My Basic Gluten Free Whole Foods Pantry List

Pantry stocking and cooking from it is a real skill to learn. We have had weeks with a $20.00 food budget in this past year, more often than I want to remember. If we were a typical American couple, that wouldn't even buy our lattes. Thanks to goodness, we are NOT a typical American couple, and I can feed us 2-3x a day for $20.00 a week, IF I have a stocked pantry. I know visions of canned goods and boxes are dancing in your head when I say, stocked pantry, but my pantry only holds at the most...cans of curry paste and coconut milk. Everything else is real foods, stored in jars or buckets, or my fridge and freezer. A visitor said it best. "I know there is allot of food here, but is there anything that doesn't require 2 days planning and soaking? I just don't know who to cook this stuff and I need food now." After I walked him through a 3 minute rice noodle dish, I went through the whole pantry with him.


I buy pantry items whenever they are on sale or I have an extra few dollars. I know what we have and I carry my shopping list everywhere, because you never know when a conventional grocery store is going to screw up the pricing and quinoa will be a dollar, or I will be able to buy a case of coconut milk for $10.00. I buy as much as I can in bulk, and I buy my spices in whole form when possible, and by the ounce. There may be a few missing items from week to week, but I stay flexible and plan a back up to every menu planned. If I am unwell, the Guy has my back up menu using the pantry. It took 5 months to grow this pantry, and I have maintained it for a year. I will never, ever go back to shopping week to week for basics. With this, a $20.00 week is a tight- needs to be very planned-wild salmon-less breakfast week, not the end of the world. So, just looking at my basic list, I see dozens of meals at the ready with minimal planning or purchasing needed to round it out or fluff it up, depending on our needs or those of our guests. (You'll notice tomatoes, yeast, and cheese are missing now)


If I was more computer inclined there would lines drawn to ingredients and a color coded recipe for each line...sorry, just barely can turn this thing on, soooo. Off the top of my brain, there are vegan onion soup, Tom Yum, carrot ginger, Pho, and Asian noodle soups, right there in the pantry. I can make a nut sauce in 2 minutes to compliment any combination of vegetables, noodles or whole grains. Nut and rice milk. There are pot pies, sweet pie crust, cookies and crackers. There are veggie nori and spring rolls. Lentil soup or dal. Breads, rotti, tortillas, pizza, pancakes, and waffles. Chai. Smoothies. Green drinks. Pilaf to pastas. Slaws and salads and sprouts... and their dressings. There are many tasty, nutritious options.... and I haven't bought anything else yet. When it begins to flow like this, eating seasonally and eating whole foods becomes simple. All it really took was some planning and thoughtful bulk purchases...and away we went. If you are not gluten free, the same principles apply here, just stock according your needs.

This is it. Year round, it doesn't change...just the seasonal produce, and the level of meat supply. 


THE FRESH PANTRY
Onions
Garlic and shallots
Ginger
Carrots
Celery
Yams and a few potatoes

Broccoli and or cauliflower

Bok choy or napa cabbage

Green cabbage

Greens: chard, kale, collards, etc.

Lettuces

Fresh herbs: I grow cilantro, dill, parsley, and oregano all year long.
Fresh lemons and limes
Apples
Fresh seasonal vegetables and fruit


THE STORED PANTRY
Whole grains (a variety of brown rice, quinoa, wild rice, and buckwheat, or other special guest, and all of their lovely gluten free flours)
Masa
Corn meal
Dry legumes (black beans, kidney beans, adzuki beans, mung beans, red lentils, French green lentils)
Rice noodles: both Italian pastas and Asian style
Rice paper rolls
Rice flour tortillas
Frozen fruit: berries and tasty bits.
Frozen vegetables for quick soups and other dishes.
Frozen basil cubes
Apple cider vinegar
Ume plum vinegar
Whole grainy mustard
Sea salt
Black peppercorns
Spices (cumin seeds, oregano, coriander seeds, star anise, cinnamon sticks and powder, thyme, dried turmeric, dried ginger, bay, zattar, cardamom, paprika, dried mustard, black mustard seeds, crushed red pepper, graram masala, herbes de provence)
Dried chilies
Coconut, olive, grapeseed, and sesame oil
Earth Balance for baking and table use
Baking powder and soda
Xanthan gum for baking
Bragg's Liquid Aminos
Coconut milk
Red curry paste
Green curry paste
Pure vanilla extract
Nuts and seeds: walnuts, cashews, almonds, popcorn kernels, sunflower and hemp seeds
Nut and seed butters and flours
Dried fruit
Dairy free chocolate chips or chunks
Kombu and other sea foods: dulse, agar agar, kelp.
Sweeteners - Raw agave nectar, local honey, grade B maple syrup, blackstrap molasses, and organic cane sugar
Cultured vegetables, kimchi and sauerkraut
Homemade vegetable and chicken stock
Herbs for tea
Black tea
Organic Sumatran coffee beans; naturally low acid, yum.


THE MEATY PANTRY
Ground bison and turkey
Bison, beef, or pork for stews
Chicken parts and pieces
Wild salmon, as the budget allows.
Tofu
Tempeh

1 pound of a sausage or bacon type treat

Our Simplicity Plan Part 4: Useful Quantities VS Bulk Purchases

There's really no eloquent way to say this. If it rots before you eat it or just simply creates more clutter...then it may be a bulk purchase. By bulk, I mean by the case, multiple pounds, commercial or oversized amounts; not by the ounce or pound in your bulk food section at the grocery store. Cases of toilet paper, 20 pound jars of peanut butter, 36 cans of soup, 5000 BandAids...that sort of thing. Co-op's, Amazon, Costco, BJ's, and Sam's...oh my!

There are benefits for some products and some people, but not for all. A deal must be fully useful or able to be safely stored out of the way or it's not a deal at all. Another issue that I'll spend more time on in Part 5, is all the packaging that sometimes come with these things. I know the customer leaves with their stuff in boxes and that's good. What's not good is the carton that holds a box that holds 24 boxes, like some bulk juice boxes and bulk snacks. Some items do reduce wasted packaging, like rice and beans. Buying them in 20lb paper bags and storing them in jars or buckets, eliminates 20 plastic bags per recyclable paper bag.

Some examples...

A. The Kid, is actually an adult and very self sufficient. Her food budget is less than minimal, most of which is spent on quick foods that fit into her schedule or for her open house dinners, where she cooks for up to 20 people on as many dollars. She grew up a semi-veggie but somewhere between leaving home and college kid poverty, she now eats things I would never, can't ever, but, she plans her useful quantities purchases on her limited budget and shops accordingly. 5 lb's of. bulk size bags of cereal, cases of ramen noodles, frozen foods, soups, pre-made turkey burger patties, day old bagels to freeze, reduced 'Manager's Special' meats to grill, produce, and bulk milk deals are what she looks for.  Those are her useful every day needs. Even though she won't admit that she learned to shop like that from me, I'm still proud to watch her turn $40.00 into many meals. She has limited space for dry storage however, so even though she'd love that closet full of toilet paper and canned goods, she likes to keep her clothes in it more. For her, a case of toilet paper would be a bulk purchase, not a useful quantity.

B. The Guy and I, have different needs. While we live in Reality Land and need to buy by the roll, pound, bottle, jar, or can quite often recently, we have figured out that certains things (like toilet paper) in bulk are useful. They save money and time when you only need to buy them once every 6 months. Other useful quantities in our house include: masa, rice noodles, rice, quinoa, beans, distilled water, herbs, olive oil, some flours, yeast, agave nectar, maple syrup, sea salt, Bragg's Liquid Aminos, Frank's Red Hot sauce, coffee beans, organic roasted tomatoes,  Thai coconut milk, green chilies, castile soap, epsom salts, Simple Green, borax, baking soda, baking powder, and vinegars.
These are our basic must have and can live off of needs, our basic pantry. It makes everything else more affordable and appreciated. We will find the room to store them, even if it means storing the case O' T.P. in the storage unit. For us, a 4 gallon milk deal would spoil unless we are making cheese or yogurt. Our freezer needs to hold all of the nuts, some of the grains, and flours here in the desert, so for us, that turkey burger patty deal would be a bulk purchase.

C. A 5 pound bag of spinach decomposes at the same rate as 1 pound bag, as does all other produce, dairy and meat in quanitiy. Even bulk pet foods are not too helpful for us. We found the cats and dog stopped eating the 50lb bags at about -25 to -30 lbs. They want fresh tasting food as much as we do.
Another issue of buying in bulk is when you don't or can't try the product first, and more than once. My first Bob's pizza crust was one of the few edible pizzas I had eaten in months, but, if I had made it again, I would had confirmed I don't like garfava flour...which is odd because I like both beans, as beans. My case of gross pizza crust still lingers in my pantry and I'm going to have to donate it.
I am aware of how lucky I am to live in a holistic minded community and to have access to a dozen or more health food stores. Now, I try the product 3 or more times, then buy my discounted Co-op or Amazon case. I am also aware that our family of two is not at all average (in any way). I understand why large families buy in bulk more than we do...but I've also tripped over my share of boxes of things and stuff in homes and wondered how much of the bulk life...is a possessions or cluttery issue rather than actually about the savings.

Summary: Bulk spending is only helpful if you use ALL of the purchase in a short amount of time or you can safely store it out of the way for months. Useful quantities are the things that you/r (family) can use before they spoil and do not fill your space and life with it's presence. For me, not filling the landfills is as important as not filling my home. I have a deep sense of commitment to care for this planet and the children we are leaving it to. Which leads me to Part 5: Kermit was wrong. It's easy being green.