3 Month Supply of Food Storage

I was thinking this morning that the drawback to eating your food storage is that you are never really done. It's just one crazy cycle. There are days when I feel so empowered by all the planning and shopping and cooking, but today is not one of them. When money is tight, it's hard to think that buying something that I won't need for a few months just because there is a sale is a wise idea. Deep down I know it is. Today must just be a bad day. A few days ago I decided that I would add to my new year's goals and keep my 3 month rotation up, so I've been gung ho for the last 3 days, but suddenly I'm not so eager. It will pass.

Food Storage Challenge Day 14

Last day!

I made the Quick and Easy Chili to take to the potluck. It was the first time I have soaked beans overnight, so it was a bit of experiment. (I usually use either canned beans or I do the boil for 1 min. and soak for an hour method.) Turned out great as usual.

http://dailyfoodstorage.blogspot.com/2010/10/quick-easy-homemade-chili.html

On a very very sad note, last Saturday, we went to Albertsons in Tooele to buy some super cheap items for our storage (see last week's post), and on the way home we stopped by our favorite Beef Jerky store and bought some to save until we were done with the challenge. Tonight I pulled it out, and YIKES! There was mold on it! I thought jerky was supposed to last!?? So sad. Kind of reminds me of saving more manna than is needed. Darin, of course, said that wouldn't stop him. I know, he's disgusting! (Update: He said he went to take a bite and smelled it and changed his mind.)

Still forgot to buy my shampoo, so I'll just have to hold out til Monday.

Food Storage Challenge Day 13

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup tonight. I like to use the frozen noodles. They don't get so mushy. Also carrots, onion & celery. One more day to go.

Food Storage Challenge Day 12

Only two more days! Tonight we just had spaghetti. It was another book fair day, so I grabbed some sauce from the freezer that I froze a few weeks ago when I made gnocchi. Our favorite sauce is Prego. We have several cases of it. I had added 1 lb. of hot sausage to it when I made it originally, so there was probably about 1/2 lb for tonight's meal.

Food Storage Challenge Day 11

Another busy day at the Book Fair, but I did have time to come home and make Porcupine Meatballs and canned green beans. Porcupine Meatballs always reminds me of when my mom made them when I was growing up.

http://dailyfoodstorage.blogspot.com/2010/05/porcupine-meatballs.html

For anyone wondering, my shampoo is still holding out. :)

Food Storage Challenge Day 10

I was working at the Book Fair a little late, so Darin made dinner. He made shepherd's pie. He used some green pepper that I had cut up and frozen in a Ziploc, and it was really good. Using green beans, carrots, peas and corn is also really good, but I forgot to tell him to use them.

http://dailyfoodstorage.blogspot.com/2010/07/shepherds-pie.html

Only 4 more days!!!

Food Storage Challenge Day 9

Today was Book Fair set-up day, so I've been gone all day and got home late. I threw together a quick and favorite Chicken and Salsa Soup that Darin always loves. (What food doesn't Darin love?)

I was lucky to have pepper jack cheese in the freezer and some tortilla chips to garnish it with. Such a simple recipe. All you have to do is add the ingredients and heat them up.

http://dailyfoodstorage.blogspot.com/2010/05/chicken-and-salsa-soup.html

Food Storage Challenge Day 8

On the menu today was homemade country fried chicken with homemade country gravy, mashed potatoes (from the garden) and homemade buttermilk biscuits with frozen corn. Everything but the corn needed milk, so that used up a lot of powdered milk. the chicken and the biscuits needed buttermilk, so I added two tbsp lemon juice to 1 cup of milk and whipped it for a few minutes. It was quite a yummy dinner.

For dessert, we had a pumpkin pie dessert. Also quite yummy.

I was quite grateful that before the challenge I bought a 25 lb. bag of flour and 5 dozen eggs. They have come in quite handy this week.

http://dailyfoodstorage.blogspot.com/2010/11/country-fried-chicken.html

http://dailyfoodstorage.blogspot.com/2010/11/buttermilk-biscuits.html

http://dailyfoodstorage.blogspot.com/2010/11/pumpkin-pie-dessert.html

Food Storage Challenge Day 7

Today we went to my grand-nephew's 1st birthday party. We ate pizza with cake and ice cream.

After, we went to the Blizzards hockey game. It was for a community service thing that Tuyen had to do for her program. She helped collect tickets.

I made sure to bring lots of snacks so that we wouldn't have to buy anything there. However, there wasn't a water fountain anywhere to be found, so I was SOOOO tempted to buy a drink. But Darin stayed strong for me.

Food Storage Challenge Day 6

Tonight's dinner was Hawaiian Haystacks with chicken, gravy, rice, cheese, olives, celery, pineapple, peas, water chestnuts, tomatoes from our garden (yes, they were still growing), and chow mein noodles. Always a hit.

One of the rules of the game is that we can't buy anything at all, unless it happens to be on sale and we want to stock up on something. We just can't use it during the two weeks.

Albertsons had a fabulous deal on cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soups for 29 cents if you buy 10 (we bought 50 each), and chicken broth for 35 cents if you buy 10 (we bought 40--that's all they had). We actually took a trip to Tooele since that's the only Albertsons left in Utah (except St. George). It's only a 25 minute drive, and we do that all the time for other things anyway. We couldn't spend any money on anything tonight anyway, so we made a night out of it.

I love finding good deals!

PS.
The powdered milk is getting to be quite challenging for me. Since I've been half & halfing it with the store milk & powdered milk, we've been able to stretch the 4 gallons out, but I quickly realized that even then, our 1 gallon+/day family was going to be in trouble soon. Devin already seems to think there's something fishy with the milk, so I've been nervous about how she would react to straight powdered milk, even with the addition of sugar or vanilla. Sooooo, I've been drinking the powdered milk, and have asked Darin to do so as well. The things we parents do for our kids, lol.

Food Storage Challenge Day 5

Still surviving.

Beefaroni for dinner with leftover homemade rolls.

http://dailyfoodstorage.blogspot.com/2010/07/beefaroni.html

Food Storage Challenge Day 4

Today I made some whole wheat bread. As I was making the bread, I did a lot of thinking.

I was thinking about all I had to be thankful for. I have a great husband who supports me in my endeavors to be self-sufficient and use food storage on a daily basis. He eats the wheat and beans and everything else, and not only does he not complain, but he always tells me how good it is, and always acts excited about it. He makes me feel like I'm a good cook, and that the time I put into cooking and planning and shopping to get the best prices is worth it. Without his support, I don't think I could do it.

I'm also thankful that my children have grown up using food storage. Maybe not to the extent that we are using it now, but they've always eaten wheat, whether it was in the form of bread or hot cereal.

I am also grateful that my husband taught me how to make bread. There was a time when we were newly married, and we had the missionaries over for dinner, and I made some homemade rolls which did not turn out very well. A few years ago, I tried again, and it was a failure again. Because of these two failures, I never wanted to try it again. But, Darin helped me work through it and together we figured it out, and voila', I can make bread now. It used to seem like such a long process, but now that I've been doing it, it's not such a big deal anymore.

I'm also glad that Darin gave me my mixer several years ago. Sometimes we dream of getting a bigger, nicer, quieter one, but actually, the one I have is nice and durable. Without it, I probably would not be making bread.

I've been reading the book One Second After this week. I bought it Friday night, not knowing that we would be taking this challenge on Sunday, and I have found the timing very interesting. It's a post-apocalyptic book. It shows how life would be without electricity, and therefore, any modern conveniences. I find it very realistic, even down to the bad language. I would recommend it to someone that can handle some bad language. It is certainly thought-provoking, and makes me want to make sure I do a better job at getting my food storage in order.

Anyway, dinner tonight was some honey mustard chicken, Pasta Roni, cauliflower, and frozen corn. Darin wasn't home tonight, and I didn't feel like doing much.

Food Storage Challenge Day 3

Today was a pretty normal day, except for a few minor details. Darin makes breakfast since I'm exercising in the mornings. Usually we have either cracked wheat or oatmeal for breakfast on Wednesdays and wheat waffles on Tuesdays. We ran out of wheat flour, and there was not enough time at 6:30 am to grind some, so we had cracked wheat for breakfast (it was cracked last week).

Since we didn't have waffles this morning, I decided to have it for dinner. I usually don't eat breakfast anyway, so breakfast for dinner is the only time I get to eat some of the yummy breakfast foods. I also needed to use some baked potatoes that were left over from a meal a few days ago, so I made hash browns. We also had some fried eggs and sausage links. I know, pretty heavy dinner, but like I said, it's the only time I get to eat some of this stuff. Oh, we also had some grapes from Grandma Bronson's yard.

We continue to drink the half store milk/half powdered milk, and it seems to be going fine. Devin was a little slow today drinking her milk, and I kept hoping she didn't start saying it tastes funny. So far she hasn't. As I mixed the store milk with the powdered milk I had to hide behind an opened fridge door since I'm sure they would start complaining if they knew. I even had to hide it from Tuyen, since I'm sure she'd spill the beans, not realizing how it might affect the girls' attitude toward the milk.

Food Storage Challenge Day 2

While I was in the shower this morning, I realized that I have been meaning to buy some more Biolage shampoo, and never got around to it. I only have a bit left, so I might be stuck using the kids' Suave shampoo. Not too happy about that!

I usually plan my meals 2 weeks ahead of time, so I had to adjust my meal schedule a bit. For example, I was going to buy mozzarella cheese on Friday and make lasagna, but now I can't, so lasagna will have to wait. (Cheese powder is just not the same.) Sad thing is I have everything but the mozzarella.

Tonight we had sloppy joes with homemade rolls. No one seemed to mind. ;) I was also glad to have a bag of salad, a tomato and a cucumber from our garden to go with the sloppy joes. I ran out of my frozen wheat berries over the weekend, so I threw some in the crockpot this morning and they were ready to be added to the sloppy joes tonight. This is not my favorite use of wheat berries, but I usually try to get some wheat buns to use, and I had forgotten to buy them last time I went, so in order to make sure we ate some wheat, I added it to the sloppy joes.

We were already down to 3 1/2 gallons of milk, so at the advice of my smart friend, Stephanie, I mixed some powdered milk with the half a gallon. No one even noticed. I didn't even notice a difference! Now we can all enjoy the milk, and Darin and I don't have to be the only ones drinking the powdered milk.

Pretty easy day, I think.

Food Storage Challenge Day 1

Our family has decided to take the 2 -week Food Storage Challenge. Our stake is challenging willing participants to live off their food storage for 2 weeks, without going to the store. Mostly we feel like we are ready for it, but it looks like our first problem will be milk. We are a 5-gallon-a-week family. We only have 4 right now. Consequently, we made some powdered milk this afternoon, and Darin and I are going to try drinking that and let the kids drink the regular milk. I am not a fan of powdered milk, so I think I will be adding some strawberry Nesquick (sp?) to mine. Lucky we've had that for a few years, and it needs to get used up. If it doesn't work out, does anybody have a cow?

By the way, we had white chili for dinner with homemade rolls. Excellent!