So yesterday between home schooling… watching Owen, prepping dinner (cooked a whole chicken, to make chicken broth, etc..), I decided I would clean out the pantry. Not sure why I got the whim to do this… but it was bothering me so much, how ugly it looked, that I had to try :)

Our pantry is a good size. We are thankful to have one :) – since our last home did not.

One thing I have really been trying to do is to buy foods that are healthy for us. Foods that force me to create meals myself… rather than open a frozen pre-packed something. While I don’t think its bad to do this from time to time, I really believe that if we eat healthy and cook things ourselves, that we will feel better over all. It isn’t so much about living a long life for me, I have full assurance knowing I serve a sovereign God… and if he wants to take me at age 27, or 57, it will happen. However, the way we treat our bodies… will make an impact on our health and how we do live.

With that said…

The organizing went well!

Although Owen decided to help….

>

Over all though, it looks a lot better. Even though these pictures were taken with my ipad, and aren’t much to look at :) – it hopefully shows things are better placed.

One thing I did that really seemed to free up room, was any cereal boxes we had (this is one thing I can’t seem to let go of) – I put them all in a bin at the very bottom. Which means I took all the boxes off the bags of cereal, and just place them in that bin. This was the inspiration for that… – her Pantry btw will put mine to shame! :)

For those curious whats in the zoomed up photo of the top 3 shelves…
Heres kind of a run down…

Napkins, extra glass jars, egg noodles, canola oil, whole grain pastas (theres like 10 boxes of them there, you just can’t see them all), shelf under that has gluten (for some bread recipes, although Ive been leaving it out lately, if you can’t tell from the jar being almost full), lecithin, extra virgin olive oil, honey, organic coconut oil, sucanat, honey granules (those are the big tubs), shelf under that has chocolate morsels, organic chia seeds (I put this on my cereal), corn starch, lots of salt, all sorts, kosher, sea salt and raw salt (we use raw almost 100% now), baking powder, cocoa powder, baking soda, chocolate sprinkles & beside that I have more bags of semi-sweet chocolate morsels. Those 3 shelves I use THE MOST. Besides the need for eggs, butter, yeast, milk and the wheat I use, what is listed there provides almost everything I need to make all my home baked goods.

This post btw is way longer than I expected…

My husband took the boys out for breakfast (a treat and something we very rarely do) – so I had some time just to sit and veg ;-) – despite the laundry upstairs needing sorting. We all need breaks.

My goals though for this year have been to:

1) Bake all my kids snacks.
- I haven’t purchased a pack of pre-packaged cookies in prob. 6 mo
(my husband although has purchased popped tarts for him, its a treat he can’t seem to escape)

2) Bake all our breads
- I have done this since Nov last year.

3) No pre-packaged pancakes or waffles
- I bake them all now and freeze extras for mornings I cant cook.

4) No white sugar or white flour
- Besides some use of powdered sugar Ive stuck with this since Nov as well.
- We use all organic hard white wheat (Thanks to Bread Beckers)

5) Make my own chicken broth
- Getting there… I made 3 batches yesterday, that should last a while.
- I will say I love the convenience of grabbing a box of swansons from time to time…
- TO add to this, I want to make Homemade Bouillon!

6) Instead of chips as a filler, give fresh fruit or veggies.
- Almost there! Our kids thankfully LOVE FRUIT.
- The veggie thing… so so. They can handle carrots well ;-)

7) No juice
- We have been juice free for some time.
- We use the Berkey system to filter all our water & love it!
- On occasion we do treat them, but its usually out at a birthday party or something.

8) Home made meals
- Im doing this, but some days don’t feel like it. ;-)
- Im still working on trying new things… but it is hard to get out of your routine of “regular” recipes.

& I suppose thats it. All I can think of any how :) – I think this should end my post…
The kids may be back any sec, and I still need a shower.

All this being said.
These are goals for our family.

Every family is different.

I don’t expect people to choose the same things I do. We each have our own convictions and this is just one of mine.

Also for those curious if we eat organic..

We do and don’t.

While I would LOVE TO be 100% organic. We honestly cannot afford to. My husband has been unemployed since Aug 2011… we are thankful for being in the type of place that is helping with this… however, even though we prob. could get away with buying some organic, I am choosing not to at this point. We have budgeted ourselves very well… but because someone else is helping to support us in ways, I feel we need to stretch our dollar in other areas as much as possible…

We were buying raw milk for months, but I opted not to… mainly because of money, but also because of concerns I had in regards to its safety… Its something I’ve wavered with and just can’t decide on… despite loving the way the milk itself taste. There are risk either way… pasteurized or raw… its just something we have to weigh and decide on ourselves.

I have read all the benefits of eating organic… There just comes a time when we have to really pray and seek the Lord on certain things and trust him with decisions we have to make due to circumstances changing.

The few things I am mindful of are our grain – it is organic… but the cost isn’t much difference than reg. grain. $32 for reg. $37 for organic. & that is for 50lbs worth. We buy no store bread – so this last us about a month 1/2 – 2 mo. It provides flour for not only our breads, but cakes, muffins, cookies, breading on recipes, etc..etc… So since that is such a large part of our diet, I felt it important to pay a few dollars more :)

My dream though… to one day have a big yard… where I can plant my own organic veggies and fruits… and provide those things ourselves. I just think that be really neat… and fun to get the kids involved in helping with it. Who knows, we may even have chickens one day ;-)

& to end… the sweet kitchen I cook in actually looked clean for a few hours yesterday ;-)

(TO those curious what recipes we use often check out our cook book)