Why stockpile?

Does this seem like a 'duh' kind of question? If so, you probably already stockpile and can go back to eating your five-minute muffins with freezer jam.

I didn't mention the five-minute muffins? I did, I just didn't call them that. It's when you make up a bunch of muffin mix on a lazy Sunday and use it to make muffins whenever you feel like it, or whenever you have a lot of fruit threatening to overripen. This afternoon I made banana five-minute muffins for my twins to snack on during the after school chauffeur chase. Here's my mix:

5 cups corn meal
5 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups non-fat dry milk
7 tablespoons baking powder
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp salt

To make the muffins, I use 2 1/2 cups of muffin mix, 1 egg, 1/4 cup oil, 1 cup water and whatever additions I want to make like applesauce or bananas or blueberries or cinnamon or nutmeg or cloves. Whatever makes me happy.

I bake at 425 for 15 to 20 minutes.

The five minute part is the stirring it in the bowl and dropping into the non-stick muffin tin once the mix is made. All the heavy measuring is done. I use a 1/4 cup measure to measure everything, so there's not much to stick in the dishwasher when I'm done. This makes a dozen normal-sized muffins, but you might want to keep the bowl at the ready because I've seen a dozen disappear in 10 minutes on a Sunday morning.

Which I guess means I could call them Ten Minute Muffins, huh?

Which is pretty much the truth since making the actual homemade mix only takes five minutes.

I'm babbling, aren't I?

Sorry.

The point is, the reason this is so effortless is because I stockpile. I pick up the flours and other supplies when they are on sale and cheap - generally around Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter - and use it all year. Squeamish about bugs getting into the flour? Store it in the freezer for a few days first to kill anything that's germinating.

Stockpiling is like having a savings account. It's security. It's 'sticking it to the man' so you're not at the mercy of the manufacturers or grocery stores or restaurants when you have a craving for barbecued ribs. Or pie ala mode. Or ratatouille. You don't have to go shopping when the weather is bad, or when the kids are sick, or when you've wrenched your back. That's 'cause you already got what you need. In your pantry, in your freezer, and in your slow-cooker.

Stockpiling is POWER, baby.

It's also an enormous moneysaver. It's SUCH a moneysaver that if you don't have a savings account, the money you save because you stockpile can be used to grow one.