Pantry Makeover Part II and Comfort Food

One unfortunate side effect of switching over to foods that you keep in the pantry rather than the freezer is that bugs tend to get into pantry foods.  I ended up with a pretty major bug problem awhile back, and decided that if I wanted to keep all of my healthy stuff bug-free, it would not be done in the plastic bags from the grocery store.  Buying in bulk is wonderful-if you have a place to keep all of it!

Plastic containers can get expensive, so I went Goodwill hunting (ba-dum, ching!) for some glass jars with lids.  After cleaning out every Goodwill and Savers on my side of town, I went to the other side of town and cleaned those out, too.  Glass jars were harder to find than I thought!  I never spent more than a dollar a jar, though, and some of those containers were big!  I then painted the outsides with a square of chalkboard paint to label what I had inside.  This arrangement ought to keep the bugs out pretty well!

This also makes for a more user-friendly and functional pantry.  I have beans and grains on the bottom shelf; nuts, seeds, and dried fruits on the middle shelf; and baking goods on the top shelf. It's much easier to find what I need now!  I also had a few tall, skinny jars leftover.  I'm using those to store my homemade almond milk and the leftover pulp (for making almond cheese) in the fridge.  

It was driving me nuts to keep all of my flour and sugar in the freezer, too.  Sure, it kept the bugs out, but it took up a lot of room and I wasn't able to use the cool blue canisters I found at a thrift store years ago when I got my first apartment.  The canisters look like something someone made in a  ceramics class and aren't really sealed.  A thin line of hot glue around the rim solved that problem, as the lids now stick pretty well.  I threw in some bay leaves for an extra layer of protection.

This weekend was the perfect time for fall comfort food.  I used the recipe for sticky cinnamon rolls from veganbaking.net to make these delicious cinnamon rolls, topped with raisins and walnuts, this afternoon:

I added some homemade pumpkin butter to the filling for some more flavor.  The pumpkin butter, along with my homemade nutella and a bag of tortillas, has been coming with me to school the last couple of days as I've been in too much of a hurry to pack a lunch.  Hey, assemble your own PB&J at lunch time isn't half bad!

Chili and cinnamon rolls (yes, they go together!) were always a fall staple in my house growing up.  It was our traditional Halloween meal.  Chili is the official state dish, after all!  I didn't get any pictures of the chili, but it is your basic chili without any meat.  Instead, I used pinto, black, lima, and garbanzo beans.  I also threw in some fresh Hatch green chiles.  Delicious.  

I needed the comfort food this weekend.  Rheumatoid arthritis is nothing if not unpredictable, and despite being on a very good treatment for the last five years, I occasionally have flares and have to be a hermit for a few days because I can't get down my stairs.  I've spent most of the last 24 hours in my pajamas covered in Icy Hot.  Thankfully, 22 years of living with RA has left me prepared and I have all of the necessary gadgets around to make sure I'm as comfy as possible while dealing with the pain.  Can you tell which knee is the swollen one?!?!?!?!

White Cat nicely sums up how I have spent most of my weekend thus far, and how I intend to spend the rest of it: