Stocking up on what??

@PrimaryAdjunctOfUnimatrix1010 Never even thought of pizza dough, thank you!

LoveyChar wrote: »

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I went to Walmart down the road and there was no yeast, not one pack. But I did get two bags of flour, a bottle of honey and some sugar and baking soda. As soon as opportunity knocks and there is yeast in stock, I'm picking up quite a bit of yeast to avoid being "bread less" in the future.
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You can "make your own" yeast. Aside from making sourdough starter (slower bread), you can cultivate yeast and make a starter from beer if it's unfiltered. There's yeast in there, especially if it's bottle conditioned. Sometimes they pasteurize the bottles when they're done, but I think it's not very often. You could also almost certainly culture from a bottle of sparkling wine if it was carbonated with the methode champenoise (bottle carbonated rather than the charmat method of bulk carbonating). They often use a different strain of yeast to bottle condition than to ferment, but they are all Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This is the same species you use for baking, although bread yeast ~tends~ to be faster acting. You could probably actually make a starter from any unfiltered wine.

Boil some water and just a little sugar, and let it cool to body temperature. Add the sediment from the bottom of a decanted bottle of bottle-conditioned beer (or other source). Make a sponge with some water, flour, and a little sugar. When the original liquid starter starts to bubble, add it to the sponge, then let it sit for a little while before using it for bread. You can keep your starter going in the fridge; you can pull a little off each time and make some new starter.

Likely you will still end up with a sour starter, but that makes great bread.

Good luck!

If you have beer and need yeast you can use a warm beer for the water and yeast in bread.

For food, I stocked up on canned chicken/tuna, eggs, egg whites, a wide variety of frozen veg, Tyson frozen chicken breasts, fruit, rice, rice cakes, cereal, chocolate...I think that's it.

I have a three week supply of cottage cheese and a couple of weeks of yogurt. I know I’ll run out of fresh fruit and veg soon, and can (unhappily) manage without, but I’d be devastated to run out of those two.

The old me would have stocked up on sacks and sacks of chocolate, Oreos, Pepperidge farm cookies, salt & vinegar chips, cheez-its and ice cream. And a big old cake from the bakery, with a side of cinnamon twist donuts and several boxes of Entemmans chocolate frosted chocolate donuts. And it would have all have been gobbled up in three or four days, and I’d have been literally climbing the walls to get more.

Thank the good lord I got that under control in time.

I bought a 10 pound bag of Basmati from Amazon. I can eat any protein with rice and sesame oil and crushed red pepper.

LoveyChar wrote: »

Husband brought home 2 loaves of bread and yeast packets today.

@PrimaryAdjunctOfUnimatrix1010 Thank you for this. I love buttermilk biscuits. Next attempt is pancakes tomorrow evening, so easy and one of my favorites.

LoveyChar, if you come across a larger amount of yeast sometime and want to keep making bread please remember this tip and that is that I always keep my instant yeast in the freezer. It keeps for a very very long time. Just use it straight out of the freezer and put it straight back in ASAP. It's handy to have around.

Since we're stocking up on similar stuff I thought you could commiserate on this, my microwave broke last week and can opener broke today when making breakfast. You don't realize how much you use things like diced tomatoes in the soup I was planning to make or the can of beans I was trying to open (have a ton of dried on hand but wanted something faster). Thank goodness I have an Instant Pot but it's still a pain to reheat my batches of oatmeal, beans, leftovers, and heat water in a teapot on the stove when the microwave's so much faster!

And not daring to say why? Come on: you can click 'disagree', now stand up to your opinion and say why you think so.

wilson10102018 wrote: »

I bought a 10 pound bag of Basmati from Amazon. I can eat any protein with rice and sesame oil and crushed red pepper.

Along the same lines...sticky rice with tahini, splash of soy sauce and crushed red pepper flakes.

yirara wrote: »

Chef_Barbell wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

And not daring to say why? Come on: you can click 'disagree', now stand up to your opinion and say why you think so.

Why does it matter that one person disagreed with you? It could have been pressed accidentally or what not.

I personally don't think it's selfish to want to have a few extra things that you want to get through these tough mental times. Everyone is different. Calling people selfish is not really needed now. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Yes, you are right. A few extra things are fine. Stocking up big time though? The UK is currently seeing about 30% more garbage, most of this accounting for food thrown out because some people panic emptied shops and then found they could not eat it all in time. It's just so terrible to throw away produce that would have benefited other people who stood in front of empty shelves.

I didn't hit disagree, but I think many of us are thinking about this with different levels of "stocking up" in mind. For me, "stocking up" would equate to having enough on hand to avoid going to the grocery store for at least 2 weeks, including stuff that's easy for a sick person to prepare, as that's what was recommended should one actually be quarantined. Also, at the moment the grocery stores around me have plenty of food (and are getting better with TP due to limitations they've instituted). Being in a city I normally don't buy a large amount at a time of anything (and haven't had to so far, as I do impulse-buy non perishables that look good to try and then forget about them (and I have a nice pantry that I already had plenty of canned tomatoes, pasta, and canned and dried beans in, among other things), so even though I normally don't buy all that much and instead shop more frequently at a variety of stores, I still managed to have what seemed like a lot accumulated already. I "stocked up" by buying about a week's worth of additional easy to prepare stuff since mostly what I have are ingredients and I suspect if I get sick I would need no effort things like "add water and stir" or the like.

I also tend to assume "stocking up" means non-perishables, so even if one were going well above what I have, it shouldn't cause waste. I'm sure there are exceptions given panic and related illogical thinking, but more likely short-term shortages are due to many, many people buying just a small amount more.

It also seems that delivery services around here (for groceries, not just meals) are functioning okay at the moment after being initially overwhelmed, and for those of us with cars there are pick-up options. Someone on my NextDoor reported that in that no one (compared to usual) is going downtown currently (it's true, I was there last week and it was already a ghost town even before the stay at home order), that there's plenty of stuff (including plenty of TP) at the drugstores down there. Should my local stores get more overwhelmed than they currently seem to be (the worst was right before the stay at home order when people didn't know what to expect and it's more normal this week from what I have seen reported on NextDoor) I'd certainly volunteer to drive there and pick up stuff for people (neighborhood-wise, we are having a virtual ward meeting about ways to help and also volunteering on NextDoor to help out neighbors).