One of the absolute favorite things about social media is different people posting their ideas and when you find a like minded person, you find new ideas. Now this idea came at a time when I felt like I needed to get ready for surgery in the form of preparing the house. I spent the time looking at our pantry and upon seeing the social media posts, I decided to start stocking the pantry. Now I always make sure to have some snacks and the standard items to make meals, so this is not exactly what I am talking about. I’m talking about filling your pantry with items that are made with better ingredients than what you would find at the store from a box mix.
The idea is that we can take out all of the added ingredients that we do not need in the mixes. The catch on those items are that they are quick and easy to grab and make. I fully am on board with that concept as I personally am the mom that some days just needs the quick easy pick up meal. Maybe I don’t want to stop at a fast food establishment but want the same convenience. Ok, well at that point, my back up may be a box mix. But in those mixes, we have so many different additives to it. So we are planning to make our own.
The concept is that we spend one day prepping all of this food for the week and then we have quick fixes ready in the pantry. Think meal prepping but we are not going to actually do this for all of our meals. We are going to use this for a wide variety of items but more so, on our front, we are aiming to work on our snacks. My kids snack like crazy so if I can take a little time and big batch snacks for the week, I can also take one less struggle out of my life! Now not all of this is about snacks, some of this is for baked goods and some meal ready items.
So let’s break this down! I have made the following so far. All of these items are dry mixes and have been put into mason jars in our pantry. Now these are only shelf stable for about 6 months and some less than that. I recommend checking out how long you can keep them in your pantry! We have mixed up:
-Hot cocoa
-Brownie Mix
-Yellow Cake Mix
-Hamburger Helper Mix
-Oatmeal packs (in jars)
-Breakfast trail mix
-Standard Chex mex mix.
We have also made a few different things for snacks such as chocolate muffins, freezer burritos and we cut up fruit.
My goal with the mixes is to have items that I can easily grab to make meals. It’s like making soup and putting them into the freezer. To which, not gonna lie, may do that as well. But instead let’s put together some mixes and use as needed. We haven’t needed this so much yet but at the same time it does cut down my time during the week.
The snack front is the biggest portion of my prep work. I can easily make the mixes within 5 minutes and they go onto the shelf. Now the snacks, those take a little more time. Making the burritos also take more time as well. If its an actual meal that is going into the freezer will take time. But at the same time, I am putting all the time in on one day and not spreading this out through out the week. The snacks, we have been trying to make about 2 homemade snacks each week (we make big batches) along with cutting up fruits and vegetables for all of us to snack on. I didn’t make it past 30 minutes of the chocolate muffins being out of the oven before my kids broke into them. Haha! With the homemade snacks, fruits and veggies, the goal is to make better food options for the family and easy access.
We live in a world where we have so much convenience that it is easy to just grab the bag of potato chips and snack on them. Now I am not knocking those potato chips, a girl needs her chips and dip but we can lessen the quantity of eating these processed foods. If we just spend a day preparing this all, you can truly benefit your health over the convenience factor. Now yes, I did just say lots of baked items or things that have sugar, yes, but just because we are doing these mixes, doesn’t mean we are health nuts that do not enjoy delicious foods. We are just prioritizing the ingredients over the prepared mixes from the store. Our family is very heavily dependent on the fruits and veggies but we enjoy splurges too!
The goal with this post is that you enjoy taking the time to think through, what can I make at home? With this, how is the ingredients you pick better than the ingredients that are in the store bought pre-made mixes? If you’re a family that needs to cut out certain foods, this could help you all still enjoy the foods you did before but with ingredients that fit you. For ourselves, this is a moment of convenience.
Don’t forget to change it up! Every week try to mix something new up to have on hand. But also make some delicious snacks for you and the family. Have fun with this. Do not let this become a burden! Hopefully we will have a few new staples added to the pantry and we can share those with you soon!