Over the last few months, we’ve spent so much time together in the garden—growing, harvesting, and preserving all of that wonderful food. We recently did a tour of the pantry where it’s all stored, and now comes the best part: using it.
I often say that my entire life seems to revolve around food, but I’ll be honest, cooking isn’t always my favourite thing to do. I look for ways to make it convenient and easy, and that is the true magic of a well-stocked pantry. Having those jars ready to go makes putting a healthy, nourishing meal on the table for my family surprisingly simple.
I thought I’d take you along with me for a week to show you what cooking from the pantry really looks like around here.
Cooking from a Pantry Doesn’t Mean Cooking All Day
You can watch me cook all of these meals and share my process in the video below. As you’ll see, the theme is convenience. The hard work was done in the summer, so cooking now is mostly about assembling and warming.
Setting Up the Week: Pantry Staples
I like to start out each week by making a few staples that we can use for breakfasts and lunches. This little bit of prep work on one day makes the rest of the week run so much more smoothly.
- Oat & Honey Bread: I made a batch of my simple oat and honey bread. This recipe is wonderful for beginners. I store all our flour in bulk in our cool, dry pantry, which keeps it fresh for up to a year.
- Homemade Yogurt: I made a batch of yogurt using our milk cow’s milk. I prefer to pasteurize the milk for yogurt (heating it to 180°F) because it makes a much thicker, creamier final product. I simply cool the milk, stir in a tablespoon of my starter yogurt, pour it into jars, and let it incubate in my dehydrator at 110°F for about 24 hours.
- Homemade Granola: This is a family favourite. It’s a simple mix of oats, almonds, coconut oil, melted butter, and a little maple syrup, toasted in the oven at 400°F. The key is to stir it every 5 minutes so it toasts evenly and doesn’t burn.
Meal Idea 1: Easy Pulled Pork Sandwiches
This was a busy day, so I needed something very easy for dinner. This is where home-canned meat is such a wonderful convenience.
- The Pork: I simply opened a jar of my home-canned pork and a jar of canned onions in broth. I added them to a pot with my homemade barbecue sauce and a splash of Worcestershire sauce (I add this at the end since it’s not safe to can with). I let that simmer and heat through.
- The Coleslaw: While the pork was simmering, I went down to the root cellar for a beautiful Red Acre cabbage and some carrots to shred for a fresh coleslaw.
- The Buns: I whipped up a quick batch of simple dinner rolls to serve the pulled pork on.
The entire meal came together so quickly, and most of the components came straight from our pantry and root cellar.
Meal Idea 2: Kid-Favourite Poutine
This is a huge favourite with the kids and such a wonderful, hearty treat on a cold day. Poutine is a classic French Canadian dish of french fries topped with cheese curds and gravy.
- The Fries: I grabbed a box of potatoes from the root cellar, cut them into fries, and cooked them.
- The Gravy: The gravy is also a pantry meal. I just used some of my home-canned chicken broth and thickened it with a little flour and some Better Than Bouillon for extra flavour.
- Assemble: To serve, you top the hot fries with cheese curds (we get ours from Costco, but mozzarella works, too) and pour the hot gravy over everything. We added some bacon this time, and it was delicious.
Meal Idea 3: “Homestead Fast Food” Chili with Cornbread
This is what I like to call “homestead fast food.” Because I canned a “chili base” this summer, all the work of chopping onions, peppers, and stewing tomatoes is already done. This meal takes almost no time at all.
- The Chili: I browned some ground beef that I’d pulled from the freezer. Then, in my wood cook stove pot, I added my home-canned kidney beans, home-canned corn, and four quarts of my chili base. I let it all simmer on the stove to let the flavours meld.
- The Cornbread: To go with it, I made a batch of cornbread in my antique cast iron cornstick pan. The trick to getting that perfect, crispy crust is to get the cast iron pan smoking hot with butter or lard before you pour the batter in.
Even though this meal hasn’t been simmering all day, it has that rich, slow-cooked flavour because the work was done months ago in the garden and at the canner.
Printable Checklist: My Pantry Staples for Easy Meals
Having these core items on hand makes weeknight cooking so much simpler. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s a wonderful place to start building your own working pantry.
- Home-Canned Proteins: Pre-cooked pork, chicken, beef, and beans (kidney, black, etc.)
- Home-Canned “Bases”: Chili starter, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, beef broth, chicken broth
- Home-Canned Vegetables: Corn, carrots, peas, onions in broth
- Home-Canned Fruit & Syrups: For easy breakfasts (like my raspberry-Saskatoon syrup for yogurt)
- Pantry Dry Goods: Flour, oats, sugar, yeast, salt, spices, baking powder, cornmeal
- Root Cellar Staples: Potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onions, garlic
- Homemade Condiments: Barbecue sauce, pickles, relish
Cooking this way, from food that we grew and preserved ourselves, is such a satisfying feeling. It brings a lot of peace to know that no matter how busy the day gets, a nourishing, homemade meal is never far away.
I’d love to hear what your favourite “pantry meals” are. What do you love to cook with the food you’ve put up? Let me know in the comments below.