This week, we’re extending the Extreme Food Storage Makeover to Grandma Lori’s daughter Jasmine! She is Jodi’s little sister, and Julie’s sister-in-law. Jasmine has always been into cooking. She has made her own little recipe book and everything. When she kept hearing her big sisters talk about how whole grains are healthier, she wanted to learn about it… Since the Wondermills are on sale for the summer, Grandma Lori took advantage and bought one so now we get to share some fun recipes with the family.

If you’re new to this project, visit our Grandma Lori Makeover Page for the full scoop, and see the journey as it has progressed so far.

Watch the video as Julie shows Jasmine how to grind wheat, and other grains to make Jasmines regular waffle recipe, a delicious multi-grain version. Jasmine might even have a future on the Food Network – who knows? Oh and please excuse the guest appearance from SPIDERMAN himself. Yes it’s last years Halloween outfit he has worn daily since -luckily he didn’t shoot webs into our food.

Here is the Recipe Jasmine used. The ingredients in the brackets are halved, so she can make small batches for herself and her friends.

Waffles
1 ¾ c. flour (1/2 cup + 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp.)
1 tbsp. baking powder (1/2 tbsp.)
½ tsp. salt (1/4 tsp.)
2 c. milk (1 cup)
1/3 c. oil (2 ½ tbsp.) -replace with unsweetened applesauce for low-fat option
2 eggs ( 1 egg)
Mix all ingredients with electric mixer. Pour batter into waffle maker and cook until done.

Stay tuned as we keep showing our family some fun recipes using their food storage!

When we started the Extreme Food Storage Makeover for Grandma Lori early this year, we knew exactly what we were going to do…..NOT! Well, we knew how we were going to do her ePrep stuff, and we knew how to tackle the 3 month supply. We were secretly a little concerned about how we would go about her Long Term Food Storage.
If you’re new to this project, visit our Grandma Lori Makeover Page for the full scoop, and see the journey as it has progressed so far.

Anyways, we were worried Grandma Lori might not be into baking bread, and grinding wheat the way we have come to love. What we saw happen though, was so exciting. As we used our food storage more, she got curious. She was especially interested in how we have been putting all sorts of grains into breads, pancakes, pizza dough and more. Since the Wondermills are on sale for the summer, she took advantage and bought one.

Check out how easy it was to set up. She had a great idea to store it somewhere she knew she could use it easily, and not tuck it away in a cupboard. The bonus is she can keep her grains all together in one place. Where is she keeping her mill? Just watch and see.

Oh -and make sure you watch to the very end to see how Julie’s husband teases her… REALLY JEREMY? At least he teases Jodi just as much.

Next up, Julie is going to show her little sister-in-law Jasmine how to make her favorite waffle pancake recipe, using multiple grains in the new family Wondermill. Jasmine is Jodi’s sister. Julie is Jodi’s sister-in-law who married Jeremy. Jodi also has 2 other sisters whose name starts with J- We may have to make a family tree graphic to help ya’ll keep it straight…. but for now:

A few weeks ago, I tried Quinoa for the first time, it’s a grain that is high in protein and super yummy! I ate it plain and decided to ask on our Facebook page, how you guys, our readers ate it. The response was awesome… We got 29 responses with ideas, links to recipes, tips on places to buy it cheaper and more. Here is just a little screen shot of some of the responses:

Seriously – if you’re not on our facebook page you should be. We have great discussions, get questions answered, and do facebook only giveaways (merely because it’s SO easy to do there, and all you have to do to enter is hit a “like” button).

Anyways, back to grains. I’m sure I don’t have to mention eating WHOLE grains is so GOOD for you! Check out this little display we bring to classes we teach. We got it from Pleasant Hill Grain. It shows how many of the GOOD parts of wheat are EXTRACTED when turning whole wheat flour to white flour. The process essentially removes all that is good…. sob.

So on my journey to learn about more grains this summer (more then just wheat, rice and oats), I decided to invite you along and make a fun little game of it. I have purchased a bunch of grains already that I have been grinding in my WonderMill (Click here to buy – They are on sale for the summer!). I have used all types of grains, barley, millet, sweet brown rice in pancakes, breads and pizza dough. It’s been really fun.

So here’s the game. Here are 10 pictures of different grains. Just for kicks – if you want, send us an email, leave a comment, or even jot down on a piece of paper your guesses as to WHAT each one of them are. I’ll post the answers in a couple weeks after you have had a chance to guess. After that… Ready, Set, Go – I’ll be telling you how I’m “throwing” them into my recipes

We’re SO excited to get started on the next phase of the Extreme Makeover Food Storage Edition with Grandma Lori. The first few steps of getting an Emergency Plan, and Three Month Supply weren’t too hard, but we were worried this part would be a “harder sell” since Grandma Lori’s original plan was to just store freeze-dried meals and call it good.

However, as Grandma Lori has seen us use our “Long Term” Food Storage more and more lately, her interest has perked. She didn’t have a wheat grinder yet so the concept of using all that long term food storage was a bit daunting and not too exciting. Well the good news is:

Grandma Lori got one at this great sale priceand we’re so excited to hit the road running with her. As Dealers we always sell the WonderMills at the lowest price we’re allowed, and this summer we can sell the electric mills for $239.95 (they are regularly $269.95). So if you’ve been thinking of gettin one, click here, and get one this summer so you can follow along with us as we show Grandma Lori all the many different awesome ways she too can use her Wondermill.

When we first made our Food Storage Calculator, we promised ourselves we wouldn’t store any of the recommended foods unless we knew how we were going to use them. Since I didn’t have a wheat grinder (or even knew what wheat looked like yet) I decided to tackle cornmeal as my first “grain”. I remembered I had some in my cupboard so it seemed like a good item to start with.

Problem – My cornmeal was 3 years past expiration so I had to go buy a new canister before I could even get started. That goes to show you just HOW little I actually used it.

Confession – The first two recipes I tried were really delicious. My kids absolutely LOVED them and I thought they were great and not too hard to cook. However, several months later when I finally bought my WonderMill I made a discovery. You can grind popcorn (yes regular popcorn) into fresh ground cornmeal and OH MY GOODNESS it made all of my cornmeal recipes sooooo much better!

Give these recipes a try either with store-bought cornmeal or fresh ground popcorn and I promise you you will decide to add one or the other into your food storage:

Corn Pancakes
Buttermilk Cornbread

   

Now that I have some good cornmeal recipes on hand I think it will be really helpful if I am living off of my food storage because I can mix it up and not just eat ONLY wheat meals and breads every single day.

Is it just me or does it seem like it’s impossible to be FULLY on top of things around the house. One day you get your pantry all organized and think to yourself, this will NEVER be unorganized again – this time is different. Then, a few months later it’s a disaster.

Something I’ve learned through building your food storage is that it is a never ending process and you’ll always be learning, changing, and RE-organizing.

I’m just reminding myself -”Organizing is a never ending job”…but at least I’m having fun doing it.

Want to know a secret? – I’m a counter snob! There has never been an appliance worthy of living on my counter – until NOW. Too bad I don’t own it yet. My mom got a BOSCH mixer for her birthday last December and because she’s trying to sell her house right now, she is crazy busy and hasn’t found time to use it. SO I STOLE IT. Ummm – BORROWED it. After making close to 20 loaves of bread in 2 weeks just because it’s SO EASY I’ve decided I can’t live without it (I gave a lot of the loaves away okay). This machine practically makes the bread for you.

The Deals To Meals Blog is doing a giveaway on one of these precious things! Details on entering can be found on their blog. Oh and while you are there, make sure you check out her recipes. I have a few family favorites I found on this blog – the best one being Beach Street Lemon Chicken Linguini.

Deals To Meals is a service that compares the prices of all of the major grocery stores to Costco and Walmart and tell you where the best deals are. With those deals they give you recipes and meal plans to use those foods. They are now in 12 states and Jodi and I have tried their service recently and have found it to be SO easy, and worth it. Lately we have gotten too busy to coupon like we used to.

Give them a try and let them know we referred you. In a couple weeks we’ll show you how each of us use their site to save a lot of money and TIME! You’d be surprised how differently Jodi and I use the same service.

Powdered Milk FAQ

Why should I store powdered milk?
Food storage calculators generally recommend storing either 16 pounds or powdered milk per person or 75 pounds per person. The 16 pound recommendation accounts for one glass of milk per day. However, if you were to be living off of food storage and wanted to cook a variety of foods, you would definitely want to have more milk for baking, etc. Also if you have small children or a nursing mother it is important to have even more powdered milk. Because of the high nutrient levels in powdered milk, if you were unable to find ways to cook your food, you can actually sustain life by ONLY drinking powdered milk for quite some time. So storing more is never a bad thing!

What is the difference between instant and non-instant powdered milk?
Instant powdered milk is similar to instant rice in that it is faster and easier to reconstitute than non-instant formulas. Typically instant powdered milk takes about twice as much powder per gallon as non-instant, but it depends on which brand you are purchasing.

What is a milk alternative?
A milk alternative is NOT 100% milk. It contains a lot of ingredients to make it taste better including whey, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and high fructose corn syrup. As a result, it taste yummier, but has way less protein and includes some ingredients which are NOT great for you. If you want to use your stored milk in recipes or to make cheese, etc., they would turn out differently than if you used 100% milk. If you just want to drink the milk alternative as a milk flavored yummy drink, it’s ok. However you will be missing out on important nutrients which are even more critical in a time of emergency.

Which brand of powdered milk tastes the best?
The Utah Preppers blog posted an in depth taste test on the most common brands of powdered milk out there. We are so glad they did this because we’ve only personally tried a few brands ourselves. According to their study, the best-tasting milks were:

• Milk alternative: Morning Moos
• Instant powdered milk: Provident Pantry
• Non-instant powdered milk: Rainy Day

Are there any options besides “nonfat” powdered milk?
Yes! Dry whole milk is available although it’s much more difficult to find, especially in bulk. If you just cannot stomach nonfat milk (like Jodi’s dear sweet husband) there is still hope. One brand that we have heard about a lot but haven’t tried yet is Nido. You can often find it in the Hispanic foods section at your local grocery store. Or I found it available online at Amazon.com (don’t you just love Amazon?) It’s pricier than nonfat milk and the storage life will be much shorter due to the fat content of the milk so make sure to watch out for that.

How can I improve the taste of powdered milk?
One trick we learned from Crystal at Everyday Food Storage is to mix a little bit of sugar and vanilla in to your powdered milk and then make sure to serve it cold. This will significantly improve the taste of your milk!

Where can I purchase powdered milk for the best price?
The LDS cannery is the least expensive place to get powdered milk. To find a cannery (home storage center) in your area click here. (Please note that a lot of canneries do not require you to be a member of the LDS church to purchase from them, so contact your local cannery and find out their policies). However, since milk from the cannery is not the best tasting powdered milk, here are some other options. Provident Pantry instant milk is available at Emergency Essentials stores or online. Rainy Day non-instant milk (made by Walton Wheat) is available from Alison’s Pantry online or via a local rep.

What is the shelf life of powdered milk?
While different sources claim the shelf life on powdered milk can be up to 20-25 years, we have also read that the nutrient level significantly drops within that time. So we would definitely recommend incorporating a habit of rotating your powdered milk to keep your supplies as fresh as possible.

What’s the best way to rotate my powdered milk?
Since most people don’t particularly enjoy drinking powdered milk as a replacement to regular milk, we highly recommend using it in RECIPES where it won’t be as noticeable. You can view our food storage recipes to see where we have substituted powdered milk successfully. Or you can also check out our sister site Everyday Food Storage for more great ideas on cooking with your food storage!

p.s. Check back on Wednesday for a recap of our fun at the Utah Valley Women’s Expo and a preview of the event we will be speaking at in Ogden this Saturday!

Now we’re on to the real nuts and bolts of Food Storage. Help someone out this holiday season by showing them how to actually USE their Food Storage. Day 6 is going to start the actual food items with GRAINS. Make sure to add your Day 6 Tags to whichever gift option you choose.

Blender Wheat Pancake Mix

If you haven’t seen Crystal’s Blender Wheat Pancake mix gift idea, you’re gonna love it! Check it out here. It wont cost you much, but will surely impress and motivate someone to use their food storage.

Wheat and Handout

Get some of those cute decorative plastic food baggies and fill it with your favorite grain. Maybe wheat, pasta, rice – whatever you wish. If you fill it with Wheat for someone who doesn’t have a wheat grinder, make sure you print out this post for them. It has A BUNCH of ideas on how to use wheat without a wheat grinder.

WonderMill

If you’re feeling REALLY, and we mean REALLY generous – give the gift of a WonderMill! For the month of December Wondermill has their electric mills on sale for $239.95. We’re dealers and offer free shipping – so now is the perfect time for a gift you know they will love!

Back to the 12 Days List

A lot of people have a hard time storing all the “Food Storage” type foods because they have no idea how much to store, or how to use it. Use these great ideas to help people get going and don’t forget to add the cute Day 5 Tags:

Print-Out of Long Term Needs

Here is a handout that includes instructions and a food storage calculator that you can print out, tie a ribbon around, and give to someone. This will help them determine quantities of foods to purchase based on their family size.

Favorite Food Storage Recipe Delivered

Since it IS Christmas, try baking one of your favorite food storage recipes and bring it over to a friend. Who doesn’t love treats?! Tell them (after they have tried it) that you used Food Storage and they can too!

Any Number of Food Storage Books

To really help someone learn about Food Storage, give them one of these great books:
The Family Preparedness Handbook
I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage
Country Beans
Marlene’s Magic with Food Storage
Food Storage 101

Back to the 12 Days List

What are Powdered Eggs:

Powdered eggs are eggs that have been dehydrated and made into a simple powder, with a texture similar to that of powdered milk. While some brands of powdered eggs utilize the whole egg, others will only include the yolks or the whites, and may add other ingredients to enhance the flavor or the texture of the reconstituted eggs. Generally, it is possible to purchase powdered eggs in bulk, making them ideal for use in food storage programs.

Advantages of Powdered Eggs:

Dehydrated eggs have several advantages over fresh eggs.

First, powdered eggs have a longer shelf life. With proper storage, dried eggs can easily last for the better part of a decade. It is not necessary to store the eggs in a refrigerated area; all that is required is a cool to moderate temperature and a dark cabinet or cupboard.

Eggs that have been dried require much less storage space. This means substantial supplies of eggs can be kept on hand in a relatively small space. Re-hydrating the eggs for use in omelets and to make scrambled eggs require nothing other than the addition of a liquid, usually water or milk. In powdered form, the eggs can be added to baked recipes without the need to mix them with a liquid ahead of time.

Using Powdered Eggs:

Today, powdered or dry types of eggs are packaged in several different ways. Whole eggs may be dehydrated and later used in many recipes where whole eggs are needed. It is also possible to purchase powdered egg yolks as well as whole eggs. For use in recipes where the whites are all that is used, such as in meringues, packages of powdered egg whites are available, although there is some difference of opinion as to how well powdered egg whites work and taste when utilized in some recipes.

History Lesson:

The production of powdered eggs is usually traced back to the first half of the 20th century. The eggs were extensively used during World War II, especially in countries where food supplies were airlifted in to feed civilians displaced by occupations and bombings. In the United States, powdered eggs were often used as a substitute for fresh eggs during periods of rationing, allowing fresh eggs to be routed to provide nutrition to people serving in the military. Even with first call on fresh eggs, many branches of the military also utilized the powdered versions as a matter of expediency.

For more information on Cooking and Buying powdered eggs, visit our sisters sites!

Today we are revealing the 7th piece of our Seven Day Challenge puzzle: BINDER UPDATES FOR LIFE!

For those of you who have purchased our Food Storage Made Easy DOWNLOADABLE Binder- you may have been worrying: “What happens when Jodi and Julie do updates to BabySteps, or great new posts!?!?! I want those in my binder too!”

Well we’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you, but when you purchased a copy of of the Food Storage Made Easy Binder, you qualified to be emailed* in pdf format:

• BabySteps Pages as they are revised
• Extra special posts that we publish new since the binder was created
• Updates to any checklists or recipes we have in the original binder

The first set up updates will be emailed* to you as pdf’s after the summer crash course is finished and will include:

• All 10 BabySteps sheets REVISED!
• Shelf Life handout
• Water Evaporation Still post
• Copies of our Bucket Labels
• What To Do With Extra #10 Cans Post
• AND more!

So, if you haven’t already purchased your DOWNLOADABLE Binder, hurry up- buy it, start using it to get ready for the Seven Day Challenge, then enjoy it forever as you will always have the newest and most up to date information sent right to your email* (and we will always format them nicely to match the rest of your binder — no more ugly website printouts!)

***IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU EMAIL US***

If you have already purchased a Food Storage Made Easy Downloadable Binder, you will be sent an email in the next few weeks with a link to sign up for the binders for life updates. By signing up for the list, you will automatically get the updates forever.

If you were given the Binder as a gift by someone who purchased multiple copies, we will not have your email address- to sign up to receive the binders for life bonus, see the “Upgrade Option” at the bottom of the Binders in Bulk page.

We decided it would be good to revise each BabyStep as part of our Summer Crash Course. So jump in and get started … it’s not too late! This week we are covering BabyStep 4: Long Term Food Storage Education (click here to view the full step)

• Updated the key points and split them into categories
• Added tutorial video for Food Storage Calculator
• Added printable pdf version of the Food Storage Calculator
• Added numerous books and websites in the resources section

Food Storage Made Easy Recipes Page
Food Storage Shelf Life
Food Storage and Money Savings
Long Term Calculator Q&A (scroll down to read more about our milk recommendations)

Stay tuned for a more advanced post on this topic coming later this week

Awhile back, Jodi made a post called From Chaos to Clarity where she organized all her long term food storage. She made these cute labels for her big buckets and since then we’ve had a lot of requests for them. Well, we finally are getting around to making them available for you to download.

We made labels for red wheat, white wheat, flour, oats, rice, pasta, black beans, red beans, sugar, milk and a blank one for the items you store that aren’t necessarily “the typical” items.

To access the pdf, simply click here or click on the image below:

Simply print out how many you need and tape them to your buckets…Hope you like them!

How to “reuse” your #10 cans

• Decorate them with printed paper, ribbon, and anything else to make them cute. FIll them with fun stuff (candy, lotion, soaps, etc.) and give them out as presents.
• Decorate them and then fill them with flowers for center pieces at a party.
• Use them to store all sorts of things like flour, and wheat from the big plastic buckets, trail mix, homemade crackers, gluten flour, etc.
• Have your kids decorate them and make drums out of them.
• You can use them to store buttons, sewing, pencils, crayons etc.
• Make tin can ice cream in them.
• Refalange it! (I’m not sure that’s how you spell it). There is a falanger which will take that rim off the top of the can and make it ready to seal again.
• Put your first aid kit in it, and put it in your 72 hour kit (with a lid).
• Put vitamins, hair ribbons, cooking spoons, or rolled napkins with silverware for picnics in them.
• Put contact paper on the outside to make it more decorative.
• Recycle them!
• Use it for pre-made mixes in your fridge.
• Use your #10 cans as containers for gifts –maybe an FHE kit all containing contents all about food storage.
• Use them to put nails, screws, and other small objects. They help keep things cleaner in a shop or garage.
• Use them while changing the oil in dirt bikes or the car.
• Take #10 cans and paint them to match your kitchen. Then make vinyl stickers to label the contents of each can. They are decorative as well as FUNCTIONAL! Refill out of big buckets when needed!

Thanks again to everyone who shared their ideas with us. Please feel free to leave a comment with any more ideas you might have. The more of your ideas we read, the more excited we got to try some of these out ourselves!

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!

We updated the calculator to allow you to define the number of months of food you wish to store. It now not only includes # of adults and # of kids, but it also includes # of months desired.

Julie also tells you how to use, and now alter the spreadsheet. In the training tutorial, she goes through how to:

-Add foods
-Change foods
-Delete foods
-Change quantities
-How to use the cost/unit field
-General tips on the NEW spreadsheet

So if you have had a question about any of those things, go ahead and watch the tutorial.

Milk Recommendations:

Many of you have asked about why we recommend storing so much milk. There are basically two schools of thought on long term food storage. One recommends a 2300 calorie diet with 300 lbs of grains and 75 lbs of powdered milk. A more recent recommendation has been to increase the calories to 2400, raise the grains to 400 lbs, and lower powdered milk to just 16 lbs.

Either way you go will provide enough nutrition for you to sustain life. However, for families with nursing mothers or small children it is important to use the higher recommendation for milk in order to provide adequate nutrition. If you only store 16 lbs that is only enough for one cup of milk per day. Another reason we use the higher milk recommendation by default is because if you were unable to find ways to cook your food, you can actually sustain life by ONLY drinking powdered milk for quite some time. So all you would need is to add water and you could survive.

Feel free to modify the calculator to fit your family’s needs, but that is the reasoning behind our recommendation in comparison to some other calculators you might see. For more details on this topic click here.

To help you help your special someone come up with a thoughtful and fun gift for you we have put together a little handwritten note you can pass along telling them what you really want is a Food Storage Made Easy Downloadable Binder.

You can send your special someone this link, or print the note itself – whatever works. If your spouses are anything like ours, you’ll enjoy the letter. We finally decided hinting at things does not work so well. Read on…

Also to those of you have been asking, we finally have our bulk pricing for the Food Storage Made Easy Downloadable Binders. We had a lot of people ask about making multiple copies to share and we came up with a way to make it affordable to purchase additional “copies” of the Food Storage Made Easy Downloadable Binder. See the bulk orders sheet for more info.

Food Safety Throw Away Guidelines

As food ages it naturally will change in flavor, odor, and texture. The worse these conditions are the less likely we will be to eat a particular food, but if it were safe to begin with, and it passes the following food safety test now, then it should be safe. A good rule of thumb is “When in Doubt—Throw It Out.” (This list was taken from a handout produced by the Utah State Extension Service)

The following chart gives throw away guidelines.

1. Food was not processed properly. If improper processing times, methods, and/or recipes were used for home canned vegetables and meats, the jar may be sealed, but the product deadly—DO NOT TASTE—discard.

2. Look for the following signs of spoilage—DO NOT TASTE—discard:

• Bulging lid—lid must be definite concave, and seal cannot be lifted with fingers.
• Milky appearance to liquid—as food ages the liquid will become more cloudy and a residue will begin to form in bottom of jar—this is the food sluffing off, but the appearance should not be milky.
• Mold growth of any kind.
• Slimy appearance or texture.
• Rancid odor—especially in foods which contain any amount of fat, like dehydrated protein.
• Corrosion on inside of can, especially along seam (particular problem with canned foods older than 10 years or so.
• Rust—especially on seam or seal of can.
• Frozen can or bottle—freezing produces hairline fractures in seal and allows spoilage to begin.
• Off-smell—food generally changes in odor as it ages, if the smell has developed to the point it is undesirable.
• Food stored in non-food grade container—the container was not meant for food or once contained a non-food product (garbage bags, garbage cans, cleaning bottles or buckets, kitty liter containers, etc.).

In light of the current economic situation, we wanted to share with you some ideas on how having your food storage in place can help you financially in both the short term and long term.

Short Term Food Storage
Your short term food storage consists of getting a 3 month supply of foods that you eat on a day to day basis. Once you have this in place you can start to grocery shop from your food storage and only replenish those items when they go on sale and/or you have coupons. This will actually reduce your grocery budget as you will only buy things that are deeply discounted. But those few dollars a month will not mean as much to you as the food will if you have a short term emergency. For example, my husband took a pay cut for several months and we were able to spend less than HALF of our usual grocery budget for those months because we had stockpiled so much of our every day foods.

Long Term Food Storage
Your long term food storage consists of getting a year’s supply worth of life-sustaining foods that have a long shelf-life. These are items such as wheat, white rice, dried beans, powdered milk, etc. Since the shelf life is so long you can gradually purchase the items when they are on sale and work up to a year’s supply. If you get brave enough to start using your long term food storage items in your everyday cooking, you can also save some money in the short term. Homemade bread is significantly cheaper than store-bought, especially if you grind your own wheat. Making other items from scratch such as muffins, pancakes, etc. can also save you money over buying packaged items.

In times of economic trouble you can rely on your food storage for long periods of time while other people are begrudging the high prices of rice and wheat. Prices will most likely come down before you deplete your stores. Lastly, if a major disaster, economic melt-down, or other long-term emergency were to occur, you can feel confident that your family will be able to survive with basic food and water for quite some time.

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!)

This is a very simple yet handy food storage calculator to help you easily determine how much food you need to store, and keep track of how your Long Term Food Storage is coming along. Download it today and enjoy! Remember to read our post from last week on Long Term Food Storage Lies Debunked to help you avoid getting overwhelmed as you start on your Long Term Food Storage!

So here it is (the food storage calculator is based on a ONE YEAR supply):

Food Storage Calculator

Please note for the Cost/Unit column (column H) you need to put the cost/unit, meaning cost per pound, or cost per qt whatever that may be – in that cell. Everyone will have different prices so that is a user entered cell. If you want to do the math right in excel, the special formula is =cost/unit. So if you paid $11 for 50 lbs of wheat, you put =11/50.

If you don’t have excel you can print out our pdf worksheet (instructions included) and fill it out by hand.

Hope you enjoy

As we began to think about building our LONG TERM food storage we started to come across some ideas that kept holding us back from really becoming serious about it. As we’ve been researching for our blog, and actually building our own storage, we discovered that a lot of things were not true for US. We’ve summarized them here into seven food storage lies that we have debunked.

Don’t be afraid to replace certain foods with foods you use more often. For example, the typical calculator may tell you to store way more, or less, of a certain ingredient then you would ever use. For example, Jodi likes to use her grain mill to grind corn for cornbread, so she’s not taking the cornmeal recommendation literally and is storing corn kernels instead.

We often hear people think they must cook meals with only shelf-stable ingredients. While these recipes can be useful and are good to know about in case of a severe emergency situation, they are NOT the be all/end all of food storage. The idea is that you will be learning to cook with your food storage and constantly rotating it. It’s okay to mix and match “food storage” items with “non-food storage” items.

TOTAL LIE! See our small spaces storage solutions post for ideas on how to start no matter how tiny you think your house might be.

NOT! Let’s be honest, unless you have tons of cash lying around, this isn’t going to happen. Start small. Commit yourself to buying food, little by little. Decide you will gather small amounts of a variety of long term food storage items. Once you discover which items you use most often, re-adjust and keep on buying when you can.

FALSE. Crystal at Everydayfoodstorage.NET shows you how you can use your food storage in EVERYDAY ways. She is great at teaching you to take the meals your family typically eats and incorporating food storage into them.

This is a lie that Julie thought was true until she really got into using food storage. She has always tried to cook with really “healthy” types of ingredients, and didn’t know how to incorporate long term food storage items into her typical meals. She learned that everyday food storage, means using your food storage in meals YOU would typically make. It’s surprising how you can adapt and start using your food storage even if you don’t cook the standard meals “everyone” else seems to be making. Stay tuned for some of Julie’s “health-conscious” discoveries that have had her dreaming about legumes.

While this is the reason a lot of people think you should get into food storage, it is one of the very last reasons why we LOVE having food storage. We have found that we use food storage for health reasons, self-reliance reasons, to weather against economic storms, and so much more. While it’s good to eventually make plans for how to survive without things like gas and electricity, there is no need to let that get in the way of you starting to use and rotate through your food storage TODAY!

Click here to check out the article now!

Serving Size: 4 servings
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1/3 cup cornmeal
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:

1. Preheat a skillet over medium heat.
2. Spray skillet with nonstick spray
3. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl with a mixer set on medium speed. Mix until smooth, but don’t over mix.
4. Pour the batter by 1/4 – 1/3 cup portions into the hot pan and cook for 1 to 3 minutes per side or until brown. Repeat with remaining batter.

Jodi’s Comments:

These are AMAZING! I used fresh ground whole wheat for the flour, and fresh ground popcorn for the cornmeal. The consistency was light and fluffy and the flavor was great. They were SO delicious, especially with honey drizzled over the top. My kids ate 3 pancakes each!

This is a modified version of IHOP’s Country Griddle Cakes recipe

Leave a comment if you try this recipe and let us know what you think!

Note: Julie made a great instructional video as part of this step, so if you want to put a face to her name you should definitely check it out!