In The Trenches

Financial Survival During Times of Hardship
by Carol Schultz-Weil
 
 
 

Background: For those of you who have followed Julie and I on our food storage journey over the past two years, you may recall that in the beginning we couldn’t seem to get a grasp on using food storage during natural disasters (i.e. If there is an earthquake and you have no power, how are you going to COOK all that wheat anyway?) So we decided to focus on the thought that we were much more likely to have an “economic disaster” in our lives and we wanted to use food storage to help be prepared for that. Well about 3 months after we started our blog and started to build our food storage, my husband lost his job and was unemployed for about three months. Luckily I had already stockpiled quite a lot of 3 month supply food storage and we were able to spend only about $20-$30 on groceries during those months. Every little bit helps when you are living off of savings! When we were given a copy of In The Trenches: Financial Survival During Times of Hardship I knew that I wanted to be the one to read and review it since this topic hits close to home for me. (My husband recently lost his job AGAIN but we were lucky enough to find a replacement job in less than a week this time!)

What I Liked: In The Trenches is not a typical “finance book”. If you want a step-by-step, more formal plan all laid out for you, I highly recommend getting Dave Ramsey: The Total Money Makeover (Dave and HIS BabySteps have literally changed my life). However, if you are looking for a more personal and friendly approach, perhaps just a few tips to survive during hard times, In The Trenches is fantastic. Carol Schultz-Weil shares her stories of living for 6 months without indoor plumbing, and going from being a bank manager to working at McDonalds. She literally has lived in the trenches and pulled herself out. She offers some great tips on saving money, but the real appeal is the emotional support she gives you throughout the book. It’s one thing to cope with numbers on paper, it’s another to be able to get through each day when your kids need new shoes and you feel like a failure.

Favorite Tip: One of the questions we get asked a lot is “How do you build up a food storage on a tight budget?” In The Trenches addresses this very issue using a simple method that everyone can start using immediately. The concept she suggests doesn’t even require a change in your budget. All you do is take your normal grocery budget each month and set aside 10% of it as a “stocking up fund”. Each month at the grocery store you use that special fund and “stock up” on 1 or 2 items at the store that are on sale and that are part of your family’s normal diet. Using our 3 month supply worksheets can help you easily know EXACTLY which items to watch for to go on sale. After a few months, you will be buying less and less food at full prices and can save your family a lot of money on groceries. If you are interested in long term food storage you can use that savings and start purchasing some of the bulk items like wheat, sugar, oats, etc. Remember this is all coming out of your original grocery budget so it is really something you can do and not worry about extra expenses!

Feedback: In The Trenches provides some great worksheets to help you analyze your budget, expenses, net worth, etc. However, some of the sheets are too small to be very usable. I would want to photocopy and enlarge them all so I could fill them out properly. It would be really nice if they could be made available in pdfs or as an excel file on her blog.

Summary: For someone going through a time of financial hardship, In The Trenches can be a great tool to use. If you are just looking for some creative tips for saving money and living a cheaper lifestyle you will find this book to be helpful too.

Last week we posted the “Questions to Ask Yourself” when planning your 3 month supply. Julie got together with Grandma Lori and asked her those questions so they could formulate a plan. Watch the video to see what Grandma Lori’s answers were, and then read on to see her very own custom plan.

Grandma Lori mostly wants a 3 month supply of foods she eats regularly using meats she can store in a freezer. She also wants to get the foods all at once and then from there use and rotate. Like we’ve said before each persons plan, budget, and preferences will dictate a personal game plan.

1. Lori gave Julie a list of 12 of her most common dinner recipes (in the video Lori thought it would be a good idea to use the forms, but since Julie was feeling generous, she told Lori she would take Lori’s recipes and fill out the excel form for her).
2. Lori listed breakfast, lunch, and snack ideas to buy a lot of, but isn’t going to plan each day like she wants to for dinners.
3. Julie is going to compile the master list of ingredients to shop for based on the recipes and what Lori already has on hand.
4. Julie, Lori and Jodi will make a fun trip to the stores and get the foods.
5. Julie, Lori and Jodi are going to be build the shelves that CanOrganizers are going to donate for Grandma Lori’s pantry.
6. STOCK the pantry!
7. Lori will use and replace the foods. YAY!

Stay tuned as we complete and document action items #3-#7.

How to Submit a Request

1. Plan an event you would like to have us attend
Church groups, emergency preparedness fairs, office sac lunch seminars, etc.
2. Select your topic
General food storage overview, 3 month supply planning, using long term food storage, wheat/wheat grinders, water storage, etc.
3. Select 2 potential weeks from our schedule of availability (see below)
We will teach one class per week, we can be flexible with what day it is on)
4. Please EMAIL US your request including the day and times you are hoping for
We will schedule your event and confirm with you based on our availability

Schedule of Availability

March 21-27: AVAILABLE
March 28-April 3: AVAILABLE
April 4-10: AVAILABLE
April 11-17: Lehi–April 14th
April 18-24: Murray– April 22
April 25-May 1: Lehi–April 29
May 2-8: Spanish Fork–May 4th
May 9-15: SLC–May 11th
May 16-22: AVAILABLE
May 23-29: AVAILABLE

Limitations:

• Event must be located in Utah County or Salt Lake County
• Event must be held in a public location (i.e. church, library, etc.)
• We prefer events to be held during weekdays
• We ask that a minimum of 15 people be committed to any event we come to

We are so excited to have the chance to meet some of our readers in person!

p.s. PLEASE don’t leave requests in the comments. In order to schedule an event you MUST email us at info@foodstoragemadeeasy.net so that we can keep track of all requests more easily.

Are you storing a 3 month supply of food for a potential job loss? For a potential natural disaster? For meal planning purposes? Whatever it is that you are doing this for will influence how you go about planning, so first – decide – Why Am I Doing This? Check out our complete series on “Why Food Storage?”, if you haven’t figured this one out yet.

Are you the type that thinks your 3 month plan can only have shelf stable items? Do you think fridge and freezer foods count in your 3 month plan? Do you want to make a plan based on the assumption that you can still buy produce to fill in holes in your recipes? Once you have decided which types of foods you want in your 3 month plan, you’ll be able to filter your recipes to fit that criteria. ***disclaimer*** While it’s always good to have some shelf stable recipes, we think planning strictly shelf stable meals is a hard place to start for beginners-

• Some people find that buying foods they use often in bulk fit their goals for a 3 month plan.
• Some people like to plan their meals on our printable pdf forms with good old fashioned pens and pencils. (found on our BabyStep 3 page)
• If you’re really wanting to get detailed, you can use our 3 month supply excel spreadsheet and go to town including all ingredients for all your recipes and then watch it automatically calculate how many of each item you need.(found on our BabyStep 3 page)

While the end goal is to use foods daily from your pantry, and replace them with your regular grocery shopping, to get your supply kick started you may need to budget a certain amount of money to get your supply going. Figure out what you can spare until you have a supply built up and think of it as an investment.

When you have determined WHAT you need to buy, develop a plan to purchase. For some great info on this – visit our sister site The Food Storage Shopper. She is currently revamping her site, but you can still find some information to help you while it’s under construction. You may decide buying one extra each time works for you, or you might get into coupon and sale shopping and buy things only when on sale. Whatever fits your style, having a game plan in place will surely help.

Good luck, and remember there aren’t RIGHT answers to these questions. If we have learned anything in doing this for the last 2 years its that EVERYONE has a different style, and you need to figure out what works for you!

If you are a brand new beginner, here is a fantastic intro to Square Foot Gardening that we filmed last summer with our cousin Emily. We love love love the Square Foot Garden method developed by Mel Bartholemew.
 

How will we help you this year?
1. We will be posting periodic updates on how we are doing in our gardens along with details about what we will be doing next so you can follow along in your own gardens (ok we’ll be honest, JODI will be doing this, Julie hasn’t caught the gardening bug yet).
2. We will be having Emily from http://mysquarefootgarden.net do a series of guest blog posts on some of the more advanced gardening topics (leave a comment below if you have a specific topic you would like to have covered).

Jodi’s To-Do’s This Week
1. Make a garden plan
2. Purchase grow lights (Emily convinced me that these are golden!)
3. Purchase materials needed to start seedlings (soil, plant pots, etc.)
4. Catalog leftover seeds and purchase any I am short on
5. Start appropriate seedlings indoors and plant peas outdoors (yay!)
6. Convince dear husband to help me start prepping my garden beds

Helpful Hint
Are you worried about knowing when to plant the right things? Emily has a fantastic FREE service she offers that provides you with a custom schedule explaining what to plant every week for your specific region. Click here to sign-up for these weekly newsletters that are an invaluable resource for ANYONE planting a garden.

Happy Gardening!!!

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!

Last week we had a giveaway for a Trekker 2 Disaster Kit from Emergency Essentials. A 3 day supply for 2 people, retail value $99.95 on sale this month for $84.99. The lucky winner is the person with the username (we’ll email you to get your address):

We were so thrilled with the feedback we got on what topics you guys would like to learn more about, that we compiled it all into a spreadsheet (yes we love spreadsheets) to help us better analyze and categorize it. We wanted to share a summary of the results so you can get a sneak preview of some of the (much-requested) topics we will be covering on our blog in the future. (Don’t forget to use the search box at the top left to see some of these topics that we have already covered!)

1. Water Storage (for large families, in small spaces, filters, water sources, purification)
2. Alternative Cooking Methods (solar ovens, rocket stoves, dutch oven cooking)
3. 72 Hour Kits (people still have a LOT of questions about the best way to do these)
4. Emergency Preparedness for Special Situations (small children, pets, allergies, etc.)
5. Self Reliance (canning, dehydrating, gardening)
6. Rotation and Organization (tracking inventory, cooking with food storage, etc.)
7. Proper Storage of Long Term Food Storage
8. Alternate Heat Sources
9. Preparation for Specific Disaster Situation
10. First Aid Information

As you can see, that’s just a “small” list of items that you’d like us to tackle. Wish us luck! We are still learning ourselves but we will happily share what we learn with all of you as we learn it.

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!

Our Grandma Lori Food Storage Makeover project has led to quite a few questions from readers on the different types of “ready-made” Disaster Kits that are available. We initially outlined three disaster kit options and chose our recommendations based off of Grandma Lori’s preferences. We asked our friends at Emergency Essentials to help us put together a list of all of the kits that they have available and when you might use each one. They gave us some great information for us to share with you, and also offered to do a GIVEAWAY of one of their great kits. Yay for one of our lucky readers!

To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment telling us what aspects of Emergency Preparedness you would like to learn more about. The winner will be randomly selected from all of the comments. The giveaway will run until next Sunday, February 21st at 10 pm MST and the winner will be posted Monday.

A Trekker 2 Disaster Kit from Emergency Essentials. A 3 day supply for 2 people, retail value $99.95 on sale this month for $84.99. See below for more information on what the Trekker 2 kit contains.

Bottled Emergency Kits {more info}
Bottled kits are economical and contain basic emergency supplies neatly packed into a 32 oz. water bottle for easy transport. They contains items such as hand & body warmers, ponchos, emergency blankets, matches, flashlights, whistles, basic first aid kits, and more.

Starter Emergency Kit {more info}
This can act as a basic kit or an add-on to any other emergency kit for additional people. It includes food, water, light, warmth, communication, and more.
 

3-Day Lite Emergency Kit {more info}
This economical kit gives you the basics you will need in an emergency. It includes food, water, warmth, light, communication, and first aid all packed in a medium backpack for easy transporting.
 

Roadwise™ Emergency Kit {more info}
This kit includes items specially selected for storage in your automobile.
 
 

3-Day Emergency Kit {more info}
Calorie food bars and aqua blox allow this kit to be stored in varied temperatures so it can also be used as an auto emergency kit. It contains basic food, water, warmth, first aid, light and communication items all packaged in a medium sized backpack. Recommended for one person for up to three days.

Trekker™ Kits
These kits are designed for either one (Trekker I™),
two (Trekker II™), and four people (Trekker IV™). The Trekker II™ Kit was rated ‘Best Value’ by the Wall Street Journal. These kits contain calorie food bars, aqua blox, and over 120 (Trekker I™), 150 (Trekker II™), and 275 (Trekker IV™) additional preparedness items. Some additional items found in our Trekker™ Kits that are not found in our 3-Day Emergency Kit are fire starters, purification tablets, more extensive first aid kits, additional hygiene items, and larger backpacks for storing the additional items.

ReadyWise™ Kits
Our ReadyWise™ line combines portability with convenience and ease. In addition to calorie food bars, these kits include MRE’s and MRE Heaters providing additional variety and nutrition. They offer a more comprehensive first aid kit when compared to our Trekker options as well as some additional items including a wool blend blanket, flashlight with the ability to charge a cell phone, and some emergency tools. ReadyWise kits are available in either 1 person or 2 person kits.

Comp™ Kits
Comp™ is short for ‘comprehensive’ which is the word that best describes this line. We have combined the convenience and ease of MRE’s and MRE Heaters with over
280 (Comp I™) and 390 (Comp II™) emergency supplies. These kits offer improved warmth, cooking, light and communication, first aid and sanitation, storage and tools supplies when compared to other kits. Some additional items that are unique to this line include an emergency toilet and water storage kit, our finest first aid kit in any of our 3 day kits, survival book, sewing kit, tri-fold shovel, and Deluxe Hiking Pack.

We hope you find this information helpful when selecting your Disaster Kits!

Catalina Chicken (from the kitchen of Julie)

Ingredients:
1 small jar of apricot/pineapple preserves
1 small bottle of catalina salad dressing
1 1/2 – 2 lbs diced chicken

Directions:
Mix the sauce in a 9×13 pan. Add in the diced chicken. Let marinade for several hours if you can, but it’s not necessary. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until chicken is cooked. Serve over rice.

I TOLD YOU IT WAS EASY!!!!

Variations

Meat
The only problem with this recipe is it calls for diced chicken. In my current state (5 months pregnant) I find it completely nauseating and cumbersome to have to thaw, trim, and chop raw chicken. It dawned on my that if I had some bottled chicken on hand, I could just open up a bottle and have this recipe ready to go in less than 5 minutes. This re-motivated me to work on one of my New Year’s Resolutions and break open my new pressure canner as soon as chicken goes on sale again.

Jam
While I used some jam from the LDS cannery, you can use any apricot preserves but it’s definitely the best with pineapple. If I have cans of pineapple on hand it’s also yummy to add in a few pineapple chunks too.

Rice
I am ashamed to admit this, but even though I have tried Julie’s magical tips on How to Cook Rice it STILL never works very well for me. In an emergency I will suffer through crunchy or mushy rice … but for day to day cooking I have admitted my failings and have started to use the rice cooker I got for Christmas (apparently my husband was a bit disappointed in my rice cooking skills too). I figure at least it’s better than relying on Minute Rice

Keep these few ingredients on hand and next time you are in a crunch for a quick and easy meal, you will have everything you need!

Are you having a hard time deciding what to get your “special someone” for Valentines Day? Well worry no more. We have made it easy for you – and what’s better then the gift of preparedness? Send your loved one to work with a special 72 Hour Kit for the Office. We even made a contents list and cute little tag for you to attach to the container you gather the contents in.

For the tag – that reads “Because I always want you to be safe” and contents list, click here. As always, you may customize this list to meet your specific needs and don’t worry if you can’t get all the items at once. Put a few of the items in, and keep giving them extra “parts” as special surprises through out the year.

IN THE KIT (buy trial size if you can)
- food (protein bars, granola bars, beef jerky, candy, fruit roll ups)
- toothbrush/toothpaste
- washcloth/facewash/bodywash
- shampoo/conditioner
- razor/shaving cream/deodorant
- change of socks/underwear
- kleenex/wet wipes
- hand sanitizer
- travel-size first aid kit including small bottle of Tylenol
- work gloves
- rain poncho
- space blanket
- small flashlight with spare batteries
- a whistle (to draw the attention of rescue workers)
- carbon-filtering dust mask (for smoke, dust, debris, etc.)
- small novel
- small radio with spare batteries
- cash (small bills for vending machines)
- contents list

WITH THE KIT
- crow bar
- water

To print the tag and contents list, click here, or click on either of the images. Good luck and Happy Valentines Day!

p.s. If you want to give your husband a hint on something to get for YOU, you can always send him the link to our Food Storage Made Easy Binders

Get your family together for a fun night. Whether you hunt for the items in your house or at a store, make it fun! Included in the scavenger hunt are strips of paper you can cut with the name and image of the item – that way young kids can get involved too! Cut up the strips and assign different family members different items. Make it a race and see how quickly and fun getting prepared can be!

When you’re all done make sure you store your kit in a safe place you would have quick access to in times of evacuation. Click on the image to download your scavenger hunt kit today!

Also – don’t forget to fill out your family plan and get your evacuation plan including car kit in order!

We have had a lot of people ask us about options for buying kits that are already put together. We got the one in the video from Emergency Essentials who has a huge selection of different kits you can purchase depending on your family’s needs. We will be doing a post later this month discussing some of the different options. (*hint* There just MAY be a giveaway associated with that post!)

p.s. We came up with a really fun way to get the whole family involved in putting together your kits that we will be sharing with you soon, so stay tuned!

Make sure to stay tuned next Monday for the next video in this series to see what Grandma Lori decided on and to see the results of the first phase of her Food Storage Makeover!

Print it out and put it in your Food Storage Made Easy Ebook Binder (we’ll be including this handout in our next free binder email updates – just in case you were wondering).

If you get wet from rain, snow or sweat, change into clothing that is dry. Wet clothing loses its insulation value and extracts body heat 240 times faster than dry clothing. Wool clothing and blankets are preferred. Cotton clothing, particularly denim, retains water. Woll clothing is insulating, water resistant, and keeps your body warm even if it is wet.

Covering your head is vital as you can lose up to 80% of your body heat through your head. A knitted wool stocking hat is good.

Feet can be kept warm by wearing wool socks and wearing two pair if your shoes are large enough. A towel could also be wrapped over shoes and duct-taped on.

Several thin layers of loose-fitting clothing retain body heat and can be removed easily if body starts to perspire and/or you are chilling. Water & wind resistant outer clothing with a hood. Also, scarf or towel to cover your mouth to keep cold air from your lungs.

Two or more people huddled together inside two sleeping bags zipped together will be warmer than each in separate sleeping bags. A smaller bag can also be placed inside a larger-sized one.

If trapped in your car during a snowstorm, run heater 10 minutes every hour. Make sure the exhaust pipe is not blocked by snow and open one window a crack to allow ventilation.

Good in wind or rain. Put a wool blanket between you and the Mylar blanket, if possible.

You can also use socks filled with rice/beans and tied shut. Heat the packs/socks in a fire or coals. They will maintain heat for a period of time. Rocks or bricks can also be heated thoroughly, then carefully wrapped in towels or newspapers.

Leaves, newspaper, straw, etc. (stuffed between two layers of clothing). Tie your shoe laces around the cuffs of your pants to hold material in. If you were trapped in a car during a snowstorm, use the stuffing from the seat cushions.

This can be worn as a rain jacket or can insulate the body if stuffed with dry leaves or grass

***Modified from a church handout, no sources credited***

p.s. Do you have any more ideas for alternate heat sources? Share them in the comments below!

This year we will be striving to learn new things about specific kinds of disasters and more about emergency preparedness skills (like the whole cooking without power, and a new and improved 72-hour kit)

We thought the best place to start was to know what could likely occur where we live. Some states are more prone to certain types of disasters then others. We remembered this AWESOME chart we wanted to share with you guys to help you get started also. Found in Making the Best of Basics (an incredible resource everyone should have) is a chart that outlines potential disasters by state. DOWNLOAD the chart by clicking on it, look up your state, and start along this journey with us of learning about different kinds of natural disasters and what you need to do in them. Thank you to James Talmage Stevens for letting us share the chart from his book with you!

When we first started our Food Storage programs thinking about all this literally freaked us out, but since we have become more and more prepared, we are now feeling ready to learn more about and tackle some of the sticky stuff this year. If you’re just starting out, don’t get too overwhelmed, start with our checklists that help you start your program little by little!

One of our readers referred us to a new product called the CanOrganizer which is basically an easy and cheap way to make these shelves on your own. We immediately contacted the company and got some of their products to try. We were so impressed with them that we decided to become affiliates and offer them on our website for those of you who like to do things the EASY way.

To learn more about these awesome shelf units click here. They have great prices, especially if you order in bulk and they ship all over the United States.

We know you will love these shelves as much as we do. The CanOrganizers are going to be playing a large role in our Food Storage Makeover project so stay tuned for more excitement and pictures of the shelves in action!

My sweet mom (Grandma Lori) donated her food dehydrator to me when we first started to learn about food storage. However, I haven’t been ambitious enough to use it yet. We have had some great tips and resources sent in by readers and I am determined to put some of it into action.

When first getting started in food storage, all of the disaster/emergency prep stuff really overwhelmed me. Now that I have food more under control, I feel ready to step up and start to become better prepared for specific types of natural disasters. Our Seven Day Challenge really made me think and my goal is to get more prepared this year.

I love our three month supply worksheet. I have long wished I had something that specific for my long term food storage. I want to be able to plan meals for my year supply and know I have the right ingredients to make the meals I will be cooking. This is a huge goal for me this year which will take a lot of work but I know it will be worth it!

I want to start sprouting regularly and really use it in more in my regular cooking.  I must confess, it still totally scares me.  The good news is, there’s a chapter dedicated solely to sprouting in James Talmage Stevens book – Making the Best of Basics … and he sent us both a copy for being on his radio show last month.  With his help, I plan to MASTER sprouting once and for all!

I have never been one for following recipes – HOWEVER since I have started using my food storage, I’ll go ahead and admit, I need and use recipes. My current management system of those recipes is pretty pathetic, so I’m gonna beat Jodi on this one and figure out a way to put them all in the same place (and not bring my laptop into the kitchen as I cook anymore!)

I want to learn more about cooking without power. This is a topic I have never ventured into really because …. of fear …. but I’m gonna figure that one out this year too (well at least partially).

For months now Jodi’s mom has hinted that she would like us to help her get her food storage organized, under control, and finished! So for Christmas we decided to give her an “Extreme Makeover” – food storage style. We’re going to be documenting the process for you so you can come along for the journey. So let’s get started:

Based on our initial conversations with Jodi’s mom, we have come up with the following game plan to help her achieve her Food Storage Extreme Makeover:

• Fill out Family Emergency Plan
• Purchase/Compile Disaster Kits and Car Kits
• Increase water storage
• 3 month supply plan
• Purchase 3 month supply foods
• Work on alternative cooking methods for long term storage

We will be updating this post with links to each part of the “makeover” throughout the next few months so make sure to check back and see what we are up to!

p.s. In case you are speculating … YES Jodi is pregnant

Later today: Extreme Makeover – Food Storage Edition
We are putting the finishing touches on our new series and we hope you are going to just LOVE it. Since it involves some coordination (and some cameos from Jodi’s mom) it won’t be posted until later this evening. So make sure to check back and find out what it’s all about!

Later this week: Food Storage New Year’s Resolutions
We have been plotting and planning and finally came up with some resolutions that we are really excited about. We will be sharing them later this week but in the meantime, we’d love to hear what YOUR resolutions are. Head over to our Facebook Discussion and share with everyone. (Remember, you don’t have to have a facebook account to view the discussion)

Later this month: BabyStep Checklists Revised
After having gone through a full year of our BabySteps Checklists we have a few ideas on how to make them better, along with some different recipes to include as well. If you have purchased a Food Storage Made Easy Binder you will be receiving the updated lists as part of your free updates for life!

Later this year: Exciting new topics!
While we want to continue to make things simple and easy for beginners, we also enjoy sharing what we learn as we are progressing in our own knowledge and experience. Some of the things we are going to delve more into this year include proper storage methods, powerless cooking, dehydration, advanced canning, and more! So continue to follow along with us if these are topics that sound interesting to you. And we also have some more giveaways and neat new products to share with you as well!

We hope you all have a fabulous 2010 and are ready to make this the year you “get it done”. We will be right here to help you along the way and share your successes (and failures). Don’t forget to check back to make sure you don’t miss a single thing!

We will be taking the holidays off from blogging to spend time with our families. Make sure to come back and visit after the New Year. We have some AMAZING things planned and can’t wait to share them with you!

p.s. Don’t forget the Electric WonderMill sale ends December 31st so get your orders in by then to take advantage of the $20 price break!

AND THE WINNER IS: Tammy

There was no last name in the comment but we will be emailing you to get your address to receive your prize. Congratulations!

If you want to get your own water storage kits or anything else from Emergency Essentials, make sure to CLICK HERE to get free shipping on your first order over $30! This is a special deal they are giving just for Food Storage Made Easy readers. We love hooking you guys up with great deals Julie is loving her boxes and Jodi ordered a set of her own as well.

Here’s another look at how the Water Storage Boxes worked for us:

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.

Super Cherry Pie Recipe

Ingredients:
1/3 c. slivered almonds – press into pie shell before baking, then bake
1 c. Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk*
1 tsp. vanilla
½ c. cream, whipped
1/3 c. lemon juice
½ tsp. almond extract

Directions:
Mix together all ingredients in the order listed. Pour into pie shell and top with 1 can of Wilderness Cherry Pie Filling. Refrigerate 3 hours or longer.

*Recipe for Eagle Sweetened Condensed Milk (14 oz can)

From http://everydayfoodstorage.net

1/2 C. hot water
1 C. Powdered Milk
1 C. Sugar
1 T. Butter

Directions: Blend in blender very well. Can be stored in the refrigerator or frozen.

Here are a list of common spices/herbs to get you started:

Herbs*
Basil
Bay Leaves
Chives
Cilantro
Dill
Mint
Oregano
Parsley
Rosemary
Sage
Tarragon
Thyme

Spices*
Allspice
Black Pepper
Caraway
Cardamom
Celery Salt/Seed
Chili Powder
Cinnamon
Cloves
Coriander
Cumin
Fennel
Fenugreek
Garlic Powder/Salt
Ginger
Mustard Seed/Dry Mustard
Nutmeg
Onion Powder/Salt
Paprika
Red pepper flakes
Saffron
Turmeric
Vanilla
White Pepper

* Herbs are the leafy, green plant parts used for flavouring purposes, and may be used fresh or dried, typically cut into very small pieces. Spices are dried and often ground or grated into a powder. Small seeds, such as fennel and mustard seeds, are used both whole and in powder form.

p.s. Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments below

In our quest to find a solution, Jodi came across Water Kits from Emergency Essentials while she was at an Emergency Preparedness Fair put on by her church. Here is a run down of the product taken from the website:

Basic 25 Gallon Boxed Water Kit

When the emergency requires you to evacuate, this kit possibly is, besides your family, the most important item to take with you. After filling, each box weighs approximately 40 lbs. The kit includes five heavy-duty (stackable up to three high to save space) each with its own metalized five-gallon water storage bag with pour spout. In an emergency, the heavy-duty boxes can be converted to portable toilets, making the kit even more useful.

We got in touch with Emergency Essentials and they had us try them out, and are doing a FREE GIVEAWAY of a set for our readers. In conjunction with the giveaway, they are also offering readers free shipping on reader’s first order over $30.00. Make sure to click on the sidebar ad to get the free shipping!

To enter the giveaway you may do any of the following for up to 3 entries:
1. Sign up for Emergency Essentials email newsletter (this can be done on top center of the homepage at beprepared.com)
2. Become a fan of Emergency Essentials on facebook
3. Become a follower of Preparedness Pantry (Blog of Emergency Essentials)

Leave up to 3 comments for each of the 3 items that you did to enter, if you are already a fan or on the newsletter list simply let us know that in the comment as well. Thanks! WE’LL BE DRAWING THE WINNER IN 2 WEEKS!

This set stores 25 gallons of water for $35! When we shopped around for our plastic jugs we couldn’t beat that price! We especially like that you can store 3 high and save SPACE. We mentioned these as a great gift idea in our 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS! Check that out if you haven’t already!

Here is a little journey of us putting them together.

You can download a copy of the show at: http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/James-Talmage-Stevens. Our feature was aired on December 2, 2009.

To order your own copy of James Talmage Steven’s best-selling Family Preparedness Guide, please click here.

p.s. Leave us a comment and let us know if you’d like to hear more of this type of thing from us in the future.

Our Christmas present to our readers this year, is a 12 Days of Food Storage Christmas with a TWIST – it wont be 12 days, it will be 12 hours…

Rather then drag it out for 12 days, and to allow you the TIME to get going on this – we will be posting all 12 “days” TODAY! Every hour, we’ll post another one of the 12 “days”. Each post will have gift ideas you can use for family, friends, or people you know that are in need. We thought it would be a good idea to help you, help others with their Food Storage this year.

• An option that’s FREE or under $1
• An option that costs $5-15
• A more expensive option…

We also have this pdf for you to print out that has tags for each day, name tags, and images you can print, and attach to the gifts.

So here is the list of the DAYS- each link will start working as we post the “days” each hour.

Day 1: Emergency Preparedness
Day 2: Shelves
Day 3: Water
Day 4: 3 Month Supply
Day 5:Long Term Education
Day 6: Grains
Day 7: Legumes
Day 8: Baking Goods
Day 9: Fruits and Vegetables
Day 10: Comfort Foods
Day 11: Non-Food Items
Day 12: Checklists

Merry Christmas, and thanks for making this year so fun for us!

Once you have complete the first 11 days for a friend, or family member, it’s time for them to keep the journey going themselves. To help them do that, we have our BabyStep Checklists:

Free Email Checklists

Have the person you are giving to sign up for our free email checklists. You could even sign up for them with their email address and print out the first checklist for their gift. The checklists last for one year, and are sent every 2 weeks. After following the 26 checklists they will have a full food storage.

Food Storage Made Easy Binder Ebook

Compiled into an ebook is all of our 26 checklists, along with all our BabyStep information posts, and recipe index. It’s over 100 pages and is a great gift to help someone really get going. You can email the eBook to your friend or burn it to a disc and wrap it up with the Day 12 Tags attached.

Assemble Food Storage Made Easy Binder Ebook for them

An even greater gift would be the eBook assembled into a Food Storage Made Easy Binder. You buy the eBook, print it out, and assemble it into a binder with the Day 12 Tags attached. Instructions on how to do so are included with the eBook.

To help you with this one, until MIDNIGHT MST TONIGHT, we are selling the eBook for $5 off! You can only purchase it at the discounted price at this link.

Back to the 12 Days List

Although Food Storage (and Christmas for that matter) are a lot about food, we can’t forget the non-food items that are important and necessary to store! Remember to share some of these ideas and cuten them up with ribbons and the Day 11 Tags:

Tube of Toothpaste

Do we need to explain much here?

Package of Toilet Paper

Again, enough said

Assortment of Paper Products or Cleaning Supplies

Put together a gift basket, full of items from our non-foods list. These kinds of things are really nice for people on a tight budget because they aren’t things you think of as life-sustaining, but you would NOT want to be without them in an emergency.

Back to the 12 Days List

NOW THIS feels like Christmas. We had plenty ideas for this part of the 12 days of Christmas. Feel free to use some of these, or choose your own. Comfort foods are definitely things people need in time of any type of crisis:

Candy Bar or Pudding Mix

Even just a candy bar or 2 in your storage for just in case scenarios are great. Pick up the person’s favorite one and surprise them with a little treat to have in time of need (and tell them they can’t eat it right away, they have to store it Tie a cute ribbon around the candy bar and add the Day 10 Tags and you’re all set.

Big Baskets of Goodies (that would store well)

Take a look at our list of common comfort foods and pick some to compile in a gift basket with the Day 10 Tags attached. Trust us- these are things people want in times of stress!

Extra Set of Common Spices

A great thing to store one extra of is all your spices. Spices can be pricey, so it’s not something people tend to buy extra of on a regular basis. Surprise someone with an extra spice set and don’t forget the Day 10 Tags!

Back to the 12 Days List

While not critical for sustaining life, fruits and vegetables are a welcome addition to any food storage program for the health benefits, variety, and to help you save money on your day to day grocery shopping. Include the Day 9 Tags to complete today’s gift ideas:

Gardening Seeds

Gardening is a great way to become more self reliant. Try giving a few packs of gardening seeds to help motivate people to get going on gardening. If you know the person doesn’t have a lot of space, pick herbs, or things you can grow on kitchen counters.

Canning Supplies

A fun way to start using foods you garden, or buy in season for great prices is by canning them. A lot of people don’t have what you need to start canning and don’t think of buying it for themselves. A small canning kit is a great idea to get started.

Food Dehydrator

Another way to preserve fruits and veggies is through dehydrating. Again, if you’re feeling generous a great idea is a food dehydrator. You might want to be sure this is something the person is open/ready to get going on. You wouldn’t want to intimidate them too much

Back to the 12 Days List

Extra Container of Salt

Salt is one of those things that you run out of, and don’t necessarily think of storing. Find or buy a container of salt and make it cute with ribbons, or put it in a gift bag, and remind them Food Storage isn’t just grains and legumes.

A #10 Can of Powdered Milk

Powdered Milk can be one of those things that are hard to find, or hard to remember to use. Give someone a nice #10 can, or box and challenge them to try it out the next time they are cooking with milk.

A #10 Can of Powdered Eggs

Another item that is hard to find, and can be pricey if you don’t live where they sell it locally is powdered eggs. Try giving someone a #10 can of powdered eggs to help them try out a new thing they may not have thought of.

Back to the 12 Days List

Next up on our list is Legumes! Legumes can be very intimidating to a lot of people so this is a great one to help people realize they aren’t so bad. Here are some ideas to help people use, and understand legumes a little better:

12 Bean Soup

Purchase a 1 lb bag of 12 bean soup mix from the grocery store. Tie a ribbon around it and include the Day 7 Tags. If you want to be really ambitious you can include this 12 Bean Soup Recipe on a cute recipe card too. It’s delicious!

Sprouting Kit

Ever tried sprouting? Well if you know someone who wants to get into the real good stuff, give them this sprouting kit. Sprouting is a great way to use some of your food storage, and it’s super healthy and nutritious! Add your Day 7 Tags and it’s the perfect food storage gift.

Pressure Cooker

Here’s another one of those – if you’re feeling REALLY generous gifts. This pressure cooker is a DREAM come true for cooking dry beans. No pre-soaking, waiting hours, and worrying about your beans turning out ever again! Don’t forget your Day 7 Tags.

Back to the 12 Days List

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

It’s recommended before getting heavily into storing “long term foods” such as grains and legumes, to start with a 3 month supply of foods you typically eat. Ideally you’ll start gradually using your grains and legumes in foods you typically eat, but before getting overwhelmed with that … start with your typical foods:

Planning Sheets

Print out these worksheets to help someone get started on their 3 Month Plan. There is an Instruction Sheet, a Menu Plan Sheet and an Inventory Sheet. You will need to print the Menu Plan Sheet multiple times depending on how many different meals you want to plan. There is also a video tutorial to go along with these printable forms found here. Put the printed worksheets in sheet protects or roll them up and tie a ribbon around them. Don’t forget to attach the Day 4 tag!

2-3 Cans of Common Foods

Buy a few cans of common foods, tie a bow around them and add the Day 4 tag. This gift will help someone get started on storing extra food by giving them a few ideas of things to store.

A Basket of Canned Goods

If you’re feeling really generous, get a cute basket, and fill it with tons of common foods. Tell the person, they have to use this in their Food Storage as a way to get a great jump start. Don’t forget to add the Day 4 tag as a finishing touch.

Back to the 12 Days List

Water is the most necessary item to have stored! You can last without food for much longer then you can last without water. Make sure you stress the importance of water storage as you help people get started. Whichever option you choose, don’t forget to add your Day 3 Tag!

Water in Juice/Pop Jugs

Did you know you can store water in Pop or Juice bottles. This a great little token to give someone to help them get started. Put a ribbon around it to make it cute. Make sure you don’t use empty milk jugs – the plastic in milk jugs will deteriorate.

Water Filter

While we DEFINITELY recommend STORING water, we have found that it’s a good idea to have a way to clean water in case you run out, or to get extra for dishes or other things. Check out these inexpensive water bottle filters as a possible gift idea.

Water Containers

A great gift idea is these water containers from Emergency Essentials. Stay tuned on these! Next week we are going to be doing a review and GIVEAWAY on them. We’re so excited to test them out! TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY ENDING DEC 21 GO HERE.

Back to the 12 Days List

Once you are ready to make the Food Storage Plunge, it really feels great to know you have a well organized PLACE to put all that food. We recommend starting with 1 to 2 shelves and then moving on from there. You don’t need an entire room custom built to get going! Check out these ideas:

Small Spaces Solutions Handout

Do you know someone who complains about starting a Food Storage due to lack of space. Well help them out by giving them this AMAZING handout. Compiled from reader suggestions, is a list of amazing ideas on where to store food in small spaces. Print out the handout and put it in sheet protects or roll it up and tie a ribbon around it. Don’t forget to attach the Day 2 tag!

Cardboard Shelf

Have you seen those great little rotating shelf racks that you put your food in and the oldest rolls to the front. Check out this rotating rack Jodi’s husband made out of cardboard. Make one for only the cost of cardboard and glue! For an extra bonus, include some canned goods with the shelf. Attach the Day 2 tag and you’re all set.

Large Shelves

Try a nice heavy duty shelf or 2 to really help someone get started. You can find these at hardware stores, walmart, or even online. You can choose which shelf would work best by thinking about how much space the person may or may not have.

BONUS: You can also include these cute labels as a bonus! And don’t forget your Day 2 tag.

Back to the 12 Days List

The best way to start a Food Storage, is with Emergency Preparedness. In fact, it’s one of the most popular reasons why people decide to get going on a Food Storage in the first place. Help someone start out their journey right- with some of the following ideas:

Emergency Preparedness Plan

Print out our Emergency Preparedness plan that has detailed checklists to help a family make their family plan, build a disasters kit – including a 72 hour kit, and put together an evacuations list and car kit. Roll up the pages, tie it up with a cute ribbon and attach the Day 1 tag.

Car Kit or 72 Hour Kit

Make, or purchase a pre-made Car Kit, or 72 Hour Kit. These can be found at stores, or online. Consider even just putting together a little first aid kit for someone’s car. Don’t forget to attach the Day 1 tag to your kit!

Subscription to Mozy

One thing people rarely think about with Emergency Preparedness is computer back-up. With all the pictures, work, and data on our computers, the last thing we would want in case of a fire or earthquake is to loose all that precious stuff! Consider purchasing a monthly, or one-year subscription to our favorite online back up. See why we love it here! Print out the receipt, roll it up, and tie a ribbon around it and attach your Day 1 tag. Anyone would be thrilled to receive this on their doorstep!

Back to the 12 Days List

SALE ITEM: Food Storage Made Easy eBook Binders

For 2 DAYS ONLY (until 12:00 midnight MST Tuesday night) you can purchase one of our Binder eBooks at a $5 discount! If you don’t like waiting for your next BabySteps Checklist to come out, now is your chance to grab the entire set plus all of the additional material that comes with them. Sale has now ENDED!

SALE ITEM: Emergency Essentials Deals and Giveaways

To celebrate the Holiday Season, Emergency Essentials is offering 10 Days of Holiday Deals and Giveaways – starting today! Each weekday from today through December 11th they will offer great pricing on one of their emergency preparedness products, as well as have a drawing to give one of the featured products away. Visit their blog for more details.

SALE ITEM: WonderMill Electric Mill

From now until December 31st, WonderMill is running a sale on the Electric Grain Mills. Instead of the regular price of $259.95 it is now available for only $239.95. You can also take advantage of our free shipping promotion to get your mill at rock bottom prices.

SALE ITEM: 72 Hour Kit from The Ready Project

Save 30% off of a 2 person 72 hour kit from The Ready Project. Regular price is $64.95 but sale price is $44.95 plus free shipping! You may purchase your kit at The Ready Project’s website.

SALE ITEM: Mozy Online Backup

Save $15 on a 1-year MozyHome subscription and $30 on a 2-year MozyHome subscription with promo code MOZY. Hurry, offer ends Monday, November 30, 2009. Click here to purchase your online backup subscription TODAY!

AND DON’T FORGET:

Coming tomorrow is our 12 Days Of Food Storage Christmas. We will be celebrating all day, with a post each hour!

AND ONE MORE THING:

Wednesday we are going to be on the James Talmage Stevens Radio Talk Show Online. Come listen at the following at link at 6:00 PM MST.

James Talmage Stevens is an expert in Family Preparedness and author of The Family Preparedness Handbook. We are honored to be able to be his guests.

Growing up as a kid in Canada I always ate “Habitant Pea Soup”. It was warm and delicious on a cold winters day. When I moved to the States I could never find my favorite soup and lived for 10 years without it! While in a class about legumes I stumbled upon Rita Bingham’s Country Beans book and found this recipe.

It tasted just like my favorite childhood soup, was EASY, and or course, used food storage. Here’s the recipe:

Pea Soup:

Ingredients:
2½ T of dried peas (green or yellow) ground to make 3 T pea flour
1 ½ c. cold water
2 t chicken bouillon

Directions:
Mix ½ c cold water and 3 T pea flour in a bowl, set aside. Bring 1 cup and 2 t of chicken bouillon to a boil. Add in pea mixture. Bring back to a boil. Soup will thicken. You can add shredded carrots, veggies, or onion powder.

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

What are split peas?
Split peas are the dried peeled and split seeds of Pisum sativum. Even though the peas are round when harvested and dried, they are mechanically split after they are peeled. This helps decrease the cooking time.

What are the varieties of split peas?
There are two varities of split peas, yellow and green. Yellow split peas have a milder flavor and are good to use in dishes where you want to hide the richer, green pea flavor.

What is the shelf life of split peas?
If stored in the regular plastic bags that most legumes come from the grocery store in, the shelf life is only about 1 year. But if properly stored in an airtight sealed container with oxygen absorbers, the shelf-life can extend to ten years or more.

How do you cook split peas?
Split peas do not need to be pre-soaked like other dry legumes. You simply throw them into the soup or stew you are making and they will cook in a reasonable amount of time. The 12 bean soup Jodi posted earlier this week is a great one to throw some split peas into! Split peas may also be ground into pea flour to use as the basis for some pea soup recipes.

12 Bean Soup Recipe:

Ingredients:
2 c. 12-bean soup mix*
1 ham bone (optional)
4 T. bulls eye BBQ sauce
1 chopped onion
1 T. sugar
1 small clove garlic
3 stalks celery, diced (can use dehydrated)
¼ tsp. lemon pepper
2 carrots, diced (can use dehydrated)
2 T. ketchup
28 oz. can whole tomatoes
¼ tsp. salt and ginger
1 pinch red pepper flakes

*You can buy this as a mix or make your own with a variety of the legumes in your food storage

Directions:
Wash 2 cups of bean mix. Soak in a large pot overnight. Drain. Add 8 cups water, ham bone, 1 tsp. salt, and ¼ tsp. ginger. Bring to a boil and cook until beans are tender (about 1 hour). Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Simmer 2 ½ to 3 hours. Stir and add water as needed. For more zest, double all spices.

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

REMEMBER: If you didn’t win, you can still get your WonderMill at the lowest price, with free shipping and a $30 rebate until November 25th!

If you are not used to eating “survival foods”, they can be a real shock to your system if you rapidly switch to a diet that consists of only food storage items. Times of emergency are challenging enough, it’s not good to add the additional stress of a complete diet change into the mix. This is especially important for small children who won’t necessarily understand what’s going on. So hopefully your food storage doesn’t look like this – unopened, stashed in the basement, hiding from your kitchen.

Once you decide to start incorporating food storage into your everyday cooking, you should do so gradually or your family may get sick. Wheat and beans are high in fiber and if introduced too quickly can give your body a fiber overload and cause you to not feel so well when you eat those foods. Here are some ways you can add these foods to your diet slowly so your family has time to get used to them.

1. Start cooking from scratch and add little bits at a time and gradually increase it. This can work well for making bread. Start with only 1/4 of the flour being whole wheat flour. Work your way up to 100% whole wheat over the course of a few months.

2. Use food storage foods 1-2 times per week. Gradually increase this number over a few months. This works well for foods like beans. You can use dried beans in a few meals a week without your family getting tired of them or having adverse reactions.

3. Try your food storage items in desserts. This is a tip from Crystal over at Everyday Food Storage. By introducing them in desserts you can build up your family’s tolerance for new foods.

If you have a wheat allergy, please make sure to review our post about Alternatives to Wheat for Food Storage, and if you don’t have a wheat grinder, view our post called 7 Ways to Use Wheat Without a Grinder. Between those two posts there should be some tricks for everyone to be able to start incorporating their wheat and other foods into their diet on a regular basis.

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!

Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe:

Ingredients:

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
2 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup buttermilk (1/2 T. vinegar + 1/2 c. milk* and let sit for about 1 min.)

*You may also substitute this for powdered milk

Directions:

Combine all dry ingredients. Cut in butter. Stir in the buttermilk until the dough is moist. Knead 6-8 times on a floured surface. Pat out to about 1 inch in thickness. Cut with a biscuit cutter or glass rim. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake at 375 F for 17-18 minutes or until lightly browned.

Recipe adapted from one found on allrecipes.com

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

So here’s what to do. Compile a list of the condiments your family uses and then watch for them to go on sale and pick up a few bottles. Keep a little inventory list of what you have and mark off when you use one up so you can remember to replace it next time it’s on sale. Here is a list of ideas to get you started:

ketchup
mustard
relish
mayonnaise
peanut butter
barbecue sauce
soy sauce
worcestershire sauce
teriyaki sauce
olive oil
vinegar
horseradish
cranberry sauce
applesauce
hot sauce/chili sauce
taco seasoning

If you have any others to add to the list please feel free to leave them in the comments below and we’ll update the list to reflect them. Have fun with your condiments!

To enter, simply add our NEW button to your blog to help us spread the word about Food Storage. You don’t even have to write a post about us – well unless you want to…

Email us at info@foodstoragemadeeasy.net with your blog address so we can see the button, and we’ll put you in the mix to be a lucky winner. If your blog is private, send us the link and we’ll just trust you. If you don’t have a blog email us and we’ll give you another way to enter. Entries are due November 19!

<div align=center><a href=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net target=_blank><img src=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/fsme/images/newbutton.jpg border=0></a><br><b><a href=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net target=_blank>Food Storage</a> Made Easy</b></p></div>

The first resource is our recently added 5 part series on “Why People Build a Food Storage”.  So many people have stumbled upon our site wondering what this is all about.  So feel free to pass along this link to people who are new to Food Storage.

The second resources is our “7 Day Challenge Report” pdf that we recently published with all our, and our readers findings on living 7 days of emergencies. We learned so much from each other and this pdf has incredible tips and findings anyone can benefit from.

Good Luck Everyone! Remember if you don’t win you’ll still have time to take advantage of the $30 rebate. It’s great timing with the Holidays around the corner to start asking for Christmas presents early…

1. Natural Disasters
2. Economic Crisis
3. Health Benefits
4. Everyday Emergency
5. Religious Reasons

Today we will be talking about the fifth reason, Religious Reasons, and encourage you to visit our Facebook Discussion on this topic. We learn so much more from each others real life experiences and opinions, so come on over and join the conversation. (You don’t need to be a member of facebook to read the discussions).

If you start researching “Food Storage”, you probably know that it is a very common practice among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to have a food storage. Leaders of the Mormon faith have long counseled members to be prepare for uncertainties. Because of this, many members have or “try to” have food storage programs in place. Some examples of leader’s counsel include the following:

“Many more people could ride out the storm-tossed waves in their economic lives if they had their . . . supply of food . . . and were debt-free. Today we find that many have followed this counsel in reverse: they have at least a year’s supply of debt and are food-free.”

President Thomas S. Monson, “That Noble Gift—Love at Home,” Church News, May 12, 2001, 7.

“Everyone who owns a home recognizes the need for fire insurance. We hope and pray that there will never be a fire. Nevertheless, we pay for insurance to cover such a catastrophe, should it occur. We ought to do the same with reference to family welfare.”

President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008), “To Men of the Priesthood,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2002, 58.

For more information on the LDS teachings and recommendations on food storage, here is a pdf you can download and read. Also, click here to read a Mormon woman’s perspective on why LDS women do food storage.

Whether it be religious based, self-reliance based, or just plain preparedness based, we agree that having a food storage is wise and great counsel.

1. Store extra of the other grains

According to food storage calculators, one adult should store 300 lbs of grains for a one year supply of food. Of this 300, half of it is supposed to be wheat. If you have a wheat allergy, obviously this is not going to apply to you. You may choose to store a lot more alternative grains which include oats, gluten-free quinoa, millet, amaranth, rice, or cornmeal. You can start to collect food storage recipes that use these grains instead of focusing on the traditional items like breads, etc.

2. Learn how to make substitutions

A lot of recipes that call for wheat flour can be modified for wheat allergies. For example, cream of chicken soup or any white sauce base recipe can be made using bean flour. You can make gluten-free bread using other flours such as rice flour, millet flour, oat flour, etc. If you own a wheat grinder then these types of substitutions are SO easy to make and you can store the bulk grains in your food storage, just like you would store wheat! For a great summary of different types of gluten-free flours check out this post on the Gluten Free Mommy blog.

We need your help!

We would love to compile some even more in depth resources for people who suffer from Celiac Disease or others who need to follow a gluten-free diet. If you have good food storage recipes or other tips on how to do gluten-free food storage please email them to info@foodstoragemadeeasy.net. We will be incorporating all of your feedback into a helpful handout that will hopefully benefit a lot of people who are trying to live gluten-free AND work on food storage!

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!

1. Natural Disasters
2. Economic Crisis
3. Health Benefits
4. Everyday Emergency
5. Religious Reasons

Today we will be talking about the fourth reason, Everyday Emergency, and encourage you to visit our Facebook Discussion on this topic. We learn so much more from each others real life experiences and opinions, so come on over and join the conversation. (You don’t need to be a member of facebook to read the discussions).

While you would never think of STARTING to do food storage to prepare for “everyday emergencies”, it sure is a nice side benefit once you have some food storage accumulated. Here are a few every emergencies that we have found food storage to help with immensely:

Recipe Ingredients: Right in the middle of cooking dinner, you run out of one of your necessary ingredients. Instead of having to run to the store for that spice, egg, soup can, etc. … you run down to your basement instead.

Dinner Emergency: Do you ever have one of “those days” where all of a sudden it’s 6:00 and you have a hungry family and hadn’t planned anything for dinner? Food storage can help! Look into your three month supply foods and you’ll always have something quick and easy on hand from Mac N Cheese, to Spaghetti, Hamburger Helper or beyond.

Party Foods: If you get invited somewhere, it’s common to be asked to “bring something”. If your food storage is stocked up, you will always have some kind of item on hand to bring (even desserts!) This will help you from blowing your budget to go get ingredients to make something special to bring.

Convenience: Sometimes having that extra 5 minutes of time in dinner preparation can feel like it’s preventing an emergency Using dehydrated veggies can save tons of time on chopping and are just great for soups, stews, casseroles, etc.

Safety: Using powered eggs can prevent a salmonella “emergency”. Use them in your cookies and other batters and you can eat the dough, lick the beaters, etc. and know that you are safe. You also don’t have to be careful about washing your hands after cracking eggs into recipes. Who knew food storage could be so useful?

What other everyday emergencies have you run into that were helped by having food storage on hand? Let us know in the comments below!

1. Thermos Wheat
Recipe from author Rita Bingham

Bring 1 c. of wheat kernels, 2 c. water, and 1 t. salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Pour into a heated stainless steel or glass-lined thermos bottle. Secure cap. Place bottle on side. In the morning, pour off any additional water, add butter and honey, and serve hot.

2. Wheat Berries
Add some of your plain dry wheat kernels to a pot of water. Bring it to a boil and cook for a few minutes. Then let simmer for about 45 minutes. Drain the wheat berries and stick them in a tupperware container in the fridge. These are delicious to add to yogurt or to use to replace some meat in recipes. You can also use it in place of brown rice in a lot of recipes.

3. Popped Wheat
Take 1 cup of your cooked wheat berries (see above) and add to a frying pan of pot with two tablespoons of oil in it. Cover with a lid and cook over a hot stove shaking the pan while it cooks. After about 4-5 minutes the kernels will be nice and toasted. Put the popped wheat on a paper towel to get the extra oil off, and sprinkle with your choice of seasonings. Try it with salt, seasoned salt, garlic, barbecue salt, onion salt, cinnamon and sugar or any combination you desire. These are delicious on salads as a topping, mixed with trail mix, or as toppings for a desserts or just as a healthy snack.

4. Wheat Grass
Most people have heard how healthy wheat grass is for you, but most people DON’T know that you can make your own wheat grass at home for free with just a little bit of your food storage wheat. Check out this step by step tutorial on Safely Gathered In if you want to try it yourself! It looks so easy. Then you can snip bits off and add them to your fruit smoothies, or if you have a juicer you can use them in other healthy juice drinks.

5. Cracked Wheat
You can crack wheat in a blender or a coffee grinder. To do it in a blender you simply put in about 1/4-1/3 cups of wheat and pulse it until it looks like little cracked kernels. These kernels will cook much faster than regular wheat, and cook up in the same way that you cook rice on the stove or in the microwave. You can use cracked wheat to make hot cereal, add it into bread, or cook it up and use as a meat filler. For more info in cracked wheat visit this post at Everyday Food Storage.

6. Wheat Sprouts
Making wheat sprouts is a different method than making wheat grass. You can sprout wheat just like any other vegetable seeds, legumes, or other grains. Make sure to review our tutorial on how to grow sprouts. Most people like wheat sprouts to be very small, just barely sprouted. These are delicious to throw on salads or to add into your whole wheat bread for a little extra texture and flavor.

7. Blender Wheat Flour
If you are cooking a recipe for something like pancakes or waffles, you can EASILY use your whole wheat kernels, mix the whole recipe in your blender, and pour it straight from there onto a griddle or waffle-maker. Just make sure to add the liquid for your recipe into the blender, then add in your wheat kernels and blend for about 5 minutes. Then add the rest of the ingredients. We blogged about trying Blender Wheat Pancakes and we also have a delicious Corn Cakes Recipe you could try in the blender too.

Please note: Don’t go trying all of these ideas all at once! If you add TOO MUCH wheat into your diet TOO FAST it can give you digestion problems, and we promise you don’t want to have that

Do you have any other ways you use wheat without a wheat grinder? Share them in the comments below!

1. Natural Disasters
2. Economic Crisis
3. Health Benefits
4. Everyday Emergency
5. Religious Reasons

Today we will be talking about the third reason, Health Benefits, and encourage you to visit our Facebook Discussion on this topic. We learn so much more from each others real life experiences and opinions, so come on over and join the conversation. (You don’t need to be a member of facebook to read the discussions).

Here’s a confession – when we first started the blog, Julie was always a little bit sad that when it came time to start using and talking about the Long Term Food Storage Foods, she’d have to pretend to like it all.  She was under the impression that all Long Term Foods were for was making cookies and cakes – ya bread too, but mostly desserts.  While desserts are delicious,  you can’t live on them alone and they have a negative effect on fitting into some of your clothes… ahem… haha

Well now, she openly admits and is happy she was completely WRONG! Food Storage can be as healthy (or not) as you want it to be.  So don’t be so afraid of those Long Term Food Storage Items anymore – here are just a few ways they can have Health Benefits:

Grains- It’s recommended by the USDA that half of our daily grain intake consists of WHOLE grains. Storing grains such as wheat is one of the most effective ways of getting whole grains in your diet.  Here’s an example of how much better for you whole grains can be. When whole wheat is processed into refined white flour, the following nutrients are lost:
o Half of the beneficial unsaturated fatty acids
o Virtually all of the vitamin E
o Fifty percent of the calcium
o Seventy percent of the phosphorus
o Eighty percent of the iron
o Ninety eight percent of the magnesium
o Fifty to 80 percent of the B vitamins

We like to use our WonderMill wheat grinders to make pizza, pancakes, bread, and all sorts of things with our whole wheat.

Legumes- Legumes are the magical fruit. You can learn more about their health benefits in our post we did about them.   They are low calorie,  low fat, high in protein, high in fiber etc.  While they are a little more intimidating to get started with, once you start using them and learning more about them you’ll find how versatile they can be! You can use mashed beans to replace the fat in recipes, ground dried beans to make bean flour for a very low-fat white sauce, or even sprout legumes to provide a healthy vegetable options. Sprouting a seed enhances its already high nutritional value (i.e. Oats when sprouted contain 600% more vitamin C).

Misc Baking Ingredients- The beauty of these long term food storage items is portion control! When you buy baked goods or processed foods you have no way of controlling how much sugar, preservatives, or salt go in your foods. When you’re making your foods from scratch you can control how much, or how little fits your families tastes and lifestyle.

Allergies or Other Dietary Restrictions- If you or a family member has food allergies or other dietary restrictions, food storage is even more important for you.  You have complete control over what goes into your cooking.  By making it from scratch you are saving lots of money over specialized foods from the grocery store.  And also, in case of a food shortage, you will already have foods on hand that are ok for your family to eat.

If you have ever clicked on our Links Page you may have noticed it was sort of pathetic. We always had big dreams of making it into a very useful, one-stop-shop for all your food storage and emergency preparedness needs. However, it was always one of those projects that got pushed to the wayside for other more pressing projects. Well this weekend we finally snapped and decided to make the page into what we always wanted it to be. We hope you find it helpful in your search for food storage information.

We personally visited every site/blog, wrote the descriptions, and gave them our stamp of approval. We tried to limit the list to sites that are still being updated on a regular basis, and sites that are in line with our own philosophies on food storage and emergency preparedness. If we missed your site, please feel free to fill out the form on our Links Page and we will review it as soon as we can.

p.s. Make sure to check back later today for the post on Health Benefits of Food Storage. We have some amazing information to share with you!

Worms and Dirt Recipe

1 box of chocolate pudding
Make with Powdered Milk!
Top with Gummy Worms

And my husband didn’t even complain that it was made ONLY with powdered milk! So at least I have one way to sneak it into foods that I know works now

p.s. What other sneaky tips do you have for using powdered milk?

For all the new readers that are just finding our site we wanted to give you a little recap of over 50 of our favorite posts we’ve done over the last year and half since we started our blog. For all our current readers, hope you enjoy this blast from the past!

TOP POSTS/TOOLS OF ALL TIME

Small Spaces Storage Solutions
Food Storage Made Easy Binders
How to Build Your Own Can Rotating Rack
Emergency Preparedness Plan
Our Favorite Wheat Grinder
How to Grind Wheat VIDEO
Three Month Supply Spreadsheet
Three Month Supply Videos: Basic Tutorial | Advanced Tutorial
Long Term Food Storage Calculator
Long Term Food Storage Tutorial Video

GREAT POSTS FROM THE PAST

Our Beginnings: Julie’s 1st Month | Jodi’s 1st Month – June 2008
How to Make a 72 Hour Kit – June 2008
72 hour kit outtakes VIDEO (HILARIOUS!) – October 2008
Interview with Crystal from Everyday Food Storage VIDEO – October 2008
Homemade Applesauce Recipe and Canning – November 2008
Cheap Holiday Baking – November 2008
What’s a Tweet? – November 2008
Top 10 Christmas WishList Items – December 2008
How to Create an Emergency Binder – January 2009
Julie’s love affair with Mozy – January 2009
Water Purification – January 2009
Alternate Water Sources – February 2009
Valentine’s Gift Idea – 72 Hour Kit for the Office – February 2009
How to Grow Sprouts – February 2009
Food Storage Myths Debunked – March 2009
All About Wheat Grinders – March 2009
Let’s Talk About Wheat – March 2009
Beans, the Magical Fruit! – March 2009
72 Hour / Disaster Kits for Babies & Toddlers – March 2009
Make Your Own Newspaper Plant Pots – April 2009
Cleaning Supplies Using Food Storage Items – April 2009
Food Storage and Money Savings – April 2009
How to Make a Coffee Can Heater – April 2009
Food Storage Shelf Life – April 2009
Emergency Chemical Toilet – May 2009
Types of Wheat – May 2009
More 72 Hour Kit Food Ideas – May 2009
Let’s Talk About Barley – May 2009
What to do With Spare #10 Cans – June 2009
Food Storage Labels – June 2009
Water Evaporation Still – June 2009
Let’s Talk About Oats – July 2009
Let’s Talk About Beans – July 2009
How to Cook Rice (Without a Rice Cooker) – August 2009
Let’s Talk About Powdered Eggs – August 2009
SPROUTING – August 2009
Non-Food Items Inventory List – August 2009
Seven Day Challenge Summary – September 2009
Food Storage Substitutions – September 2009

OUR FAVORITE RECIPES

Buttermilk Cornbread
Corn Cakes (YUMMM!)
Fruit Smoothies
Whole Wheat Bread (from start to finish)
Food Storage Pizza Tricks
BEST Rice Krispie Squares
Granola Bars
Honey Whole Wheat Bread (Jodi’s favorite!)
Lemon Bars with a Twist
Homemade Mac N Cheese

We hope you will start (or continue) to follow along with us by subscribing to our RSS Feed, Twitter, Facebook, or adding our button to your blog. We love getting to know our readers, hearing about your food storage experiences, and learning from all of YOU!

1. Natural Disasters
2. Economic Crisis
3. Health Benefits
4. Everyday Emergency
5. Religious Reasons

Today we will be talking about the second reason, Economic Crisis, and encourage you to visit our Facebook Discussion on this topic. We learn so much more from each others real life experiences and opinions, so come on over and join the conversation. (You don’t need to be a member of facebook to read the discussions).

While Natural Disasters is what encouraged us to START our food storage, we have to admit – the concept of an economic crisis is what KEEPS us building our food storage. We feel that the likelihood of money being tight is MUCH higher then a power or water outage type disaster. Money being tight could come as a national, local, or personal emergency. You never know what could happen and it’s such a blessing to have food stored, and a plan in place for a time when you might have to live off what you have stored.

BONUS:  Food Storage Saves Money!

Awhile back we did a post on Food Storage and Money Savings. The post talks about how your 3-month supply can save you money by buying foods only when they are on sale and stocking up. You can also save on your grocery bill by actually learning how to use and cooking with your long term food supply. Buying grains and legumes and cooking things from scratch can save you a lot of money!

Drying is the oldest method of preserving food. The early American settlers dried foods such as corn, apple slices, currants, grapes, and meat. Compared with other methods, drying is quite simple. In fact, you may already have most of the equipment on hand. Dried foods keep well because the moisture content is so low that spoilage organisms cannot grow.

Drying will never replace canning and freezing because these methods do a better job of retaining the taste, appearance, and nutritive value of fresh food. But drying is an excellent way to preserve foods that can add variety to meals and provide delicious, nutritious snacks. One of the biggest advantages of dried foods is that they take much less storage space than canned or frozen foods.

Recommended methods for canning and freezing have been determined by research and widespread experience. Home drying, however, does not have firmly established procedures. Food can be dried several ways, for example, by the sun if the air is hot and dry enough, or in an oven or dryer if the climate is humid.

With the renewed interest in gardening and natural foods and because of the high cost of commercially dried products, drying foods at home is becoming popular again. Drying is not difficult, but it does take time and a lot of attention. Although there are different drying methods, the guidelines remain the same.

Although solar drying is a popular and very inexpensive method, Illinois does not have a suitable climate for it. Dependable solar dehydration of foods requires 3 to 5 consecutive days when the temperature is 95 degrees F. and the humidity is very low. The average relative humidity in central Illinois on days with 95 degrees F. temperatures is usually 86 percent. Solar drying is thus not feasible.

Drying food in the oven of a kitchen range, on the other hand, can be very expensive. In an electric oven, drying food has been found to be nine to twelve times as costly as canning it. Food dehydrators are less expensive to operate but are only useful for a few months of the year. A convection oven can be the most economical investment if the proper model is chosen. A convection oven that has a controllable temperature starting at 120 degrees F. and a continuous operation feature rather than a timer-controlled one will function quite well as a dehydrator during the gardening months. For the rest of the year it can be used as a tabletop oven.

Dehydrating foods is still one of those things that is a little intimidating to us, but we are researching it and getting ready to attempt some things soon. We will post our progress as we learn!

Knowing what foods you can use as substitutes is a great food storage planning tool that allows you to really focus in on WHAT to store. Understanding yields can also be very helpful as you progress towards cooking more whole foods from scratch. Today we’ll be covering some common measurement conversions, and over the next few weeks we’ll move on to discuss some great substitutions and yields for common items.

 
pinch = 1/16 tsp.
dash = 6 drops or 1/8 tsp.
1/4 T. = 3/4 tsp.
3 tsp. = 1 T.
1/8 C. = 2 T. = 1 fl. oz.
1/4 C. = 4 T. = 2 fl. oz.
1/3 C. = 5 T. + 1 tsp.
1/2 C. = 8 T. = 4 fl. oz.
3/4 C. = 12 T. = 6 fl. oz.
1 C. = 16 T. = 1/2 pint = 8 fl. oz.
2 C. = 1 pint = 16 fl. oz.
4 C. = 2 pints = 1 quart = 32 oz.
16 C. = 4 quarts = 1 gallon
8 quarts = 1 peck
4 pecks = 1 bushel
1 liter = 1 quart plus 3 oz.
2 oz. = 1/8 pound
4 oz. = 1/4 pound
8 oz. = 1/2 pound
16 oz. = 1 pound

These measurements can be really helpful when doubling or tripling recipes, and is something that should be printed and inserted into your recipe box, cookbooks, or Food Storage Made Easy Binder. (*hint* we just may be including some handy handouts in our next FREE binder update). Thanks again to Nola! And we’re excited to share with you all the other great stuff she sent us!
 

1. Natural Disasters
2. Economic Crisis
3. Health Benefits
4. Everyday Emergency
5. Religious Reasons

Today we will be talking about the first reason, Natural Disasters, and encourage you to visit our Facebook Discussion on this topic. We learn so much more from each others real life experiences and opinions, so come on over and join the conversation. (You don’t need to be a member of facebook to read the discussions).

So here’s our take on the “Natural Disasters” reason to store food. The truth is, this was one of the main reasons we “STARTED” our food storage program. After “growing up” and having kids we started realizing we were in charge of our families now. If some crisis were to happen, we would have had no idea how to deal with it and we were definitely not prepared.

We would ask ourselves- “If an earthquake hit and we had no power or water for days or weeks, would we have the supplies we needed on hand?” The list of potential “Disasters” is LONG! Here’s just a few that we have come up with:

Natural Hazards
Floods
Tornadoes
Hurricanes
Thunderstorms and Lightning
Winter Storms and Extreme Cold
Extreme Heat
Earthquakes
Volcanoes
Landslides and Debris Flow (Mudslide)
Tsunamis
Fires
Wildfires

Technological Hazards
Hazardous Materials Incidents
Household Chemical Emergencies
Nuclear Power Plants

Terrorism
Explosions
Biological Threats
Chemical Threats
Nuclear Blast
Radiological Dispersion Device (RDD)
Homeland Security Advisory System

WAIT! Don’t get too freaked out. We will be going into more details about all of these situations in future posts (one at a time and with tips on how to deal with them), but for now, we found there is GREAT truth in the following:

REALLY! We started out SO overwhelmed, and totally unsure of how to go about actually becoming prepared. Through BabySteps and patience we have actually gotten to a point where we feel a little more confident and not so afraid to learn more! For a little motivation take a look at Julie’s and Jodi’s beginnings only just 16 months ago. Don’t let the fear overcome you! Get started today!

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

Types of Cornmeal:

Steel ground: The most common type of cornmeal, it has the husk and germ almost all removed. Because of this, steel ground cornmeal has less flavor and nutrients but does have a very long shelf life. This is the type you will typically find at the grocery store.
Stone ground: This type of cornmeal retains more of the husk and germ but because of this it is more perishable than steel ground.
Cornmeal can be found in white, yellow, red, and blue varieties. Yellow and white are the most common.

Types of Corn:

The basic types of dried corn used for food storage are: flint, dent, and popcorn. All can be used fairly interchangeably but flint is a little better for cornmeal, dent is better for corn masa, and popcorn is the most versatile since it can be popped for a snack OR ground into meal or flour. Corn can also be found in white, yellow, red, and blue. Yellow corn is often recommended over white corn since white corn does not contain carotene (which converts into vitamin A). Yellow dent corn is very common at food storage stores, but popping corn can easily be found at any grocery store.

Corn/Cornmeal Shelf Life:

Cornmeal: Between 6 and 18 months. Store in a cool dry place to help prolong this.
Corn: 8 years or more if stored in a sealed airtight container with an oxygen absorber.

Corn/Cornmeal Uses:

Dried corn can be used as a vegetable in stews, popped into popcorn, or ground into flour or cornmeal. Corn flour is most commonly used to make corn masa which is a dough used to make tortillas. Cornmeal (fresh ground or store bought) can be used to make delicious cornbread or corn cakes. It can also be made into hominy or grits.
 

Recommendations:

We recommend starting by purchasing a small amount of cornmeal and try some food storage recipes out and see if your family likes eating those foods. If it turns out to be something you really like, then we highly recommend storing a lot of popcorn and grinding it fresh which helps with flavor and gives you more nutrients. If you don’t have a wheat grinder available to you, try to buy cornmeal in good sealed containers such as #10 cans to help prolong the shelf life.

“WHY DO PEOPLE BUILD A FOOD STORAGE?”

After receiving a few emails with that very question, we realized that although we do a great job helping people easily build their food storage,we’ve never really explained “Why Do People Build A Food Storage?” in a clear, concise and “easy to find” manner. HOW EMBARRASSING!

We decided to do a 5 part mini-series on reasons why people build a Food Storage.

The 5 main reasons are:

1. Natural Disasters
2. Economic Crisis
3. Health Benefits
4. Everyday Emergency
5. Religious Reasons

But… before we get into the WHY’s – let’s first answer the WHAT?

Food Storage is the concept of “storing” food for a number of “what if” situations.  After having an emergency preparedness plan in place including a 72 hour kit, the governing principles in which we have built our Food Storage, and have built our blog are the following:

WATER STORAGE:

Store drinking water for circumstances in which the water supply may be polluted or disrupted.

THREE-MONTH SUPPLY:

Build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet. Gradually increase your supply until it is sufficient for three months. These items should be rotated regularly to avoid spoilage. We consider foods stored in a freezer to count for your 3 month food supply.

LONG TERM FOOD STORAGE:

For longer-term needs, and where permitted, gradually build a supply of food that will last a long time and that you can use to stay alive, such as wheat, white rice, and beans. These items can last 30 years or more when properly packaged and stored in a cool, dry place. A portion of these items may be rotated in your three-month supply.

If you haven’t purchased your Food Storage Made Easy eBook Binder yet, we are currently offering a $5 off promotion if you do an educational “assignment” related to the Seven Day Challenge. Click here for more details on how to get the discount! Just think for only $12 (or $17) you get our full binder download plus great updates like these for free FOR LIFE!

If you have already purchased a binder but haven’t signed up for Free Binder Updates For Life yet please email us a copy of your PayPal confirmation or the name/email address you used when you purchased your binder. We will then send you details on how to get your free updates. If you purchased a bulk copy of the binder at a discount you will need to pay for the updates for life upgrade in order to be added to the list. Let us know if you have any questions about the process.

Thanks to everyone who has been patiently waiting for us to put these together. It was a lot of work and we were a bit burnt out from getting through the Seven Day Challenge.

Food Storage Substitutions:

Brown Sugar = 1 c. white sugar + 1-2 T. molasses
White sugar and molasses are already on our list of storage items, so if you plan to store brown sugar as well, just store a little extra of these items. Molasses has a longer shelf life than brown sugar, and you don’t have the problem of it getting clumpy and hardened since you will be making it fresh.

Buttermilk = 1 c. milk or powdered milk + 1 T. vinegar
This is so much easier than having to keep buttermilk or powdered buttermilk on hand when you need it for a particular recipe. Vinegar can also be used in baking recipes, to improve your bread recipes, as well as for homemade cleaning supplies. So these two items should definitely be part of your food storage already!

Baking Powder = 1 tsp. baking soda + 2 tsp. cream of tartar
While you may not think of storing cream of tartar, this actually makes a lot of sense. Both baking soda and cream of tartar can have an indefinite shelf life if stored in airtight containers at room temperature. Baking powder, however has a short shelf life of 6-12 months. To test if your baking powder is still active, stir 1 teaspoon into ½ a cup of hot water. If it doesn’t bubble, it will need to be replaced.

Homemade Mac ‘N’ Cheese (w/ grains and powdered milk)

Ingredients:
1 lb macaroni noodles (BabyStep 5 : Grains)
1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. flour (BabyStep 5 : Grains)
1 c. milk (or 1 c. water, 3 T. powdered milk)
1 tsp. seasoned salt
cheese cubes (optional)
ham cubes (optional)

Directions:
Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain and set aside. Melt butter in large saucepan. Whisk in the flour until smooth. Slowly stir in milk until well mixed in. Add seasoned salt. Let cook for a little while until it starts to thicken. Add in the macaroni noodles. Add in a little more milk if it seems too thick. Can add more seasoned salt according to your family’s tastes. Add ham and cheese cubes right before serving.

Homemade Mac ‘N’ Cheese (w/ legumes and powdered milk)

Ingredients:
3 c. of macaroni noodles
5 T. of lima or other white bean flour (BabyStep 6 : Legumes)
1 c. of water
3/4 c. milk (or 3/4 c. water 2 T. powdered milk)
2 tsp. seasoned salt
cheese cubes (optional)
ham cubes (optional)

Directions:
Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain and set aside. Grind 1/4 c. of white beans in your wheat grinder to make about 5 T. of bean flour. Put 1 c. of water in large saucepan. Slowly whisk in ground bean flour. Continue to whisk frequently until starts to thicken and bubble. Slowly stir in milk until it’s a nice thickish liquid consistency. Add seasoned salt (the bean version tends to need more than the flour/butter version). Add in the macaroni noodles. Add in a little more milk if it seems too thick. Add ham and cheese cubes right before serving.

Confession time … While the bean flour version is still good (and my kids snarfed it up just like usual), I could actually tell a difference in this recipe. I prefer the fattening version, surprise surprise. hehe. But the bean flour version is a very good substitute and can save a TON of calories and fat!

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

If you haven’t been around lately, we just barely finished the 7 DAY CHALLENGE.  Each day for 7 Days we had a mock emergency to test out how well we are prepared for the MANY reasons we all have food storage (natural disasters, economic crisis, everyday emergencies, health benefits).  We still can’t believe how much we learned ourselves and how much “fun” we had.

With a challenge like this, of COURSE we had prizes… The last round of prizes include:

• a limited time Wondermill rebate of $30 for either an electric or hand mill FOR EVERYONE (whether you participated or not)
• a chance to purchase a Food Storage Made Easy eBook Binder for $5 off for EVERYONE who does the “ASSIGNMENT” (whether you participated or not)
• TONS of prizes from our initial prize post awarded randomly to challenge participants (announced earlier today)

To help spread the word about food storage, and encourage YOU to make notes of what you learned, we’re having the assignment open to anyone.  If you participated each day, or are only now just following along, you can complete the assignment to  be sent a temporary link to purchase the Food Storage Made Easy eBook Binder at $5 off!

SO HERE IS HOW IT GOES:

On your blog, or in an email to your friends simply make a list of what you learned on each of the 7 days (separated by days).  This doesn’t need to be a fabulous essay, even bullet points will do.  If you didn’t participate on the specific days, see what you COULD have learned.  You can see what you may have learned by reading the feedback on the public facebook discussion thread for each day, and comments for each day on the individual posts (a link for each of those is provided below to make doing your homework extra easy).

Start the blog post or email by saying how you found out about the challenge and link to http://foodstoragemadeeasy.NET,  so people can come and learn themselves…then go into what you learned on each of the 7 days:

Day 1: Natural Disaster -”It’s a Flood”

• Facebook Discussion Feedback
• Comments on Daily Post Feedback

Day 2: Pandemic -”Time for Quarantine”

• Facebook Discussion Feedback
• Comments on Daily Post Feedback

Day 3: Every Day Emergency -”Dinner Guests?!?!”

• Facebook Discussion Feedback
• Comments on Daily Post Feedback

Day 4: Economic Crisis -”Money is TIGHT!”

• Facebook Discussion Feedback
• Comments on Daily Post Feedback

Day 5: Natural Disaster -”Earthquake!”

• Facebook Discussion Feeedback
• Comments on Daily Post Feedback

Day 6: Diet Disaster -”Healthy lifestyle”

• Facebook Discussion Feedback
• Comments on Daily Post Feedback

Day 7: Every Day Emergency -”Why Didn’t you Ask for this Sooner?”

• Facebook Discussion Feedback
• Comments on Daily Post Feedback

When your blog post, or email is done send us an email at info@FoodStorageMadeEasy.NET with either a link to your blog (if your blog is private, email us what you posted) or a copy of the email and then we will send you a link to purchase the Food Storage Made Easy eBook Binder at $5 off!

Hurry up – your assignment is due by October 1ST!

Let us repeat that, doing this will automatically get you a limited time link to purchase the binder at $5 off. AND you’re only going to learn by doing it.

p.s. If you want to show off that you “survived” the Seven Day Challenge feel free to add this button to your post or sidebar.

@ Food Storage Made Easy

<a border=0 href=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/7day mce_href=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/7day target=_blank><img src=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/fsme/images/survived.png mce_src=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/fsme/images/survived.png></a><br>@ <a href=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net>Food Storage Made Easy</a> </p>

Or feel free to add our regular button to your blog.

BabySteps for Food Storage!

<a border=0 href=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net mce_href=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net target=_blank><img src=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/fsme/images/buttonsmall.jpg mce_src=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/buttonsmall.jpg></a><br> BabySteps for <a href=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net>Food Storage</a> </p>

For all individual winners, we’ll be contacting you over the next week to get you your prize. We’re just trying to recover from the challenge, so bare with us.

Prize: Food Storage Made Easy eBook Binders
WINNERS:
1. Kim Armer Watterson
2. Lisa Hovey

Company/Website: Food Storage Made Easy
Description: A comprehensive step-by-step guide to getting your emergency preparedness plan, water storage, and food storage put together in just ONE YEAR! Includes checklists, calculators, detailed information on long term food storage, and a large recipe appendix.

For a limited time, and with a small assignment, we’ll have the Food Storage Made Easy Binders available for $5 off!

Prize: TWO Annual Subscriptions to Mozy Online Backup
WINNERS:
1. Kari Brimhall
2. Danielle Mahoney

Company/Website: Mozy Unlimited Backup
Description: 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.

Use coupon code SEPTEMBER to receive 10% off annual and biennial subscription this month. And special bonus for all MOMS, use this link to get a free t-shirt too!.

Prize: WonderMill Hand Mill
WINNER:
Linda Amori

Company/Website: The WonderMill
Description: WonderMilll Hand Mill already given away during the sign up stage of the 7 Day Challenge.

From September 1, 2009 through November 25, 2009 WonderMill is offering a $30 rebate on the hand mills AND electric mills. Click here for details.

Prize: TWENTY Dr. Kno Preparedness CD-ROMS
WINNERS:
1. Courtney Schloss
2. Whitney Kenney
3. Kathy Peterson
4. Brenda Mann
5. Amber Baer
6. Charlotte Meadows
7. Linda Sorden
8. Diana Starr
9. JoAnna Ebersole
10. Jennifer Pitzl
11. Debbie Wastart
12. Kathy Beachy
13. Michelle Niederhauser
14. Amanda Rowland
15. Amber Unfred
16. Rebekah Hamilton
17. Sheila Shepardson
18. Stephen Schaefer
19. Nicole Houghton
20. Katie Murray

Company/Website: Dr. Kno
Description: An interactive family preparedness CD-ROM that provides thorough preparedness guidelines and a life organizer software system. Manuals on the CD can be printed, or viewed on-screen for your family to use.

Prize: THREE Sets of Conversion Chart Magnets
WINNERS:
1. Rebecca Fryar
2. Barbara Pak
3. Julie Savage

Company/Website: Everyday Food Storage
Description: Crystal over at EverydayFoodStorage.Net has made her Powdered Milk Conversion chart into a slick kitchen magnet along with NEW charts for Magic Mix and Powdered Eggs! Now making your favorite recipes food storage recipes is even EASIER.

Prize: Rita Bingham Books -50 books at 50% off each
WINNERS:
FIRST 50 TO CLAIM:

1) Participants e-mail Natural Meals Publishing (order@naturalmeals.com) with their 50% off book choice(s) and contact information (along with a best time to call so they can call to get payment information)

2) Natural Meals will then contact the ones who are in the first 10 for each book and either take their order at that time, or give them the discount code so they can go directly to the website and place their order.

Company: Natural Meals Publishing
Description: Receive 50% off any of the following five books: Country Beans, Natural Meals in Minutes, The New Passport to Survival, Natural Sweets and Healthy Treats, and Food Combining Handbook. There will be 10 discounts given per book.

Prize: 30 Day Supply Bucket of Food
WINNER:
Shaunda Burns

Company: The Ready Project
Description: Affordable, long lasting gourmet food storage Starting at under $30 per month Shipped to your home monthly Easy to cook, just add water Stores for up to 15 years Compact size fits under beds and in cupboards Meets the minimum daily caloric needs recommended by the American Heart Association.

Prize: ONE Annual Membership, and SIX three-month memberships
WINNERS:
1. Sarah Hudson Hofhine (Annual)
2. Deana Marie Bushman
3. Christine Malone Scott
4. Debbie Arnell
5. Brandy Rydalch
6. Suzanne Monk Stokes
7. Michelle Chase Niederhauser

Company: Deals To Meals
Description: Deals to Meals tells you where the best deals are each week from all of the major grocery stores, help you know which items to add to your food storage and freezer each week. They also give you a weekly meal planner that is based around the best deals each week.

Prize: Customized Vinyl Labels
WINNER:
Dianne Dance Pabst

Company: Vintage Vinyl Decor
Description: Vinyl lettering to label food storage with. This lettering can be placed on your plastic buckets, other storage containers, shelving, almost anywhere. The award package would include: 2 sugar, 2 white flour, 1 wheat flour, 1 powdered milk, 1 red wheat, 1 white wheat, 1 oats, 1 white rice, + 10 your choice.. *in winners choice of red, brown or pink vinyl lettering

Prize: TEN Lifetime Memberships to Fresh Reminders
WINNERS:
1. Laura McMullin
2. Deborah Heavilin
3. Carlie Harding
4. Dara Smith
5. Laura Ann Atkin
6. Melissa Sanchez
7. Barbara Pak
8. Jana Glass
9. Dalene Hokanson
10. Susan Corinth

Company: Fresh Reminders
Description: Don’t let your hard-earned food storage go to waste because it expires! Fresh Reminders helps you keep track of all of those pesky expiration dates and will email you before your items go bad, helping you automatically rotate your food and stay safe. A free lifetime membership allows you to track an unlimited number of items, have first access to new features, and never see ads in your account.

Prize: Emergency Dynamo Lantern with Radio and 36 Hour Emergency Candle
WINNERS:
1. Tammy Thomas (Lantern with Radio)
2. Melanee Peterson (Candle)

Company: Ultimate 72 Hour Kits
Description: Incredible new bright LED dynamo lantern which never needs batteries. This product can charge a cell phone and has a USB tie which can charge an MP3 player. The energy stored is used to supply the LED Lights, FM Radio, and Siren. The candle is a must in all survival kits. It lasts for 36 hours and has an adjustable wick. The wick can be drawn up and used as a mini stove.

Prize: TWO copies of Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover
WINNERS:
1. Jocelyn Robertson
2. Lynne Tolman

Company: Getting Finances Done
Description: Learn how to get your finances under control with Dave’s Total Money Makeover and then come join me for my free program “12 Weeks to Fiscal Fitness” starting in September at my website Getting Finances Done.

Prize: Cansolidator Pantry
WINNER:
Jenni McVey

Company: Shelf Reliance
Description: Shelf Reliance is an industry leader in food storage and emergency preparedness. Their Cansolidator Pantry holds up to 40 cans and is perfect for food storage organization and rotation!

ALSO for ALL participants, use coupon code: “Challenge15” at checkout and get 15% off MSRP of any order (excluding multi-packs). Shelf Reliance always does free shipping for orders $199 or more.

Prize: A copy of Brite Music’s Safety Kids – Personal Safety digital set
WINNER:
 Amanda Arnold Hopkins

Company: Brite Music
Description: A copy of Brite Music’s Safety Kids – Personal Safety digital set. This includes the songs in MP3 format, and the activity book in .pdf format

Add discount code: 2080701 to receive 10% off your entire order, including sale items for ALL challenge participants.

Prize: 1 Week Supply of Freeze Dried Food Storage
WINNER:
Carolyn Barber

Company: Wise Company Food Storage
Description: This bucket includes – 2 meals a day – 1 breakfast and 1 entree (14 pouches of food) for a week for 4 adults OR 2 adults and 2-3 kids. Delicious and nutritious meals, just add hot water! It has a value of $120!!

IN ADDITION – they will give FREE SHIPPING on any orders placed this month by mentioning foodstoragemadeeasy.net. Contact this email tursh2000@yahoo.com to receive the free shipping incentive!

Prize: ONE case of canned cheddar cheese
WINNER:
Amber Woodcox Coyne

Company: Best Prices Storable Foods
Description: Creamy and delicious, REAL canned cheddar cheese that will store for 10-20 years or longer. A case contains 36 cans a $123 value.

Prize: SunDew Cold & Flu Defense System Kit
WINNER:
Rosa Fus

Company/Website: Soleil Life Sciences
Description: The SunDew Cold & Flu Defense System is the first product line to offer a complete solution to managing the common cold or flu. Protect with Hand Sanitizer, Support with Immune Booster, Fortify your body’s defenses under stress with First Response, and Treat symptoms and relieve discomfort with Cold & Flu Syrup.

Use coupon code: “foodstorage” to receive 25% off your order for ALL challenge participants!

   

All you have to do to get the rebate is purchase a Wonder Junior Basic or Deluxe of WonderMill Electric Mill from our Wheat Grinder product page anytime between September 1, 2009 and November 25, 2009. Once your order has been shipped we will send you the $30 rebate form from the WonderMill. Make sure to follow the directions carefully and submit your form by December 15, 2009.
 

At Food Storage Made Easy we always sell the electric grain mills and the hand grain mills at the lowest price available, so when you add the $30 rebate from WonderMill onto that (and our current free shipping promotion) this is the rock bottom lowest you will ever be able to get a WonderMill wheat grinder!

p.s. Make SURE to watch the blog later today (Wednesday) for one more BIG announcement and the HUGE list of prizes still to be given out. Don’t forget to check out the Day 7 Winners just posted!

Having conversions for things like powdered milk and powdered eggs on hand in your kitchen readily available is  A TREAT! Also, having cheese stored is a treat we know we would have a hard time living without!

Prize: A Set of Conversion Chart Magnets

WINNER: Rebecca Fryar (we’ll contact you soon to get you your prize)

(two more sets to come at the end)

Company/Website: Everyday Food Storage
Description: Crystal over at EverydayFoodStorage.Net has made her Powdered Milk Conversion chart into a slick kitchen magnet along with NEW charts for Magic Mix and Powdered Eggs! Now making your favorite recipes food storage recipes is even EASIER.

Prize: ONE case of canned cheddar cheese

WINNER: Amber Woodcox Coyne (we’ll contact you soon to get you your prize)

Company: Best Prices Storable Foods
Description: Creamy and delicious, REAL canned cheddar cheese that will store for 10-20 years or longer. A case contains 36 cans a $123 value.

Say Thanks to Our Sponsors, Please Visit their Sites

One of your family members calls you in a panic and says they need a treat for a party they are going to (they didn’t know about it, so don’t freak out at them!). You are stranded at home with no car, and can’t get to a store.

DEPENDING ON YOUR SCHEDULE… ONCE YOU MAKE THE TREAT YOU ARE OFFICIALLY DONE! IF YOU WANT TO GO TO A RESTAURANT TO CELEBRATE, OR EVEN JUST A STORE TO GRAB SOME STUFF YOU’RE FREE!

Sorry it’s an easy day! We’re TIRED!

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants (until your treat is made).
• You have run out of fresh butter (you can use shelf stable alternatives)
• You have run out of eggs milk (you can use powdered)
• You have run out of fresh milk (you can use powdered)
• Make a delicious dessert
• Once the dessert is ready, YOU ARE DONE!

ADVANCED “FOLKS” (for anyone who feels up to it)

• Try it with no perishables or pre-made mixes at all

Each day we will be giving a prize to someone who provided feedback to that day’s challenge.  *Click here to see who won DAY 6′S PRIZE. To provide feedback on today’s challenge, do one of the following:

Make sure to read DAY 6’s facebook discussions and comments on the post to see what we all learned from using our food storage to eat healthy. (You can read it even if you don’t use facebook!)

Learning to cook foods that are healthy not only are you getting health benefits, but allow you to use food storage items regularly.  Also- wouldn’t it be nice to have your food storage cutified! (probably not a word)

Prize: Rita Bingham Books -50 books at 50% off each

WINNER: FIRST 50 TO ORDER!

Company: Natural Meals Publishing
Description: Receive 50% off any of the following five books: Country Beans, Natural Meals in Minutes, The New Passport to Survival, Natural Sweets and Healthy Treats, and Food Combining Handbook. There will be 10 discounts given per book.

TO CLAIM:

1) Participants e-mail Natural Meals Publishing (order@naturalmeals.com) with their 50% off book choice(s) and contact information (along with a best time to call so they can call to get payment information)

2)  Natural Meals will then contact the ones who are in the first 10 for each book and either take their order at that time, or give them the discount code so they can go directly to the website and place their order.

Prize: Customized Vinyl Label

WINNER: Dianne Dance Pabst

(we’ll contact you at the end of the challenge to get you your prize)
Company: Vintage Vinyl Decor
Description: Vinyl lettering to label food storage with. This lettering can be placed on your plastic buckets, other storage containers, shelving, almost anywhere. The award package would include: 2 sugar, 2 white flour, 1 wheat flour, 1 powdered milk, 1 red wheat, 1 white wheat, 1 oats, 1 white rice, + 10 your choice.. *in winners choice of red, brown or pink vinyl lettering

Say Thanks to Our Sponsors, Please Visit their Sites

It’s time to change those unhealthy eating habits! You have been diagnosed with all sorts of health problems.

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
• You can’t use any pre-packaged or convenience foods
• Your breakfast has to be low sugar
• Your lunch has to be low fat (if you’re at work already, think about what you could have brought or made)
• Your dinner has to be from scratch using whole grains and/or legumes
• You have to have 3-5 servings of fruits and vegetables today

ADVANCED “FOLKS” (for anyone who feels up to it)

• You have to figure out how many calories, grams of sugar, grams of fat, and grams of fiber are in what you are making
• Your whole family has to adapt to this healthy living for the day (you can’t just make yourself a healthy sandwich and give the kids hot dogs)

REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S LIMITATIONS AND TASKS WILL BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. How long would you have lasted under these conditions?

Each day we will be giving a prize to someone who provided feedback to that day’s challenge.  *Click here to see who won the DAY 5’s PRIZE. To provide feedback on today’s challenge, do one of the following:

Make sure to read DAY 5’s facebook discussions and comments on the post to see what we all learned from having to pull cope with job loss, and water loss. (You can read it even if you don’t use facebook!)

When a natural disaster happens and computers with LOCAL external hard drives get crushed, or burned, having a safe back-up location for pictures, and files is GREAT to have (not to mention viruses and crashes).  Also, having lanterns and radios during earthquakes could come in HANDY for sure!

Prize: Annual Subscriptions to Mozy Online Backup

WINNER:Kari Brimhall (we’ll contact you at the end of the challenge to get you your prize)

(One more annual subscription to come at the end)

Company/Website: Mozy Unlimited Backup
Description: 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.

BONUS FOR EVERYONE: Use coupon code SEPTEMBER to receive 10% off annual and biennial subscription this month. And special bonus for all MOMS, use this link to get a free t-shirt too!.

Prize: Emergency Dynamo Lantern Radio

WINNER: Tammy Thomas (we’ll contact you at the end of the challenge to get you your prize)

(36 Hour Emergency Candle still to come)

Company: Ultimate 72 Hour Kits
Description: Incredible new bright LED dynamo lantern which never needs batteries. This product can charge a cell phone and has a USB tie which can charge an MP3 player. The energy stored is used to supply the LED Lights, FM Radio, and Siren. The candle is a must in all survival kits. It lasts for 36 hours and has an adjustable wick. The wick can be drawn up and used as a mini stove.

Say Thanks to Our Sponsors, Please Visit their Sites

There has been an earthquake and you have lost some utilities

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
• Your water pipe broke, and you have no water access
• The power has been cut off
• It’s the 2nd day of the earthquake, your fridge food has gone bad, but the food in your freezer has managed to stay cold enough to use
• You’re driving home from checking on a family member and the road is blocked with a bunch of large rocks from the earthquake, did you have a small car shovel (this is a very highly recommended item to store in your car)
• During the earthquake a beam fell on your computer(s) and crushed it. Did you have your data backed up in a remote location?
• Keep your family entertained all day with no power

ADVANCED “FOLKS” (for anyone who feels up to it)

• If you have a generator – it got CRUSHED!
• Unfortunately all fridges and freezers in your home ALSO got crushed!

REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S LIMITATIONS AND TASKS WILL BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. How long would you have lasted under these conditions?

Each day we will be giving a prize to someone who provided feedback to that day’s challenge.  *Click here to see who won Day 4’s PRIZE. To provide feedback on today’s challenge, do one of the following:

Make sure to read DAY 4’s facebook discussions and comments on the post to see what we all learned from having to pull cope with job loss, and water loss. (You can read it even if you don’t use facebook!)

Being prepared for a financial crisis is just as important, if not MORE important then a natural disaster (the chance of you losing your job is much higher.)  Also, when money is tight, remember doing fun educational activities around the house can be just as fun as a movie night out, or spending money on other activities.

Prize: Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover Book

WINNER: Jocelyn Robertson (we’ll contact you at the end of the challenge to get you your prize)

(Another copy coming at the end!)

Company: Getting Finances Done

Description: Learn how to get your finances under control with Dave’s Total Money Makeover and then come join me for my free program “12 Weeks to Fiscal Fitness” starting in September at my website Getting Finances Done.

BONUS FOR EVERYONE: Starting mid-September Getting Finances Done will be starting a FREE series called “12 Weeks to Fiscal Fitness.” Learn the secrets of how to get control over your finances and how to reach your financial goals with detailed step-by-step instruction. Sign up today!

Prize: A copy of Brite Music’s Safety Kids – Personal Safety digital set

WINNER: Amanda Arnold Hopkins (we’ll contact you at the end of the challenge to get you your prize)

Company: Brite Music
Description: A copy of Brite Music’s Safety Kids – Personal Safety digital set. This includes the songs in MP3 format, and the activity book in .pdf format ALSO –

BONUS FOR EVERYONE: Add discount code: 2080701 to receive 10% off your entire order, including sale items for ALL challenge participants.

Say Thanks to Our Sponsors, Please Visit their Sites

Times are tough. You have no income at the time. You have lost some critical utilities and are having to cut back on certain items.  It’s also the weekend, you’ve had a rough week and want to do something fun with your family or your friends.

***IMPORTANT NOTE FOR SUNDAY’S CHALLENGE: We want you to get the full effect of Sunday’s challenge so make sure to check your email Saturday night after 8 pm MST (that means winners for today’s prizes will be chosen by 8 pm also)***

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
• Your water got shut off because you couldn’t pay your bill last month (remember toilets use 1 1/2-3 gallons of your stored water PER FLUSH)
• You no longer have cable, internet (except for the challenge), or cell phones due to lack of money
• You ran out of bread, need some, and can’t afford store bought -YES today is the day you have to actually try making bread
• You can’t participate in activities that are paid for
• Do a fun activity with your family, or with your friends that costs no money outside of the home

ADVANCED “FOLKS” (for anyone who feels up to it)

• You can’t afford gas for your car, and you’re on empty
• Your power gets shut off too!

REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S LIMITATIONS AND TASKS WILL BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. How long would you have lasted under these conditions?

Each day we will be giving a prize to someone who provided feedback to that day’s challenge.  *Click here to see who won Day 3’s PRIZE. To provide feedback on today’s challenge, do one of the following:

Make sure to read DAY 3’s facebook discussions and comments on the post to see what we all learned from having to pull together a last minute meal. (You can read it even if you don’t use facebook!)

Being able to cook great meals from your pantry can save you time and money on those hectic days.  Also when you’re using that food in your pantry, you want to make sure you keep track of expiration dates so you don’t waste food!

Prize: ONE Annual Membership

WINNER:Sarah Hudson Hofhine (we’ll contact you at the end of the challenge to get you your prize)

(SIX three-month memberships to come at the end)

Company: Deals To Meals
Description: Deals to Meals tells you where the best deals are each week from all of the major grocery stores, help you know which items to add to your food storage and freezer each week. They also give you a weekly meal planner that is based around the best deals each week.

Prize: A Lifetime Memberships to Fresh Reminders

WINNER:Laura McMullin (we’ll contact you at the end of the challenge to get you your prize)

(NINE more to come at the end!)

Company: Fresh Reminders
Description: Don’t let your hard-earned food storage go to waste because it expires! Fresh Reminders helps you keep track of all of those pesky expiration dates and will email you before your items go bad, helping you automatically rotate your food and stay safe. A free lifetime membership allows you to track an unlimited number of items, have first access to new features, and never see ads in your account.

Say Thanks to Our Sponsors, Please Visit their Sites

Your spouse calls and announces their boss is coming over for dinner (or your boss invites themselves over for dinner TONIGHT!).  You have no WAY to go to the store, and you have to come up with an impressive meal from what you already have in your home.

THESE LIMITATIONS AND TASKS ARE ALL NEW, THE FIRST 2 DAYS LIMITATIONS DO NOT APPLY!

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
• You can use whatever food you have in your house (includes fridge, freezer)
• The meal has to have an appetizer
• The main course can’t use meat because the boss is a vegetarian (your meal CAN use milk, and dairy)
• You have to have at least 2 side dishes for the dinner
• The meal has to have a dessert
• You have to get other family members to help you make the meal and or set the table “NICELY” (share your pictures on facebook)
• Your house probably should be clean (even though that’s not a “food storage” thing)
• Brainstorm what other types of “everyday” emergencies you may have, and how you could better prepare for them

ADVANCED “FOLKS” (for anyone who feels up to it)

• You only have 1 hour from when you start to finish making the meal

REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S LIMITATIONS AND TASKS WILL BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. How long would you have lasted under these conditions?

Each day we will be giving a prize to someone who provided feedback to that day’s challenge.  *Click here to see who won DAY 2′S PRIZE. To provide feedback on today’s challenge, do one of the following:

Make sure to read DAY 2’s facebook discussions and comments on the post to see what we all learned from living through a day of quarantine. (You can read it even if you don’t use facebook!)

In a situation where germs are everywhere it’s wise to always protect yourself!  Also, in cases where you can’t leave your home and may be dealing with sick family members it’s great to have some ready made meals on hand.

Prize: SunDew Cold & Flu Defense System Kit

WINNER:
Rosa Fus

We’ll contact you at the end of the Challenge to get you your prize.
Company/Website: Soleil Life Sciences
Description: The SunDew Cold & Flu Defense System is the first product line to offer a complete solution to managing the common cold or flu. Protect with Hand Sanitizer, Support with Immune Booster, Fortify your body’s defenses under stress with First Response, and Treat symptoms and relieve discomfort with Cold & Flu Syrup.

BONUS FOR EVERYONE: Use coupon code: “foodstorage” to receive 25% off your order for ALL challenge participants!

Prize: 1 Week Supply of Freeze Dried Food Storage

WINNER:
Carolyn Barber

We’ll contact you at the end of the Challenge to get you your prize.
Company: Wise Company Food Storage
Description: This bucket includes – 2 meals a day – 1 breakfast and 1 entree (14 pouches of food) for a week for 4 adults OR 2 adults and 2-3 kids. Delicious and nutritious meals, just add hot water! It has a value of $120!!

BONUS FOR EVERYONE: IN ADDITION – they will give FREE SHIPPING on any orders placed this month by mentioning foodstoragemadeeasy.net. Contact this email tursh2000@yahoo.com to receive the free shipping incentive!

Say Thanks to Our Sponsors, Please Visit their Sites

There has been an outbreak of the swine flu (or something like it) in your city, and you are ordered into quarantine in your home. (YESTERDAY’S LIMITATIONS DON’T APPLY, THESE ARE ALL NEW)

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants. Today is more of a “THINKING” day then “DOING” day
• You can’t leave your house at all (if you have a prior commitment we understand, we both have something Thursday evening we committed to months ago!)
• Some of your family members have been infected and have fevers/ stomach flus and need proper medication
• You need to provide comfort foods to infected family members to make them feel better
• You have used up ALL the toilet paper and paper towels in your bathroom and kitchen, you can only use what you have stored extra (wherever that may be)
• The family members that have not been infected will stay healthy so long as they follow proper recommendations, meaning proper hand washing and sanitizing, and even wear face masks

ADVANCED “FOLKS” (for anyone who feels up to it)

• This is the 7th day or your quarantine, so ALL your fridge food is gone
• You actually REALLY have to stay home – NO CHEATING!

REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S LIMITATIONS AND TASKS WILL BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. How long would you have lasted under these conditions, would you be able to stay in your house for an extended amount of time?

Each day we will be giving away a prize that will be drawn randomly among all of that day’s participants (along with LOTS more prizes at the end).  *Click here to see who won the DAY 1 (Wednesday) PRIZE. To provide feedback on today’s challenge, do one of the following:

Make sure to read DAY 1’s facebook discussions to see what we all learned from living through a flood and evacuation. (You can read it even if you don’t use facebook!)

In a situation where you have no power, a hungry family, and are totally stressed out, wouldn’t it be nice to have some food you can just add hot water to and eat? We’d rather boil water than bake bread Also, does your family really know what to do in a flood situation? Having what you need is one thing, knowing what to do is another BIG part!

Prize: 30 Day Supply Bucket of Food

WINNER:
Shaunda Burns (we’ll contact you at the end of the challenge)

Company: The Ready Project
Description: Affordable, long lasting gourmet food storage Starting at under $30 per month Shipped to your home monthly Easy to cook, just add water Stores for up to 15 years Compact size fits under beds and in cupboards Meets the minimum daily caloric needs recommended by the American Heart Association. Use referral code 61838 to get 5% off your first order!

Prize: Dr. Kno Preparedness CD-ROM

(19 MORE to come at the end)

WINNER:
Courtney Schloss (We’ll contact you at the end of the challenge)

Company/Website: Dr. Kno
Description: An interactive family preparedness CD-ROM that provides thorough preparedness guidelines and a life organizer software system. Manuals on the CD can be printed, or viewed on-screen for your family to use.

Say Thanks to Our Sponsors, Please Visit their Sites

There has been a flood and everyone in your city has been told to evacuate their homes for part of the day.

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
• You have no power for the whole day (except to fill out the questionnaire, or chat on facebook about what you are learning!)
• You have to “leave” your house within an hour for at least 5 hours (but you don’t know if your house is going to be there when you get back).
• You can only grab what is in your disasters kit and ALREADY on your grab list  when you leave.  *remember your house may be destroyed when you get back
• You have to eat the food from your 72 hour kit while you are gone
• Your family gets soaking wet during evacuation, and one of your family members cuts their toe open
• Your spouse is at work. You have to meet at your pre-determined meeting location when he or she is done work
• Once your whole family reunites you can return to your house
• When you get home, your fridge food is ruined, your basement food is flooded, and you need to make dinner with no power
• Keep your family entertained with no power (remember, after dark the lights, tv, appliances etc wont work!)

ADVANCED “FOLKS” (for anyone who feels up to it)


• You have to stay out of your house until it’s bed time
• You can only eat your 72 hour kit food the whole day
• You forgot your cell phone at home when you evacuated

REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S LIMITATIONS AND TASKS WILL BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. How long would you have lasted under these conditions?

Each day we will be giving a prize to someone who provided feedback to that day’s challenge.  *Click here to see who won the “pre-challenge” giveaway. To provide feedback on today’s challenge, do one of the following:

Pre-Challenge Giveaway

Last week we HAD a little “pre-challenge” giveaway for you.  Read more about it here. Now that the challenge has officially started, we’re announcing the pre-challenge giveaway winners…

RANDOM winners of the Food Storage Made Easy EBOOK Binders:

WINNER #1: Kim Armer Watterson for discussing on facebook

WINNER #2: Lisa Heltie for filling out questionnaire #209

Winners, we’ll contact you to get you prize emailed out to you! If you didn’t win, here’s how you can get your own.

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

-MAKE SURE to get your family involved. Let them know it’s coming. Go over the family plan with them. Get them to commit to participating with you and learning along the way.  It could be a fun activity to do say…. TONIGHT!

-Print out this to do list. It’s a pdf we made for you that will act as your future “to-do list”.  Through out the week as you realize you are missing things, jot them down so that you can essentially create your own list of goals as you go.

-Have water stored. As we mentioned in our intro post (if you haven’t watched it yet, make sure you do) each day we will focus on a different reason why it’s good to have food storage. In other words it wont be a whole week of absolute mahem, but there may be a day or two you need water… ahem ahem.

Good luck, make sure you’re signed up and keep checking your emails or the blog.

For those of you who just can’t wait for some details on how it’s going to work… here is some insight

1. Each day you will receive an email telling you the basics of what type of emergency happened that day.

2. You then visit the blog for a full list of limitations and TASKS you have to do that day.

3. Through out each day, fill out the questionnaire on our blog and discuss what you learned on our facebook fan page FOR A CHANCE TO WIN THAT DAY’S PRIZE. Doing either of these things enters you to win, so don’t worry if you don’t have facebook.

4. At the end of each day – we’ll announce that day’s winners.

THEN REPEAT EACH DAY FOR 7 DAYS! ARE YOU READY?

At the VERY end we will still have LOTS of prizes for you to win as well. We’ll keep you posted on that!

We’ll see you soon and WE”RE SO EXCITED!

P.S. If you are like Jodi, and Julie’s husband and can’t seem to live without soda (they come from the same family)  make sure you have some stored! No spending money for 7 days means no big-gulps for 7 days, oh wait, did we just give another hint?

Pre-Challenge Giveaway

To kick-start us off on awarding all of our fabulous prizes, we have a little “pre-challenge” giveaway for you. Go and check out the list of over 100 prizes and sponsors of this year’s challenge.

THE WINNERS OF THIS GIVEAWAY HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED! TO SEE THE WINNERS CLICK HERE.

Prize
2 Food Storage Made Easy eBook Binders

How to Enter (one winner from each)

• Visit our Facebook Discussion page and leave a post telling us which prize(s) you want to win most and WHY
  AND/OR
• Fill out the short questionnaire below (hold the control or apple button to select more than one prize)

Today we are revealing the 10 th piece of our Seven Day Challenge puzzle: AWARDS AND PRIZES! We’re so excited and grateful to all the generous sponsors who have donated prizes to help make the challenge even more fun and rewarding. We hope you will show your support and gratitude to them, by checking out their sites and products.

And now the part you’ve been waiting for. Here is a list of all the prizes. Prizes will be given out throughout the week of the challenge — and at the end. There are going to be multiple ways to win prizes, which we’ll explain more as the challenge starts.

MAKE SURE YOU READ THROUGH THEM ALL BECAUSE A FEW OF THEM HAVE DISCOUNT CODES FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS!

Prize: Food Storage Made Easy eBook Binders

Company/Website: Food Storage Made Easy
Description: A comprehensive step-by-step guide to getting your emergency preparedness plan, water storage, and food storage put together in just ONE YEAR! Includes checklists, calculators, detailed information on long term food storage, and a large recipe appendix.

Prize: TWO Annual Subscriptions to Mozy Online Backup

Company/Website: Mozy Unlimited Backup
Description: 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. Use coupon code SEPTEMBER to receive 10% off annual and biennial subscription this month.

Prize: WonderMill Hand Mill and REBATE

Company/Website: The WonderMill
Description: WonderMilll Hand Mill already given away during the sign up stage of the 7 Day Challenge. $30 rebate on electric OR hand mill for all readers and challenge participants!

Prize: TWENTY Dr. Kno Preparedness CD-ROMS

Company/Website: Dr. Kno
Description: An interactive family preparedness CD-ROM that provides thorough preparedness guidelines and a life organizer software system. Manuals on the CD can be printed, or viewed on-screen for your family to use.

Prize: THREE Sets of Conversion Chart Magnets

Company/Website: Everyday Food Storage
Description: Crystal over at EverydayFoodStorage.Net has made her Powdered Milk Conversion chart into a slick kitchen magnet along with NEW charts for Magic Mix and Powdered Eggs! Now making your favorite recipes food storage recipes is even EASIER.

Prize: Rita Bingham Books -50 books at 50% off each

Company: Natural Meals Publishing
Description: Receive 50% off any of the following five books: Country Beans, Natural Meals in Minutes, The New Passport to Survival, Natural Sweets and Healthy Treats, and Food Combining Handbook. There will be 10 discounts given per book – Details to follow.

Prize: 30 Day Supply Bucket of Food

Company: The Ready Project
Description: Affordable, long lasting gourmet food storage Starting at under $30 per month Shipped to your home monthly Easy to cook, just add water Stores for up to 15 years Compact size fits under beds and in cupboards Meets the minimum daily caloric needs recommended by the American Heart Association.

Prize: ONE Annual Membership, and SIX three-month memberships

Company: Deals To Meals
Description: Deals to Meals tells you where the best deals are each week from all of the major grocery stores, help you know which items to add to your food storage and freezer each week. They also give you a weekly meal planner that is based around the best deals each week.

Prize: Customized Vinyl Labels

Company: Vintage Vinyl Decor
Description: Vinyl lettering to label food storage with. This lettering can be placed on your plastic buckets, other storage containers, shelving, almost anywhere. The award package would include: 2 sugar, 2 white flour, 1 wheat flour, 1 powdered milk, 1 red wheat, 1 white wheat, 1 oats, 1 white rice, + 10 your choice.. *in winners choice of red, brown or pink vinyl lettering

Prize: TEN Lifetime Memberships to Fresh Reminders

Company: Fresh Reminders
Description: Don’t let your hard-earned food storage go to waste because it expires! Fresh Reminders helps you keep track of all of those pesky expiration dates and will email you before your items go bad, helping you automatically rotate your food and stay safe. A free lifetime membership allows you to track an unlimited number of items, have first access to new features, and never see ads in your account.

Prize: Emergency Dynamo Lantern with Radio and 36 Hour Emergency Candle

Company: Ultimate 72 Hour Kits
Description: Incredible new bright LED dynamo lantern which never needs batteries. This product can charge a cell phone and has a USB tie which can charge an MP3 player. The energy stored is used to supply the LED Lights, FM Radio, and Siren. The candle is a must in all survival kits. It lasts for 36 hours and has an adjustable wick. The wick can be drawn up and used as a mini stove.

Prize: TWO copies of Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover

Company: Getting Finances Done
Description: Learn how to get your finances under control with Dave’s Total Money Makeover and then come join me for my free program “12 Weeks to Fiscal Fitness” starting in September at my website Getting Finances Done.

Prize: Cansolidator Pantry

Company: Shelf Reliance
Description: Shelf Reliance is an industry leader in food storage and emergency preparedness. Their Cansolidator Pantry holds up to 40 cans and is perfect for food storage organization and rotation! ALSO for ALL participants, use coupon code: “Challenge15” at checkout and get 15% off MSRP of any order (excluding multi-packs). Shelf Reliance always does free shipping for orders $199 or more.

Prize: A copy of Brite Music’s Safety Kids – Personal Safety digital set

Company: Brite Music
Description: A copy of Brite Music’s Safety Kids – Personal Safety digital set. This includes the songs in MP3 format, and the activity book in .pdf format ALSO – Add discount code: 2080701 to receive 10% off your entire order, including sale items for ALL challenge participants.

Prize: 1 Week Supply of Freeze Dried Food Storage

Company: Wise Company Food Storage
Description: This bucket includes – 2 meals a day – 1 breakfast and 1 entree (14 pouches of food) for a week for 4 adults OR 2 adults and 2-3 kids. Delicious and nutritious meals, just add hot water! It has a value of $120!! IN ADDITION – they will give FREE SHIPPING on any orders placed this month by mentioning foodstoragemadeeasy.net. Contact this email tursh2000@yahoo.com to receive the free shipping incentive!

Prize: ONE case of canned cheddar cheese

Company: Best Prices Storable Foods
Description: Creamy and delicious, REAL canned cheddar cheese that will store for 10-20 years or longer. A case contains 36 cans a $123 value.

Prize: SunDew Cold & Flu Defense System Kit

Company/Website: Soleil Life Sciences
Description: The SunDew Cold & Flu Defense System is the first product line to offer a complete solution to managing the common cold or flu. Protect with Hand Sanitizer, Support with Immune Booster, Fortify your body’s defenses under stress with First Response, and Treat symptoms and relieve discomfort with Cold & Flu Syrup. Use coupon code: “foodstorage” to receive 25% off your order for ALL challenge participants!

Today we are revealing the 9th piece of our Seven Day Challenge puzzle: FACEBOOK FUN AND SUPPORT!

Can you believe it’s almost September??? We have been working hard lining up some amazing sponsors for the challenge (check back Monday for the full list). Remember this is a learning experience for us all so we are going to be giving away prizes to those who come and share what they are learning.

We have decided to utilize our Facebook Fan Page to have an easy and safe environment to share our photos, videos, and stories about our 7 Day Challenge experiences. Each day that you come and contribute you will earn an entry into our daily giveaway. Check out this short video we put together to help you learn how to better use our Fan Page, especially with regards to the 7 Day Challenge.
 

p.s. Leave us a comment or come chat on facebook and let us know if you are doing any last minute preparations for the challenge!

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!

As you guys know, we’re hoping to have some awesome prizes for the Challenge. We’ve emailed a bunch of places, but thought it would be good to post this here for anyone interested in “donating”.

We already have close to 1500 participants that are eager to see if they are prepared! Our challenge is listed on the Ready.gov events calendar as an official event for Emergency Preparedness week so we should be getting some more sign-ups from that too! (Just choose your state and we should be listed on September 1st, cool huh?)

As a part of the challenge we want to have offer prizes for participants that are donated by sponsors. Some of the winners will include:

-people who follow the challenge perfectly (and “survive”)
-people who provide feedback of what they could have done differently
-people who share ideas
and lots more…

If you’re in the “industry”, or even NOT in the industry and want to have a chance to have exposure for your product, we’ll take it!

We’re going to be announcing all our prizes on August 31, so if you can get back to us by next Friday August 28, we’d greatly appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Email us at info@foodstoragemadeeasy.net.

P.S. Check back later on Monday for Jodi’s summer gardening report. She wont be bragging about this one

Recipe 1: Best Rice Krispie Squaries (courtesy of Grandma Lori)

Recipe 2: Homemade Popcorn
Put a few tablespoons of oil (any kind will do) in the bottom of a 4-quart pan. Pour in 1/2 c. of popcorn kernels (we buy ours in bulk #10 cans to use to make corn meal as well) and put the lid on the pan. Heat stove to medium/medium high heat. Allow the kernels to cook, shaking the pan occasionally to avoid burning. When there are a few seconds in between pops, remove from heat and pour into a bowl (be careful as lid may be hot). Coat with your favorite toppings!

Recipe 3: No Bake Oatmeal Cookies (As found on AllRecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl, combine the oats, sugar and cocoa. With clean hands, mix in the water, vanilla and butter to form a dough. Wash hands, then roll the dough into balls 1 to 2 inches in diameter. Roll balls in confectioners’ sugar until thickly coated (or they will become crusty). Chill 20 minutes before serving.

Click here to download the pdf version of this handout. If you have already purchased one of our Food Storage Made Easy Binders this is a perfect addition to the Step 9 section or recipes appendix. Enjoy!

p.s. If you have any good comfort food recipe ideas share them in the comments below and we will compile another handout with your suggestions!