These are the little niceties that can make living off your stores bearable, so don't totally neglect them in favour of the more "sensible" food storage items. They don't cost much and can be picked up a bit at a time whenever you do your shopping, in the end the improvement in the variety of menus you can provide and resultant rise in morale will be worth it.
Hot Drinks
The usual types eg. tea, coffee, ovaltine, milo and cocoa can be stored for 18 months to two years if kept dry preferably in tins . There is nothing quite like a hot drink on a cold night to make you feel human again also the caffeine content (if any) can give you a lift when you need it most. Alternatively you could try growing and processing your own tea or coffee, hot chocolate is a bit harder!
Spreads
Jam, vegemite and peanut butter seem to be the most popular and they all help to make your daily bread a bit less dry and uninteresting. Due to the problems with storing butter you may eventually need something to liven up your bread the odd tin of jam will be a welcome change. Of the three, peanut butter has the shortest life in storage – 18 months maximum - because of its high oil content, the other two may last a number of years in storage, the sugar will preserve the jam and nothing kills vegemite!
Sauces
Again these add flavour to bland meals and can disguise the flavour of questionable ingredients. Tomato and chili sauce can be home produced fairly easily with the right ingredients as can other fruit sauces such as plum and apple sauce. The specialised production methods for soy and Worcestershire sauce make them difficult to home produce, they are produced by fermentation, but due to this method they have a long storage life ie in excess of 2 years . Some brands of soy sauce are mixed and not brewed so if you intend storing it in any quantity you should ensure that you only buy the brewed type. In my experience "Kikkoman" soy sauce is the best quality for storage.
Sweets
These are the raw materials from which you can make endless treats for the whole family. Some like sugar, golden syrup and honey will last indefinitely, others like chocolate and condensed milk have limited shelf lives and require rotation . A few containers of food colouring and flavouring essences plus some liquid glucose and citric acid are also worth storing because they enable you to make a wide variety of sweets - and that's always a hit with the kids !
Herbs and Spices
These are relatively cheap, do not take up much space, store for a long time and are powerful flavouring agents. It is possible to grow your own herbs in most parts of Australia but some spices will only grow in the tropical areas of our country. Here in Sydney we can and have grown coriander, cumin, turmeric, lemon grass and ginger so if you can get plant material like seeds or rhizomes, tubers etc, give it a go and see if you can grow them in your area.
There are the more common herbs and spices - cinnamon, cloves, basil, oregano, mint, ginger and pepper that are available from the local supermarket. Also mixtures of herbs or spices like mixed herbs or curry powder are available, sometimes in bulk amounts such as the 1.5 kg tin of Clive of India curry powder we bought. This was enough to curry half of Sydney but found that after using less than half it had become stale and lost its flavor.
In Asian and Indian food stores there are many less common herbs and spices to be had quite cheaply - fenugreek seeds , cardamom pods , curry leaves , mango powder , mustard seeds and star anise . These are used in Asian and Indian recipes that are worth experimenting with; they also have their spice mixtures such as chinese-five-spice or garam masala. In many places the more traditional herbs and spices are available as well as the newer ones in bulk quantities at reasonable prices.
As a rule it is better to buy whole spices rather than ground and then grind them yourself as required, this helps them retain their pungent aromatic flavours in storage. Stone or ceramic mortars and pestles can be bought from the aforementioned Asian shops to allow you to do just this. We have found that for the spices we use regularly but in small amounts we get the ground materials for easy use while keeping a larger stock of the whole spices ready for grinding or making curry powders or pastes.
The herb and spice mixtures for sale in supermarkets such as "garlic steak spice" and "fried chicken seasoning" can be full of MSG and are very expensive. It is much more cost effective to buy your spices in bulk and mix your own, and it is also much more fun.
