FOOD PANTRY TYPE TIPS

TOMATO SOUP ADDED TO TOMATO SAUCE

One of the things you will get A LOT of from the Food Pantry is canned soup. And while you might not love tomato soup (you can combine it with vegetable soup and American cheese if you have those and it makes a great lunch), you CAN use it to give yourself MORE spaghetti sauce if you don't have a lot of sauce.

Try it.


ADD TO YOUR TUNAFISH SALAD

If you make tuna salad like we do, with a little onion and maybe celery, mayo, salt and pepper - try also adding chopped lettuce, carrot, and spinach. It will stretch the one can of tuna to many more sandwiches and nobody minds because all the veggies taste good!


USE ONION OR GARLIC BAGELS AS TOAST WITH SPAGHETTI


If you get more onion or garlic or dark bread or seeded bagels than you can possibly eat for breakfast, cut them into sandwich halves, butter and toast them and maybe augment with Romano or Parmesan cheese if you have it, shredded mozzarella, or just garlic salt.


AND THANKS TO THOSE OF YOU WITH GARDENS who donate your FRESH VEGGIES AND FRUITS, and canned jellies and sauces to the local food pantries. Pantries don't get much in the way of fresh - and you gardeners know how good it is to HAVE fresh. We who need pantries SALUTE YOU!


ONE LAST TIP - VITAMINS


If you must eat Food Pantry foods - you know they are HIT OR MISS in terms of truly nutritious stuff - so if you can afford it - GET A GOOD MULTI-VITAMIN as well as some extra Vitamin C and take them DAILY to help yourself with the sometimes not so nutritious pantry foods.

The Dirty Life - a book (seriously, it's not my title)

Sorry, it's been a while. Great book tip for you: "The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love" by Kristin Kimball, recently out, check your local library! Ms. Kimball makes growing local foods SEXUAL, intimately linked with her meeting her husband! and her appeal should be wide - she is a "back to the land" apprentice - representing all of us, that way, I think.

Be a city girl, wear the designer jeans, and get a sore crotch! hoe'ing (yes, I used the right one there) broccoli for a man you don't know. How can you resist a book that starts like this, and makes a case for good old-fashioned hard work and local, organically grown foods.

Ever heard of a CSA? (Community Supported Agriculture.) People sign up to come to your farm to pick up their fruits, veggies, meat, eggs, cheese, honey, maple syrup - whatever you can produce - for a fee, paid up front to the farmer! That is how Kristin and hubby Mark make their living!

Check out the book. And if you want to find CSA's in your area, or farmers' markets, so you can eat locally grown foods, Google, baby! They have websites - these are not your Grandfather's farms!