One of the great things about the Parade of Giveaways is that you get to learn more about all of these great companies and products and see how they can help you build your food storage. The BEST part about the Parade of Giveways, is that entering giveaways has never been easier, and is open for the whole month. So don’t be afraid to sign up for your favorite ones (or ALL of them!)
 

Here is a list of some of the great products (and we have a couple more coming, so check back):

• Shelf Reliance’s most popular Food Rotation System
• 3-Day Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials
• Chef’s Banquet Freeze Dried Fruit Variety from Ready Project
• 2 FREE 1 Year Memberships to Deals to Meals
• Quality spices from All About Food Storage
• “I Can’t Believe it’s Food Storage” by Crystal Godfrey
• Augason Farms Breakfast Pack
• “Gardening for Beginners” from My Square Foot Garden
• The new 16″ deep Shelf Organizer from Can Organizer
• Golden Flaxseed from HiStakes-Spelt
• Food Storage Made Easy Binders on CD
• JUST ADDED: WONDERMILL JR DELUXE HAND GRINDER

The 7 DAY CHALLENGE is quickly approaching… When is it you ask?

Remember, on a SURPRISE day in September, we will email you (if you are signed up for the challenge – sign up here) and announce the challenge has begun. At that point, you will not be allowed to spend ANY money for 7 days, or go to any kind of store (for those of you who think you can use gift cards -you can’t). Each day we will present you with a different kind of challenge or emergency to deal with USING ONLY WHAT YOU HAVE ON HAND!

• You WILL need a 72 hour kit/Eprep Plan. That’s not a maybe, its a FOR SURE
• You will want your recipes printed (you may not be able to jump on the internet for a recipe)
• Make sure you have water stored
• Make sure you have a way to cook without power
• Inventory your storage and fill in the gaps of things you have forgotten to replace recently
• Make sure you are a fan of Food Storage Made Easy on Facebook -SO much discussion and learning goes on over there, especially during the challenge
• We will MAKE you use your long term storage – it’s not just for collecting dust you know. Do you have a Wondermill? They are on sale for one more week! Get one here.

A great way to make sure you are prepared for real life, AND the challenge, is to use the checklists and over 100 pages of information found in our Food Storage Made Easy Binder. The Binder is a downloadable file, so you can purchase it today, and get started RIGHT AWAY! Quit worrying about HOW to build your food storage, and just get started- we’ve done the hard work for you.

• The more you participate in the challenge, the more you learn, actually doing it really helps you learn
• You’ll have to modify some of the scenarios for your own family depending on diet, work schedules, marital status, kid status etc… We’ll try to be generic, but just relax and adapt
• Don’t skip out on work, or neglect important things just because you are doing the challenge -we can’t write “doctor’s notes” and excuse you from stuff
• Buying gas is up to you for the 7 days – if some of these things happened in real life, you wouldn’t be going to work at the same time using up gas etc…

Happy preparing! We’re so excited to SURPRISE you!

Emergency Preparedness, and Food Storage companies are sponsoring the giveaways on this index. Each sponsor is featuring their own product giveaway on their own sites. Visit each of the sponsors to enter. Don’t worry – we have rules for the sponsors to ensure entering will be EASY!

Check out the great products, sponsors, and giveaways for the entire month of September. Winners will be selected by each individual sponsor, and contacted by each individual sponsor. This is just an INDEX of all the giveaways (we’re not in charge of, or responsible for each individual giveaway).

Well we have been working on ways to answer that question. On our BabyStep 8 page, we talk about growing, canning, dehydrating, and freezing. Storing fruits and vegetables can be such a road block for so many people in food storage- ourselves included.

Today, Julie is going to share with you some things she is doing to get closer to having that part of her food storage under control. It involves GREEN SMOOTHIES, AIRPLANES, AND I TOLD YOU SO’S.

So for awhile now I have been into “Green Smoothies”. I got introduced to a website “Green Smoothie Girl” by my neighbor, and am just scraping the surface of some of the great stuff on her site. For those of you who make these, you know how amazing they make you feel, and how frantic you get when you don’t have your daily dose of fabulous fruits and vegetables. When thinking about WHY FOOD STORAGE, there are many reasons I have food storage. I choose to have food storage for emergency situations, but ALSO for situations where I might not have access to stores, or if money is tight. Having said that, I do a portion of freezer food planning in my food storage. Ideally I’ll have a nice, and fancy generator to power my freezer in case of no power situations, but we’re doing this ONE BabyStep at a time – remember!

Anyways, about a month ago, my sisters were trying to find airline tickets for a trip they were taking. I had a couple of free flights from points I haven’t been able to use for FOREVER, and offered to sell them my free flights for a discount of what they were going to pay for their tickets anyways. My points were good for something after all! So, I did something I rarely do- I SPLURGED! I have been drooling, and I mean DROOLING over Blendtec and Vitamix blenders for months. Each morning when I had been making my smoothies, I told myself- one day- one day- I would have an AMAZING blender. Well to make a long story short, with my free flights money, I bought a Vitamix (I did some SERIOUS research and debating on which one to buy, and finally went with Vitamix , but there are bonuses to Blendtec that might make it the right blender for you, I’ll do a post on just that later).

So with my Vitamix , I make so much fun stuff, smoothies being one of them. I went out of town without it, and barely survived – Ok- I’m being dramatic here, but seriously I LOVE it. Since I’ve made making smoothies a part of my daily life, I thought – I NEED to figure out how to store for this. This is where the “I TOLD YOU SO’S” come in. When I was a girl I would get SO embarrassed when I was grocery shopping with my mom and she would buy TONS of stuff on sale. Well, I’m going to confess. I’m turning into my mom. I am using Deals to Meals to buy my produce for so much cheaper then Walmart prices (I told you about this a few weeks ago). Earlier this week, I found myself buying huge amounts of fruits for freezing and I just had to laugh. Freezing this fruit when buying it for so cheap is a great way to build up my fruit storage, and save money at the same time. My plan is to keep buying 3-4 times the amount of produce I normally buy, when it’s at great prices, and keep on freezing. Ideally I would love to have fresh always, but just in case…

So here are some tips I have learned from readers about freezing fruits. Please share your tips in the comment sections below:

-Clean, wash and dry fruit first
-Place fruit on cookie sheets or platters to freeze (this avoids clumping)
-Put the powder that keeps fruit good on things like peaches
-Freeze for a few hours
-Place in ziploc bags
-Label the bag with the date (I need to do that part still)

• Basement junk making it difficult to reach long term food storage buckets
• Bags of groceries dumped on the floor BESIDE the shelves
• Canning supplies scattered in multiple places
• Shelves for 3 month supply are hard to access, hard to see, and hard to reach

My big excuse is that I had a baby 7 weeks ago. So for probably a good 5-6 months I avoided going down to the storage area like a plague. My sweet hubby would refill my containers upstairs with my long term foods. And my sweet 5 year old son would run down and grab cans of veggies or soup when I needed them for a recipe.

The problem could no longer be ignored when I sent my son down to grab a can of tomato soup for a recipe. He told me there wasn’t any. I didn’t believe him, because I should have at LEAST 10 cans down there. The soup is normally on the left shelf (see above) so I had to navigate around that junk to look for the soup. To my dismay there WASN’T any TOMATO SOUP. UGH! This is not supposed to happen to me.

• A complete reorganization of my storage space
• Elimination of space hogging (and leak-prone) water jugs
• Discarding of multiple foods items that were long past expiration
• Re-inventory of my three month supply spreadsheet

Once I had reorganized and catalogued my foods I realized how much I had depleted my storage over the past months. My “three month supply” was more like a partial 2 week supply plus a billion stewed tomatoes and mandarin oranges.

• Print out my list of “Need to Buy” items
• Use Deals to Meals (LOVE THEM!) over the next few weeks to catch the items when they are on sale
• Put foods straight onto shelves as I purchase them
• Fill up my new water storage boxes
• Buy or build more Can Racks as needed to improve rotation
• Buy better shelves some day (these are second hand and kind of odd-sized)
• Keep stocking up on my long term food storage now that I’m using it so much!

We quite often get asked to see an example of a filled out sheet, but I’ve always been a little embarrassed to share what we eat. I’ve finally overcome my fear and I’m willing to share. Hope it is helpful for you!

Jodi’s Three Month Supply Spreadsheet

p.s. Have you been procrastinating filling out your spreadsheet? Fill it out … RIGHT NOW and submit it to us at info@foodstoragemadeeasy.net. We will do a future post where we share all the reader spreadsheets and maybe we can all get ideas from each other! If you already have yours filled out … YOU ROCK and you can still send it to us too

To celebrate National Emergency Preparedness Month, along with our annual 7 Day Challenge we’re going to be hosting the First Ever “Emergency Preparedness and Food Storage PARADE OF GIVEAWAYS!”

This event is going to be fun for all of us to learn about some great companies, products, and services WHILE winning some great stuff. Here’s how it works:

• Emergency Preparedness, and Food Storage companies are sponsoring the giveaways on this index.
• Each sponsor is featuring their own product giveaway on their own sites.
• Visit each of the sponsors to enter. Don’t worry – we have rules for the sponsors to ensure entering would be EASY!

	FOOD STORAGE MADE EASY: Binder on DISC (3 COPIES). The Food Storage Made Easy Binder includes all 26 of our babystep checklists, our best website content, a huge recipe appendix, plus FREE UPDATES emailed to you whenever we put together new content or handouts. The Binder on DISC contains all of this PLUS our excel calculators. We will mail it anywhere in the world if you are a winner. CLICK TO ENTER
	SHELF RELIANCE: Enter to win Shelf Reliance’s most popular Food Rotation System, the Harvest 72″, a $459.99 value. It automatically rotates cans, adjusts for different can sizes, and holds up to 460 cans. With its easy-fit design and unique features, the Harvest 72″ makes food storage management a breeze. CLICK TO ENTER
	WONDERMILL: The Wonder Junior Deluxe is the highest quality most versatile hand mill available. You can create super fine flour or coarse cracked grains for cereals. Using the stainless steel burr heads you can make delicious peanut butter, you can grind flax or any other oily or wet grains, you can grind herbs and spices, soy beans, and legumes. Great for powerless emergencies. Regular price $219.95. CLICK TO ENTER
	EMERGENCY ESSENTIALS: 3-Day Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials -An assembly of basic emergency items for one for up to three days. Makes an excellent starter kit and stores well in a range of normal temperatures. Sized right with items that also makes a great automobile kit. Contains food, water, shelter, warmth, first aid, light, communication, and more. CLICK TO ENTER
	READY PROJECT: Chef’s Banquet Freeze Dried Fruit Variety Pack – 150 Total Servings, – 1/2 the cost of 6 #10 cans,- Easy to open and use, – Great for snacks, – Great for storage, Sliced Strawberries (3.95oz), Sliced Bananas (5.64oz),Sliced Peaches (5.5oz),Diced Apples (4.58oz), Whole Raspberries (4.93oz), Whole Blueberries (5.43oz) CLICK TO ENTER
	DEALS TO MEALS:. 2 FREE 1 Year Memberships to Deals to Meals. For about $1 a week, we scour the ads, compare prices of the major grocery stores to Costco, Sams Club, and Walmart, tell you where the best deals are, plan your week’s meals, and create your weekly grocery list. CLICK TO ENTER
	ALL ABOUT FOOD STORAGE: Quality spices transform food storage basics into delicious meals! Restock your cupboard with these Fall favorites (each in a 1 lb. bulk bag): Apple Pie Spice, Pumpkin Pie Spice, Chili Seasoning Mix, Hearty Bean Seasoning, Ole’ Taco Seasoning, Savory Stew Seasoning, Spanish Rice Seasoning, and Rosemary & Garlic Seasoning. Plus, a 120+ page cookbook, Simple Recipes Using Food Storage, with great recipes, tips, and conversions. Total value: over $50. CLICK TO ENTER
	EVERYDAY FOOD STORAGE: A simple step-by-step plan for using food storage to create delicious meals. Crystal teaches you how to transition common food-storage items (such as powdered milk, whole wheat, and dried beans) into your own recipes. She also provides over 100 kitchen-tested recipes for you to try. CLICK TO ENTER
	AUGASON FARMS: Augason Farms Breakfast Pack includes one #10 can of: Buttermilk Pancake Mix, Creamy Wheat Cereal, Potato Shreds, Vegetarian Meat Substitute Bacon Bits, Freeze Dried Whole Strawberries, Dried Scrambled Egg Mix. **Over a $75 value!** The pack is created to prevent Food Fatigue! Mix and match the products to create over 25 meal possibilities! CLICK TO ENTER
	MY SQUARE FOOT GARDEN: This e-book bundle includes “Gardening for Beginners,” a step-by-step guide that walks you through designing, building, and planting your garden. It also has “Planting by Color,” which gives you a week by week list of what to do and plant in your garden. New and improved—it now includes a planting schedule for both Spring and Fall! CLICK TO ENTER
	CAN ORGANIZERS: The new 16″ deep Shelf Organizer enables you to efficiently store and rotate your canned goods. This system makes it easy to move your food storage without the hassle of disassembly. Achieve a clean and organized look for your shelf, cupboards and pantry! CLICK TO ENTER
	HISTAKES-SPELT: Golden Flaxseed is heart healthy and has so many health benefits, they are hard to list. Add ground flaxseed to any baked good, cereal – cold or hot, salad, or yogurt. Take up to 2 Tablespoons per day and notice the benefits. CLICK TO ENTER

Check out these great products, sponsors, and giveaways for the entire month of September. Winners will be selected by each individual sponsor, and contacted by each individual sponsor. This is just an INDEX of all the giveaways (we’re not in charge of, or responsible for each individual giveaway). If you want to become a sponsor, please contact us at info@foodstoragemadeeasy.net for a complete list of rules and details.

While this “diet” is very healthy, it can also be a bit of a pain to prepare the foods. But I’m going to show you a few tricks I’ve learned to make it easier to follow, and super easy to stick with even on busy days when you aren’t at home to cook the food. And the bonus part is, it uses lots of food storage, yay!

Whole Grains

I have started keeping a bucket of wheat, rice, and oatmeal upstairs because I’m going through them so quickly. I make two loaves of whole wheat bread (click here for my favorite recipe) every few days and my family has started snarfing it up. I should be grateful that they love the healthy food but then I have to keep making it more often. At least it’s really cheap since I grind my own wheat! I’ve also started cooking up big batches of brown rice in my pressure cooker and storing it in 1 cup baggies in the fridge. This has been an awesome way to always have a healthy side dish on hand.

Fruits and Veggies

I have been using my favorite service Deals to Meals to find the best deals on produce and stock up. If the foods look like they may go bad soon I just stick them in the freezer. Usually I can make the freezer foods last until stuff goes on sale again. Sweet! (To see how easy it is to use deals to meals for product, check out this post)

Chicken

I am choosing to avoid red meat and cheesy/pasta dishes for now, but I still make some of our normal family favorites for dinner. So I have started cooking up large batches of chicken in the pressure cooker and keeping it in 4 ounce baggies in the fridge. It’s so easy for me to pull out a baggie and stick it on a salad for a healthy dinner, while my family can still enjoy a good spaghetti dinner. I like to consider frozen meat as part of my three month supply so preparing this in bulk is great for that.

Pressure Cooking

Here is my confession, until a few weeks ago I was AFRAID to use my pressure cooker. Seriously! But I could never make my brown rice turn out very yummy so I decided to give it a whirl. Well I am officially in love. The rice turns out perfect and chewy and delicious every time. And the chicken … oh the chicken. Tender, moist, and cooks in such a short time. After eating plain chicken on a george foreman for a few weeks the pressure cooker chicken in marinades are divine.

How to Use a Pressure Cooker for Rice and Chicken

The Finished Product

I accidentally had to eat some of the chicken after working so hard to prepare it all

Garlic Lemon Chicken Recipe

2 lbs thawed chicken
1/3 cup olive oil
2/3 cup lemon juice
6 cloves garlic
2 tsp. thyme

Mix all the marinade ingredients up and pour in a gallon ziplock bag along with the chicken. Marinate for 15-20 minutes and then cook in the pressure cooker according to your cooker’s directions.

Our Favorite Pressure Cooker

Cuisinart CPC-600 1000-Watt 6-Quart Electric Pressure Cooker, Brushed Stainless and Matte Black
Reduce time spent in the kitchen preparing meals with the help of this 6-quart electric pressure cooker–it cuts cooking times up to 70-percent when compared to traditional stovetop cooking methods. The unit traps steam inside, which builds up pressure to create hotter temperatures, and its tight seal locks in heat, moisture, and flavor, as well as vitamins and minerals for exceptionally healthy, great-tasting meals like soup, chili, and other one-dish entrees. For safety, the cooker must be fully locked for pressure to build, and it will remain locked until the pressure inside drops to zero. It is so easy to use and we LOVE it! [Learn More]

Remember that building a Food Storage is a PROCESS, so don’t get overwhelmed, celebrate your successes, and make goals to keep moving forward. Last year we learned a lot, and know that even REAL experts learned too. Wherever you may be, there is something you can improve on. If you plan on participating in the challenge here are some ideas to help you educate yourself, and get ready.

• IDEA #1 Go through the BabySteps and see where you may have holes in your preparedness plan and Food Storage.
• IDEA #2 Make sure you’re signed up for the Checklists, as they help you keep on track all year round. Along with bi-weekly reminders, you get a monthly Newsletter with tips, ideas, and great deals we find.
• IDEA #3 Get the Food Storage Made Easy Downloadable Binder. This 100+ page pdf helps you get organized with all 26 checklists, and all the best site posts, info, recipes and more.
• IDEA #4 Familiarize yourself with our Facebook Page. A ton of discussion, learning, and sharing goes on over there during the challenge. So come on over and get to know everyone and get used to how the page works before the challenge starts.

We’re so excited (well not REALLY), to do this again! We can’t wait to learn from each other like we did last year, and meet more of you on facebook – as that is where we do a lot of chatting about the days as we do the challenge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I grabbed a handout with some great tips and recipes on it. Here is a compilation of some of what was included:

• Protect your dutch oven from wind and rain, or add extra coals to compensate.
• Remember, it’s not an exact science, be ready to add or take away coals as needed (usually add).
• Cooking meat? Move coals to the bottom.
• Baking bread or desserts? Move coals to the top
• Meals that require more than 30-45 minutes to cook may need new coals added during cooking. If so, light new coals soon enough to allow them to get going before you need the.
• Keep the lid closed! Avoid peaking more than needed.

NEVER USE SOAP! Different people have different methods for cleaning their dutch oven. The goal is not to get down to bare metal. Use a spatula or scraper to remove all leftover food and sauces. Use a clean rag to wipe out as much residue as you can. Then add about a cup of salt, and use another couple of clean rags to scrub the bottom and sides smooth. Then remove the salt, wipe down with oil, and place it back on the remaining coals for 5-10 minutes. Then give it a final wipe down and it’s ready for the next time. Most quality dutch ovens come with cleaning and seasoning instructions.

Ingredients:
1 large can of sliced peaches
1 box yellow cake mix
1 can soda (lemon lime or ginger ale)
About 1/4 cup butter
Cinnamon to taste

Directions:
Heat enough coals to cook at 350 degrees F. Dump peaches with juice into dutch oven. Spread cake mix over the peaches evenly. Pour 1 can of soda evenly over the cake mix. Place a few thin slices of butter on top. Add a sprinkle of cinnamon. Cook until firm. Serve hot with cold ice cream!
 

One of the best things about Dutch Oven Cooking is that all you need for cooking is charcoal. Charcoal will store indefinitely so it is a fantastic fuel to keep on hand for emergency cooking. I am definitely going to be hitting the store to pick up a Dutch Oven for myself soon. I’ll share details about the one I get when I manage to get to the store

p.s. Do you have experience with Dutch Oven Cooking? Share your own tips and recipes in the comments below and we can all learn from each other.

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

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

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

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

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

Emergency Food in a Nutshell

Simply Planned and Simply Delicious
by Leslie D. Probert and Lisa L. Harkness
 
 
 

Background: A few months ago we presented at a food storage fair and had the chance to meet tons of great people in the food storage industry. We happened upon Leslie Probert and she told us that she thought what we were doing with helping people get their food storage was great. This was a huge compliment coming from Leslie as she as a long-term food storage expert who teaches at BYU Education Week, has a regular column in the MormonTimes and is the author of a fantastic food storage book. I have to admit I was a little “starstruck” speaking with her but she was so sweet. She gave us a copy of her book and I’m so excited to share my thoughts about it with you.

What I Liked: There is so much that I liked about this book I could fill up pages about it! But here are a few of my favorite things:

• Very thorough and yet basic information about the long term food storage foods
• Everything is very well researched and well sourced so I feel like I am getting accurate and safe information
• Great charts on which months are best to purchase which items, shelf life of foods, lots of planning guides, etc.
• 200 recipes made ONLY with food storage foods!
• Tips on “expanded food storage” to increase the variety in your meals
• Appendices full of more advanced information

Favorite Tip: When I first read through the book I somehow missed the fact that there were 7 appendices in the back. I got to the section with recipes and figured that was the end. As I was flipping through it again for this review, I noticed them and I was just thrilled. They include everything from gardening/sprouting tips, conversion charts, and rotation ideas to my very favorite thing … alternative cooking methods! This is an area that feels so overwhelming to me and I have been too intimidated to really delve into it thoroughly. This appendix includes many different options of fuel for cooking and discusses safety precautions, proper storage, shelf life, and cooking devices for each one. Seriously, it is 15 pages jam-packed full of great info.

Feedback: A lot of the bread-type recipes in this book call for “mixes” as one of the ingredients. There are a few basic mixes you can make and store to be used in multiple recipes later. While I am definitely a fan of keeping some some mixes on hand for “emergency” meals, I would also like to try the recipes without using a mix so that I could use fresh ground flour. There is no conversion or easy way to calculate how much of each ingredient to use for a single recipe.

Summary: For someone who is fairly new to food storage, this book is extremely thorough but is still “user-friendly” for a beginner. For those with some basic knowledge already, the recipes and additional tips and information are invaluable. We found the book available at Amazon.com from time to time, but you can also buy it from Deseret Book or Emergency Essentials. I highly recommend it!

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

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

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

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

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

This list was put out by BeReadyUtah.gov but we have included our own links and comments in italics along with it.

Plan for the types of disasters that can happen in the area where you live. You may need to plan for a snowstorm instead of a hurricane.
 
There is no need to purchase preparedness items for disasters that are very unlikely to happen in your area. Check this post to find out the common disasters that occur in your area as a starting point.
 

Create your own personalized list. You may not need everything include in “ready made” kits and there may be additional items you need based on your personal situation. For example, if you have pets, you may need special items. Don’t forget to have supplies in your car and at work.
 
Another special circumstance is if you have small children or babies. You will need to plan differently. Check out our ideas on disaster kits for toddlers/babies.
 

Budget emergency preparedness items as a “normal” expense. Even $20.00 a month can go a long way to helping you be ready. Buy one preparedness item each time you go to the grocery store.
 
You may find that you working on your food storage can actually end up SAVING you money. Read our post about food storage and money savings to see how!
 

Save by shopping sales. Make use of coupons and shop at stores with used goods. Don’t replace your ready kit items annually, just replace and cycle through those items that have a shelf life (e.g. batteries, food). You may want to test the radio and flashlight every September to make sure they are in good working order.
 
Use a service like Deals to Meals to help you save money on your groceries so you can buy even more food storage!
 

Store water in safe containers. You don’t have to buy more expensive bottled water, but make sure any containers you use for water storage are safe and disinfected.
 
One of the most cost-effective storage containers (besides “free” juice and pop bottles) are the water storage boxes. Read our review about the ones from Emergency Essentials.
 

Request preparedness items as gifts. We all receive gifts we don’t need or use. What if your friends and family members gave you gifts that could save your life? Don’t forget to protect them by sending preparedness gifts their way too.
 
Julie’s mom gave her and her sisters the ultimate food storage gift a few years ago … WONDERMILLS for them all! Check out the picture of the happy threesome
 

Think ahead. You are more likely to save money if you can take your time with focused and strategic shopping. It’s when everyone is at the store right before the storm hits that prices are going to be higher. Use a list to avoid duplicating items when you are stressed or panicked.
 
Our Emergency Preparedness Plan can get you started with a basic list of items you may want to include in your emergency prepping.
 

Review your insurance policy annually and make necessary changes. When a disaster strikes, you want to know that your coverage will help you get back on your feet. Renters need policies too, in order to cover personal property.
 
Recently Julie was offered earthquake insurance in addition to her regular homeowner’s policy. She asked if it was worth it on our facebook page and discovered that it was actually a fantastic deal and she bought it right away. Find out what limitations or additions your policy has or you might want to include.
 

Update contact records. Have an accurate phone list of emergency contact numbers. If you are prepared, you may be able to help friends and neighbors who need assistance. By sharing preparedness supplies, you can help each other.
 
This is great to include in your emergency binder and also to print out and stick on your fridge.
 

Trade one night out to fund your 72-hour kit. Taking a family of four to the movies can cost upwards of $80-$100. Just one night of sacrifice could fund a 72-hour ready kit.
 
This can apply to many things. If you are already on a tight budget you are probably not spending that much on entertainment. But there is always something you can trade or cut in your budget to add a little to your preps. Even if you have to do it gradually.
 

p.s. If you have any more ideas that have worked for your family please share them in the comments. If we get enough ideas we will add them to this list and make a follow-up post with a hand-out!

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

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

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

I learned so much! It brought back memories of when I first started food storage. I was a little overwhelmed, but this time I know through BabySteps I can slowly implement the things that I choose. So here’s a little disclaimer, this is not necessarily for everyone right now! I’m on a personal journey of trying to change some of the foods I eat. By doing this- I have to think about food storage a little differently. Since some of you asked to hear about what I learned I’m sharing this…

The speaker was Yvonne Salcido, who was from the School of Natural Healing. When she started speaking I felt excited as she seemed vibrant, and looked healthy. She started by giving some of her basic guidelines for eating. It’s amazing the more you learn about nutrition, the more some of this stuff keeps repeating itself. Anyways, here they were:

-Eat Foods in Wholesome State
-Study Nutrition and Herbs
-Avoid toxic habit forming habits
-Fresh is Best
-Staff of Life (wheat, soaked and sprouted)
-Eat in the Season thereof

After she talked about that, she gave us a little TREASURE! This is something I’ve been searching for and developing in my mind lately. When this slide came up, I did a little shout for joy! THE WORK HAS BEEN DONE. She gave a little calculator of what to store for “optimally healthy” food storage. I asked her if I could share it, and she said yes, so here it is….

300 lbs Organic Wheat
155 lbs Other Grains
50 lbs Nuts
50 lbs Seeds
75 lbs Organic Beans
60 lbs Raw Honey
20 lbs Oil (coconut oil, olive oil, wheat germ oil)
10 lbs Salt (real salt)
60 lbs Sprout Mix
5 lbs Seed Sprout mix
Garden Seeds (non hybrid)
Spices

Then she talked more about sprouts. The University of Utah did a study to find out the highest vitamin per storage space kinds of food you can store. The answer was…. SPROUTS. They came up with a mixture (that I couldn’t write down fast enough) but I’ll do a little digging and try to find it. I have a mix called Pro-Vita mix I got at a store called Kitchen Kneads, and I think it might be the same thing.

Next up was a topic we have never covered and I think we need to talk a little bit more about. Yvonne suggested we store herbs for medicinal purposes and then went through a bunch of different kinds of herbs you can store that help with different ailments etc. The first one she talked about was cayenne, which is good for circulation, and can stop bleeding etc. She then talked about a lot more that I wrote down, and couldn’t take notes fast enough on. I was really interested, but must admit I felt like I could have used about 10 hours of info on that stuff instead of 20 mins. I’m going to learn more about it, but in the mean time, know that its out there and start learning about it, if you feel ready and think its a good fit (Like I mentioned before these are just my notes- I don’t know much about this yet, you need to do your due diligence, research, and speak with your doctors about medications, and potential interactions with herbs).

So anyways, those are the notes I took. I know some of you readers were there because I recognized some of you from facebook . If I missed anything feel free to comment or shoot us an email. We’re all in this together!

• See how Julie is CONSTANTLY re-organizing her food storage [View Post]
• Jodi and Julie “argue” over how to plan a three month supply [View Post]
• Julie discovers that food storage is NOT only for desserts! [View Post]
• Jodi shares her adventures with canning, sprouting, and more. [View Post]
• Julie shares the BEST food storage recipe ever. [View Post]
• Jodi divulges two amazing cornmeal recipes. [View Post]

SURPRISE GIVEAWAY

We are so excited we have ALMOST hit another milestone in our blogging journey as we are approaching having 5000 “fans” on our facebook page. We are going to be announcing a FACEBOOK ONLY giveaway as soon as we hit the magic number of 5000 fans so if you aren’t already a fan make sure you go to our page and click the “like” button. You MUST be a fan in order to get the notification about the giveaway and find out how to enter (it will be easy we promise!)

UPDATE: We already hit 5000 fans so make sure to check out the Facebook Note for details!

Being a facebook fan gives you more of a day-to-day look into what we are doing to learn more about food storage and using it in our daily lives. We also announce special sales and events, ask and answer lots of questions, link to other great food storage information sources, and post our latest blog posts so you can read them right on facebook and never miss a post again. It’s been a great way to get to know our readers better and to learn from all of you as well. Hope to see you over there!

HERB CLASS SALE

Julie attended a “healthy food storage” class over the weekend (her class notes are coming later this week) and had to share this great offer with you (before it’s too late). One of the suggestions for people that are into more whole, natural types of foods and herbs was to make sure to store herbs for medicinal purposes. Dr. Christopher’s School Of Natural Healing was giving a special for conference attendees only, that they said we could pass on to our blog readers. They do a Family Herbalist course that is normally $500 but if you go to this link by TUESDAY (tomorrow), you can get the conference special of $100. If this is something you’re interested in learning more about, click here.

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

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

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

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

Corn Pancakes
Buttermilk Cornbread

   

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

My favorite recipe I’ve made since venturing into cooking with Food Storage is an Enchilada Pie recipe. I told you all about it back in my cooking challenge post.

Since then, I’ve added another twist on the recipe. I realized I was out of enchilada sauce MID RECIPE a few weeks ago. I had gotten far enough that there was no turning back, but I DID not want to run to the store. Does that EVER happen to any of you? I somehow got confused about how much enchilada sauce I had stored (My husband forgets to tell me we’re down to 2 or 3 left when I get him to get one out of the basement for me).

Anyways, I found this recipe on allrecipes, and to my amazement it turned out great, and used ingredients I always have on hand. Now I wont need to bother buying Enchilada Sauce.

Ten Minute Enchilada Sauce
(anything with the title “ten minutes” in it, is my kind of thing)

Ingredients

1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons self-rising flour (I used regular)
1/4 cup New Mexico or California chili powder
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion salt
salt to taste

Directions
Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in flour and chili powder, reduce heat to medium, and cook until lightly brown, stirring constantly to prevent burning flour.
Gradually stir in tomato sauce, water, cumin, garlic powder, and onion salt into the flour and chili powder until smooth, and continue cooking over medium heat approximately 10 minutes, or until thickened slightly. Season to taste with salt.

So go ahead, give yourself a challenge! Try this out with the NEW twist!

If you have been following along with our Extreme Food Storage Makeover you will have already been introduced to my mom, Grandma Lori. I remember growing up we used to eat homemade strawberry jam and bottled peaches and my mom would make alfalfa sprouts on the kitchen counter. As I got older my mom kind of stopped doing those things and when I got married I was so busy I didn’t give it a second thought.

When we started our blog people started to ask us about some of the “food storage swear words” like gardening, canning, dehydrating, and sprouting and we realized we knew nothing about them. I asked my mom why she never taught me how to can and she said “When you can buy canned tomatoes at the grocery store for $0.50 why would you waste the time to can them yourself?” Because I wanted to LEARN HOW, Mom!

I decided it would be good to learn some of these self-reliance skills even if I don’t ever “HAVE” to rely on them. Plus there truly are some legitimate benefits to processing your own foods such as the health factors, you CAN save money, and a lot of it tastes so much better home grown and processed then store-bought. Not to mention it is really fun and satisfying to know you did it yourself. I am still a beginner to much of this stuff, but here are some of the fun projects I’ve attempted so far:
 

	COMING THIS SUMMER! As part of a series I’m going to be doing on self-reliance

I had never tried any of these things before I started blogging about them, so if you have been scared to try, believe me, if I can do it so can you!

As we have been discussing some of the things Jodi and I have learned over the last 2 years of blogging about food storage, my favorite thing has been somewhat of an unexpected thing. I know I’ve been harping on this a lot lately, but it really excites me that food storage can be healthy. I really had no idea how many hidden treasures of knowledge I would gain on this journey.

When we first started, I told Jodi there was no way I would even store beans because they were to hard to soak, cook, and use. I said I would stick to tuna for protein and call it good. Who knew I would be the biggest fan of all things beans just 2 years later. I love using them to make a way healthy cream of chicken soup, to put in all sorts of recipes, and to eat as a healthy side.

Throughout the last two years we have really discovered that there is definitely not a one-style-fits-all approach to food storage. When this first became apparent to us was in our second month of running the blog when we were researching how we were going to get started on our three month supply.

Julie posted her approach first which was to just purchase extras of the foods she normally buys. I left a comment on that post about how the foods she eats are weird and I wouldn’t know what to cook with them. Well a lot of people liked her style AND her foods so I got embarrassed to post my approach later on that week. I made my own little excel spreadsheet with all of my meals planned out and I thought everyone would make fun of me for being SOOOO detail-oriented. Well according to the comments on that page a lot of people liked my approach too!
 

   

By now most of our readers know that Julie is the “excel queen”, so when she realized there were a group of people who really liked my initial 3 month plan she decided to be a wonderful sister-in-law and make me a fancy, auto-calculating version that we ended up posting on the blog. Our deluxe 3 Month Food Supply Excel Worksheet is now one of our most popular and helpful tools and it is fantastic even if you don’t feel the need to plan for specific meals. Check out how lovely my new 3 month plan is using our awesome spreadsheet. To fill out your own blank sheet, and watch some tutorial videos on how to do it, go to the Three Month BabyStep Page. Thanks Julie!

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

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

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

It seems like just yesterday that we came up with this crazy idea to blog about food storage when we had absolutely ZERO food storage and had no clue where to even start. In fact according to our very first blog post, we originally wanted to call this blog “Food Storage For Dummies … and We’re the Dummies”. hehe.

We have come a long way since we started two years ago and we wanted to celebrate this anniversary with you by taking you on a humorous journey of our successes and failures. So let’s get started!

We didn’t fully understand blogs, the blogging community, or blogging software in the beginning. We were both web designers but didn’t catch the blogging vision yet. Needless to say, our first site design left much to be desired

We have to admit that we have a lot more fun with the blog now that it is PINK! (Sorry to our men readers, it’s just the truth)

Check back every day this week as we walk you through some of our hidden archives to highlight what we have learned about food storage over the past two years. There will be some funny stuff you do NOT want to miss!

	January 2009 - We launched our free BabyStep Checklists to make it even EASIER to accomplish our Ten BabySteps. We were so excited to give people tangible lists to follow as they gathered their food storage including what to learn, what to buy, and how to use it.
	Spring 2009 – We started a facebook fan page. We had no idea at the time how much fun it would be. We all get to know each other through status updates, fan pictures, and success stories. One of the biggest perks of the fan page is all our reader experts out there who help answer questions. We learn so much on the fan page through sharing and great discussion.
	April 2009 – As people began completing the individual checklists, we got numerous requests from people wanting to get all the checklists at once so they could move ahead faster or make substitutions depending on what was on sale. We launched our Food Storage Made Easy eBook Binder which includes all the checklists, and the majority of our site content in one printable file.
	September 2009 – The Seven Day Challenge was a mock emergency that we put together in September of 2009 in honor of it being Emergency Preparedness Month. Our readers all participated with us as we went through seven days of different emergency situations and we shared feedback and learning along the way. We’re excited to do it all again this year!
	June 2010 -One of our favorite additions is our Newsletter program that we JUST started this month! We now offer recipes, food storage news/events, blog features, tips, and information about giveaways to people who are in our checklists email lists (whether you’re done, or still in the middle of them). Just in case you only want the newsletter and not the checklists, you can sign up for that here.

We’re so excited for the posts this week. They will be fun for you to go down memory lane, or if you’re a new reader to get to know us better (just don’t laugh at us – we were REALLY just beginners when we started this).

For those of you who have followed our blog for long you would know I LOVED couponing, I DID couponing, couponing SAVED me a lot of money – UNTIL:

• I had another baby last winter
• Albertsons closed down (my primary store to coupon at)
• Red Plum (one of the coupon booklets) stopped coming in the newspapers
• I feared my neighbors got irritated at my piled up newspapers on my driveway
• I got super busy with life, blogging, life, etc

So for the last 8 months, I haven’t couponed. Each time I went to the store – I cringed because I knew I was wasting money. If couponing is still working for you, more power to you – keep doing it – and I applaud you. For anyone out there who needs an easier way -that you’ll actually do- without training, I have to tell you what I’ve been doing lately. I’ve been using a site called Deals to Meals, it’s so easy, I’ll tell you how I do it in 3 minutes.

In case you don’t like watching videos, or your computer is slow, here’s the summary of how I use Deals to Meals:

• I sign in and pick my state
• I choose the best deals from all 12 grocery stores in Utah
• The items are added into a grocery list
• I print the grocery list and bring that one paper to Walmart
• I price match and get the best prices from all 12 stores at one store
• DID I MENTION I ONLY GO TO ONE STORE!
• I pat myself on the back because I save a lot of money with virtually no work!
• I even sent my husband with the list once… and it WORKED?1?!?

*Check your Walmart for their policies -it’s worked for me at 3 different Walmarts

Like I mention on the video, there are a ton more services that Deals to Meals offers, like making meal plans based on sale items, and letting you know which food storage foods are on sale that week. Jodi will share with you how she uses them (after she recovers from having her baby any day now! I can’t wait to meet my darling little nephew…) After trying the service for just TWO WEEKS we both were so impressed we knew we had to share it with you all. Here’s how it works:

When we first heard of Deals to Meals, they were only in Utah, but now they are in 12 states! We hope they become national, because they are awesome. Even if you don’t live in one of the 12 states, the meal plans can be used wherever you live – so go and check them out FOR A FREE TRIAL, and don’t forget to tell them we sent you –

p.s. We became affiliates for Deals to Meals because we love their service so much and are way excited about promoting it!

I meant for this to be a Sunday night treat for the family but the night got too busy and I ended up cooking it at midnight after the kids were in bed and my hubby was off to work an overnight shift. Needless to say I’m not TOO sad that I get to sit and enjoy eating it myself while I type up this post So here is the infamous Honey Granola recipe I got from Cox Honeyland with my personal modifications included.
 

Sorry for the poor quality picture, I couldn’t find the computer cord for my good camera!
 

Yummy Honey Granola

Ingredients:
4 c. oats
1 c. craisins
2 c. chopped peanuts
1/2 c. butter
3/4 c. Pomegranate flavored honey (mmmm)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. cinnamon
dash of salt

Directions:
Mix together the oats, craisins and peanuts and set aside. In a small pot combine butter, honey, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt. Bring to a boil for 1 minute. Pour the liquid mixture over the oat mixture and stir it in really well. Spread onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring every 5 minutes or so. Let the granola cool, crumble it up and store in an airtight container at room temperature to keep it delicious.

p.s. Fellow honey-lovers please feel free to leave a comment if you try this recipe!

After the fair I was inspired to learn more about honey, to try the amazing honey granola recipe I picked up, and to start using it more in my cooking. Today I am going to share some honey info with you, and later on I will post the results of the recipe!

How much honey should I store

According to most food storage calculators it is recommended to store 60 pounds total of sugars/sweeteners per year per adult. Our calculator uses the common recommendation of just 3 pounds of honey per person. However, we both use honey in our basic bread recipes so we have chosen to store a little bit more than that. Some people feel that for health reasons they would rather store more honey than refined white sugar so obviously they would also up their honey storage amount. As you start using your food storage more and baking a lot from scratch you may find that you prefer to cook with honey and thus want to up your own storage amount as well.

What are the different types of honey*

Raw – Unheated honey that has been removed from the comb. It may contain bits of wax, insect parts and other small debris. Raw honey contains small amounts of vitamins and minerals that are not in white sugar.

Filtered – Raw honey that has been warmed slightly to make it easier to filter out small particles and impurities. Filtered honey is almost the same as raw, just a little cleaner. Most of the small amounts of nutrients remain.

Liquid – Honey that has been heated to higher temperatures to allow for easier filtering and to kill any microorganisms. Usually lighter in color, this form is milder in flavor, resists crystallization and is generally clearer than raw honey. Much of the trace amounts of vitamins are lost in this processing.

Crystallized or Spun – This honey has had some of its moisture content removed to make a creamy, spread. It is the most processed form of honey.

*Info found at food storage faq

How do I replace honey for sugar in a recipe?*

To bake with Honey:
Use pure raw honey for up to half of the sugar in the recipe
For each cup of honey used: reduce the liquid by 1/2 cup
Add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Reduce oven temperature by 25 degrees

To cook with honey:
For sauces, marinades, and salad dressings substitute pure honey for up to half the sugar in the recipe.
1 cup of sugar =1/3 to 1/2 cup honey. (If it is a stronger honey you would use 1/3 cup. If it is milder use 1/2 cup)

*Info found at Cox Honeyland website

What are some good food storage recipes using honey?

• Ezekiel Bread
• Honey Whole Wheat Bread
• Blender Wheat Pancakes
• Granola Bars
• Honey Granola – COMING SOON!

Where can I get honey in bulk?

• Emergency Essentials sells honey in a #10 can size for $32.95 which is about 9 pounds of honey.
• Honeyville Grain sells a 5-gallon bucket for $133.99 which is 60 pounds.
• Walton Feed has grade A honey in 45 lb buckets for $92.80.
• My best friends at Cox Honeyland sell pure raw honey in lots of different sizes. A 12 lb bucket is $35.20 and a 48 lb bucket is $131.80 for example.

Tell me more about Cox Honeyland

Besides having great quality honey, at reasonable prices (especially if you contact them about doing group orders) … Cox Honeyland also offers tons of fun and delicious honey products. They have flavored honeys in cute little bears (I bought the pomegranate flavor and it is divine) and creamed honeys which make great gifts. They even sell really yummy honey popcorn that I bought as well. Ok I am a honey addict I admit it. And the coolest thing is, if you go to their store in Logan, Utah, you can bring your own jars/containers and they will fill them with honey for you at a much cheaper price than buying it in the containers. How cool is that?

So if you are dreaming of honey now, I hope that helps a bit. Just wait until we post about the honey granola. YUMMY!!!!

p.s. We have no affiliation or advertising relationship with Cox Honeyland besides Jodi being slightly obsessed with their honey.

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

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

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

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

Remember our “Why Food Storage?” series we did awhile back. Lately I have been learning a LOT about two of the reasons for Food Storage that would surprise you. It’s not the natural disasters, economic, or even every day reasons. What I’m learning about more lately is the health benefits and religious reasons but it’s shocking to me how intertwined they actually are!

In our series we mentioned that the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints counsels it’s members to build a food storage. On our facebook discussion page, we were thrilled to hear from readers who are not members of the LDS church who likewise have been encouraged by their faith to be more prepared.

For those unfamiliar with the LDS faith the church also counsels it’s members to live by a “Word of Wisdom”. A lot of people know the Word of Wisdom to be abstaining from alcohol, cigarettes and other harmful substances. What a lot of people don’t know however is it also has nutrition guidelines. The doctrine states to eat fruits in their season, eat meat sparingly, and that grain is the staff of life. Whether members or not, these are some great guidelines.

In an attempt to eat more aligned with these guidelines I have been learning so much about healthy eating and I’m so excited to share them with you – but one thing at a time – first up is this cookbook.

“A World Of Wisdom” by Amy Cox Jones is a cookbook full of recipes organized seasonally! She goes through each season, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring (and has a year round section) and gives you recipes for meals that use foods that are in season. Not only is this cost effective, but it also is good for you – did you know that a lot of foods provide you with certain nutrients that are needed for that time of year. She also gives you tips on how to start eating healthier.

What I liked most about this cook book is that I actually know what the ingredients are! Often times healthy cookbooks have all these ingredients that intimidate me. She also uses wheat berries in some of the recipes – which is great for people without grinders. Oh and there is a section on basics with milks, sauces, and dressings that are healthy and easy to make! Here is a recipe Amy told me was one of her family favorites (it’s “healthy” for a dessert at least):

1/2 cup of honey
1/2 cup of almond butter
1/2 cup of peanut butter
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1/2 cup grain sweetened chocolate chips
3 1/2 cup whole grain cereal (like crispy brown rice, puffed wheat etc)

Combine honey and nut butters in a large pan and heat on low until melted. Add vanilla. Separately combine cereal and chocolate chips. Pour cereal mixture into honey mixture and stir well to coat. Pack tightly into a 7 x 11 pan, cool and cut into squares. You may have to adjust cereal measurement to get the bar consistency just right.

To learn more about the book and to order, go to the website or order directly from Amazon.com.

While I have loved going through Amy’s book, and her site… I am even more excited about an LDS Holistic Living conference she is organizing. I mentioned on our Facebook how excited I was about this conference because one of the classes is a HEALTHY FOOD STORAGE CLASS! Let’s be honest, I know how to make tons of cakes, and cookies with my storage, but there is still a lot to learn about some of the healthier sides of food storage. Other classes include: homeopathic 72 hour kit, the hows and whys of backyard egg production, essential oils, vaccination, understanding herbal meds, cold is the cure, pain relief w/out meds.

I will be there and think you should be too! The website for the conference is here. The early bird registration expired yesterday, but she’s going to let OUR READERS still in for the early bird price (which is $47 instead of $60). To get this price, after you click submit on the registration page – there is a link that says “click here if you have a coupon” – It will ask for a password. The password is: nogreenjellohere (no spaces). Once you’ve put the password in, you’ll get to the payment page.

p.s. I have made a goal to keep learning about all this healthy stuff, and will continue to share it- if people don’t find it too boring. Let us know what you would like to know more about.

*We are not affiliated with the conference – or the cookbook – I just am that excited about all the new stuff I’m learning! (We do make a tiny commission if you purchase the book through our Amazon link though)

As a part of Grandma Lori’s Extreme Food Storage Makeover, we posted the results of her 3 month supply shop storage room mothers day gift. When we did, we got asked a lot of follow-up questions … so here we go with the answers:

We went into great detail in how we made the plan in this post here. Since we had the 3 month planning spreadsheet tell us exactly what we needed for her recipes, the shopping list part was simple.

This was the surprising thing to all of us! As a disclaimer- we only bought foods for 90 dinners not including meats (on that day). Grandma Lori’s kids are mostly moved out now so they eat a lot of leftovers for lunches, and she didn’t feel the need to have breakfasts planned out. She’s going to work on getting cereal here and there and work on that part of the plan over time. So anyways, here’s the receipt for proof – the grand total was only $150!

This is unbelievable too! It took us under 2 hours in and out of the store. You’d be surprised how fast shopping can be when you have a list, you leave your toddlers with your spouse, and you don’t get distracted by the bakery or treat aisle.

Well here’s a little tutorial for you on how we did this. You can make them in Microsoft Word and make them any size. You just need to buy the labels at any office store and then follow these basic directions.

So, like we said before – next up is long term food storage- the scary but FUN part!

If you’re following Grandma Lori’s Extreme Food Storage Makeover, you know that last time we left off with a “to be continued” after Julie TEASED you with pictures of the 3 month supply shop. Well now we are showing your the pantry – all organized and BEAUTIFUL! I love making labels… can you tell? Watch the video to see how Grandma Lori reacted when she saw it all put together!

NEXT UP: THE SCARY STUFF….LONG TERM FOOD STORAGE…

 
Our class was for people who were “Getting Started”. We were happy that was our topic because we by no means feel like experts. We’re just sharing what we do with our Food Storage in our own experience. We thought since everyone couldn’t be there, we would share our slideshow notes with you… We really ought to make each one of these slides its own post, but for now you’ll have to just enjoy the cliff notes version.

So here goes it – this was our

	This is where we introduced ourselves and told people how we got started.
	For this slide, we made a little disclaimer – while we live and sleep food storage, we’re not total experts – but what we are good at, is helping people get started and excited about their food storage.
	Here we talked about all the SCARY food storage words that paralyzed us when we first got started.
	We weren’t afraid to show where we were 2 years ago, so the audience could see we really have come a LONG way.
	This is where we started talking about the common stumbling blocks. The first stumbling block is having NO IDEA where to start. Our checklists solve that problem.
	The NO SPACE excuse is so OLD! We solved this a long time ago with the help or our readers in our “Small Storage Spaces Solutions” post and handout
	No Time? No problem. Use food storage as a time-saver and cook things ahead of time like pizza pockets and pre-made smoothie mixes
	No Money- No problem. Jodi shared a lot of her lessons learned about how people with small budgets can use food storage to SAVE money.
	Now we get into the “Strategies” – Sometimes you just have to snap and get something done. Pick a day each month to work on things.
	Recommit… If you fall off the Food Storage train, remember you can always come back on and work little by little.
	If at first you don’t succeed- try try again. Like Julie tried again and again to finally fall in love with beans.
	Ever think getting things done with kids around is too hard- plan on things taking an extra 15-20 minutes and involve them. You’ll make great memories and teach great lessons.
	Like Jodi and Julie, get a friend to try all the new and exciting things in the world of Food Storage. Messing up is so much more fun when you have someone to laugh with.
	Make a plan, and use our ebook binder to help you stay organized!

We really had so much fun and met some cool companies and vendors at the fair. We’ll be reviewing some of Peggy Layton’s books, along with Emergency Food in a Nutshell by Leslie Probert and Lisa Harkness. We felt so excited and honored to meet these Food Storage experts.

We also met companies who have all sorts of different types of foods we want to learn more about. We also saw some cool solar ovens/ battery packs we’ll be researching.

Jodi also will probably dedicate an entire post to the lady selling honey of all sorts of varieties and flavors, while Julie tells you how much she drooled over some awesome storage containers – but alas this post is TOO LONG!

See you soon,

Family trip to the dump to get compost for my vegetable gardens – PRICELESS

A BIG pile of … dirt

Gotta love a beater truck that’s not afraid to get dirty (my husband loves classic cars)

Hubby forgot his gloves … I’ll let you chew on that thought for a bit

The kids thought it was a grand adventure!

And my gardens are beeeeeautiful!!!!!!

And now if the weather would just cooperate I could actually start getting something DONE in my beautifully filled garden beds. If you need help with your vegetable gardens this year check out my cousin Emily’s eBooks and website on Square Foot Gardening. Tons of great info that I use all the time!

p.s. Once we recover from the weekend we will be sharing a lot of great stuff about the Food Storage Fair we attended on Saturday. You won’t believe some of the great products and companies we learned about, amazing authors we met, etc. Make sure to subscribe to the blog or follow us on facebook so you don’t miss a thing!

We had a lot of great conversations and met a lot of fun people, here are just a few of the things that stood out.

• “I don’t need Food Storage, I have a whole box of snickers” (quote)
• Running into an old friend from where Julie lived 5 years ago who shared a recipe with Julie that she’ll share soon on the blog
• “You mean YOU are the real Jodi and Julie” (quote)
• Meeting one of our readers who told us she has her Food Storage Made Easy Binder FULL of all sorts of resources she has compiled over the last year, and that a 1 inch binder was just not big enough
• Seeing the shock on people’s face when we showed them what a Wondermill can do, and giving away a Wondermill to a lucky winner
• Watching people avoid direct eye contact with us, as the whole topic of Food Storage mainly just freaked them OUT
• Having YOU our readers come say hi… It was way more fun talking to YOU then talking to people who couldn’t figure out why the Food Storage booth had to be so PINK.

We also got to sit next to some GREAT women Bloggers. We had no idea we would make new friends while we were there too. You should totally check out some of our new friends:

• Kara, from Creations by Kara – who makes these totally cute bows that we bought for Jodi’s daughter and Julie’s niece.
• Kim and Kris- the most adorable twins from the DIY Dish who do webisodes teaching you how to do great stuff – one of which is a lamp recovering tutorial that Julie is so going to do – when she “finishes” her bedroom.
• Elisa – a girl after Julie’s own heart (we talked about PIZZA)… she is from Mormon Mommy Blogs (where we contribute monthly) and the Casual Blogger Conference which Julie is hoping to attend (if her husband will agree to take the boys ONE more weekend).
• Vanessa and Camille from Sassy Scoops.  We regretted not going to one of their girls nights outs now that we know they are so fun!

Being busy mommy bloggers we don’t get “out” much and thought it was so fun to meet some of our fellow bloggers in REAL LIFE!

Missed us at the Expo? Well we’re going to be presenters at a Food Storage Fair this Saturday in Ogden… We’re speaking at 9am and 1pm, hope to see you THERE!

WHAT: Food Storage Fair
WHEN: 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday
WHERE: Shepherd Student Union Building, Weber State University, 3848 Harrison Blvd., Ogden
ADMISSION: $5, bring a friend and he/she gets in for half-price; preregistration requested, (801) 399-8207

Powdered Milk FAQ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Utah Valley Women’s Expo

When: April 23rd & 24th, 2010, 11 am to 8 pm (both days)
Where: McKay Events Center, UVU, Orem, Utah
Tickets: Normally $5 but for our readers = FREE

Click on the ticket to print a full-sized version to bring to the show. Tell your friends too!

WonderMill Giveaway

If you don’t have a wheat grinder yet, make sure to stop by our booth and enter to win a FREE Wonder Junior Deluxe hand grinder. We will also have a few electric mills available for sale there if you want to buy one without the hassle and expense of shipping. (If you can’t attend, we’re keeping our shipping FREE for everyone this whole month too!)

LIMITED TO THE EXPO: Food Storage Made Easy Binders ON CD

This is something new and exciting we are doing just for the show. We wanted to make our eBook Binders available for sale to people who visit our booth, so we have made it into a Digital Binder on a disc. The cd contains all of our excel worksheets and the full eBook binder file. We will be selling the digital binders for a special discount of only $12 at the show. You will definitely want to come by and grab one (or more!) at such a great price.

FOR EVERYONE: eBook Binder SALE

For those of you who don’t live in Utah County or who aren’t able to attend the show, we didn’t want to leave you out! We are going to make our eBook binders available on our site for the SAME $5 discount during the days of the Expo. So for FRIDAY AND SATURDAY ONLY you can get the binder download for just $12. WOO HOO!

p.s. If you live in the Ogden area, stay tuned for more information about a special event we will be attending up in your area NEXT WEEK!

So here goes the reason for this post. As we have grown our Facebook page Jodi and I have become very impressed with the amount of knowledge all our readers have to share…. I’ve committed to fix this problem recipe box of mine and I have a few ideas I’m excited to implement. Before delving into it however, I thought I’d selfishly canvas all our readers and ask you guys –

How do you organize and keep your recipes?
Do you have any systems for sharing recipes?
What is your favorite way to sort recipes?

I’ll make you a deal, if you give me your ideas then I’ll share them all and develop some ultra rad way of keeping it together!

Share your ideas in comments, on our Facebook page, or email us at info@foodstoragemadeeasy.net!

Thanks in advance, and I promise to share all the tips!

Gather everything you need to get started, including some helpers.	Chop off the tops of the berries and any gross parts (2 quarts = 1 batch).
Chop up the berries. Oh how I love my imitation slap chop. Although it IS falling apart so I might have to splurge for a REAL one soon!	Pour the beautiful chopped berries into a large pot and start cooking (if you like chunkier jam you can mash the berries with a potato masher first).
Pour in 1/4 c. lemon juice (some recipes don’t call for this).	Add the pectin.
Add 1/2 tsp. of butter to reduce the foaming.	If you like smooth jam like my family, puree it with a Bamix at this step (I love my Bamix too!)
While you wait for the strawberries to come to a boil, measure out 7 cups of sugar into a bowl. (Yes SEVEN!)	Now take a well-deserved quick break and enjoy an ice cold diet coke. This step is mandatory at my house.
Dump the whole bowl of sugar in at once. Bring back to a boil and stir for 1 minute while it boils.	Meanwhile, sterilize your jar lids on the stove and try to ignore the fact that my burner looks freakishly purple.
Remove the pot from the stove and pour the delicious jam into sterilized jars. One batch makes about 4 small jars.	Add the lids and rings and wait for them to pop to know they are sealed. Isn’t this just a beautiful site?

While I didn’t include this part, you should make sure to water bath can your finished jars according to the directions on your pectin package or in your canning guide. This will make sure your jam is properly preserved for long term storage.

Happy jam-making!

We actually started our blog before we really knew what the whole blogging world was all about, so we didn’t discover the beauty of RSS feeds for quite some time. We thought we would share with you a quick lesson on RSS feeds and how to use them so that you don’t have to go through the hassle of manually checking in to see if we have posted anything new.

We asked our tech-savvy cousin Sam to help explain what RSS is and how to use it in a quick tutorial video. You may be seeing more of Sam in the future as we will be picking his brain for a future series on doing “Food Storage on a Budget”. His personal finance blog is a great resource for helping you get your finances in order.

RSS Feeds Made Easy

Now that you have the knowledge, we encourage you to go out and subscribe today! Don’t forget to add all your other favorite food storage blogs to your google reader too. It’s a great way to stay informed on all the latest food storage news around the web. Check out our Useful Links page for some of our favorites.

Well we had a great “Food Storage Fools Day” where we actually did some things we have been putting off FoReVeR! We were so glad our readers joined us and got some great emails, facebook discussions, pictures and feedback about what you all did. Wasn’t it so much more fun to do it together? We were just glad to have the accountability to actually DO stuff.

Although Julie was tending her nephew, had unexpected dinner plans come up, and was kinda feeling lazy on April 1st, she was THRILLED to have this day to FORCE her to get some things done! These are the things she accomplished.

-Purchased propane fuel and charcoal for the Volcano II stove she has. This is her current “electricity free” cooking plan, but it wouldn’t have worked well without fuel!
-Got some new foods for her 72 hour kits that required no cooking. Some of the things she added were beef jerky, raisins, granola bars, crackers with canned chicken, and new candy.
-Took all the disaster kits supplies out of the big awkward bin that is hard to carry and moved it into two bags.
-Packed bigger clothes for her toddler in the bags, and actually put clothes for the baby in the bag.

Jodi has been feeling behind with her gardening. Even though the weather was awful this week she was still able to get a great start on some of her gardening tasks that she has been putting off for several weeks now. Here’s what she got done:

- Printed and put together her new gardening binder
- Planned out and typed up her garden plans for this year.
- Sorted through all her seeds and made a list of what she still needs to purchase
- Planted a TON of seeds in her jiffy pellets using the planting schedule from her gardening binder
- Made a plan for getting the outside gardens ready for planting some seeds directly outdoors, hopefully to be done this following week!
- NOW I finally feel ready to start gardening this year, yay!

For those of you who submitted your pictures and results we entered you into a giveaway for our Food Storage Made Easy Binders! And the winners are…

Stephanie W
Alisa D
Sondra M

Email us at info@foodstoragemadeeasy.net and we’ll get you the download!

Here are a few of the pictures we got from all of you! Good job guys, you inspired us with your emails, hard work, and diligence!

Today, Julie commits to:
-packing some supplies for her new baby in her 72 hour kits – at this rate he’ll be a toddler before she does it!
-getting fuel for her volcano cooker (her current option for powerless cooking)
-put her disasters kit into backpacks, not a big awkward bin

Today, Jodi commits to:
-Actually start her seeds (last week’s gardening post got her motivated)
-Fill her new water boxes – like with WATER – not just good intentions

So initially we were going to just tell you to do something, have you post it in the comments and call it good BUT OF COURSE…

So a lot of you already committed to something in last week’s post or on Facebook. If you haven’t already, hurry up and pick something.

Once you have COMPLETED something you’ve been putting off, email us the details WITH a picture at info@foodstoragemadeeasy.net. You can also put your pictures on the Facebook fan page. Submissions must be received by FRIDAY NIGHT.

Monday we are going to post a bunch of pictures of our own and of your progress and randomly pick 3 LUCKY WINNERS TO GET OUR FOOD STORAGE MADE EASY EBOOK FREE- (You have to ACTUALLY do something, and submit a picture via email to qualify – info@foodstoragemadeeasy.net)

Dinner Is In The Jar

Quick and Easy Dinner Mixes in Mason Jars or Mylar Bags
by Kathy Clark
 
 
 

Background: If you know Jodi and me, you would be surprised at how much we differ, while being very similar at the same time.  When my husband and I met, he told Jodi (his sister) – “I met a girl I know you’re going to like- she’s just like YOU!” When it comes to cooking, meal planning and recipes however; the only thing we have in common is our deep and abiding love for Cadbury mini-eggs- which you would know about if you were a Facebook Fan.  Anyways, I’m SO not into recipes. I wing meal planning, make things up, and barely measure stuff.   Since incorporating food storage into my daily cooking however, I have found myself using more recipes and was even EXCITED to review this book.   “Dinner Is In The Jar” is filled with meal mix recipes that can be easily stored in mason jars or mylar bags.  By following the instructions, recipes, and guides you can create a suppy of easily prepared dinners using food storage ingredients for emergencies and convenience.  A lot of the recipes have add-ons like meat, or cheese for when you are actually making them, but most of the ingredients are in fact “In The Jar”.

What I Liked: What I liked most about this book is the simplicity and instructions.  Each recipe has a list of ingredients to put in your mason jar or mylar bag.  With each recipes comes a page with labels you can photocopy that have the instructions for actually cooking the meal when the time comes.  I also liked a lot of the meal ideas.  They were meals that you would like eating and that sounded N-O-R-M-A-L.  I’m not into fancy hard recipes.

Favorite Tip: My favorite tip is the step-by-step instructions on how to use mylar bags instead of mason jars.  Mason jars can be expensive and using mylar bags is a great alternative.  Kathy even suggests giving these as gifts and I could totally see myself decorating the labels, tying ribbons around them and using them as neighbor gifts come Christmas.

Feedback: If I had one suggestion for getting the most out of this book, I would plan on preparing the mixes in a group with friends, family members or neighbors. Some mixes require a lot of different spices or ingredients and I imagine buying the stuff in bulk would make it more cost effective.  If you don’t plan on making these in a group setting, then probably plan on making large quantity of a few recipes, rather then a few of each kind of recipe – did that makes sense?

Summary: For someone looking to make pre-made mixes and have easy to use instructions, recipes, and labels “Dinner In A Jar” is AWESOME!

We are beginning to review some food storage, emergency preparedness, and self-reliance type books. Hopefully it will help you in deciding which ones to add to your own library.

In The Trenches

Financial Survival During Times of Hardship
by Carol Schultz-Weil
 
READ JODI’S BOOK REVIEW

Dinner Is In The Jar

Quick and Easy Dinner Mixes in Mason Jars or Mylar Bags
by Kathy Clark
 
READ JULIE’S BOOK REVIEW

Emergency Food in a Nutshell

Simply Planned and Simply Delicious
by Leslie D. Probert and Lisa L. Harkness
 
READ JODI’S BOOK REVIEW

More great reviews coming soon …

    - I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage by Crystal Godfrey

    - Cooking With Food Storage Made Easy by Debbie G. Harman

    - Country Beans by Rita Bingham

    - I Dare You to Eat It – by Liesa Card

    - The Vegetarian Slow Cooker: Over 200 Delicious Recipes – by Judith Finlayson

And of course, we wanted to share these “HOW-TO’s” with all of you so that you can be prepared too. (If you have already purchased a Food Storage Made Easy Binder we will DEFINITELY be including these as handouts in the free updates). So let’s get started!

In the event of an emergency, if you have identified a potential natural gas leak, it is important to shut off your natural gas and then report the leak to 911 or to your local gas company. Here is a quick video showing how to shut off your main gas valve as well as the gas to your furnace/water heater.
 

How to Identify an Outside Gas Leak:

• Hissing, roaring or blowing sound
• Dirt being blown into the air
• Water being blown into the air at a pond, river, or creek
• Continuous bubbling in wet, flooded areas
• Fire at or near exposed piping
• Flames apparently emanating from the ground
• Dead or brown vegetation in an otherwise moist or green field
• A “rotten-egg” odor (this is the most common sign inside your home)

Important Reminders:

• The gas company has to come and restart your service if you shut off the gas, so make sure you only do it IF you identify a leak. If there is no leak then it is not necessary to turn off your gas.
• If a gas leak is discovered, turn off any potential “ignition” sources and evacuate everyone from the area
• Do not attempt to make repairs or extinguish fires

Square Foot Gardening FAQ

Hello FSME readers! I’m exited to have the chance to answer some of your gardening questions! Just a little background on me—I’m a mom of two boys, and this is my fourth year of gardening. I’m not an expert, but I am determined to learn all I can and pass it on to others. So here we go!

1. What soil mix is best for raised bed gardens?
I suggest a combination of ingredients called Mel’s Mix. It is equal parts compost, vermiculite, and peat moss. For specific instructions, go to my website and click on the Build It tab, then read the post there.

Each spring I add more compost to my boxes—I usually need to add one quarter to one third of the volume of my garden bed. Also, after harvesting you can replant in that square. Before you do, add a scoop of compost and mix it in.

2. What are cold frames and how do you use them?
A cold frame is like putting a glass roof on your garden. Imagine a mini-greenhouse, built around your garden beds. It helps you plant and grow sooner, and it extends the season later by protecting the plants. I would not suggest using cold frames if you are a beginner unless your weather conditions require it.

3. SEEDS

3a. Do higher quality seeds really make a difference?
YES! I’ve personally experienced this. You know those super cheap seeds by American Seed Company? There’s a reason they are so inexpensive. They have a very low germination rate, about 10%, which means you are paying for a bunch of seeds that won’t sprout.

3b. Where do you buy your seeds?
I have always purchased whatever brand I find at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, or IFA (Intermountain Farmers Association, the local farm coop store). I have found all of these seeds to be similarly priced and comparable in quality.

The advantage of buying seeds at a local store (like IFA) is that they often carry brands that have been developed specifically for the climate in which you live. The advantage of purchasing from a catalog is that you can choose from endless varieties and types of vegetables. I just hate waiting for something to come in the mail!

3c. What are Heirloom seeds?
Heirloom seeds, or vegetables, are varieties that were grown in the “old days.” Many have been used for over 50 or 100 years, and there are many more varieties. However, they are not as disease resistant as the seeds you will find at the store.

Since the industrialization of agriculture, seeds have been bred for consistency and disease resistance. This has resulted in fewer varieties (sort of a “one size fits all”) and hybrids, which are more expensive.

3d. How do I store seeds?
If you use the square foot gardening method, chances are you’ll have tons of seeds leftover. I put mine in snack size ziplock baggies, so if the seeds spill out it’s no big deal. Then I keep them in a cool, dry place. In the summer I put them in my fridge or basement. In the winter I keep them in the garage.

4. What are good plants for colder climates?

Root veggies (beets, carrots, onions, leeks, turnips, radishes, potatoes)
Cabbage family (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, mustard)
Peas and beans

If you have a short growing season, buy varieties that harvest in a shorter time frame.

5. Can you share any composting tips for beginners?
Don’t do it. Okay, that’s not totally true. If you have the space and want to compost for environmental reasons, by all means go ahead. But unless you have a lot of mass (think 100 gallons) and are willing to do a lot of work (turn it every week), you won’t be generating compost for this year. I live on 1/5 of an acre and with the grass clippings and the food scraps from a family of 3, combined with donated leaves, I have barely made enough compost to refill a box or two.

There is no compact, easy, non-messy, non-labor-intensive way to make compost that I know of. I am going to research composting this summer by interviewing my friends and neighbors to see if anyone has a magic composting trick.

The only composting I know of that is compact, very little work, but does use food scraps (fruits and veggies only), is vermacomposting—that’s right, with worms. I have a friend who does this. The compost she gets is like gold, but is measured in cups, not cubic feet. I’m going to do a post on this as well!

6. What’s the best way for a beginner to get started? Step-by-step instructions!
See my special offer below.

We had too many questions for one post, so stay tuned for more great info from Emily coming soon in a future post!

Gardening For Beginners

Emily is the author of a set of two new eBooks that are super helpful for beginner gardeners. We love her easy step-by-step approach to gardening that walks you through the entire process, just like our BabyStep program does for your food storage! She is offering a limited time discount to Food Storage Made Easy readers.

If you’re following Grandma Lori’s Extreme Food Storage Makeover, you know that last week we left off with a “to be continued” after Julie asked Lori all the questions to make Grandma Lori’s personal 3 month plan.

Julie opened up her favorite computer software program…. excel… and went to town putting in Lori’s dinner recipes into our 3 month supply planning sheet.

• We put in 12 different dinners, then repeated the more popular ones to get 30 days of dinners
• We then watched excel do all the math for a 3 month supply
• We put in a variety of lunch, snack and breakfast ideas and guessed what she would use in a month and allowed excel to do the math to get us 3 months
• To see the completed excel click here
• We now have printed her master ingredient list (see pdf)

• We’re going to inventory what Lori has on hand and put it into excel
• We’ll see what’s left to buy
• Buy and stock pantry

Stay tuned as we keep at it… This is not an overnight project!

Isn’t this so fun? WHAT ARE YOU DOING to build your Food Storage. Join us in our April 1st “Don’t be a Food Storage Fool Day”

How to Grow Easter Grass With Wheat – Instructions

Step 1: Soak a heaping cup of wheat kernels in a bowl of water overnight.

The wheat should have teeny tiny sprouts. Aren’t they cute?

Step 2: Line your Easter basket(s) with saran wrap.

Step 3: Fill the basket with soil

Step 4: Soak the soil with water, get it nice and wet

The kids think this part is really fun

Step 5: Spoon a thick layer of wheat onto of the soil. Mist with a little more water.

Doesn’t that look so nice?

Step 6: Wrap the basket(s) in plastic or a ziplock bag. Try to make it airtight.

Look how cute our baskets (and kids) are before the plastic.

Step 7: Set in a warm place and leave the plastic on until most of the seeds have started to sprout grass. Remove plastic and mist daily if it looks dry.

Step 8: Enjoy a nice thick blanket of REAL Easter grass in a few weeks!

Don’t forget to try to have at least one accident along the way. It makes life exciting

HAVE FUN and HAPPY EASTER!!!

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.

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

SORRY – ALL DATES ARE NOW TAKEN!
We will be at Utah Valley Spring Women’s Expo on April 23th & 24th if you want to come learn and see us. We’ll have more details and possibly tickets to giveway soon!

April 4-10: taken – April 7
April 11-17: Lehi–April 14
April 18-24: Murray– April 22, Utah Valley Women’s Expo–April 23-24
April 25-May 1: Lehi–April 29, Weber State University Food Storage Fair–May 1
May 2-8: Spanish Fork–May 4th
May 9-15: SLC–May 11th
May 16-22: Provo — May 18th
May 23-29: West Valley — May 27th

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 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). Emily has some great eBooks you can check out by clicking the banner below. And her website offers tons of free information all through the gardening season!

Use coupon code FSME20 to get 20% off the bundle!

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

Happy Gardening!!!

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!

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!

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).

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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 (see updated post how to make from scratch)
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!

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

“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!