Cooking Oil Shortages

The newest report is we will be seeing cooking oil shortages due to current events.  Some shoppers are reporting that sunflower oil is very difficult to find.  The food industry is sounding the warning over palm oil shortages.  Both of these oils along with canola oil are cause for concern because the food industry relies heavily on these oils for commercially produced baked goods.  Shortages therefore can have a huge impact for that industry.  Substituting another oil is not easy as it would likely increase price something that really isn't desirable given the high inflation rates right now.

If you are a home baker/cook, shortages of these oils likely won't affect you.  If you can't find one oil, you can likely substitute another oil  If you also make your own soaps, then palm oil may or may not affect you.  I use palm oil for soap making so expect to see an increase in price when I next order.  Other than that, I'm really not concerned.

Oils can be purchased in larger quantities but should be stored in a cool, dark location.  At higher temperatures, oils can become rancid.  Do not ingest or use rancid oils for cooking.  If you do not have a cool, dark location, oils can be stored in the refrigerator to extend their life.  Some oils will get a bit cloudy if stored in the fridge but that is perfectly normal. 

Garden Gnome
©2006-2022

Grain Price Increase?

We all know prices are going up.  I ordered wheat berries at $22 per 10 kg a couple of weeks ago but now they are up to $26 per 10 kg.  So within a span of about 2 weeks, it was a price increase of $4 from that particular source.  It could be their local adjustment though as I'm not seeing huge increases elsewhere but rather mild increases.

For those who do not use wheat berries or other whole grains for longer storage or home milling, I'm not seeing a huge increase in commercially ground flours.  Most have gone up verry little or by a few pennies  if at all.  Certainly store brand flours seem to be staying the same price.  Rice has increased by pennies but oat meal and cornmeal is the same.  An 8 kg bag of jasmine rice is on sale at No Frills this week for $12.88 member price.  Dried legumes, split peas and beans have all increased about $1/900 kg bag so it's best to watch for sales of these even though they are still a good bargain for your food dollars.  If you prefer canned beans, keep an eye on No Frills.  I think it was last week they had selected varieties of canned beans on for $0.49 so that sale will be repeated likely next month since sales tend to be cyclic.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2022

Much Needed Break - Road Trip

A little over a week ago, we took a much needed break.  At the same time we took advantage of stopping at some of the many food growers/producers/suppliers scattered throughout southwestern Ontario.  The first day of our journey, we stopped at:  a whole sale food distributor, a cheese factory, a grain mill, a fish monger  and a few smaller venues.  While there, time spent in nature meant renewing the spirit while discovering new plants and doing a bit of foraging.  We enjoyed several lovely meals and the turkey carcass was carefully packaged for the ride home.  Our final stop was a lovely Asian meal at our daughter's.

Looking back, we were away 5 days and yet every day I was able to do something that would help our pantry and preparedness at home.  I personally don't feel that now is the time to do nothing so my goal is do something daily but at the same time a change of scenery is restorative and good for the soul.  

It's always fun for us to discover new food suppliers too.  Two of the places we stopped at, I have ordered from several times online so it was really nice getting to meet them!  One was a totally new discovery but definitely a keeper on our list of local 'must stops' when we are on a road trip.  Speaking of road trips,  we're already planning a foodie road trip now that asparagus and rhubarb is running.

The next morning, I was up dealing with what was left of our purchases.  The following morning, I made a beautiful turkey stock with the carcass and canned most of it but froze a couple of bags.  Good thing, because we only had one jar of turkey stock left!  Our days of finding cheap turkeys in the US have been dampered by the current events and quite frankly, turkeys are so expensive on the Canadian side you almost have to take out a second mortgage to buy one.  At any rate, our daughter found a great turkey deal so we got one.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2022

Grow What You Can

During both World Wars folks were encouraged to grow whatever they could.  Victory gardens were encouraged.  Many folk across Canada still have a home garden while many more have turned to indoor hydroponic gardening.  Given the current geopolitical events, high inflation rates heading towards  hyperinflation, quickly rising food prices, and increasing warnings of food shortages the advice is to grow what you can.   My belief is everyone should grow whatever they can.  A surprising amount of food can be grown in a 4' x 4' raised bed or containers on balconies.  Herbs and salad greens can be grown on window sills.  Both sprouts and microgreens are easy to grow indoors and require very, very little space.  

My gardening efforts are both indoors and outdoors.  I grow outdoors on the deck in containers mainly using the Kratky method (passive hydroponics) that is very low maintenance, high yield gardening perfect for greens, tomatoes and some herbs.  A large pots of herbs, strawberries, beans and peas I use 2 wide mouth mason jars for my sprouts and grow microgreens in a 10" x 12" tray.  Two repurposed clear plastic take-out clamshell containers serve as mini greenhouses to start seeds or grow extra microgreens as needed.  The lower bathroom bathtub is filled with deck plants overwintering soon to be moved outside.  The lighting for those is tied into our home automation system.  I use watering spikes in some outdoor pots but others are on an automatic watering system while the indoor pot are on a watering system tied into our home automation as well.  I also have a 6 pod Aerogarden that is also surprisingly quite productive. 

Seeds are by far, less expensive that the starter plants so I tend to start whatever plants I can from seed.  I prefer heirloom seeds to hybrids as they breed true so can be saved from mature plants and I prefer organic seeds for sprouting or microgreens.  Seeds at Home Hardware, Canadian Tire and Walmart range in price $0.99 to $3.50 per package.  Seeds at Dollarama (Canadian origin) are 3 pks/$1 or $0.33 each.  Dollar Tree seeds (USA origin) are 4 pks/$1.25 or $0.31 each.  Sprouting and microgreen seeds are exactly the same as what you would plant in the ground or containers but they are bought in bulk.  I buy from organic sprouting seeds from Mumm's (Saskatchewan) and organic mustard seeds from Splendor Garden (Saskatchewan).  Splendor Garden also has bulk herbs and spices.  I get grains like wheat berries, kamut kernels, and etc., directly from organic flour mills.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2022

Food Storage Containers

Food storage containers are expensive purchased new especially when there are so many free resources.  The only food storage containers I don't mind buying are mason jars (ongoing as needed) and Anchor Hocking glass bowls with lids (twice in over 20 years) and Starfit glass rectangles with hinged snap lids (once).  These are used for storing leftovers as well as hubby's lunches.  I did spurge this year and buy two Chef's Path 7 qt (6.5 L) storage containers with hinged snap lids for easy access to wheat berries.  

Mason jars can be found free or very low costs at estate and yard sales.  I found just putting the word out I need jars to family and friends works well.  You really have to watch the resale store prices and Facebook Marketplace as quite often they are more expensive than new.  If buying new, I comparison shop and wait for them to go on sale.  Sales tend to run as strawberries come into season through the tomato season here, so end May through September.  Also, in Canada, our main brand is Bernardin (was made in Canada but now USA) but Golden Harvest (made in USA) is also available at a lower price point at Canadian Tire.  Canning lids here tend to be Bernardin.  Aside of those sold on Amazon, I haven't seen any other brand available.  Tattler reusable lids are available on Amazon and if you are lucky you can find glass inserts online.  I will say, I will not buy or use canning lids made in China.  Many of the lids have very low performance ratings to the point some home canners have lost their entire season of canned foods to seal failure and buckled lids.  As far as I know only Home Discovery brand of canning jars were made in China, sold for the y2K demand and they disappeared as quick as they appeared.  I have just under a dozen of these jars in use. 

Whenever we get groceries, the preference is for foods packaged in glass jars or bottles.  Glass is so much easier to re-purpose than metal cans and the shelf life for especially high acid foods is longer in glass than either metal or plastic.  High acid foods in metal cans can develop a metallic taste and sometimes rusting occurs if the acidity eats through the plastic lining.  This is not a problem with foods stored in glass jars.  While we seldom buy commercial tomato sauce, some is packaged in glass jars that fit the mason jar lids and given their weight can be used for home canning.  I carry a snap lid in my purse just to check for this.  Pickle jars are another very useful storage containers especially the 1 and 2 gallon sizes.  Some salad dressings still are available in glass jars and also fit the mason jar lids so they are good for jams and jellies.  We no longer buy salad dressing but friends and family save the jars for me.  Any jar that fits a mason jar can also be vacuum sealed, so perfect for storing dry foods or other dried goods like buttons.  

Five gallon buckets are very popular for food storage.  Here, I can buy a 5 gal (19 L) bucket for $5, the lid with gasket for $5 or a gamma lid for $20.  Or I can get a used 5 gal bucket with lid from a local restaurant free.  I like free!  My absolute favourite buckets are the free ice cream pails with lids from a local ice cream shop.  The are 11.4 L (3 gal) so won't fit gamma lids but are easier for me to handle.  I use them for food storage, container gardening, garage storage, craft supplies, anything else I need to store, utility pails, and hauling produce from farmers.  

Heavy plastic totes are another favourite but only three are used for temporary food storage and a couple for hauling food, the rest for my yarn stash.  I know we bought the food storage totes on sale but the rest were free.  Totes can easily be found inexpensively on Facebook Marketplace and the online auction HiBid.

Larger containers for water are available in the camping section of most stores.  Fifty gallon drums and IBC tanks are available use at multiple source or new at Uline.  If you buy used, be sure whatever was in the drum or IBC tank was potable water, nothing else.  Be warned that both 50 gal drums and IBC tanks are current targets of theft even if they are filled.  If you decide to use either, make sure they are stored out of eyesight of neighbours or folks going by.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2022

Our Ongoing Rodent Problem Possibly Solved

Rodents are insidious critters that can cause a lot of structural damage, reek havoc on your food supplies and most importantly are vectors of disease.  Once in your home, they bring all their relatives too!  The most common sign of infestation is droppings but on closer inspection you will also find dried urine.  The best policy is drive them away from your home followed by blocking any obvious entry points.  However, they can and will gnaw fresh entry points if given a chance.  Baiting is highly recommend as is trapping.

We have had an ongoing rodent problem despite several visits from pest control services and our ongoing efforts.   There's a field behind us so when the field is planted, mice come in.  When the field is harvested, the mice come in.  Any time the field is disrupted, the mice come in.  New roof, mice still come in.  But we gained a bit by using carpenter's wire in the drain holes for the brick so haven't seen any new activity in the garage for over a year.  We narrowed it down to one problem wall.  Last fall, I jammed steel wool into any hole I could find along the field facing wall.  A couple of days ago, I was looking for jars so moved a few boxes and there on the problem wall was an electrical outlet with a good finger width gap top and one side as well as the cover fallen off!  The cover must have just been set on the outlet without the screw to hold it on by the previous owners and we didn't notice it.   So, to my way of thinking the mice found an entrance point on that wall then down the wires and out into the room via that gap. 

My solution was to buy a double cover, outlet and switch.  I put a bit of cardboard behind the switch portion to stop any air coming through then secured the cover to the outlet.  Next will be getting under the deck to check again for any possible entry points along the outside of that wall. 

I'm still not taking any chances.  All food is stored in glass, metal or heavy plastic.  Even non-food items like ayurvedic hair care, candles, soaps, soaping/candlemaking supplies are all stored the same way.  I actually lost about 2 lb of soy wax pellets to mice the first year we were here and they chewed through an expensive, hard to find katam (ayurvedic hair care) as well as gnawing on homemade soaps.   Mice have been known to chew through plastic.  Thank goodness we aren't dealing with rats as they can definitely chew through plastic and some have reported they can even chew through some metals.  

Garden Gnome
©2006-2022

Bones

Honestly, for the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would buy boneless meat of any kind.    To me, bones are a true gift.  Yes, you pay for bones in the price of the meat but you also pay more for boneless cuts of meat.  If you hunt or fish, those bones are basically free too.

Bones are the basis of stocks and broths.  Both are nutrient dense, must have pantry staples.  I have a bone-in ham bought on sale.  About half will be canned, half will be spread over a couple of meals and the bone will be tossed into a crockpot with celery, carrots, onions, beans and seasonings for a lovely soup that will feed us over a few days.  An alternative to actually making the soup using the bone, is to simply make stock or broth something I routinely do.  The stock can be used within a few days or froze or canned.  I prefer to can my stocks because I have limited freezer space.  Home canned stock can later be used as the base for soups and stews or the liquid for canning meats or the liquid for cooking rice/beans/pasta.  Finally the spent bones from making stock can be further cooked then ground into bonemeal for the garden.  

Stock is ever so simple to make - bones, onion with skin, carrot, celery, peppercorns, bayleaf and the magical ingredient to help release calcium from the bones into the stock, vinegar.  I prefer using a pressure cooker but long, low simmer on the stovetop works well too.  I have also used a stem juicer to make absolutely gorgeous stock. 

Garden Gnome
©2006-2022