and stock up. When you regularly watch sales, you will learn the patterns and can keep your pantry in line with that.

Local Farmers –

An initially large investment up front, when ave4raged out, it is often half the price of the grocery store. There are also some farmers who will work out payment plans with you. Make sure to follow your favorite local farmers on social media, they will often advertise an specials, whether someone backed out of their beef or it’s a weather related.

It can be overwhelming to start a pantry from nothing and be unsure of where to start. However, if you can get your most common ingredients together you have your shopping list. From there it is just investing the time to find the best deals for your budget.

Let me know in the comment section below your favorite tips to start and maintain a pantry!

Earlier this year, I made a list of five items to DIY this year, you can check out that list here. On that list, I wrote that I was excited to make my own garlic powder at home, and now that I have tried it, there’s no going back.

First of all, this homemade garlic powder is WAY more flavorful, so you can use less while cooking. Second, it’s a super easy project to complete. You will need three tools:

A chef’s knife. This knife is made by Victorinox, super shape, and holds a great edge.
A dehydrator. Any dehydrator will do, even the stackable tray ones. I prefer the dehydrators with fans in the back, they dry more evenly, and no need to rotate the trays. My dehydrator is no longer available, but this one is similar and has great reviews.
A blender. Any blender works, I happen to have this Nutribullet.

Now it’s time to get started! I used 2lbs of garlic bulbs for this project, which made about a pint of powder. The most time-consuming part is peeling and slicing the garlic. To save some time, you could use a container of pre-minced garlic. Now you can lay the garlic slices on your tray and get dehydrating, if using pre-minced place parchment paper down on the tray first. Now that you have your trays prepped, set the dehydrator to 125 F and check at 8 hours, every four after that. I use this Dehydrator Cookbook to find temperatures and times for dehydrating.

Make sure that your garlic is completely dry, you do not want it to mold on you. Once the garlic is completely dry, you can pulse it in the blender until it is a fine powder. Store in a mason jar and use as needed.