What do you regret buying in your prep stash and lessons learned.

[RusticaRubra]

I regret buying tinned stuff. I don't have loads but probably have about 20 tins of beans, soup, veg and fruit. We will get through it but the family are all cats bum face about it. Tinned toms and Devon custard - yes, other tins just no. I won't do this again. Next time my focus will be on having external delivery supply chains of fresh fruit and veg if I can't get to the supermarket.

If there is a next time, I will cook and freeze.

What do you regret buying in your prep stash and lessons learned.

Oh yes and the sponge puddings in little plastic tubs were not a patch on the tinned ones that use to be available. Even DS2 who is a sugar monster left them.

@HasaDigaEebowai
Ive been making my own sponge pudding in the microwave. Whole thing takes 10 minutes, start to finish! It's amazing

Tinned potatoes, meat and peas. All donated now.

passthemustard

Would love the recipe for microwave sponge puddings if possible please?

@passthemustard I agree, we need that recipe please!

I'd love the recipe too please.

Something I noticed the other day is that many of the meals from the Jamie Oliver series "Save With Jamie" use storecupboard/freezer ingredients. We made the fish pie last weekend and I think the only fresh items were potatoes and onions, both of which keep for ages.

Late to the party but I regret nothing. I'd have bought more flour, yeast, tinned fruit, tomato ketchup.

Food wise nothing - we’ve eaten and drank everything bar a couple of cartons of long life milk, and got through the tins (fruit and soup especially) surprisingly fast!

Nappies yes - toddler changed sizes just after lockdown so had about 5 surplus packets of too small a size. Used carefully (not overnight!) and then the rest passed on to a friend for her baby after lockdown

Definitely will keep tinned fruit and soups going. Might give the tinned potatoes a whirl in Spanish omelettes and curries thanks to the advice on here

Picking up on the breadmaker - it takes 5 minutes of my time and doesn't need the oven turning on. Virtually no washing uo, either.

Downside is finding yeast and flour, unless you have a good stock. I barelyvtouched it for the first couple of months of lockdown because there was no yeast to be had and I wanted to save my supplies for potential self isolation.

I think a good rule of thumb is to only stock up on long life foods you eat, anyway. Lots of tomatoes, pulses and Tuna, here, with a random tin of corned beef and a few tins of soup. Not loads of pasta but lots of rice, including a few pouches - a habit from living somewhere prone to power cuts.

I don’t regret anything, really. We have way too much posh instant coffee bought for work because we drink cafetière coffee at home, but I will donate the excess. We haven’t used the tuna yet, but now I’m thinking about baked potatoes stuffed with tuna, sweetcorn and other things that I find in the fridge would make a great WFH lunch...

Other than that, the massive Brexit stash was a huge success.

The breadmaker, which I did use intermittently before, has been a lifesaver. I only use it for dough, but the routine is incredibly simple. Ingredients in at 7.30 before I start work. Breadmaker does its thing for 90 mins and then I usually let it rest for a short while to rise again. Put oven on to get a bit warm. Tip out, knead (aka mid morning therapy) and plonk in loaf tin. Turn oven off. Set oven delay to allow about half an hour to prove in warmish oven, and then 35 minutes to cook, timed carefully to finish between calls. Remove, cool and scoff. The only down side is being tortured with bread smells from mid morning .

Oh, and about the bread. After an incident where a loaf rose ridiculously, collapsed and the slices looked like Terry Wogan, I’ve been experimenting with putting in a fraction of the yeast - less than 1tsp. One sachet does at least 3 large loaves.

I also do sponge pudding in the microwave but no special recipe.
I just use a standard 2or 3 egg cake recipe, put syrup in a pyrex bowl, tip in the cake batter, cover in cling film and micro for a few mins until the cake is spongy and moist. Dead easy.

Tinned chicken curry. The DC and I went off them very quickly. Fray bentos pies are last resort too so have some of them left. I also bought too much salsa.

I decided not to get a bread maker in March which was a mistake. I’ve got one now and a little stock of bread mix. I also signed up with a milkman. The full fat milk comes from the cows in the next village and it tastes gorgeous. He delivers eggs and chocolate milk too so DS is happy.

Re the oat milk earlier: If you buy an oat milk bag (about £2) on Amazon then you can easily make oat milk in a blender. It's just oats and water. It's probably easier to store a bag of oats than 400 cartons of oat milk.

minimalistbaker.com/make-oat-milk/

I regrets buying around 4 cartons of long life orange juice. It's not nice at all. We usually buy Tropicana but wanted some long life stashed. Also tinned peas. Not a patch on frozen.

Would buy tinned potatoes again as they were ok fried in a breakfast hash. Tinned carrots too. In fact, my carrot refusing DD liked tinned ones. Also hut milk. The kids didnt notice the different. Big jars of pasta came in handy. We would make pizzas, base for chilli etc.

We havent used any of the tinned fruit yet but I'm sure we will make crumbles over autumn/ winter...

Sorry, jars of passata. It auto corrected.

UHT milk!!

I've used all the stuff I bought, but there were two weeks when the supermarket only have vile, very basic white sliced, and I couldn't find yeast or bread flour.

So I've just bought three tubs of Instant yeast, and a 25kg bag of bread flour for the freezer.

Last time, I learned how to grow my own yeast and it's very long winded. Not doing that again.

I don't regret anything because at the time it gave me peace of mind and I knew what I was doing.

I have a lot of stuff still (which the way things are going is no bad thing!)as I either didn't use Much of certain things or I've bought stuff weekly & rotated it

A lot if the stuff I bought, I don't normally use as I'm a T2 diabetic & I control it through diet & exercise. However, that relies on a) not falling off the wagon & b) getting a good supply of fresh veg & cream/cheese.

I set up a very good, workable system & nothing will go to waste. I've given some bits to friends (ready bake rolls & that kind of thing, that we're nearing their use by date but I didn't want to eat when I could get fresh veg & stay on the wagon.

I have things in date order so I know what needs to be used next & as I'm still on the wagon quite a lot will go to friends on low incomes as it's stuff I know they will use & obviously if they don't need/want it, it'll go to the food bank. It's all nice stuff, just too high in carbs for me.

But I bought it knowing this could be the outcome, but I wanted it in, in case I couldn't get deliveries or in case I got Covid & wanted/needed 'easy/comfort' food (soup/beans/pasta)

Most of it has a really really long shelf life, so I'm still well stocked for whatever winter brings.

My lesson learned is not to eat the chocolate stash at bedtime whilst reading and keep having to replace it then spend the summer trying to lose the stone I gained as a result of that and no regular exercise during lockdown

Lessons I learned from last lockdown.

Don't run out of wine.
Have several different crafting kits for DC.
I bought text books for secondary child.
Don't buy 2 ply toilet roll, horrible thin stuff.
Get some long life milk in case can't get delivery slot.
Buy yeast and strong flour for bread and pizza making.
Book delivery slots in advance whilst you can still get them.
Buy vit d3 and bit c
Get some new books to read on Kindle.
Stock up and restock even more cat food and cat milk. We have four cats and they like meat in gravy and cat milk. Last time I could only buy 4 tins of good a day for ING me out every day. This time I have bought 8 dozen to start in

I use up the UHT milk in sauces, where it loses its vile taste, and we can save the fresh milk for tea, etc.

I managed to get dried egg past DH, until one morning when he saw me making scrambled egg. Now apparently it doesn't taste right, so it's going in flans and cakes, etc.

I am not sure I would buy the huge pack of dried rosehip powder again, but I was thinking about vitamin C and defence against the virus. Now I'm sprinkling it into crumbles.

I would buy in more oils, more sacks of dog food, more tomato ketchup, (I'm amazed how much we get through), more mayonnaise, more flour, more yeast and lots more red wine. Lots.

my war child mother tried to feed me rose hip syrup in the seventies, so rose hip powder would nbever have been on my list....

We used to get the food package from the shielding service. 4 weeks worth of cans before we were able to cancel it properly. I donated most of it back, but kept some soups as I had a touch of nostalgia. YUK! What's happened to the classic soups of olde. They are now so bland. I used the mushroom soup as a base for a casserole the other day, it was better than eating the soup alone. (Brown the chicken pieces with onion, garlic, mushrooms, carrots, parsley and flavour to taste, pour the sauce over and stir, then bung it in the oven. Tasted yummy over Jasmine rice.)

The tomato soups will get a tomato basil chicken treatment :P

I'll never buy them through choice though!