Food Storage Do-Over Week 9: Legumes and Meats

We are excited to be starting week 9 of our Food Storage Do-Over 2015! If you didn’t catch last week’s post which included an index of recipe for using grains you can see it here.

Remember this is a 17 week process that we will be going through together. If you want to join in with the group on Facebook click here. If you’d like to receive email notifications of each week’s do-over assignment you can join our mailing list here. Or you can always post in the blog comments with your progress as well! It is so much more fun and motivating doing it as a group so find a way to connect!

WEEK9FACE

In BabyStep 6: Legumes we discuss storing and using legumes. We also briefly touch on meats as an alternative to getting more protein into your food storage. We feel like it is very important to USE the foods you are storing so we focus on that a lot.

startingfromscratch

If you are brand new, we will walk you through the process of buying and starting to use your legumes this week. We will also briefly look at freeze-dried meats. Here are the tasks you will need to accomplish.

Review the inventory list you worked on two weeks ago to get the total amount of legumes you need for your complete food storage plan
Start purchasing legumes according to your budget – review our post on Best Ways to Purchase Traditional Food Storage for recommendations on where to buy
Learn more about dry beans, lentils, split peas, and legumes.
Look at our Recipes page and our Pinterest boards for ideas of recipes to try using legumes
Learn more about incorporating meat into your food storage and decide how much and what types you would want to store.
Purchase some canned or freeze-dried meats to start experimenting on what you prefer. You can learn to can your own or buy bulk freeze-dried meats later as you determine what will best meet your needs and price range.

Don’t forget to come over and share your progress in our Food Storage Do-Over Facebook Group!

updating

If you have some legumes and meats already stored and feel somewhat comfortable with them step outside your comfort zone and try something new:

Review your inventory list from two weeks week and replenish any items from the legumes section that you don’t have your full supply of.
Try using 2-3 legumes you never have before this week.
Print recipes you use often if you only have them on the computer.
Make sure you have 2-3 recipes that use each legume in your food storage and store all the necessary ingredients to make them.
Try sprouting some of your legumes to make a healthy snack
Try grinding some dry beans to make a bean flour useful for thickening soups or making homemade cream of chicken soup.
Try using some of your food storage meats as substitutions in your favorite recipes.
Consider purchase a bulk package of freeze-dried meats to supplement your current storage.

Don’t forget to come over and share your progress in our Food Storage Do-Over Facebook Group!

products

	ELECTRIC PRESSURE COOKER: You will use your dried beans much more often if you have a good (and fast) way to cook them. An electric pressure cooker allows you to skip the soaking step and fully cook them in 1-2 hours (depending on the variety and age of the beans).
	ALL-AMERICAN PRESSURE CANNER: You can use a pressure canner to take dry beans and bottle them to use as regular canned beans. You can also pressure can meats as a way to preserve them for your long term food storage.
	WONDERMILL GRAIN MILL: An electric mill will enable you to easily grind up legumes to use for bean flour.
	FREEZE-DRIED MEAT PACKAGES: Thrive offers some amazing deals on meat packages available only through consultants. You can order directly from our unadvertised specials page.

helpful

Here are some resources both from us and all over the web that can help you if you want more depth on any areas or are looking for even more ideas of items to include in your plans. It’s always a good idea to look at multiple approaches and decide what will work best for you! And don’t forget to check out the discussions on our facebook group to catch anything we are missing or see what others are doing!