Bulk Foods and Storing for Winter

Some times I feel like a squirel, storing food for winter.  Today is one of those days as we bulk-order food.  Over the weekend, we ran out of wheat kernels and it's starting into prime baking season.

Sweat Potato Delivery

We will bulk order several 25 pound sacks of shelf-stable pantry items such as wheat kernels, split green peas, and popcorn.  Today's order will be made through the Whole Foods bulk department.  Instead of filling up small plastic bags, we'll just take the whole sack.  Sometimes there's an extra sack in the back and some days it will be ordered for us.  Taking the whole bag ensures that we get a fresh product and also a 5% discount over the regular bulk price.  If a 25 pound bag needs to be ordered for us, it usually only takes a few days. 

Filled jars in the upstairs pantry with dried beans, leguems and pasta

We buy dates, crystalized ginger, grains, beans, peas, fig bars, and brazil nuts all in large quantity sacks and store them in the basement.  We use glass jars for easy access in the kitchen and large food-grade storage bins in the basement.  The larger bins were specially ordered and the smaller containers are recycled from food we had purchased.  The medium sized tubs with red handles are 3-gallon icecream containers.

Basement storage

In the past, when it's one bag on order, Craig will pick it up using his bike.  If there were more than one bag waiting, he would use the car, which isn't an option anymore.  With todays' order, he'll be using the bike tailer to pick up the order.  See bulk order pick-up pictures here.

Astrid