The Wonder Junior Deluxe is an incredibly powerful and fast hand grinder for a mid-range price. You can use it for powerless emergencies, for daily use, or just when you need to grind something that won’t work in an electric mill like oily nuts and seeds or cracked grains. The WonderMill Electric is the quietest, fastest, and cleanest of all the mills we tested and we have been recommending them to family, friends, and blog readers for 3 years now.

The Wonder Junior Deluxe models have been on backorder for about 6 months now. Each new shipment that comes in is sold out before it arrives. We are currently taking orders for March delivery, however … we just received a bonus shipment of 20 Wonder Junior Deluxe hand wheat grinders due to an order cancellation. A lot of people have been hoping to get one of these great mills for Christmas and now is your chance. We will sell on a first come first serve basis until all 20 have been sold. THESE ARE NOW SOLD OUT. SORRY! We are on a waiting list to get another 20 Wonder Juniors in early January, but it may be as late as March. You may continue to place orders and will be added to the waiting list to receive one as soon as more are available!

We are giving away a FREE WonderMill Electric Mill in the month of december! The first 20 people to purchase an electric mill from our site starting today, will be entered to win a FREE WONDERMILL electric mill. That is a 1 in 20 chance to get your mill FOR FREE! You can choose to either receive a second mill to give to someone else, or get a full refund on your initial purchase. These are great gift items if you are looking for a bigger gift to give someone this year. ALL 20 HAVE BEEN PURCHASED. WE WILL EMAIL THOSE 20 PURCHASERS SATURDAY AFTERNOON WITH THE WINNER OF THE FREE MILL (REFUND)

We will be updating our WONDERMILL main page with details as we sell 20 mills of each kind. Go on over there to purchase and see how many are left!

Why do you have two food storage calculators?

In BabyStep 3 we have a 3 month supply spreadsheet which allows you to enter in specific meals/snack items to get an exact amount of food to store for exactly 3 months worth of meals that your family normally eats. This is a great way to get started if you are worried about starting to build a food storage full of weird things like wheat, dried beans, and powdered milk that your family never eats.

In BabyStep 4 we have a long term food storage calculator which allows you to just put in the number of people in your family and it automatically fills in the spreadsheet with the recommended amounts to store for whatever period of time you selected (i.e. a one year supply). These are the more traditional food storage items which are considered “life-sustaining” but you don’t necessarily plan specific meals around.

How did you come up with the numbers for the long term food storage calculator?

There are basically two schools of thought on long term food storage. One recommends a 2300 calorie diet with 300 lbs of grains and 75 lbs of powdered milk (this was the original recommendation given to members of the LDS church back in 1978). A more recent recommendation has been to increase the calories to 2400, raise the grains to 400 lbs, and lower powdered milk to just 16 lbs (this is based off of a research study done in 1979).

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

How do I add additional items to the calculator?

If you are wanting to track non-food items, make sure to look at our 3 month supply calculator as there is a tab at the bottom that has a place for you to input those items. If you want to track things like fruits/vegetables and canned meats in detail, you can either add them in as items in your 3 month supply worksheet, or go with a more comprehensive solution (see below).

Do you have any recommendations for healthier food options?

YES! Check out our Healthy Food Storage page for a great calculator suggestion that you can add in to your own spreadsheet.

Can’t you make it EASIER???

While we have put together instructional videos to help make it easy, we understand that there are some limitations with using excel calculators. Shelf Reliance has an AWESOME free food storage calculator tool that is web-based (easy to use, very comprehensive and you don’t need excel). You can actually set up an entire plan and then purchase it all at whatever monthly budget you choose (they call this the “Q”). Or you also can just purchase everything all at once if you are feeling anxious about getting your supply and you can afford it. If you don’t want to purchase their Thrive Foods you can simply calculate what you need, and email yourself a report to print off.

The reason we think this calculator is so cool is because there are SOOO many ways to customize it. You put in your family with their ages, you input the number of calories per day you want, and you can select exactly what types of foods you want to include. There are some general recommendations that it will give you with a wide variety of Thrive foods listed, but then you can tweak it and subtract or add whatever you want to give you the report you are looking for.

We wanted to give our readers a little incentive to try out the Thrive Calculator and monthly Q program so we put together a fun little bonus in June, but we will extend it into July since we are posting about it so late in the month. Click here to find out the details and learn more about Shelf Reliance’s monthly Q program. (Make sure to scroll down to the bottom of the post to find out about the free gift!) Don’t forget if you order through our Shelf Reliance links you get discounts off of retail prices.

Ingredients:
2 T. butter (use canned butter or shortening)
1 cup Bisquick
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup powdered milk
1/2 cup water
1 pint canned fruit

Directions:
1. Heat 16 or 21 briquettes, depending on Dutch Oven size (16 for 8″, 21 for 10″). 2. Melt butter or shortening in dutch oven. 3. Mix Bisquick, sugar, milk powder, and water in a bowl. Pour over melted butter. 4. Pour canned fruit over Bisquick mixture. 5. Cover with Dutch Oven lid. 6. Set over 5 or 7 hot charcoal briquettes. 7. Put 11 or 14 hot briquettes on the lid. 8. Let cook for 20 – 30 minutes

You may now download ALL the Shelf Stable Saturday recipes for free.
Click here for details.

Ingredients:
2 c. long-grain white rice
1 T. vegetable or canola oil
1 T. curry powder
1/2 tsp. onion powder
4 c. water
1 c. lentils (red or brown)
1 tsp. honey
1 T. Balsalmic vinegar
1 tsp. salt

Directions:
In one saucepan, cook rice according to package directions. In second large saucepan, heat oil & stir in curry powder & powdered onion over medium to medium-high heat. Heat the spiced oil mixture for appx. 2 minutes while stirring. Quickly add the 4 cups of water and lentils, stir & bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the lentils are soft. Remove from heat and stir in the honey, balsalmic vinegar & salt. Serve spooned over rice. May garnish with sour cream (from powdered) or salsa (if desiring a dairy-free alternative. Also very nice served inside of homemade taco shells, or wrapped as burritos (eliminating rice).

You may now download ALL the Shelf Stable Saturday recipes for free.
Click here for details.

Remember back in January when we asked for your help to get 100 shelf stable recipes for our Shelf Stable Saturday project? Well…we reached our goal. Actually we doubled our goal! Initially we had planned to combine all the recipes in a document, and add it as another bonus to our eBook Binder, in addition to giving the document to anyone who submitted a recipe as a way of saying THANK YOU. We figured our readers would still have access to them each Saturday as we post them weekly.In the spirit of giving, and in order to end the April Surprise party with a party favor for EVERYONE, we’re making the document available to all of you! We wanted to do a giveaway where EVERYONE gets something. In fact, we’re calling this the REVERSE giveaway, where not only do you get something, but we encourage you to turn around and give it to all your friends.

HOT OFF THE PRESS (like burning hot – we just finished this bad boy)… We present to you…. THE SHELF STABLE RECIPE BOOK. As we mentioned the recipe book is from reader submitted recipes. We have some of the best readers out there! You should know- you’re one of them! The recipe book has the following categories:

• INTRODUCTION
• BREADS & MUFFINS
• BREAKFAST FOODS
• SOUPS,CHILIES & STEWS
• MAIN COURSES
• SIDES, SALADS & SNACKS
• COOKIES
• CAKES
• DESSERTS
• MISCELLANEOUS
• APPENDIX: POWERLESS COOKING
• APPENDIX: COOKING FUELS
• APPENDIX: STORING WATER

(Please note: We made the recipes 4 to a page in order to save paper for you if you print it out.  In case you find the font to be too small by doing this, we also made a FULL PAGE VERSION. It’s 172 pages but you can print it front and back or just use it on the computer. Enjoy!)

In case you’re just joining the party now and missed the first 2 surprises, make sure you check them out. We still NEED YOUR HELP with Surprise #2, so please check that out. We had so much fun with this party, and now we’re both off to take a nap!

It wouldn’t be a proper party without a CAKE right? In honor of our party this month here is a great shelf stable cake recipe for your enjoyment Don’t forget to check back on Monday for SURPRISE #2, it’s a good one!

Dry Ingredients
3 cup sifted flour ( I sift after measurement)
2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup dark chocolate cocoa powder

Wet Ingredients:
2 tsp white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla
¾ cup canola oil
2 cup water

Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. 2. Put all dry ingredients into a large bowl and sift together 3. Mix all the wet into one bowl then add to dry ingredients. This is a really wet batter and there may be a few lumps. 4. Pour into a 13 x 9 ungreased pan. 5. Bake for approximately 40 minutes at 350deg. (Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees and increase cook time to 45 minutes for a glass pan).

Frosting:
1. Set aside 1 cup chocolate chips and 2 handfuls of marshmallows 2. In a sauce pan add: 3. 1 cup sugar 4. ¼ cup butter 5. ¼ cup milk 6. Stir occasionally on a medium heat until it comes to a boil. Do not boil. Remove from burner. Stir in 1 cup chocolate chips and 2 handful’s of marshmallows until melted into frosting. Frost cake

Ingredients:
2 can Condensed Cheddar Cheese Soup
1 can evaporated milk (I made mine out of powdered milk)
1/2 teas. pepper
3 cups pasta cooked and drained
2 tablespoon bread crumbs

Directions:
Stir soup, milk, pepper and pasta in baking dish. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake at 400 for 25 min or until hot and bubbling

Special Notes (from Jodi):
I made this for St. Patrick’s Day dinner in order to get a picture for this week, so of course I had to dye the cheese sauce green. I hope you can forgive the green macaroni picture. My kids are picky eaters and thought there was too much pepper, so if you are worried about that I would use 1/4 tsp. instead and maybe add in some seasoned salt to give back a little flavor. It was a nice change from box macaroni and was still quick and easy. And it rotates the 20 pounds of elbow macaroni I have in my storage.

Ingredients:
2 c. quick oats
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. raisins
1 T. chopped pecans
1 t. baking powder
1-1/2 c. skim milk (or 4-1/2 T non-instant, non-fat dry milk and 1-1/2 c. water)
1/2 c. applesauce
2 T butter, melted (or Red Feather Canned Butter or butter powder)
1 large egg, beaten (or 2 T dry egg powder and 4 T water)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine the first five ingredients in a medium bowl. If using dry milk and dry eggs, add those powders to the dry ingredients. Combine the milk (or water), applesauce, butter, and egg (or water) in a separate bowl. Add wet mixture to dry ingredients; stir well. Pour into a greased 8″ square baking dish. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until just set. Makes 4-5 servings.

Special Notes:
More photos can be found at The Harried Homemaker Preps blog

Or how about when you get your food storage calculator all filled out and it says to buy 600 pounds of wheat and you have NO IDEA how many buckets or cans that equates to?

Well we just spent the day perusing the internet to come up with a handy chart for you that includes the most common items recommended for long term food storage and how many pounds you can store in both #10 cans and 5 gallon buckets. Please note these are estimates depending on how you are packaging (i.e. using mylar bags or not)

 
#10 can data comes from ShelfReliance.com and is what THEIR #10 cans contain. Numbers could be slightly more or less elsewhere.

We will be making this into a cute handout to include in our next batch of free binder updates, but in the meantime it’s a great info sheet to print out and keep with you when you are shopping or ordering your foods online.

You can learn more about sprouting Basics on our Sprouting Page. Sprouting is definitely NOT the place to start when you are building a Food Storage, however as you learn more and more about Food Storage – you’ll understand it’s importance. I’m almost 3 years into my Food Storage journey – and I’ll say I probably spend a WEEEE bit more time on Food Storage than the average person so don’t worry if you’re reading this post thinking WHAT IN THE WORLD IS JULIE TALKING ABOUT?

So last week a good friend of mine, called me up and said one of our neighbors was going to be teaching her how to make sprouted wheat bread, and if she knew anyone that wanted to come along to invite them. I hurried and told my husband he needed to drop everything and watch the kids (he works from home some days). I have been wanting to learn about this for so long but have been WAY too scared. Something about being in a friends kitchen learning about it made it so much less intimidating. So if you’re asking yourself what is sprouted wheat bread I’ll tell you –

Sprouted wheat bread, is whole wheat bread made with flour ground from wheat berries that have been sprouted. After sprouting the berries by having them sit in water for a number of hours, the sprouted berries are then completely dehydrated and put through a grain mill to create flour. Here’s a picture I found online- my loaf didn’t last long enough for a photo shoot:

In another post, I’ll tell you all about the process and how it works. I need to work up the energy to MAKE it, and to film the whole process so you too can feel like your in your friends kitchen learning how to do it.

The reason for the post today is to research the benefits of sprouting, and sprouted bread specifically. After tasting the delicious bread I wanted to commit to making sprouted wheat bread, however I’m not going to lie - IT IS A PROCESS. So I wanted to figure out how much better it is for you – so I could encourage myself to do it more often.

The following information is found at ehow.com. I read a lot of information on different websites before I found this concise synopsis. The information found in this article seems to be consistent with other stuff I read.

Benefits of Sprouted Wheat Bread

Sprouted wheat bread is nutrient dense, easier to digest and has more dietary fiber than processed wheat bread. Sprouting wheat berries encourages them to make enzymes that break down starches, fats and proteins, which makes it easier to digest the grain. Sprouting tends to break down many of the substances, such as gluten, that may cause allergies in some people.

Nutrient Dense

Sprouted wheat, as well as other sprouted grains, have a significantly higher level of vitamins, proteins and enzymes. The complex starches in sprouted wheat bread are converted into natural sugars. Sprouted wheat is high in magnesium, manganese and selenium. It is low in cholesterol, fat and sodium.

Low Glycemic Index

Because sprouted wheat bread has a low glycemic index (GI) it is digested at a slower rate, enabling a person’s blood sugar level to be stable for a longer time, which helps them to be more satisfied, decreasing a desire to snack.

Health Benefits

Sprouted wheat bread has more dietary fiber than processed grain breads. This may improve bowel health and regularity. It may also help to lower cholesterol and blood pressure, assist in weight control and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. Sprouting assists in making nutrients more available and can increase the absorption of calcium, iron and other minerals.

Stay tuned – I’ll be showing you the whole process of making the bread “soon”.