Plastic free food storage

thriftwizard

Ooooh, I'm green with envy! Our understairs is my little "office" where all my paperwork lives, so I can't use that & there's nowhere else that can go. What gnaws away at me is that outside the back door, on the north & east-facing walls, the wall is whitewashed where our pantry used to be... quite a big one, by the lines left on the wall. We found the slate larder slab broken in two in the garden when we moved in; I use it now, up on bricks, to raise pots of geraniums up a little.

The people who "did" our house "up" managed to turn a 12' x 15' kitchen into a room that just had enough workspace & equipment-space to take a meal out of the freezer & pop it into the microwave... sigh! Looked very posh & minimalist, but scored zero for practicality in a 4-bed family house; the two side-by-side sinks were only just big enough to hold a plate, nowhere near big enough for saucepans or casserole dishes. Now looks like an estate agent's nightmare, but it works. And would work a whole lot better with a decent larder... sadly the back door is now where that was, and funds do not allow building another one next to that.

Slowly57

Caterina wrote: »

Update: I am getting a walk-in pantry! No, let me repeat that: I AM GETTING A WALK-IN PANTRY!!!
A dream come true and I can't wait to see it happen! Please rejoice for me! :T:):j:beer::cool::money::D:rotfl:

_party_:T Woot Woot!!:j:j:T_party_

Caterina

Thriftwizard I feel your pain, I have been through a kitchen "refurb" that turns an old, warm and workable, if a bit tatty, space into a posh minimalist Homes and Garden display kitchen! It took me 2 years to reclaim the space and am only just starting feeling it's my kitchen again. The understairs pantry will be a lovely, welcome addition.

Slowly57 Hear, hear!

Incidentally, I keep asking DH to build me a small cold storage space at the back of the kitchen, on the North facing wall of the garden, just a mini pantry box made of slate. My idea is to do away with fridge and freezer in the winter and let the weather work in my favour, instead of paying for the pleasure of cold storage indoors when it's cold outside. But he hasn't got around to doing that. Maybe after the pantry!

Katzen

Soooo jealous right now!

You have got me thinking about plastics now though. Think I'm going to try leaving a note for the local milkman and enquire about prices. That's reduce our plastic use by tonnes

Caterina

Katzen, glass bottle milk delivered by the milkman is always more expensive than the supermarket big plastic jugs. I no longer drink milk but when I did buy it for yogurt I considered the premium worth paying for, not only for the no-plastic thing, but also because I wanted to keep the service of the milkman in the community. It is a vital service for elderly and isolated people, and it keeps an individual in employment. It is a good thing to have personal individual services face to face with a person, for me, rather than a faceless corporation. For all these reasons, it was worth for me to pay the extra, but I appreciate it that some people cannot spare even a few pence more, unfortunately, and have to rely on the cheapest at all costs.

moneyistooshorttomention

We do have a milkman round here - who is both reliable and early - but only delivers conventional milk and that's it full stop. So it's still buying milk at the supermarket for me - where I can buy my organic milk (and...darn it...it's in plastic bottles).

Though I am currently experimenting again with milk substitutes (which come in cartons). Trying to do it gently - this morning's porridge is half and half milk and rice milk. Wondering if it's possible to use rice milk in coffee and what it's like - and whether I should summon up my nerve to try that this morning (ie instead of milk)?

Caterina

MITSTM depends on what you use milk for. If it is only for drinks and your milkman does not deliver organic, you could buy the largest possible plastic jug and decant your milk in glass jar and freeze them. Large plastic milk bottles can be reused for so many purposes from veg cloches to scoops to keeping bits and in!

If cows milk is the only one you can stand but you are doing so much in other areas to be Eco and plastic fre and all that, I would say just forgive yourself and have it.

Personally I would nor spend on those cartons of pseudo almond/oat/rice etc milks, they contain only minute parts of what they advertise, the rest is water and flavourings that you are paying for.

I make my own, it's so simple and all you need is a blender, honestly I haven't looked back. But I take my tea black and use the milks for porridge or muesli. Google the recipes, there are loads online.

You could always contact the milkman's company and ask for organic milk, they might be able to order it in glass bottles, or explore buying from a nearby farm. Best of luck.

culpepper

I think earthenware containers might work. In the old days people would seal stuff with wax ,I haven't tried it myself but I would if I were going down the same route.
These days people add oxygen absorbers in with their dry goods before sealing.
For things like carrots and parsnips, layering in sand was used.

cinnamon71

Why not look out for demi-johns? Standard size is 5 litres and they're really easy to find second hand. Will need a good scrub unless you want your rice to taste of :beer:

For even larger bottles you could look for carboys which can go up to 23 litres (5 gallons), but not so easy to find and would be pretty difficult to lift once full I think.