We became dealers of Lindon Farms because their products solve these two obstacles in traditional food storage, and to get you the products the cheapest possible. Check out our dealer page for additional information.

Food Storage Meals

Benefits:
• Delicious just-add-water meals
• Easy to open zip-seal pouches
• Featuring METALITE™ pouches
• Easily Transportable
• Shelf Life – Up to 20 years
• No High Fructose Corn-Syrup
• No added MSG

19 Delicious Meal Varieties: Natural Granola , Apple Blueberry Granola, Oatmeal, Eggs, Pudding Dessert, Freeze Dried Fruit Mix, Polenta (corn grits), Beef Flavored Vegetable Stew, Cheddar Broccoli Soup, Seasoned Mashed Potatoes, Chicken Flavored Vegetable Stew, Cheesy Pasta, Western Chili , Hearty Potato Soup, Mixed Vegetables, Red Beans & Rice, Regular Whey Milk, Chocolate Whey Milk, Citrus Drink.

Freeze Dried Fruits and Vegetables

The fruits and vegetables come in plastic containers that contain a variety of fruits and veggies in mylar bags. Mylar bags stored inside plastic containers make for easy storage of multiple items in a small space.
Freeze Dried Fruits 150/300 serving packages contain:

• Sliced Strawberries
• Sliced Bananas
• Sliced Peaches
• Diced Apples
• Whole Raspberries
• Whole Blueberries

Freeze Dried Fruits 160/320 serving packages contain:

• Sweet Peas
• Diced Potatoes
• Corn Kernels
• Green Beans
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli

2 bushels of peaches, approximately 56 jars of peaches (8 batches)

How to Can Peaches

Last year I did a little photo/text tutorial on canning peaches. I know some people prefer to see tutorials in video format so this year when my husband and I were canning two bushels of peaches we decided to document the process on tape for you all. Enjoy!

Tattler Reusable Canning Lids

As mentioned in the video, I was experimenting with reusable canning lids for the first time. I removed the lid off of one jar and reused it in a later batch and it sealed just fine! Overall I was very happy with the results. I think it will take a little getting used to it is a little bit different than traditional lids in how tight you have to put the lids on … but definitely worth figuring out!

What I LOVE
If you are a canner, you may have noticed that the disposable lids have gotten quite a bit more expensive lately (12 lids for around $4 or $0.33 per lid). I’ve also had a hard time finding them in stores (they only seem to have wide-mouth lids in stock ever). To buy 3-dozen Tattler lids with the gaskets it was $26.40 including shipping ($0.73 per lid). We visited with the people at the Tattler booth at the Self Reliance Expo over the weekend and they told me to expect at least 15 uses with the gaskets before I would need to replace them. The lids are reusable forever and the gaskets can be replaced VERY inexpensively.

With the amount of canning I do each year, this is going to save me a LOT of money (and a lot of trash). My only problem now is I need to get myself a lot more of the lids. I’ve also noticed it’s nice to keep a few of the disposable ones on hand so that when I have open bottles in the fridge I can stick those on and immediately reuse the Tattler lids.

Comparing a used gasket to an unused gasket
This picture shows you what happens to the gasket after it has performed a proper seal (top one is used). It is indented and you can easily tell it apart from an unused gasket. Each time you use a gasket you should invert it so it wears evenly on both sides.

Comparing a gasket to a traditional lid
You can see that the indentations in the gasket look very similar to the indentations in a traditional metal lid. Getting familiar with how they look will help you easily recognize which way to place your gasket on your next batch.

PLEASE NOTE:
If you are curious about the approved use of these lids, here is the official statement that most local extension offices are providing:

Elizabeth Andress, Extension Food Safety Specialist – Department of Foods and Nutrition, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension and National Center for Home Food Preservation shares the following response:

“The Tattler lids have been around a long time, but I have never used them or known of them being used in any reported research (ie, publicly available research). If people want to use them, they just need to go by the guidance provided by the company/manufacturer. I have no information that would tell me anything about seal failures or sealing rates, number of re-uses and performance throughout re-uses. I do not know what kind of vacuum levels are achieved, which would indicate how much air/oxygen gets vented out of the jar during processing. The lid choice itself would not impact the safety of the canning heat process if used on the correct shape and size of canning jar as the process specifies, and all other canning recommendations for jar filling, canner use, food preparation style, etc., are followed. So if people want to try them, they just need to be sure they can tell how to be sure they have a vacuum seal on their jar after processing and throughout storage.”

15 Creative Ways to Use Sprouts

1. Stir fry mung bean sprouts in sesame oil with mushrooms scallions grated ginger and soy sauce

2. Blend garbanzo bean sprouts lemon juice minced garlic olive oil salt and pepper into a thick paste chill and serve on crackers for a healthy snack

3. Combine soy bean sprouts fresh corn kernels and sliced red onions with an oil and vinegar dressing for a lively salad

4. Save the water the sprouts initially soaked in for a nutritious soup base to mix with fruit juices or for watering house plants

5. Make a wonderful sandwich with peanut butter and alfalfa sprouts

6. Replace wild rice with rye sprouts in soups and rice combinations

7. Chopped raw lentil sprouts give a peppery taste to cream cheese for a cocktail spread

8. Combine raw mung bean sprouts with raisins apple and tomato slices avocado and cucumber chunks toss with a salad dressing

9. Wheat sprouts bananas wheat germ honey and milk blended make a quick high energy drink

10. Add alfalfa sprouts to scrambled eggs just before serving

11. Chopped meats stretch further if you add fresh soybean sprouts and it really tastes even better with them added!

12. Stir fresh pea sprouts into a canned tomato soup for for extra vitamins and flavor. The kids will never know they had their veggies.

13. Mix tuna-fish with fresh sprouts sliced apples chopped mushrooms lemon juice salt and pepper for an exciting low cal lunch

14. Keep sprouts on hand and add them when ever you add herbs and spices to soups, main dishes and sauces

15. You can always add sprouts to sandwiches instead of lettuce , and on top of a salad to pick it up with spicy flavors such as mustard, radish, or a spicy sprout mix. Have fun and experiment. The flavor in a sprout is concentrated so use a small amount first then add more.

If sprouting is new to you, make sure to check out our SPROUTING PAGE!

So Jodi gave her garden update on Monday, and today it’s my turn. For those of you who have followed you know this year was my first year gardening. I still don’t have a yard that I can garden in (it’s small and shaded – always) so this year I borrowed some of my mom’s garden area. There were some advantages to this. She is a master gardener so she could teach me stuff, she tended to it while I was out of town, and she felt bad for me if some of my stuff didn’t come up right and gave me some of hers. The drawbacks of doing this was that I couldn’t just go to my backyard to pick lettuce for dinner, or see the growth each day. I’m glad I did it so I could learn a lot. I just can’t wait to have my OWN garden but…. once upon a time I had no room for food storage either. It’s a process.

Today I thought it would be fun to share with you how I’m using various garden vegetables. It’s SO fun and delicious to eat the yummy foods!

Green Peppers: When I first starting buying my own food in college, green peppers were 25 cents. Now they can be close to $1. For some reason it’s the only food price I remember, so it always bugs me just a little to buy green peppers. I love having them to throw in omelets with tomatoes, and onions. I make pizza once a week (more about that later) and love to top it with some fresh green pepper. I also love putting it in salads and bean salsas.

Zucchini. Oh I LOVE zucchini. I wish I had the abundance of zucchini I have right now YEAR round. I use it in everything. Really – spaghetti sauce, pizza toppings, grilled, boiled, fried, zucchini bread and more. The best part of it I think is the pizza though. I’ve been doing this amazing garden fresh pizza lately. I do whole wheat crust, tomato sauce, a little mozzarella cheese, and then top it with TONS of little chunks of zucchini, tomatoes, green peppers, onions and a little Parmesan cheese. Oh its HEAVENLY and it feels so light and guilt-free.

Spaghetti Squash. I may love spaghetti squash as much as I love zucchini. My favorite recipe is chicken Parmesan with spaghetti squash. I did a post about that one here. Well great- now I’m starving.

Lettuce, carrots, tomatoes: Who doesn’t love having fresh salad on hand all the time. The tomatoes are just coming in so I’ll be talking about that more later. I’m excited to can them with my mom and use them all year!

School starts in a week around these parts. How is summer over already??? We figured it’s been a while since we did our garden updates (although we’ve posted little updates on Facebook here and there) so here is a little summary of how things are going for us this year.

This year has been an interesting year for my garden. I got a late start on some things but they are finally catching up and I’m excited to START harvesting soon. We’ve been having pretty mild falls here lately so I’m hoping to still get a few months of good tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, etc. Most of my spring plantings got eaten by my chickens so I’ve had to adjust a few things to avoid that problem in the future. They were thrilled to discover brand new carrot and spinach seedlings growing in my garden and dug up the entire bed.

Here are some pictures of my current garden!

First pepper harvest (my kids think it’s the funnest thing ever to harvest).

My HUGE pumpkin plant that has taken over the yard (that’s what I get for actually WATERING it this year, lol)

The world’s best tomato cage. Every year my tomato plants fall all over the garden boxes and take over the yard and break my tomato cages. This one has been awesome so far!

Here is a “volunteer” tomato plant that grew out of a crack in my paver stones. There are actually tomatoes on it!

I managed to salvage a few green bean plants from the chickens, gotta assign these to the kids next

My cute little corn patch. I always try to grow corn and it never works that well. So far I have quite a few little cobs coming on, and the chickens seem to have kept the grasshoppers in check so maybe this year will be the year!

And THIS is the problem I have been facing … I try to keep the kids from letting them out when I’m not outside to keep them out of the garden. You can see how well THAT works out

Items Not Pictured

I have two huge areas full of potatoes that I need to harvest. One I planted, and one is full of volunteer plants from last year. I am planning to try to can them since I will be pulling up so many all at once. I’m excited to try my new reusable canning lids for this project! I also have some zucchini just coming up (I planted two plants this year because they both looked half dead when I moved them outside … what was I thinking???). I have a few cucumber plants that almost died while we were on our trip to Canada, I THINK I will still get come cukes though. Probably not enough to make pickles this year though. I also have a few onions ready to pull up. I have decided I am not ambitious enough to do any fall planting. I will just enjoy harvesting what I’ve planted so far, and prepping my beds for next year.

Stay tuned later this week as Julie shares HER garden updates this year (her first year gardening!)

There was a time where neither of us thought that we had the time, energy, knowledge, or desire to learn how to can. I finally broke down and begged my mom to give me instructions on how to make her strawberry jam when she moved out of state from me for two years and I couldn’t steal from her supply. When I stocked up my own year supply, with strawberries I got on sale for $0.88, and it was all absolutely delicious … I was hooked. I wanted to can more.

While it IS a lot of work, and I always complain while I’m doing it … I love the end result. Home canned foods are so much yummier than store-bought. You can also control how much sugar you put in (ok I admit I don’t home can to make things lower in sugar, but other people do!) There are no weird preservatives that you can’t pronounce. And if you have your own garden, you can get a year supply of fruits and vegetables at very low cost (especially if you already have your jars).

I was curious what other home-canned foods people can’t live without so I asked on our Facebook page (love Facebook for informal polls, lol) and we got a great response. Here are a few of the responses:

Click here to see the full list of responses.
 

I’ve done a few tutorials on different items I’ve canned over the past few years, and I am hoping to add to the collection this summer/fall. If you are just getting started with canning these might help you overcome any fears or worries you may have.

Canning Peaches … Delish!
Learn how to can peaches, Jodi has a little different technique than most books recommend.

How to Make Strawberry Jam
Homemade strawberry jam is such a treat, it is so much yummier than store-bought, which is truly the reason to make it.

How to Can Homemade Applesauce
Applesauce is one of the easiest and most delicious foods to can. Step by step tutorial on how we do it.

How to Pressure Can Ground Beef
Jodi gives a step-by-step overview of her experiences with this process that intimidated her for a LONG time.

How to Pressure Can Chicken
See how easy it is to can your own chicken so that you can have shelf stable chicken ready for recipes, and in case of emergencies.

One thing I’m really excited about trying out this year is reusable canning lids. I heard about them and got so excited because I really hate having to buy the disposable lids every year (totally ups the cost of home canning). And also I kept worrying about a long term emergency situation where I would want to preserve my own foods, but what if lids weren’t available. I can’t wait to find out if these will be a workable solution. They are more expensive than traditional lids but … REUSABLE! I will be using them for my tutorials and letting you all know what I think of them. Now I just need something to can! Hurry up tomatoes!

We are so excited to be hosting a Shelf Reliance Online Party to help families in need get a Food Storage Extreme Makeover and help EVERYONE get great discounted prices on Shelf Reliance products. (Read Monday’s post to find out how it all works).

Today we wanted to introduce you to Shelf Reliance’s Thrive Food line and show you examples of the GREAT DISCOUNTS you can get by shopping through our store (http://JodiandJulie.ShelfReliance.com/home). Remember 10% of your purchase will go towards the Food Storage Makeovers!

About Thrive Foods

The THRIVE food line consists of the same foods you would purchase at the market—fruits, veggies, meats, beans, grains, dairy, and the basics—they are great for food storage, and daily use.

One of our favorite Thrive foods is their freeze dried strawberries. It provides us with a great way to store some fruit. They are good right out of the can, or in cereals, muffins, oatmeal, smoothies and more! Check out the discounts you get by going through our store: http://JodiandJulie.ShelfReliance.com/home

#10 Can
Retail Price: $26.69
Our Store Price: $24.89

Case (6 Cans)
Retail Price: $140.16
Our Store Price: $138.69

Learn About Thrive “Q”

Through our store, you can sign up to be on the THRIVE™ Q. Here are just a few highlights on the program. For full information visit our store http://JodiandJulie.ShelfReliance.com/home to see if this program is right for you.

• Build a customized food storage plan divided into monthly shipments.
• Your budget can be altered to accommodate circumstances, skip shipments in months money is tight.
• The Q is designed to work automatically; monthly orders will be generated from your list by our program.
• Of course, you always have the option to edit your plan or add new items as you see fit.
• Feel confident you are always getting the lost prices on Thrive foods when you’re signed up for the Q.

Now I’m way excited to try dehydrating more things. I wanted some ideas on what would be yummy so I asked on our facebook page and got a GREAT response. Here are just a few samples, click here to see all of them!

If you are not following our facebook page yet, you definitely want to consider it. We have great conversations, idea sharing, and support going on every day. It is a great way for us to get to know all of you better and for everyone to learn from each other and have fun!

What are YOUR favorite foods to dehydrate? Let us know in the comments or add to the facebook discussion above!

A few months ago when Julie’s baby started on baby food, she had a “WELL DUH!” moment in the grocery check out line as the cashier was ringing up jar after jar of expensive baby food. She realized it was ridiculous to pay so much for squash and bananas filled with tons of water. She asked some of our facebook readers how they made their own baby foods and got TONS of suggestions. Now that Jodi has a baby old enough for baby food she’s showing her some of the tricks she’s learned.

If the baby is old enough to eat the food, you can use that food. Some of our favorites are yams, squash, carrots, peas, green beans, apples, pears, and peaches. Some foods aren’t recommended for younger infants, so make sure you consult with your doctor. We use Deals to Meals to find the best price for produce and cook batches of what’s on sale.

Cook the vegetable or fruit either by pressure cooking, steaming, baking, or boiling. Pressure cooking or steaming maintains the most nutrients. Doing it this way, you can prepare large batches at once.

Remove the water and save it. Take the cooked vegetables or fruits and put them into a blender, food processor, or bowl in which you can use a hand held processor to puree the foods. Add back the liquid you saved to get to the right consistency. You may also thin the food with formula, breast milk, or plain water if you don’t have enough saved.

Once you have a nice liquid baby food puree you will then transfer the puree into containers. You can use freezer jam tupperwares, or any other container that can go in the freezer. This allows you to make weeks of food at a time at a fraction of the cost of store-bought food. Another way is to use ice cube trays for freezing/storage. Fill each tray with the puree then cover the tray with plastic wrap and put it in the freezer. Once the cubes are frozen, you can place them in ziploc bags for single servings (1 cube is about 1 oz).

When it is time to feed your baby, thaw and/or reheat the ice cubes, or foods from the containers. You can store food in the fridge for a couple of days, so each time you take some food out of the fridge, replace it from one from the freezer. This will ensure you always have some ready to go.

Please Note: If you have Vita-Mix envy like Jodi, they are having a big sale this Saturday only. If you use coupon code 06-005516 you can get a $25 shipping discount too!

Here in Utah the first frost is around the corner, so I’ve been grabbing everything off of my plants as quickly as possible. The pepper plants have been pulled up after getting lots of great green and red peppers, and jalapenos too. My tomatoes still have some greenies on the vine so I’m holding out hope that I can squeak a few more good ones out. Needless to say I have an abundance of produce hanging around my kitchen.

Spaghetti Salad

Ingredients:
16 oz package of spaghetti
1 large green pepper, seeded and chopped
3-4 medium tomatoes, chopped
5-6 green onion stalks, chopped

1/2 c. olive oil
1/2 c. white vinegar
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 T. lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. basil
1 T. parsley

Directions:
Cook spaghetti until it is just BARELY done (don’t overcook!). Wash in cold water and let drain. Put in fridge while you chop up all the veggies. Add the chopped veggies to the spaghetti and toss together. Mix all the dressing ingredients (except parsley) in a small bowl. Pour over the spaghetti/veggies and mix well. Sprinkle parsley over the top. Refrigerate at least 4 hours, overnight is best.

Fresh Salsa

Ingredients:
1-2 jalapeno peppers (remove seeds)
4 bell peppers (combo of red/green)
3 pounds tomatoes–leave skins on!
1 large onion
1 clove garlic (finely chopped)
2 TBS fresh cilantro, chopped

1/3 C vinegar
1 T. lime juice
2 tsp salt
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp oregano

Directions:
Chop all of the veggies up to your desired consistency. Drain the tomatoes to avoid having excess liquid in the salsa. Add the veggies to a medium bowl. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Eat and enjoy!
Recipe adapted from my cousin Emily @ MySquareFootGarden.NET

Cream of Roasted Tomato Soup

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. tomatoes, cut in half
fresh garlic cloves
olive oil
basil and Italian seasoning
salt and pepper to taste

1/2 c. diced onion, sauteed
6 oz can tomato paste
1 c. chicken broth
3/4 c. cream
1 T. sugar
Salt to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 F. Lay tomato halves cut side up on cookie sheet. Brush olive oil over each half (top and sides). Add a sliver of garlic to each tomato and sprinkle seasonings over them. Roast in oven until charred, about 20-30 minutes. Blend tomatoes in blender and pour into large pot. Add onions and mix. Add broth, tomato paste, and cream. Simmer until hot.

I’ve also been canning up some batches of salsa. But more on that later. Happy garden cooking!