How much food do you have stored?

Naninka - ouch! ?

My lifestyle is what it is and I make no apology for sharing it here in answer to questions that were asked.

I guess if I described myself as living on a smallholding no-one would have raised an eyebrow at the amounts I have stored. In fact our allotment is so productive that the only options I have are to use, store or give away foodstuffs - all of which I do. I subscribe to English Country Life on YouTube and have gleaned many useful tips from there (I recommend it). I could also have added that my husband butchers our own meat and in the past (no time now) has made our own sausages and cured our own bacon.

Gransnetters who have seen my posts over the years will know that we try to live as sustainably as possible (which is also a cheaper way to live) and that we have a huge extended family, so my explanation was for those who are newer to the site.

Gosh. I do admire you. So many cakes in the freezer. They would never last with me. This is the sort of life I fantasise about but would never and could never be me.

There is an online app named OLIO where you can donate food. People will contact you to pick it up.
You can advertise non food stuffs too.
Free app for local people

grannyactivist

Until COVID hit we had always had a pretty much ‘open table’ where, if people were around at mealtimes, they were invited to join us for breakfast/lunch/dinner or supper. Sometimes we would only be six or eight and at other times we mostly averaged about ten or twelve, but anything up to twenty people wouldn’t be unusual. So, I have three freezers, a large fridge and a range cooker, cutlery settings for twenty four people and enough plates and pans etc. to feed an army.

Since the advent of COVID it’s mostly just been the two of us and I have consequently severely limited my grocery shopping, but I’m now aware of just how much food I have/had in my store cupboards. The freezers are full of home-grown fruit and veg, plus a whole venison and the fish that our son catches for me. My husband makes our bread and I bake regularly, so I have half a dozen cakes in the freezer too. This week I’ve made 16 pots of strawberry jam, 3 jars of pickled cucumber and half a dozen bottles of elderflower cordial - to add to the various jars that are left over from last summer! I also have a cupboard full of home-made wine and liqueurs - e.g. sloe gin, limoncello, raspberry vodka and cassis.

I do give away a huge amount of home~grown/home-made produce (to friends, family, clients and neighbours - the Foodbank can’t accept it for obvious reasons), but I still have have enough jars and tins and bottles and packets to stock a small shop.

Is it just me, or do others have enough food to see them through a famine?

Where do you live, grannyactivist?Come Armageddon, I’ll be hammering on your door.

All the basic things in the fridge, with usually another pack of butter, at least a dozen eggs, meals for about five days in the freezer, and a store cupboard with one each of all the usual - tea, coffee, flour etc. I've stopped stockpiling - it was silly, unecessary, and I was often throwing out untouched items that were out of date. I have five supermarkets within a mile.

I wish I lived near you grannyactivist.
Your home sounds wonderful!!

Going back to the first post--deer, deer-I'm really spooked by the idea of a whole venison in the freezer. Did you fold the legs under it and do the eyes look at you when you open the top?

I have enough for about 4 weeks.
Small freezer and lots of tins. That’s enough. Why are you feeding the nation? Most unusual. In usual times, no one leaves our home hungry but the numbers mentioned are for who’s benefit. I just wonder why you’re feeding so many. Are these homeless people?

LovelyLady

I have enough for about 4 weeks.
Small freezer and lots of tins. That’s enough. Why are you feeding the nation? Most unusual. In usual times, no one leaves our home hungry but the numbers mentioned are for who’s benefit. I just wonder why you’re feeding so many. Are these homeless people?

Read grannyactivist's subsequent post, LovelyLady and all will be explained.

Another point - if you live in the country you may not have a handy corner shop or a Waitrose five minutes away.

Naninka

Is that a bit of trumpet blowing that I can hear?

Miaow

LinkyPinky

grannyactivist

Until COVID hit we had always had a pretty much ‘open table’ where, if people were around at mealtimes, they were invited to join us for breakfast/lunch/dinner or supper. Sometimes we would only be six or eight and at other times we mostly averaged about ten or twelve, but anything up to twenty people wouldn’t be unusual. So, I have three freezers, a large fridge and a range cooker, cutlery settings for twenty four people and enough plates and pans etc. to feed an army.

Since the advent of COVID it’s mostly just been the two of us and I have consequently severely limited my grocery shopping, but I’m now aware of just how much food I have/had in my store cupboards. The freezers are full of home-grown fruit and veg, plus a whole venison and the fish that our son catches for me. My husband makes our bread and I bake regularly, so I have half a dozen cakes in the freezer too. This week I’ve made 16 pots of strawberry jam, 3 jars of pickled cucumber and half a dozen bottles of elderflower cordial - to add to the various jars that are left over from last summer! I also have a cupboard full of home-made wine and liqueurs - e.g. sloe gin, limoncello, raspberry vodka and cassis.

I do give away a huge amount of home~grown/home-made produce (to friends, family, clients and neighbours - the Foodbank can’t accept it for obvious reasons), but I still have have enough jars and tins and bottles and packets to stock a small shop.

Is it just me, or do others have enough food to see them through a famine?

Where do you live, grannyactivist?Come Armageddon, I’ll be hammering on your door.

@grannyactivist. Did you ever post elsewhere and put up the most amazing menus?

grannyactivist*
Re the pickled cucumber, I'd never made any before but last year we had a glut of cucumbers and I used the Riverford recipe and can recommend it.

25Avalon

I’ve always been a bit of a hoarder in the sense if I’ve made something and put it in the freezer I hate taking it out again! Daft eh!

I’ve done that too. I’ve not wanted to use my little stash I’ve created, preferring to save it for future use. Silly I know.

MayBee70

I don’t think I even know 20 people . And, if I did they wouldn’t want to eat the awful food I produce!

Sorry, this really made me laugh but I am sat in the garden with a chilled glass of wine.

So if you did invite anyone round, would they view it as a threat?

I just hate cooking and the food knows it….

Well I loved your post, and admire you ?

MayBee70

I just hate cooking and the food knows it….

It was very funny MayBee70
You could keep topping us all up with wine when we have a GN post-Covid celebration round at your house!

And we could all bring a dish of food, Aussie-style.

I have just discovered Olio !!!!

My freezers are full of bread !

My two older daughters have husbands who are very fussy about sell buy / use by dates, so they pass food to us to save it being wasted. - My husband is a human dustbin.

My 91 year old mum is now passing tinned food to us that is well out of date ! Absolutely fine for us but now that Mum is past 90 she is taking care. As a 9-15 year old during WW2, she is now a hoarder!

My youngest daughter keeps chickens, has grape vines and makes jam so we are kept in plentiful supply of eggs, grapes and jam and her husband has been known to go fishing!

I have my allotment and grow plenty of fresh fruit and veg and also make my own chutneys and jam and rosehip syrup, lemon curd and marmalade too as sometimes Olio provides lemons as well as bread!

So yes, we are well stocked but hardly buy any of it. Just occasionally some meat to keep my husband happy and also tea, coffee, sugar etc and dairy products as we are never given those !
I would not have all of this food stuff in the house if it was not free.

What sort of meals do you have stored in your freezers in case you get many unexpected visitors. I'm expecting family to descend on us soon so what are the best dishes to freeze which will feed 10 people. It's main courses I'm unsure about, I can make enough cakes and always have plenty of cheese and biscuits in.

Lasagne freezes well or you could freeze bolognaise sauce and make up a lasagne quite quickly. Mary Berry's recipe for a vegetarian version with aubergines looked quick and simple.

Perhaps cook one or two chickens the day before as well to serve with other cold meats and salad and new potatoes..

Slow cooker recipes can be prepared the day before then cooked on the day eg chicken with chilli and butternut squash

Crusty bread would go with all the above.

I'd keep it simple but I'm sure others will have more inspiring recipes!

Sorry - not stored in the freezer but the ingredients could be prepared, frozen, thawed and ready to cook on the day.

We don't have a huge amount in the cupboard but we could get by for ten days maybe two weeks. Anything grown in the garden is eaten pretty much right away. The strawberries don't make it indoors.
I buy fresh one or twice a week as there’s five if us. Only one small cupboard to store packets and tins. Family size fridge and freezer which is fairly well stocked with meat and fish. Lots of ice cream too. ?

Any casserole and stew recipe will freeze. make the casserole with 2lbs of meat and plenty of veg and you will be able to feed an army. I would then have no qualms about re-freezing what isleft because it will have been well cooked between defrosting and refreezing.

If you have a meal that doesn't get eaten, defrost to mushy, divdide into smaller portions animmediately refreeze.

Some of these posts have really made me laugh. ?

We used to have a friend that raised a pig for us each year and happily it used to come to us via a butcher, but the deer arrives minus head and innards, then hangs in the garage for a week or so, until it's skinned and butchered by my husband who's now quite proficient. See here for pig story ?: www.gransnet.com/forums/food/1207810-Pigs-trotters-recipe

Re catering numbers; I am one of eight siblings and now I have my own very large extended family, including foster children and others who have lived with us long enough to identify as part of our tribe family - and we like each other enough to meet often, so we usually get together around food. I always cook from scratch so I don't keep meals in the freezer. I love baking, and preserving, which I find relaxing, but cooking for large numbers is all about having several 'go to' meals, and friends, family and visitors all get roped in with setting tables, moving chairs, and whatever else I can find for them to do that helps me put food on the table.

My son goes spear fishing and catches crabs, fish and lobsters, which he shares with me. Another son makes his own ice cream and has a pizza oven, which is very transportable. So the provision of food is often a shared responsibility. Our daughter has hens, but sadly lives too far away to keep us regularly supplied with eggs, which I get from a local farmshop.

Next Sunday our grandson is having a birthday party, so parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, aunties, great-uncle and great-aunt plus cousins keeps us just under the magic number of thirty. And yes, I'll supply the cake, salads, pickles, a pasta dish and elderflower cordial, my son will bring ice cream and make pizzas, my other son will provide crisps and dips and the others will bring wine and whatever else they think will fit the bill.

Grannyactivist a meal cooked from scratch and then frozen remains a meal cooked from scratch, it doesn't transmogrify into a Tesco or Waitrose Readymeal while it is in the freezer.