Eating all our food storage

Whenever we move, food storage is always a challenge.  Because I store food.  Lots of it.  If I plan to make lasagna next week, I buy the ingredients for lasagna times three and store the extra in my basement. That way, in times of famine or when I really DO NOT want to go to the store, we can still have lasagna.  We don't just have your basic overstocked kitchen pantry.  We have a basement room full of food and an extra refrigerator.  We have a garage with two huge chest freezers (one for fruit and bread and ice cream and a separate one for meat and fish and green chilies....duh).  We store flour and sugar in six gallon tubs and own and USE a wheat grinder on a fairly regular basis.  We even have over 100 gallons of water stored in the garage.

Or rather we DID own those extra freezers and fridge.  I sold them.  We DID have a basement room stocked with food, before we took all the shelving to our storage unit to better organize there.  And the water storage drums were dumped out and sold too.  And this all presents a unique problem. All that stored food must be consumed.  Not just the freezer and refrigerator items, though those are more urgent for sure, but I'm not taking cans of tomato sauce on any oversea flights next fall and space is limited in the car during this summer's epic road trip too. So, ever since the house officially went on the market, we have been trying to make up our meals primarily from food storage items.

At first this was just fine, like I said, all the ingredients for lasagna times three were sitting on the shelves. And the boys didn't really mind helping me to rid the freezer of steaks and roasts.  But now we are reaching weird levels. One day last week we had platters full of breaded and fried mahi mahi accompanied only by a berry smoothie. Who knew Ronan was such a fine fry-cook?  We dipped our fish in honey.  Not bad. We ate broccoli basically every other day for nearly three weeks until we finally ran out, next up: edamame. We have a lot of pasta to consume and so I let Fionnula make macaroni and cheese more often than can possibly be good for any of us.  Tonight though I made black bean hummus for the first time.  It was fabulous.  Good thing cause there are six more cans of black beans to go through and we leave the house in less than two weeks.

Its not just food either.  Basically, if its consumable, we have a back log of it: my favorite face wash, shampoo, toilet paper.  School supplies too: pens, pencils, notebook paper, art supplies. So many art supplies.  Up until now, in our ordinary life, this has been a good policy.  We seldom run out of the things we need.  Even the things we need to make silly putty and grow crystals.  Well, we're making lots of silly putty now.  And that vinegar and baking soda reaction never gets old, especially when you have eight or nine food coloring colors to choose from.  It will be an adjustment learning to live without the fully stocked closets and cabinets and pantries and freezers. But for now, every time I squeeze the last bit from a shampoo bottle or finish off another jar of peanut butter, I have a tiny little celebration that one more thing is gone.