Sprinkle of Country

Everyone Needs A Little Country In Their Kitchen
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  • Category: Household

    • Stocking Your Pantry For Success

      Posted at 10:53 am by Rebecca Showalter
      Feb 26th
      Pantry Stocking

      Keeping a well stocked pantry is something I learned early in life from my parents. It was important to prepare for any unexpected events that can come up. Many things can keep you from getting to the store as planned in a week including family or work emergencies, bad weather, personal illness, or community illness outbreaks. Stocking your pantry and keeping the basics around the house has saved us a few times. This also helps prevent emergency trips to the store when needing to whip up something fast for a meal or carry in event.

      Stocking For The First Time

      Stocking your pantry for the first time can seem like a daunting task. Although it doesn’t need to be. Take at look at meals you normally would eat and think about the basics you would want to have around for these. Also think about substitutes that would be helpful to use in a pinch if needed. My most used substitute out of my pantry stock is dry milk. It comes in handy when I run just short of how much milk a recipe calls for!

      Here are my basics I keep stocked in the pantry at all times and the meals they correspond with:

      Baked Spaghetti – Italian Spice, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Thin Spaghetti Noodles and Spaghetti Sauce

      Pancakes – Pancake Mix, chocolate chips, Dry Milk to use as mix with the pancake mix if I don’t have any milk on hand

      Chicken or Beef and Noodles – Canned Beef or Chicken, Egg Noodles, Broth Mix

      Baked spaghetti and corn made from my food stockpile
      Baked Spaghetti with a side of corn.

      Other Essentials I stock include:

      Baking items: Flour, Sugar, Brown Sugar, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, Vegetable Oil

      Spices: Seasoned Salt, Salt, Pepper, cinnamon

      Snacks: Pretzels, Granola Bars, Fruit Snacks

      Breakfast Foods: Cereal, Granola Bars, Oatmeal

      Canned Good: Corn, Green Beans, Soups, Fruits, Apple Sauce

      Other Foods: Mac and Cheese Boxes, Extra Condiments, Parmesan cheese, peanut butter, evaporated milk

      I totaled up all of my basic pantry items and they could be purchased for about $75 according the Walmart Shopping app. This would give you a good start to your pantry.

      These staples also allow me to make several of my other favorite recipes including our oatmeal chocolate chip butterscotch cookies and slow cooker mac and cheese. Just add a few basic refrigerated items including eggs, butter, and milk.

      Stocking Your Pantry To
      Prepare For The Unexpected

      After you have the basics stocked in your pantry it is time to prepare for the unexpected. I have easy to prepare meals and correspond my freezer stash and my pantry. This way I can easily make meals if we have a situation where we are not able to leave home for several days due to inclement weather or other community emergencies.

      Every month take an inventory as to what you have used and what needs replaced. I have set par levels for items I use regularly like the spaghetti sauce and noodles. Make a list of what you need and review your local sale flyers. I often buy pantry stock based on sale items for the week as well. For example, if green beans are on sale I may over buy them by a few cans so I won’t have to purchase them for a while.

      Also make sure to rotate your oldest stock to the front of your cabinet to use it first. According to ready.gov you should have at least a 3 day supply of non-perishable food on hand. I prefer to have at least 2 weeks on hand, but you can decide what fits your lifestyle, budget and available space.

      Once you have your pantry fully stocked and at good par levels it is usually pretty easy to maintain if you keep up the work. Continue to do inventories every month and replace things as you use them. This will help you maintain preparedness for any unforeseen events.

      Pin image for stocking your pantry
      Posted in Household | Tagged emergencies, emergency prepardness, food stocking, food storage
    • Organizing Your Life: Keeping Up Your Chores

      Posted at 12:30 pm by Rebecca Showalter
      Feb 5th
      Organizing Your Life

      Many of the questions posted from moms in Facebook groups or on Moms blogs are related to how to keep up with cleaning and organizing. Being far from perfect in keeping my house ready for company at all times, it has made all the difference in having set routines to help with organizing my cleaning and chores. I have worked on cleaning and keeping up my home, but organizing my life to help with my chaotic schedule has made the biggest difference. This helps to ease the stress of a cluttered house. Now let me help to show you how you can start organizing your life with simple changes to help with daily and weekly chores.

      Organizing Your Cleaning

      There is always something to do! First acknowledge that, and realize there is only so much you will be able to do in one day. I will walk you through my weekly routines, which will help you to form your own routines. Cleaning has never been my favorite home task, I have always preferred to cook. So the simpler the better and the more likely things will be to get done. I have found keeping things simple and taking some scheduled time each week to clean (even if it is just 1-2 rooms) can make a huge overall difference.

      I schedule in cleaning time every Saturday morning, sometimes it’s 30 minutes and sometimes it’s 60 minutes. This is enough time for me to clean our bathrooms, kitchen and vacuum the floors. Once every month or two I schedule in additional time to dust and do more detailed cleaning. Having this set time and schedule I don’t feel like I am taking away from other things. My husband and little one understand that just like with my workouts this is a scheduled task that is designated for this time frame. Granted sometimes things do get thrown off by special events then it is easy to move it to a different time during the week. Read my post here about scheduling in time for fitness and sleep.

      Also make sure you have a stock pile of your cleaning supplies, you don’t need big expensive cleaners usually. A floor cleaner, counter top cleaner, bathroom cleaner and glass cleaner. These will do the trick for a majority of your cleaning needs. You don’t want to run out of your cleaning supplies when you have designated time to clean, this will hurt your motivation!

      Organizing Your Laundry

      Laundry can be tedious and time consuming for many families. I find for us it is easier to not do laundry on a specific schedule (except for sheets which usually get done on my Saturday morning cleaning days). After a few years of trial and error I came up with a great plan to tackle our laundry that has worked for the last two years. It did take me years to finally figure out this strategy. With multiple job changes and working different shifts we never got a rhythm with doing laundry on set days. After finally finding a plan that works with any schedule, it needs to be shared!

      I start with watching our laundry baskets. Once I have one that is full I start our laundry at night on the delay schedule to be done around the time I get up to workout in the morning. The laundry gets switched over to the dryer in the morning, warmed up when we get home from work and put away that evening before bed. Doing only one load at a time seems less overwhelming and I am more successful in keeping my clothing put away this way.

      Organizing Your Kitchen

      Keeping your kitchen clean and tidy can be a challenge especially when you have kids. I find it is easiest to try to keep up with kitchen clutter as it comes in, which is easier said than done. I take 5 minutes nightly to go through the kitchen and tidy up. This allows junk like unwanted mail, papers brought home from school that day and miscellaneous things that appeared to be sorted out daily.

      I am grateful to currently have a dishwasher so I run it every night when it is full. Then empty it in the morning prior to leaving for work. It really only takes about 5-10 minutes of your time in the morning and helps to keep things on track and less stressful when you get home from work and are trying to get dinner around. I often use the time while my little one is eating breakfast or we are waiting for the bus to do this.

      As you can see I do a few simple things each day that don’t take long, but can make a difference in my overall view of the week. By doing small amounts of cleaning each week, doing laundry as it builds ups, and keeping the kitchen clutter down nightly it also allows me to have a more relaxed a clutter free home. Adding in small tasks to your weekly routines can help to make your life overall more organized and less stressed. Join me in organizing your life and making set schedules for your chores to give yourself more time for the things you love!

      Posted in Household, Updates | Tagged chores, life, organizing
    • Instagram

      This Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle Casserole is a delicious and easy way to start your morning!
      It’s National Farmer’s Day! Don’t forget to thank the farmers in your life! #thankafarmer #nationalfarmerday
      A fresh veggie tray is the perfect easy side dish for our church lunch tomorrow. #healthyadditions #yumm #churchcarryin #deliciousveggies
      Saturday mornings are for meal prepping and baking— I made a wonderful creamy cheese tortellini, 2 kinds of sloppy Joe and banana muffins along with some hard boiled eggs for breakfast this morning all in about 2 hours! I would call that a successful start to next week! #mealprepday #mealprepping #easymeals #yumm #packinglunch #italianforlunch #easyrecipes
    • Sprinkle Of Country

      Sprinkle Of Country
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