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Oh Sweetie, Do We Have Any .....??
8/19/00
Janet Parks
“What’s for dinner
tonight?” Blaine says. I
reply with “Well, if we have any chicken left in the freezer, have
mozzarella cheese in the fridge and spaghetti sauce in the storage bin,
then I’ll make Chicken Parmesan tonight”.
Then comes “Oh sweetie, do we have any tuna in here?” as he
stares into the great abyss of can storage.
“I’m not sure, let me help you look”, I reply as I begin
pulling cans out and stacking them around the salon cushions.
This
was our daily ordeal for meals before I created my inventory list of food
supplies to complement my current provisioning routine.
 We would have to search through a hundred cans looking for the one
or more items needed to complete our meal.
Then forage through the freezer, letting out all the cold air, to
see if we had what we needed in there.
Then on to the refrigerator and dry storage areas!
An hour was required just to see if we had all the ingredients for
the menu we wanted to prepare. But
now with the inventory list, I can look at my list and see in five minutes
that we have everything I need.
My
list is very basic. It
includes the category (Meat, Condiments/Sauces, Spices/Baking, Vegetables,
Fruits, Fresh Foods, etc.), the quantity and the description of the item.
After a major provisioning trip, I update my list on the computer
and print it out; then I update my list as I use up items or buy new
items. The hard part is
getting used to updating the list when an item is used.
So far this method has worked well for me.
To find items, I have them separated in three separate storage areas under
our settees.
In one bin, I have dried foods such as pastas, flour, rice, cake
mixes, etc.
In another bin, I have my canned foods that are labeled on the top
as to  what they contain.
This helps in two ways: it makes it easier to locate an item since
all the tops are showing and if the label ever gets wet and falls off, I
will know what is in the can since it is permanently marked on top.
The last bin contains all of our drinks (sodas, beer, tonic, etc.)
Therefore, I do not have to inventory the location of the food
items yet, unless I end up with multiple storage locations for the same
types of foods.
Almost
all dry storage items come in LOTS of extra packaging that take up much
need storage space, so I repackage all items when I do my provisioning
runs. I
take flour, sugar, baking soda, etc. out of their packaging and put them
into Ziploc bags.
For messy items like flour, I will put a couple of flour Ziplocs
into another Ziploc bag to double-bag the items in case one breaks.
I also place flour in the freezer overnight and add a bay leaf to
each bag to prevent weevils.
I
take items like cake mixes, hamburger helper, etc. out of their boxes and
put them into a Ziploc as well, but I also cut out the cooking directions
and include them in the same Ziploc.
By putting most items into Ziplocs, I can store a lot more into a
storage bin and they will conform to the shapes of the storage bin as
well.
So
my provisioning days consist of buying the items, loading them on the
boat, updating my inventory list, labeling the tops of all the cans,
repacking the dry goods and then storing all of the items. All of this may
seem like a lot of work to do for provisioning, but the time used up front
saves much more time in the end and makes cooking much more enjoyable!
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