Anyways, as my little picture story will show, I hadn’t put my food away since I bought it… ahem ahem over a month ago. I finally got around to it this weekend and I also got around to building (or having my husband build) these awesome cardboard rotating racks from Can Organizer. Check Them Out!(I like the shorter ones for my size shelves, but they have different options) My son shoots hockey pucks in our basement and is CONSTANTLY tipping over my neatly organized cans and it drives me crazy! I am just getting started on turning the tipsy stacks into perfectly sound racks and I love it already!

I’m also happy to report that while I was watching the news this weekend, I realized I actually do have a few things going for me! They were saying that the people should evacuate because of the tsumami threats and to take only important documents and GO! In our emergency plan we suggest this and even have a whole plan for creating an emergency binder. I was happy to know in case I needed to evacuate, I would have all my important stuff together – all ready for me to go!

My husband (the handyman who helped us make our first rotating can racks) has come up with a fabulous new storage solution for our house. He was working as an airline pilot for a while and was based in Houston, Texas — the land of no basements. The apartment that he lived in during his “on days” made use of their ATTIC for storage space. Ever since he stayed in that apartment he dreamed of converting our attic into a functional storage area.

After a long time of deliberating, several Home Depot trips, and a gaping hole cut into the bedroom ceiling … we finally got a solution that works!

The magical ladder (pre-install)	Ladder installed, so cool!
The kids loved helping	Beautiful new storage space!

While it doesn’t necessarily work to store food (due to extreme heat and cold) … it’s a fabulous way to store everything else thus making room for more food in the other areas of our home. Isn’t my husband the greatest? And the best part about having the attic stairway is that I can actually climb up there myself and access our storage!

IMAGINE – you have to make a wedding cake and you only have food storage items as ingredients – well YOU CAN! Last summer I forced myself to try fondant icing after wasting hours upon hours watching the cake decorating shows thinking it looked so totally cool.

Well it turns out I found this great recipe with really great instructions and it uses SHELF STABLE (that’s how I am making this post relevant) ingredients. The only 3 ingredients are marshmallows, powdered sugar, and shortening.

So I tried a little for fun cake and then my sister got engaged and she thought I should make her wedding cake -my very first wedding cake -. HELLO SCARY! Well it actually turned out and I had a blast doing it.

No one warned me how sad I would be when the bride and groom took the knife to my very first wedding cake masterpiece and RUINED IT!

If you’ve been following us for awhile, you know at the beginning of the year we had some New Years Resolutions. Well now is the time we TELL ALL about how we did. We’re excited about how this year went, and can’t wait to share our goals for 2010 in a few weeks!

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• I want to save up enough money to buy a wheat grinder so I don’t have to borrow Julie’s any more


Yay! This one was easy for me! When I wrote my resolutions last year my husband was out of a job so a wheat grinder purchase seemed far off. However, he was able to become employed in January and we got a little bit of money for Christmas and we decided that a wheat grinder would be a good investment since we used our food storage so much when he was out of work. The electric mills are on sale this month, so if you have extra Christmas money this year, now is a great time to get your own!



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• I want to plan my summer garden specifically with canning in mind


This one SHOULD have been an A+ as I started with a great plan and the best of intentions, but I had some setbacks along the way. You can read about my failures on my “lessons learned from gardening” post. However, I WAS still able to can some delicious applesauce and strawberry jam this year. Yay!


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• I want to create a recipe binder full of meals that use my long term food storage items and cook from it frequently


While I haven’t completed my recipe binder yet, I HAVE accumulated a TON of recipes and I use my food storage almost every day. I am still constantly pulling my laptop into the kitchen to follow recipes so I definitely still have room for improvement here. Next year it will be complete … I SWEAR!

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• I want to cook more with dry beans and quit being so afraid of the soaking concept


I have to admit, I put this goal as a way to FORCE me to get into beans. I was SO scared of them. I can’t believe how much I have learned this year about them. I learned to use them to make hummus, cream of chicken soup, and to replace my canned beans.


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• I want to plan dinners ahead of time to use more of my long term foods


I have done pretty well on this goal, but have to be honest there is room for improvement. I use my long term food storage ALL the time in my meals now, but I admit, I don’t meal plan that much. I have a bunch of recipes I love and use often, but I think I’m giving up on the dream of being a meal planner – it’s just not my style.


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• I want to find a way to help people who hate excel do an effective 3 month food supply plan even though the current excel file ROCKS! But I know, I know you don’t all love excel


I was able to make a pdf for people to make their 3 month plan, and I think it’s worked out well… What I’d really love to do now is make a cooler simpler online way, but I’m not that tech savvy so… sorry about that!

Stay tuned as we unveil next years goals in the next couple of weeks. We’re gonna have some fun ones, and Julie is giving herself another one to FORCE her into something she’s scared of.

After this television appearance, one of the things we realized we need to cover a little more in depth is how to start incorporating food storage into your diet gradually. We are going to do a very informative post about this later this week so make sure to check back. And in case you missed the Studio 5 showing, here it is again!

At first I made this recipe with store bought tortillas, canned beans, and canned cream of chicken/mushroom soup – but I promised myself bit by bit I would make it using all the “advanced” techniques. Now that I have had a lot more experience using my food storage, I make it the real way and it tastes so much better – I wont make it any other way.

So here’s to sharing it with you and to giving you a special cooking challenge.

Ingredients:
1 can of black beans (*see below)
1 lg onion (*see below)
1 can of cream of chicken (*see below)
1 can of cream of mushroom (*see below)
¾ cup of milk (*see below)
1 (4oz) can diced green chilies
1 (8 oz) can mild enchilada sauce
1 pkg soft tortillas (*see below)
½ lb cheddar cheese, grated
½ lb monterrey jack cheese, grated

Directions:
Wash and cook beans. Mix next 6 ingredients with beans (Optional: add 3 chicken breasts shredded). Place tortillas in greased 9 by 13 inch pan. Top with half the bean mixture and half the cheese. Repeat the layers. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Cool slightly and cut in squares.

Try each of these techniques one at a time or all at once. They are things that used to scare me and now I love doing them this way in all my recipes.

1 can of black beans with 1 1/2 cups of cooked beans from your food storage. Need to know how to cook them? Check out Crystals post on pressure cooking dry beans here.

Onion with dehydrated onion. These are not only a time saver, but are great to store to have added flavoring in your food storage.

1 can of cream of chicken, 1 can of cream of mushroom, and the milk with the bean flour cream soup recipe found here.

Store bought tortillas, with homemade tortillas made from scratch using recipe found here.

Again if you’re new – don’t get overwhelmed by these “weird” techniques – try them one at a time and one day you’ll be amazed at how much you have learned!

The recipe I’ll be sharing calls for whole wheat tortillas, so if you’re up for the challenge of trying it out when I share it, get a head start by trying these!

Ingredients:
4 cups of whole wheat flour (fine)
¼ tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1 cup of warm water (may need a little more – I usually do!)
¼ cup cooking oil

Jodi always mocks me for not being the “recipe” type, or having “clear” instructions when cooking (I’m one of those, a little bit of this and a little bit of that types…), so just to show I can be specific…

Directions:
1. Mix all ingredients together to make a nice pliable dough.
2. Knead 1 minute and let rest 5 minutes.
3. Roll the dough out so you can easily make equal pieces
4. Cut the dough into 18 equal pieces (I halved the recipe here)
5. Form into 18 balls
6. Roll thin (spray pam to help if there are sticking or dryness problems)
7. Fry on both sides, they cook quickly (no need to grease the frying pan at all)
8. Eat! It doesn’t take long to cook.

TRICKS:

I use a little hand roller that helps a lot and since I use tortillas mostly in recipes where they don’t have to look perfect, I don’t feel so bad when they don’t turn out in perfect circles… (Although I’m sure I could trace some lid from a bowl and cut around if I really cared)

My sister uses this kind of tortilla press and she says they are much faster and easier to make. I think one day I’ll get one. It’s only $13 on amazon, so to all my family members reading this… ahem ahem.  But for now, my handy roller works fine.


At a cooking class I was at once this lady had an electric press and cooker .  The thing was amazing! You threw a ball of dough in there and closed the lid, and voila! A perfect tortilla.  For people who love kitchen appliances (and have the room to store them) this could be something to check out!

Hope you like these!

Corndog Muffin Recipe:

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. cornmeal (about 1 c. fresh ground popcorn)
2 1/2 c. flour (about 2 c. fresh ground wheat)
1/2 c. white sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs (can use powdered eggs)
2 c. milk (can use powdered milk)
8 oz shredded cheddar cheese
6 hot dogs cut in thirds

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. Beat eggs and milk in a separate bowl. Add to dry mix and add cheese just until moistened. Spoon mixture into muffin tins until 2/3 full. Add 1 hot dog chunk to each muffin. Bake for 14-18 minutes or until golden brown.
 
 

I cut my hotdogs into smaller chunks and it wasn’t as good that way. I also think next time I might try it with my buttermilk cornbread recipe and just stick the hotdogs and cheese into that batter. I LOVE that cornbread recipe better than any other. The kids LOVED this recipe and it is very filling so we had tons of leftovers.

For other food storage recipes check out:

Our Food Storage Recipes Page
Our sister site EverydayFoodStorage.NET
I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage book
Country Beans book

You can grab a copy of our binder ebook to help you get a start on some recipes. But like I said, there are a LOT of other resources online such as our sister site http://everydayfoodstorage.net that may have recipes that you are using on a regular basis. So get on the computer and get printing!

Ok we gotta stop giving hints or this is going to be too easy

With the Seven Day Challenge approaching on a surprise day in September, I wanted to make sure to really be on top of things (especially things I know I’ll need – hint hint!)

If you haven’t signed up already, make sure you do- there are some awesome prizes we’ll be announcing Monday.

So you can use me as an example, just because I wasn’t able to do what I had hoped I could do, I was still able to have somewhat of a success with my garden, and I will have more than NOTHING. You just can’t give up. If everything feels overwhelming take BabySteps and do it at your own pace. As long as you are progressing you are achieving success! I won’t have lots of tomatoes and cucumbers to can this year, but I am still planning to buy some peaches and apples so at least I can get a little of my canning itch to be satisfied

How is your garden coming along this year? Share your successes and failures in the comments below! And don’t be ashamed, at least your garden can’t look worse than MINE!

p.s. If you can’t get ANY sort of garden this year, all is not lost. You can still achieve success by getting some fresh veggies from friends or family, or even buying it from the corner stands or a farmer’s market. Julie has a story and recipe to share about that that she will be posting soon as well!

When cooking rice, follow your package directions and add a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of OIL! That was it, a trick that has worked everytime!

Now for some tips we found on the internet at wikihow:

• Instead of cooking the rice in water, you can use beef stock or chicken broth.
• You may wish to tweak the “rice to water ratio” with experience – for example: for larger quantities of rice, you may find a little less or more than one and a half the amount of water results in better rice.
• One cup of dry rice grains cooked in this way is about sufficient to accompany a meal for 2 adults.
• If the rice is a major component of the dish, you might need up to 1 cup of rice per adult.
• Your base measurement doesn’t need to be a cup necessarily – the key is to add 1.5x as much water as rice, whatever the quantity.
• It works best to use the original lid of the pot you use, since it will seal best.
• When the rice first boils, it might weep a bit or even lift the lid. Keep watch and an ear out for the start of the boil.
• These times and ratios are for white rice (e.g. Jasmine, Basmati, etc). If you are cooking brown rice you will need around 2C water to 1C rice and double the time.
• Water boils at a lower temperature at altitude. If you live at a high altitude it will take longer to cook rice.

Chow Mein Casserole

Ingredients:
1 lb hamburger, browned with 1/2 an onion chopped
(can replace with 2 cans of chicken chunks and throw in some onion flakes)
1/2 c. brown rice (white rice is great too)
2 cans cream of chicken soup (try the low-fat bean flour variety!)
1 ½ c. hot water (if using homemade cream of chicken, skip the water)
1/8 c. soy sauce
¼ tsp. ground pepper
½ can chow mein noodles (about 3 oz)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350º. Mix all ingredients together (except chow mein noodles). Bake in serving bowl covered with foil for 45 minutes. Take off cover. Pour 3 oz. (1/2 can) of chow mein noodles over top. Cook uncovered for 15 more minutes. Let set for 5-10 minutes after cooking.

As we have grown and expanded our food storage knowledge, we have continually added to our site. While the site has expanded with so much information, we still want to make sure that it’s still easy for beginners to navigate. Since we are about halfway through our Summer Crash Course we decided to give you a little break and announce some changes we made to our site recently to help you get the most out of our site.

You will see that the top navigation buttons have changed slightly. Here is a run-down of the new things to look for:

• The Start Here tab now contains helpful tips for how to best use our site and where to find the information you are looking for.
• The Checklists page now offers you a choice of how you would like to receive your checklists based off of what your preferred “learning style” is.
• We added an Emergency Preparedness tab as we have found that this is something people are looking for quite a bit, and we feel it is a prerequisite to getting started with your food storage. Check back on Friday as we will be adding some new sub-pages to this section which will include even more detailed information
• Tools and Products remain the same. We consistently put a lot of work into those sections so make sure to check them often.
• We added a tab for Recipes so that you can easily navigate to any of the food storage recipes we have tried and posted about.
• Links and About remain the same, although we will be revamping the links section soon to make it an even better resource for you.

Take a look around at the new sections and let us know what you think of the changes. We are trying hard to keep more experienced readers interested while still being able to help the brand new beginner. Believe us, we know how it feels to be getting started and get so overwhelmed with the abundance of information out there.

Homemade Rice-A-Roni Recipe

from The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczy

Ingredients:
2 c. rice
1 c. angel hair, vermicelli or spaghettini pasta, broken into very small pieces
¼ c. parsley
6 Tbsp. chicken bullion powder
2 tsp. onion powder
½ tsp. garlic powder
¼ tsp. thyme

Directions:
Combine all ingredients and mix well. To prepare: Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in a skillet. Add 1 c. of the mix and stir. Add 2 ¼ c. water. Bring to a boil. Reduce to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

For other ideas for homemade mixes check out the AWESOME Make-A-Mix book.

Well on the way home I had quite an adventure. We were traveling in our minivan which has over 150,000 miles on it but we had just had it checked out and were feeling confident that it would make the trip. On the way home on Friday things were running just fine and then all of a sudden the van completely overheated and started shaking until we stopped running it and let it cool down. We were about 20 miles from the nearest town and 60 miles from a major city in an area that had zero cell phone service and with our two little kids in tow. NOT a fun experience.

We stopped and ate at the town while we let the van cool down. Then we headed out again hoping to get to the city and pray that some kind of mechanic or auto parts store might HAPPEN to be open on Fourth of July weekend. We were able to get some new hoses which we thought were the problem but then on our way out of town it overheated again. Each time we tried to let it rest and cool down it ended up sucking the battery down to the point we would need a jump start to get going again. We were hot, miserable, and tired … just wanting to get HOME.

We finally gave up on fixing the car around 2 pm on Saturday after spending the night in Helena, Montana and ended up renting a u-haul to tow the van home. The only problem was it only had three seats so our kids had to share the middle seat and squish into the front of the u-haul cab with us and no car seats … EEEK. We made it home around midnight at the end of July 4th and missed all of the festivities. It was kind of sad but at least we made it home safely.

Emergency Preparedness Lessons Learned

What we were glad we had:

• Treats, drinks, and entertainment for the kids
• A spare jug of coolant and bottles of water to help us limp into town
• A map of Montana so we would know how far the next town was (we normally don’t carry maps with us but we had already gotten lost on this trip once so we happened to grab one)
• A small tool box my husband insisted we bring
• Cell phones and iPhone when we got to Helena (helped find the auto parts store and arrange the u-haul when we needed it)

What we wished we had:

• Jumper cables (we ended up buying another set after the 3rd jump we needed, and this is maddening because we have about 5 sets at home we had just forgotten to stick in)
• The repair manual for our van
• Spare cell phone chargers (my car charger stopped working)
• Printed directions/maps for the whole trip instead of depending on an iPhone that did not get service a lot of the time
• Hand fans to use when we couldn’t run our air conditioner
• Stuck with the caravan plan we had originally intended
• Taken the larger highway route instead of the “backroads” shortcut

Does anyone else have any advice for what could make a breakdown less traumatic? I’m SURE this has happened to more people than just my family!

Rice Pudding Recipe

Ingredients:
2 eggs, beaten (can use powdered eggs)
½ c. sugar
¼ tsp. salt
2 c. milk (can use powdered milk)
1 ¼ c. cooked white rice, cooled (leftovers work great)
½ c. raisins (optional but oh so delicious!)
Cinnamon and Nutmeg to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325o F. Mix all the ingredients together and pour into a greased 1 qt. bowl. Set the bowl in a shallow pan. Pour hot water into the pan about 1 inch deep. Put pan into the oven and bake for 1 ½ hours.

Well tonight I hosted a little dinner party at my house and decided I would sneakily use tons of food storage in my dinner and dessert.  I definitely recommend it, it was fun having a little secret… hehe.

Anyways,  I made a great tortilla casserole recipe, (added black beans) and even made the tortillas from scratch using all fresh ground whole wheat! I even replaced the cream of chicken soup with BEAN FLOUR cream of chicken, my favorite!

For dessert I made my EMERGENCY, I don’t feel like baking, icing or dirtying a pan dessert with POWDERED MILK!  Everytime I have to bring a dessert to a dinner and don’t have the time or energy to pick up fresh ingredients,  I make a quick and easy pudding pie.  I always have at least one tub of cool whip in my freezer for this special dessert.

Ingredients

Powdered Milk
Water
Box of Chocolate Pudding
Graham cracker crust
Cool Whip

Prepare pudding according to package directions for pie. Pour into graham cracker crust, chill for an hour or so. Top with Cool Whip. Optional, add strawberries, crushed skor bar or any crushed cookie.

I love this dessert because it is SO easy to bring places. The graham cracker crust container has a lid with it (you don’t have to remember to get your pan when you are going home). You don’t have to dirty dishes except the pudding bowl, but you can lick that. It’s a dessert that uses POWDERED milk and no one knows it. You don’t have to turn your oven on in the hot summer, its great!

How to Make Your Own Plant Pots – Video

How to Make Your Own Plant Pots – Instructions

1. Take a single full sheet of black and white newspaper (color paper can have chemicals that may leach into your soil so it’s best to avoid it).
2. Fold the paper on its seam. Fold in half one more time. If your paper is larger in size you may have to fold it once more. Make a good crease on folds.
3. Take a glass and place it on its edge halfway onto the newspaper. Wrap the newspaper tightly around the glass and then shove all the edges down inside the glass.
4. Pull the newspaper off of the glass. Take the inside edges that you had previously folded into the glass and unfold them a bit to make the base of the pot. Press them down hard (you can use the base of your glass to really get it sealed down in there.
5. Transplant (or plant) your seeding into the newspaper pot with some good potting soil and place it in a tray and put it into direct sunlight. I use a little indoor greenhouse I found online.
6. When ready to move the plants into your garden simply remove the newspaper and place the plant in your garden.

p.s. The author of our sister site EverydayFoodStorage.NET just announced an awesome giveaway for her new book “I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage”. Who doesn’t like more free stuff? We are so excited for her new book and think it’s a great companion to our Food Storage Made Easy Binders as she can give you even more ways to use your food storage once you start actually going through our BabySteps.
CHECK OUT HER GIVEAWAY TODAY!!!

So what side dish is a necessity with chili? Cornbread of course! I have always purchased boxes of Jiffy cornbread mixes in the past. But when I got my WonderMill Grain Mill I decided to take a crack at grinding up some popcorn to make fresh ground cornmeal for homemade cornbread. Oh boy, I will NEVER go back to boxed cornbread again. Now that I have you salivating over my family dinner tonight … I have to go ahead and share the recipes with you

Marilyn’s Real Chili Bean Recipe:

Ingredients:

Directions: Soak beans overnight. Drain and cover with fresh water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours. Drain and add to crock-pot. Sauté the chopped onion and garlic in oil until limp. Stir in all seasonings. Add tomatoes and sauce and simmer for 20 minutes. Brown beef in small fry pan. Drain and add to crock-pot. Add chili sauce and 5 cups of hot water to crock-pot. Simmer in crock-pot at least 7 hours.

Better Than Jiffy Cornbread Recipe:

Grind: ½ cup of popcorn kernels to make ¾ cup cornmeal
Combine: ¾ c. cornmeal, 1 ¼ c. flour (I used whole wheat), ¼ c. sugar, 2 tsp. baking powder, ½ tsp. salt
Add: 1 c. milk, ¼ c. veg. oil, 1 large egg, beaten; stir until dry ingredients are moist
Bake: At 400 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean

To make it fun, I’m going to use my FAVORITE food as an example…. PIZZA!

Freezing Veggies

Have you ever frozen veggies (or fruit) and had them clump together? Well try placing them on a cookie sheet, let them freeze, then place them in plastic freezer bags.  These work great on pizza because you can throw them right on frozen.

Pre-Shredding Cheese

When cheese is on sale, buy it in bulk and grate it all at once.  I remember when I was little that was the job we all hated, so get it over with in one shot. One of our viewers on the Fun With Food Storage chat last week told us a great tip when doing this.  If you don’t want the mozzarella cheese to clump up, throw in a tablespoon of cornstarch with the cheese.

Grind Wheat Ahead of Time

I usually try to grind all my wheat fresh (it contains most of the nutrients this way).  However, I usually have about 4-8 cups in my freezer to use if I am in a “hurry” and can’t get my grinder out.  Freezing it helps keep it fresher longer.

Go for 2 in 1’s

Whenever I make pizza dough, I double the recipe and turn the other half into hot pockets.  I let them cool down, then wrap them in plastic wrap and throw them in the freezer.  That way I have lunches prepared ahead of time.  I use these on days that I just don’t feel like it (do you ever have those?). I cook it in the micro for 2 minutes and enjoy it every time knowing it is healthier and cheaper then lean pockets.

Ifyou’re now in the mood for pizza, check out this great recipe Jodi tried this weekend. Visit Crystal at EverydayFoodStorage.NET. She has videos and goes into great detail using this recipe:

30 Minute Breadsticks OR No-Fail Deep Dish Pizza Crust

(If it is too thick for your family, you can either half the recipe or put one full recipe onto two cookie sheets)

2 1/2 C. Medium Hot Water
5 tsp. SAF Instant Yeast*
2 Tbsp. Sugar
3 Tbsp. Oil
1 tsp. Salt
6 C. Flour (you can do half all-purpose and half white wheat or 100% whole wheat)
1 to 2 Cubes of Butter

Directions:
1. Pour medium hot water in mixing bowl. Sprinkle yeast on top and allow to dissolve.
2. Add sugar, salt, and oil. Gradually add approximately 6 cups of flour.
3. Melt 1-2 cubes butter on cookie sheet in oven as it is heating to 400 degrees and melt in oven. 4. Place dough on cookie sheet and press to fill pan, make sure butter gets on top of the dough.
5. Allow to double in size (About 10-15 minutes)
6. Cook for 10 to 12 minutes or until desired browning is accomplished.
7. Cut into strips or top with favorite pizza toppings.

* When using regular yeast change amount to 2 Tbsp.

Jodi’s kids enjoying the pizza! HOLY COW I AM REALLY hungry for some now!

Anyways, I was on a mission to tidy my lazy susan. This is how I did it:

1. I took an inventory of all the grains and legumes I use regularly

2. I determined if I used them in big, medium, or small quantities

3. I went around to a bunch of different stores looking at containers and prices

4. I settled in on some containers from walmart that would fit my needs

5. I emptied the plastic bags and cardboard boxes into my cute new CLEAR containers

6. I used larger cereal dispenser containers for brown rice, and wheat since those are the two grains I use most often

7. I taped the nutrition label from the bags to the bottom of the containers for future reference

If you need a place for containers but don’t want to drive around to 4 or 5 different stores like I did, amazon is a great place. Check out this set of containers, they come in all different sizes so you can store different amounts of different products.

Anyways, here is the finished product – having a good amount of each food in my pantry makes cooking much more pleasant. This way I’m only required to refill every so often down in the basement bulk containers…

Oh and as a side note, if you didn’t go look at my resolutions, I did number 3 a couple weeks ago! I’m right on track! In the words of Tracy in SC (our biggest fan) GO ME!

I really wanted to start using our new Food Storage Calculator, but as I tried to catalog what food I already had it was a disaster. I couldn’t even GET to all my food, let alone figure out what the heck I had bought. So yesterday during my kids naps I went on a rampage and reorganized the entire area, brought in a new shelf, and reconfigured my upstairs pantry to include more of the foods I’ve been using on a regular basis. I even got REALLY ambitious and made cute little labels for all my buckets. That’s when you know you are truly a food storage nerd

Here are the results of my afternoon of agony. I just had to share because I’m so proud of myself. AND as per our latest BabySteps Checklist I can now check off the to-do item of filling out my inventory sheet. YAY! (If you haven’t signed up yet, stop reading and go sign up now!)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb lean ground beef
1/2 c. crushed Ritz crackers
3/4 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1 oz. pkg. dry onion soup mix
1/2 qt. of lentil sprouts, pureed
2 eggs, beaten (or 2 T. powdered eggs 1/4 C. Water)
1/4 c. ketchup
2 T. Worcestershire sauce

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the ground beef, crushed Ritz, cheddar cheese, and onion soup mix in a large bowl and mix until well combined. Puree the lentil sprouts (I put them in my food processor with the eggs to try to get them extra smooth). Whisk the pureed sprouts, eggs, ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce in a separate bowl until smooth. Add to the meat mixture and mix until evenly combined. Put in a 9×9 pan, cover with foil, and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. When top/edges look nice and crispy check the middle to make sure it’s cooked all the way.

My husband couldn’t even taste a difference in this recipe. He was surprised and impressed with it. My kids ate it just fine and I can guarantee you they would not eat plain sprouts. I really enjoyed it and I didn’t like the plain sprouts either (as I mentioned in my confession at the bottom of the sprouting post) So overall I’d have to say this recipe was a SUCCESS!

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my mom (affectionately known as GrandmaLori around here) about sprouting as I can remember doing alfalfa sprouts with her when I was little. She just happened to have an old sprouting container that she inherited from her grandmother that she doesn’t ever use and she let me “borrow” it for my adventures.

This sprouting container is pretty neat but the holes are too big to do tiny seeds like alfalfa, so I decided to start with lentils which I have on hand from my long term food storage legumes supply.

Day 1

First I rinsed the lentils and picked out any gross looking pieces, discolored ones, or things that did NOT look like lentils (see picture). Then I soaked the lentils overnight as that is what my sprouting book recommended. There are a few types of items you would NOT need to soak so just make sure you follow the directions for whatever you are sprouting.

Day 2

In the morning, I poured my soaked lentils into the sprouting container and rinsed them off again. I set them on the counter beside my stove as it seemed to be one of the warmer spots in my kitchen but out of direct sunlight. I also set a paper towel over the container because it seemed weird to just leave them sitting out with no covering. That evening I rinsed the lentils again. Each time I rinsed I made sure to really let all the excess water drain out before setting it back in the little tray.

Day 3

When I took the paper towel off on day three I had a pleasant surprise. SPROUTS!!! I was so excited. All I did on day 3 was rinse and repeat the instructions from day 2.

Days 4-7

Each day from 4-7 I rinsed the lentils at morning and at night and took a photo of the progress if I remembered to. It’s really so easy, just takes about 30 seconds each time and they just grow on their own!

Day 8

After rinsing on the morning of day 8, I lifted off the paper towel and let the sprouts sit in the sunlight all day. They turned a very nice green and grew even longer!

Day 9

I think I let my sprouts get a little bit too long but I was really busy the last few days of my experiment and didn’t pay very close attention to them. So on the final day I pulled them all out of the sprouting container and put them into a large canning jar and stuck them in the fridge.

And now for my confession. I tasted the lentil sprouts and they tasted like fresh peas. I don’t really like fresh peas all that much so I’m afraid I don’t really want to eat these just plain. I’ll have to try making a yummy salad and sprinkling a few on top. Or I might try them in a meatloaf to use as filler. I have to say my first experiment was a success in that they GREW, but kind of a failure in that I didn’t really grow something that my family will use on a regular basis. Back to the drawing board

Since Julie didn’t “inherit” a sprouter she recently bought this Sprout Master Sprouter at Kitchen Kneads. She hasn’t tried it out yet but it looks like it would work about the same as mine.

How To Build Your Own Can Rotating Rack

Step 1
Print out the shelf diagram (this great diagram comes from the Pantry Panel blog). Decide which size you want to make. I opted for the soup can size to start out.

Step 2

Take a large cardboard box (either 1-ply or 2-ply) and measure out the pieces you are going to need. We decided to combine the sides and back into one long piece to make it sturdier and have less pieces to glue. We used a carpenter’s square to measure and make straight lines, but any ruler will be just fine. Here’s what our pieces measured as per the diagram:

• Sides/back combined – 28 3/8″ long x 10 1/2″ high
• Upper and middle shelves – 9 1/8″ x 4 1/8″ each
• Bottom shelf 12 1/8″ x 4 1/8″
• Top front piece 3 1/4″ x 6 1/2″
• Bottom front piece 1 1/4″ x 6 1/2″

My husband decided to make the two front pieces a little bit taller because he wanted them to wrap underneath the shelves to make them sturdier. So our pieces actually measured 4 1/4″ x 6 1/2″ and 2 1/4″ x 6 1/2″.  He also recommends adding an extra 1/8″ to each shelf width (so they’d be 4 3/8″) as ours ended up a tiny bit too tight for the can to roll smoothly.

Step 3

Cut out all of your pieces using an exacto-knife or other sharp blade. We couldn’t find our exacto-knife so that’s why we used this pocket knife. It didn’t make perfect smooth edges but it worked just fine.  You could actually even use scissors if you want.  If you used a long piece for the side/back pieces then you’ll need to bend the side pieces in to the right shape.  We used our carpenter’s square (ruler) to help bend a straight line.

My husband wanted to note here that the bandaid on his thumb is NOT from cutting THIS project.  So don’t worry!

Step 4

Take your side and back pieces (either glued together or folded in) and make sure that your can will fit inside properly.  Then measure 2 3/4″ in from each edge of one side and draw a vertical line on the side pieces. This is how far in the shelves need to be glued so that the can is able to roll through them. The measurement will vary depending on which size of unit you are building. 

Step 5

Glue the pieces together. Supposedly you can use Elmer’s glue but my husband was getting irritated that it was taking too long to dry. So he found a tube of caulk (yes we’re the kind of family that has caulk on hand most of the time) and that was faster but still not a great or sturdy long term solution. He highly recommends purchasing a quick-drying tacky or gel type of glue.  Here is the order that we glued the pieces in:

• Top and bottom shelves glued to one side and to the back piece
• Middle shelf glued to that same side
• All three shelves glued to the opposite side
• Front pieces attached with extra tabs adhering to sides and bottom of shelves

If you didn’t cut the sides and back as one long piece you would need to glue those together first.

Step 6

Cut some little notches out of the side pieces near the bottom to enable you to pull the cans out more easily (we forgot to do that step before I took these pictures). Put your new unit in your pantry or on a shelf and load it up with cans! YAY!!!

In the instructions it says you can paint all of the cardboard pieces but we didn’t feel like taking the extra time and I don’t really care if they look ugly. Plus every time I look at my WonderMill box I can think about how much I love my wheat grinder. Hehe. However, we have heard that they will be stronger if you do go ahead and paint them, so I guess it can’t hurt.

My New Can Rotating Rack In Action!!!

And If This Looks To Hard …

Check out this other very cost-effective solution!

• I want to cook more with DRY beans and quit being so afraid of the soaking concept
• I want to plan dinners ahead of time to use more of my long term foods
• I want to find a way to help people who hate excel do an effective 3 month food supply plan even though the current excel file ROCKS! But I know, I know you don’t all love excel

Well good news – I’m doing alright. You’ll have to wait on the 3 month supply surprise just a little longer though. I have also been doing a lot better at planning dinners ahead of time. I used some of Crystal’s TOP SECRET tips for that.

And now for the beans. I have been into this humus kick for a little while now and buying it at the grocery store. I realized it was kind of full of preservative’ish junk and it was getting pricey. So I decided this would be my first guinea pig for using DRY beans. Turns out all my fears and anxiety were unnecessary. It was easy and DELICIOUS.

I got this recipe from the Safely Gathered In Blog. For full instructions, go to their blog. They have a lot of good pictures and instructions!

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus Recipe (Humus Recipe)

2 cups soaked chickpeas or 1 can beans, drained
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 Tbsp Tahini (sesame seed oil)
2 cloves garlic or garlic powder
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 jar of roasted red peppers, drained

Mince the garlic, put in food processor. Add the garbanzo beans, puree. Add the oil and juice, puree again. Drain and add roasted red peppers, add curry, blend.

If the beans are soft, then you’ll only have to process for a minute. When using soaked, but not cooked beans, process for five minutes or until smooth. Use as a spread or a dip.

MY FINDINGS:

I used olive oil instead of Tahini and liked it just fine. I also didn’t do the red peppers and curry powder, but I’m boring like that. Lemon Juice, Olive oil and Garlic are delicious enough all together for me.

You might want to try cooking the whole bag of beans, THEN splitting the beans into 4 or 5 ziploc baggies and freezing them for a quick treat on another day. 1 bag of beans got me 5 servings for around $2.50. Buying it pre-made from the store would have cost me over $20!

To make it an even yummier treat, I put hummus on reduced fat triscuit crackers and a piece of turkey pepperoni on top. I mean who doesn’t like pizza snacks! I am in love with making food storage healthy and cheap!

Remember our All We Want for Christmas Post? Our families must have been spying on our blog because we received several items from the list!

Julie STRUCK GOLD this year! She got a WONDERMILL GRAIN MILL! Her mom got her and 2 of her sisters the best present ever. Needless to say she’s been going to town (remember her all about wheat post). She loves it so much, we became Authorized Dealers for WonderMill to help people buy them at the Minimum Advertised Price allowed (click here for details). By the way, aren’t Julie’s sisters cute?

Jodi received a few books that will definitely help her with her food storage goals this year, Cookin’ with Dried Eggs and the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. She also got some food from The Ready Project which she’s excited to try out!

So now for our “NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS”:

• I want to save up enough money to buy a wheat grinder so I don’t have to borrow Julie’s any more
• I want to plan my summer garden specifically with canning in mind
• I want to create a recipe binder full of meals that use my long term food storage items and cook from it frequently

• I want to cook more with dry beans and quit being so afraid of the soaking concept
• I want to plan dinners ahead of time to use more of my long term foods
• I want to find a way to help people who hate excel do an effective 3 month food supply plan even though the current excel file ROCKS! But I know, I know you don’t all love excel

The one part of getting started that we haven’t addressed until now is getting your computer backed-up. Chances are you have a lot of important stuff on your computer like financial documents, email, digital photos, music and more. Unfortunately, computers are vulnerable to hard drive crashes, virus attacks, theft and natural disasters, which can erase or destroy everything in an instant. I want to share with you my absolute favorite system for backing up files. It’s an online back-up system called Mozy. There is a free version that gives you a limited amount of space, but I HIGHLY recommend Mozy Unlimited Backup for $4.95/Month. Most of the time the free version of a website or program is good enough, but let me tell you in this case … so not true. $4.95 a month to back-up my ENTIRE computer! WORTH IT!!!

Mozy is a simple and safe way to back up all the important stuff on your computer. A copy of your data is stored in a secure, remote location for safekeeping, so that in the event of disaster your data is still retrievable.

When you sign up for Mozy, you tell the system what files or folders you wish to have backed up (like “My Documents”). After the initial sign-up you never have to do anything, your files are backed up automatically daily, including the new files in those folders. IT’S SO EASY!

I am Mozy’s BIGGEST FAN! 2 computer crashes will do that to you! Sorry this video is a little corny, but if you have ever had a computer crash you will understand!

Just a quick head’s up for our readers. We are the featured site over at the Fun With Food Storage network today. Head on over to learn a little more about us, download our FANTASTIC “party favor”, and don’t forget to leave a comment on our post TODAY to get your bonus entry into the giveaway. We KNOW you are dying to win that Shelf Reliance shelf! And remember to check out http://www.internet-grocer.net who sponsored our site’s giveaway by donating three $50 gift certificates to their online store where you can buy great food storage items like canned butter, meats, etc.

I really thought the amount I ground up would last me for months and months. Truth be told I’ve already used more than half of it. I’m so excited because I REALLY never thought I could get into the whole rotating, everyday cooking thing as much as I have. Here are the ways I have been using my wheat, for real!

BREAD: So for the past few weeks I’ve made my bread – haven’t bought bread in over a month. I have tried lots of recipes for bread machine breads (Ok I’m not that awesome, I use a bread machine).

PANCAKES: Next, I have been making pancakes from our friend over at everydayfoodstorage.net She teaches how to make the famous blender pancakes. The picture is from her blog, I’m not going to claim that I can decorate food that cute. My husband LOVES these.

Side note: I just used the wheat flour since I already had it ground. I substituted the oil with applesauce, and I use 2 egg whites with one yolk only. I “try” to be “healthy”. Even with the healthy substitutions they are amazing!

PIZZA: I’ve also gotten addicted to homemade pizza. I throw ingredients into my bread machine, hit dough setting, then 90 minutes later I roll it out, top it, and bake it at 425 for about 20 mins -I like the crust crusty. AMAZING and totally healthy because I try to top it with mostly veggies, turkey pepperoni – my FAVORITE!, and just a “little” cheese. The recipe is easy even:

3 Cups of whole wheat flour (I use hard white wheat)
1 Cup of water
2 Tablespoons of Oil
2 Tablesppons of Sugar
1tsp of Salt
1 Tablespoon of Yeast

(So tonight, I actually just threw these all into a bowl, mixed it well by hand, and let it rise for an hour- worked without the bread machine).

GRANOLA BARS: Last but not least I am on a quest to find the perfect EASY granola bar recipe. I found one at allrecipes. com that had whole wheat and oats it in. I made it and liked them pretty well, but they weren’t super healthy (lots of sugars). I’m not sure if it’s totally possible to make a super healthy granola bar, so if anyone has a recipe for this PLEASE share. I’m kind of a health nut, kind of. Anyways, here are pictures of my granola bars. They were good all week, didn’t get dried out or anything.

GRINDING WHEAT IS EASY, FOR PROOF WATCH OUR WHEAT GRINDER VIDEO

p.s.  Gift #2 is coming early next week.  Are you getting excited yet?

5 lbs C&H sugar
3 Stouffers frozen dinners
1 tube colgate toothpaste
2 lbs Land O Lakes butter
1 bottle Krogers syrup
2 cans evaporative milk

The regular prices of these items would have been $27.94 … BUT … using the fresh values sales prices I saved $9.44 and I printed some coupons and clipped old coupons I’ve been saving and saved another $8.85. Including tax, the total I paid was only $10.26! That is WAY cheaper than it would have been even at Walmart with all generic brands.

I am only beginning to skim the surface on how great this system is. Within a few months I hope to have a lot of food stockpiled, do most of my monthly “shopping” from my pantry, and only hit Walmart for things I’ve run out of before I have a chance to restock. View the video below for tips on how to use this great resource.

How to Use GrocerySmarts.com

For more tips on saving money on your groceries and food storage items visit The Obsessive Shopper. She also includes some general couponing tips for people outside of Utah.

So today I woke up way too early with a sick child, and a husband who is out of town. I only got about 4 hours of sleep (the night before was around 2 hours). Anyways, I had to go to hockey practice and right when I got there my baby puked ALL over his seat. Luckily Grandma was there to tend and helped me clean it. Anyways, after hockey practice I got home and needed desperately to:

-shower
-bathe my child
-wash the car seat in the laundry machine
-run the dishwasher
-cook dinner

Well I turned my water on and within 10 seconds it trickled down to a dripping flow. I thought it was weird, and proceeded to call all my neighbors to see if they had the same problems. Well my house was the only one with the problem. Then I called the city to see if they could tell me anything. Nope it was MY problem. Then I called my mother-in-law, whose father told her it might be something with some pressure something. First question – is that something my baby could have done? We figured it wasn’t.

So I waited a few hours, still needing to shower, still needing to boil water for dinner, still needing to wash a puked up baby and car seat. During that time it dawned on me WHAT WOULD I DO WITHOUT WATER FOR REAL? I became very relieved as I realized I at least have my 14 day supply. I mean you need water for everything! I’m not saying my water supply would run my washer, but at least my basic needs would be covered. Anyways, I thought it was a good chance for a friendly reminder… How are you doing with your water storage? Do you have it? GET IT!

So now for the ending of the story. My husband finally was able to call me on the phone and I said OUR WATER IS BROKEN! He said, oh that’s an easy fix. I guess our baby has been playing with the main on and off levers for our house since he saw my husband turn off the outside water valve in the basement for the sprinklers. My husband had seen him do it the other day. Anyways, I went down to the basement and sure enough, when I had been in the basement putting away some cans earlier, he had pushed the knob to almost all the way off, because it’s fun to climb!

I’m working on developing BabyStep 9 right now- comfort foods- let me tell you I could have used lots of those today!

Homemade Applesauce Recipe and Canning Instructions

Step 1: Get your pot ready

I used my biggest pot and put a little water in the bottom to keep the apples from sticking. As I peeled the apples I just started throwing them in to start cooking.

Step 2: Peel a TON of apples

I used my handy dandy apple peeler which the kids thought was WAY fun to help with. If you don’t have one of these peelers, you can always try the method which Kaila’s husband came up with. Check out this video, it’s hilarious. Just as a reference, I used about 14 pounds of apples (before coring/peeling) and it netted 5 quarts of applesauce.

Step 3: Cook up those apples

By the time we were done peeling all the apples the first ones were really well cooked. I just let the whole thing cook for about 10 more minutes to make sure they were all soft.

Step 4: Prepare your canner and jars

While the apples were cooking I ran my bottles in the dishwasher to sterilize them. I also filled up my canner and started to boil the water. Lastly, I started some small pots of water boiling to sterilize my lids and rings. If you are new to canning, I would HIGHLY recommend getting a Home-Canning Kit to get all the tools you need to do proper canning. If you don’t have a canner or jars yet you can buy an all-in-one kit which will include EVERYTHING you need to get started!

Step 5: Make the applesauce!

Once the apples were all soft, I used my hand-me-down 1970’s-style baymix to puree them. I’m not sure why I call it a baymix but that is what my mom always called it when I was growing up. I couldn’t find the exact one online to show you, but I absolutely LOVE mine. Some of these hand blenders look similar but I can’t vouch for them. You could also use a food processor or even a blender to do the pureeing. But the baymix was SO easy because I could do it straight in the pan. At this point you can add any seasonings you want. I added 2 cups of sugar but could have gotten away with just one. Ours turned out really sweet and delicious. Some people like to add cinnamon or other things but I prefer to just add those when we eat it.

Step 6: Pour the applesauce into jars and seal ‘em up

Use a funnel as this can get really messy. I ladled the applesauce in leaving about 1/2 an inch of space at the top of the jars. Then I used my tongs to pull out a lid and ring for each jar. Try not to touch these things with bare hands as you don’t want them to get unsterilized. Screw the ring on tight once the lid is on.

Step 7: Put your jars into your canner and boil (make sure the water goes ABOVE the jars. I added more after this picture.

As I filled each jar I would put it into the canner. As you put more jars in the water level rises, so you don’t need to start with the canner all the way full. Once I had all 5 jars in I filled up to the neck level of my jars with hot water. You have to wait until the water is boiling before you start timing. Let it boil for 20 minutes and then remove the jars. Way easy huh?

Step 8: ENJOY! (my kids sure did)

For more canning recipes and ideas we recommend the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I got it from my mother-in-law for a gift and I use it a TON!

So last week I started on a mission … to get my emergency plan ironed out, including the disaster kit and 72 hour kit food items. Back in July when Jodi bought all the ingredients to update our 72 hour kits, I put mine in a bag in the closet (the truth comes out). I started to think, if I had to evacuate my house I would be in big trouble. All my food was in a bag in one closet, the emergency supplies I DID have were scattered around the house, and another thing – my important documents binder wasn’t made and I had no cash in case credit card systems were down. How would it have worked for me if I had to evacuate my house quickly – ummmm not so well!

It’s been about 5 days of me focusing really hard and now I finally have my emergency bin all put together! We are going to be focusing a whole month on Emergency Preparedness early next year, but for now I wanted to fill you in on a couple things I did and learned.

1- I bought a car kit ($20 at Wal-Mart). If your Wal-Mart doesn’t carry something like this, we found this Emergency Road Assistance Kit that is very similar and is great because you can toss in a water bottle and some snacks into the bag as well.

2- I PUT my binder with important documents together (passport, birth certificates, social security cards etc). When doing this, I asked myself one simple question – if my house burned down – would I be annoyed I didn’t have this document? If so, I put it in.

3- I went to the bank and took out $200 cash – and asked for small bills. In Hurricane Ike, a lot of people commented on how they wish they would have had small bills so they weren’t paying too much for stuff when stores didn’t have change.

4- I put my 72 hour kit food in a nice old big plastic animal cookie bin. It fit perfectly and was easier than using milk jugs (I like easy).

5- I gathered up all the items in the disasters supplies area of our Emergency Preparedness Plan and purchased the things I didn’t have.

6- I placed ALL this stuff in a big bin in my front hall closet. I was sad because I had a cute little shelf all arranged in my basement for this, but then learned that it’s best to keep your kit somewhere that you can access it easily if you have to evacuate quickly.

p.s. My wonderful sister sent me a list of things she compiled for HER emergency kit. Some of the items were not initially on the list that we posted under Getting Started. I have recently added them to our Emergency Preparedness Plan and uploaded the revised list so you may want to print off a new copy if you have been using the older version.

Have you done your emergency checklist yet? You can accomplish all of this within a few days if you just set your mind to it!

Here is the start of a great post on the site, make sure you click and read on.

Trick of the Trade #1: One of the things I teach at my classes is tricks of the trade with coupon usage. The first trick of the trade is:

Another site we like referring to is http://blog.totallyready.com/. The author shares money saving tips each Wednesday which can be helpful for whatever BabyStep you are on.

Here is what my food storage looks like after stocking up on a couple things each time I went grocery shopping, and after taking advantage of the case lot sales that are going on in local grocery stores around Utah.

TO PREPARE for the Case Lot Sales, this is what I did:

-Took my three month supply excel file, and figured out what I still needed to buy.

-Bought everything that was on sale that was on my list.

THAT’S IT! However I did already have my excel file all complete.

My next steps are to buy another shelf, wait for a cereal, pasta, and toiletries sale and then STOCK UP on those items. After that I will have my 3 months supply of normal foods and be ready to start buying the Long Term stuff. How exciting!

p.s – I know I know if there were an earthquake then I would probably have problems keeping all these rows of stacked cans all cute, but I’ll work on that plan later. We promised ourselves we would tackle this bit by bit so we wouldn’t get overwhelmed- Our research has officially surpassed our actions but we’re catching up!

SO- I printed out my little sheet that tells me how much I usually spend for things at Walmart. Since I had the sizes and price per oz, it was so easy for me to decide which items to buy at COSTCO vs. WALMART. Anyways, I was really excited it was so useful.

Make sure you take a closer look at the spreadsheet and the tutorial and get yours started today.

Step 1 – Wrote out my meal plan for the month and wrote down all the ingredients I needed to buy plus anything that was on the “To Buy” list on my fridge

Step 2 – Went to the GrocerySmarts.com website and following the Obsessive Shopper’s instructions I highlighted only the 4 and 5 star deals and printed out the list. (I figure anything less than a 4 star is probably safe to assume is cheaper at Walmart.)

Step 3 – Circled any items I planned to buy including:
a. Items on my current shopping list
b. Items that end up being FREE
c. Items that are on my 3-month food supply plan or long-term food storage list

Step 4 – Clipped my coupons for the items that listed coupons on my GrocerySmarts.com print-out. This included printing out the “printable coupons” (there were a few really good ones!) and also clipping coupons from my newspaper. I was so happy I had read the post about organizing your coupons on The Obsessive Shopper’s website. It was so easy to find exactly what I was looking for.

Step 5 – Headed to Smiths and was pleasantly surprised at just how little money I spent. I spent $37.04 and saved $21.60 in manufacturer’s coupons and $33.28 in fresh value’s savings. If that doesn’t blow your mind wait until you hear about all the food I got!!!

• 5 lbs of ground hamburger (85% lean)
• 2 boxes of Eggo waffles
• 8 bags of Malt-o-Meal cereal
• 4 boxes of granola bars (Fiber 1, ChexMix, Nature’s Valley)
• 4 boxes of Pop Tarts
• 2 boxes of Cheezit crackers
• 2 boxes of Keebler graham crackers
• 5 packages Hamburger Helper
• 5 packages of Tuna Helper
• 1 box of Pilsbury brownie mix
• 1 can of Pilsbury cake frosting

For $37.04 can you even believe it! Thank you thank you thank you to the Obsessive Shopper and her amazing GrocerySmarts website. If you haven’t used it yet, you are really missing out. I’d recommend subscribing to her blog because she summarizes the best of the deals each week in case you don’t have time to go through the whole process on your own. I obviously will still need to go to Walmart to fill in the gaps in my monthly shopping, but I can handle one quick trip to Smiths per month to get such great deals and to build up my Food Storage. This was a great way to really kick-start my 3-month inventory.

While preparing the blog post “How to Make a 72 Hour Kit” I pulled out my own kits to take some pictures. I realized the date on them was July 2006 so I decided I better rotate the food out since the recommendation is typically to rotate it every 6 months to a year. I opened the kits up and discovered that if we truly would have had an emergency these would not have been very pleasant to eat.

Top Ten Reasons I Needed to Rotate My 72 Hour Kit Foods:

10. Didn’t even have a kit for my youngest daughter (and she’s almost two!)
9. Stew expired July 2007.
8. Tang powder turned into crystallized lumps.
7. Beanie Weanies tasted rancid (yes I sampled them) and expired in 2007 as well.
6. Expired oatmeal although it didn’t taste too bad.
5. Raisins as hard as rock. Even my kids wouldn’t eat them.
4. Fruit roll-ups were smashed flat and REALLY sticky and gooey. I should NOT have let my kids attempt to eat them!
3. Expired noodle soup which also didn’t have any directions on the envelopes … hmmm.
2. Beef jerky was so hard that it killed my jaw to try to chew it and also had white powder on it that I am suspicious was mold. I hope I don’t get sick from tasting it!
1. The jolly ranchers melted all over the entire kit! Must have gotten overheated when we moved.

So not only would it have been gross in an emergency but now as I’m rotating it, the food is going to waste because it is so nasty and old.

Solution

Today I decided enough was enough. I took my kids to Walmart with my Printable Shopping List in hand. I bought enough stuff to make 6 kits (Julie likes me to get hers at the same time I’m doing mine) and it cost $49.50, so approximately $8.25 per kit. We didn’t need to purchase the stove, fuel pellets, matches, or spoons so to make a brand new kit would cost a few dollars extra. It took me about 30 minutes to empty out the old kits and put in the new food items. So I procrastinated for a whole year on something that took me less than 2 hours and about $30. I make myself mad sometimes.

Bonus

While I was redoing my kits I was finally able to make the “video instructions” I have been meaning to put together since I did the original 72 hour kit post. Hopefully this will help you out if you are working on your kits for the first time!

Do you have your 72 hour kits prepared yet? When is the last time YOU rotated your 72 hour kits? What is your goal for when to get them replaced (if you have been a slacker like us)?

So I know Julie will mock me for this, but I like to be organized with my cooking and I stink at making up meals out of random ingredients. I also tend to be somewhat of an excel junkie … thus my 3 month plan is quite detailed. I started by jotting down in a notebook 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches, 14 dinners, and a few snacks that could be made if no fresh meat/produce was available. Then I multiplied those meals out to get 12 weeks worth of food planned. I pulled out my recipe book and marked down exactly what ingredients I’d need to make those meals the specified number of times. I compiled all of that into an inventory list that I will print and update as I accumulate the items on my list. If you would like to see my spreadsheets in detail you can click on the sample image to view the excel file. I know this strategy might seem overwhelming to some of you, but for me it makes me feel empowered and confident that I will be able to utilize the items should the need arise.

Please note that since this posting we have developed a great customizable 3 month plan spreadsheet that you can use for your own plan. Go to the BabyStep 3 page for more details.

]]> http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2008/07/08/jodi-three-month-plan/feed/ 17 http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2008/07/05/3-months-of-normal-foods-list/ http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2008/07/05/3-months-of-normal-foods-list/#comments Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:05:55 +0000 Julie - Food Storage Made Easy http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/?p=51 Now, if you take a look at my three month plan vs. Jodi’s you’ll notice we’re different. When it comes to meal planning, Jodi likes to call herself organized, I tend to call her intense. I like to call myself creative, she might argue I’m scatter-brained. Nevertheless, we are all different and go about doing things differently. So for all you creative people: I made a list of what I normally buy at the story and put it on an index card (and yes it’s cute because it’s pink). When I look through grocery store ads, or other useful blogs on grocery shopping sales, I’ll see if any of my “list” items are on sale. Actually the truth of the matter is, I’ll wait for my awesome sister Andrea to call me and tell me where the sales are. She’s great at that. Anyways, I’ll buy my foods bulk. I’ll just keep on buying those foods on sale. With my three months list, I’ll creatively make meals and enjoy good food, for good prices.

4 people in my family X 1 gallon of water per day X 14 days = 56 gallons
I bought 10 jugs (6 gallons each) just to be on the safe side.

Confession: I went to fill them and realized I only had SCENTED bleach (see Step 2 page) so I couldn’t do it. They are still empty Don’t tell Julie though, she thinks I’m all on the ball since I bought them first!

• Water – 6 two-liter bottles
• 72 Hour Kits – 3 complete kits (over 2 years old)
• Baking Goods – 10 lbs flour, 1 can salt, 2 lbs each brown and powdered sugar
• Baby Items – 1 can formula
• Grains, Cereals, Rice, Pasta, etc. – 1 lb white rice, 13 lbs dried beans, 3 boxes instant oatmeal, 2 boxes cream of wheat, 2 boxes of cold cereal, 2 boxes kraft dinner, multiple sprouting seeds, several spares of common spices
• Commercial Soups – 2 chunky campbell’s, 5 tomato, 4 chicken noodle, 1 cream of chicken
• Canned Fruits and Veggies – 6 qts. peaches, 1 can fruit cocktail, 1 can mandarin oranges, 5 qts. tomatoes
• Psychological Foods – 3 qts. pickles, 3 jars tomato sauce, 2 pts. salsa, 1 small jar mayonnaise
• Non-Food – contact solution, shampoo, toothbrushes, washclothes

Hopefully by next month I will have added a LOT more to these shelves. I’m definitely going to have to rearrange them and better utilize the space. I also need to compile some sort of spreadsheet to keep track of what I have and what I still need. All in good time.

We originally wanted the name Food Storage for Dummies as we feel like we are kind of the dummies and are trying to share the knowledge we gain as we research this process. However, we researched it a bit and decided it wasn’t worth risking a trademark infringement so here we at foodstoragemadeeasy.net!

Welcome to our food storage blog! We are two young moms trying to navigate through our crazy goal of getting a year’s supply of food storage put together. With the struggling economy we have really started to feel that the time is right to get this project underway. As we started the process we realized there was SO much to learn and we got overwhelmed. So we decided to start this blog to keep track of what we learn, and to throw ideas off of one another as to what we should do next. Join us on our journey as we discover the best ways of achieving our goals on a budget and in a timely fashion. It should be a grand adventure. Feel free to pipe in with any tips and comments. We are just learning and welcome everyone to share their knowledge, ask questions, and/or add their opinions.

Our June goal is getting WATER figured out, and setting up our storage space. More to come soon!

Do you have any specific question about food storage? Or things you would like us to make sure to include on the site? WE are the dummies so we would definitely like your input! Just leave a comment below.