Ok, having confessed my shortcomings in the area of emergency cooking sources, I will now mention something I've actually made progress on--the 3 month supply. I don't remember where I originally heard the idea, but it makes sense--make a menu rotation of meals you would normally eat in a 7 day cycle, and then make sure you have the ingredients to make the meals in that cycle 12 times. So far I have only been focused on the dinner portion of the menus.
When I started this blog, my primary concern was getting prepared long-term, especially to learn how to use the food items that would last long term, really long term, like wheat and beans and rice. I wasn't really focused on the 3 months worth of food that we would normally eat--after all, I already knew how to prepare the stuff we were already eating. Thing is, I need the stuff we are already eating to work as conveniently as possible in an emergency situation, so I have been working some of the long term items into our menu rotation, as well as making new dishes with storable items that my children would like. I have mentioned a lot of these before, but the links may be helpful to those who haven't seen them before---I tried to use a lot of food storage items last week and this is how it looked:
--Rice and beans, recipe here. This is now a pretty stable member of the menu rotation, but the uproar if there is no Spam involved (the way I modify it can be found in this post) is to be avoided if at all possible. :) This is definitely one of the meals on the 7 day cycle. I can use long term ingredients for the most part, but that's a lot of Spam to store up....
--Canned soup and rolls, roll recipe here. Ok, the roll recipe wouldn't be my first choice in an emergency situation because of some of the ingredients, such as butter, but I have now practiced enough that I can make this beginner's bread recipe that truly takes long term food storage items, and that's what I plan to do, so soup and bread is another meal on the 7 day cycle. That makes 2...
--Shepherd's pie, the closest recipe to which can be found here, but I just use two ingredients--the stew covered by instant mashed potatoes, and baked at 400 degrees. (Gotta love the recipes on the back of the Dinty Moore Stew cans. :) After all, the whole point of food storage food for me is simplicity and a low number of ingredients, so this really works out for my criteria. A delicious dish that allows me to chalk up #3...
---Spam fried rice, the recipe for which is found here. Only this time I substituted canned chicken for the Spam, and corn for the peas, and like before, used chicken flavored Rice-a-Roni. Not very colorful, but tasty enough, and enjoyed. Ah, number 4....
Four food storage meals in one week is pretty good for me, and the fact that nothing was said about it being food storage is a definite plus. Do I have enough for 12 weeks worth of meals for the 4 recipes I have mentioned? Ummmmm, uh-uh. No. Unfortunately not. But I am working on it, little by little.
I have other food I could make, like the two other bean recipes that I have posted about in this blog, but I am always looking for more variety when it comes to my 3 month supply. I have a few other recipes in mind (some of which can be found on blogs I have mentioned previously) that I haven't tried yet, but need to get to. Here's my question to you--what are the meals in your 3 month plan? I'll be sharing my other choices as I get to them. I may only have a partial menu cycle at this point, but it's better than no menu cycle at all. If you haven't started yet, just add one recipe at a time....
Friday, May 29, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
How ready are you?
I have this feeling that I will never feel quite "ready" for an emergency. Case in point:
On Sunday the electricity went out in our area for about 15 minutes. This caused me, then and now, to:
--wonder, now that the cold season is basically over, at least for a few months, how exactly I would cook food if the electricity stayed off. We do have some wood left from the winter season for our wood stove, but it has a very (disappointingly) short "lip" for cooking purposes, which until we figure out how to use it more effectively, basically limits what we can cook to whatever we can fit into something the size of a soup can. I guess there would also be whatever recipes we could find in terms of tinfoil, camping out kind of dinners, but remember, the electricity, and hence the most helpful source of recipes-- the computer-- was out at that point... (We do love our woodstove, though, and are very grateful to have it!)
---wonder exactly what condition our grill is in, seeing as how we don't usually grill for fun and haven't used it in a long time. We have some fuel for it, but it would add to the stress if a major overhaul was needed before we could start cooking on it. Move that one up higher on the list...
---wonder why I haven't put together a cardboard box oven according to the directions given over at Safely Gathered In, and practiced at my leisure with it until I was comfortable using it any old time. Move that one up higher on the list, too....
---wonder just exactly how handy the little "wood gas" stove ,that my best source (Mom) sent up with my dad when he delivered water barrels, actually is. From what I understand, it "double burns" in effect, since it burns the smoke from the woodburning. Gotta love two for one :). She got it in a group order from Grant Johnson, who has a website with pictures here. (If you are interested in a group order, you can contact him at grant@ getpreparedstuff.com. I actually called my mom to get this, as I didn't see it on his site. Hey, I'm not selling it, and neither is she, but it seems like a really cool product. ) I'm going to blog about it--soon-- once I open it up and take pictures, etc., but my understanding is that it takes very little fuel (twigs, etc.) and is very fuel efficient and effective. Planning on using this soon, but it definitely was not part of my plan on Sunday--but are emergencies ever really part of anyone's plan?
Well, I hope your answer to the title question is that you are more prepared than I am. Nothing like 15 minutes of power outage for no apparent reason to make me really take stock of how I'm going to cook with my emergency supplies. We would have been able to cook some way, somehow, but now I know ways to prepare so that such a situation would be easier.....
On Sunday the electricity went out in our area for about 15 minutes. This caused me, then and now, to:
--wonder, now that the cold season is basically over, at least for a few months, how exactly I would cook food if the electricity stayed off. We do have some wood left from the winter season for our wood stove, but it has a very (disappointingly) short "lip" for cooking purposes, which until we figure out how to use it more effectively, basically limits what we can cook to whatever we can fit into something the size of a soup can. I guess there would also be whatever recipes we could find in terms of tinfoil, camping out kind of dinners, but remember, the electricity, and hence the most helpful source of recipes-- the computer-- was out at that point... (We do love our woodstove, though, and are very grateful to have it!)
---wonder exactly what condition our grill is in, seeing as how we don't usually grill for fun and haven't used it in a long time. We have some fuel for it, but it would add to the stress if a major overhaul was needed before we could start cooking on it. Move that one up higher on the list...
---wonder why I haven't put together a cardboard box oven according to the directions given over at Safely Gathered In, and practiced at my leisure with it until I was comfortable using it any old time. Move that one up higher on the list, too....
---wonder just exactly how handy the little "wood gas" stove ,that my best source (Mom) sent up with my dad when he delivered water barrels, actually is. From what I understand, it "double burns" in effect, since it burns the smoke from the woodburning. Gotta love two for one :). She got it in a group order from Grant Johnson, who has a website with pictures here. (If you are interested in a group order, you can contact him at grant@ getpreparedstuff.com. I actually called my mom to get this, as I didn't see it on his site. Hey, I'm not selling it, and neither is she, but it seems like a really cool product. ) I'm going to blog about it--soon-- once I open it up and take pictures, etc., but my understanding is that it takes very little fuel (twigs, etc.) and is very fuel efficient and effective. Planning on using this soon, but it definitely was not part of my plan on Sunday--but are emergencies ever really part of anyone's plan?
Well, I hope your answer to the title question is that you are more prepared than I am. Nothing like 15 minutes of power outage for no apparent reason to make me really take stock of how I'm going to cook with my emergency supplies. We would have been able to cook some way, somehow, but now I know ways to prepare so that such a situation would be easier.....
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Talk about doing things ahead of time...
Ok, I have a confession to make. I read a lot of blogs that I don't have listed on my blogroll, especially when it comes to blogs that have really good recipes. And usually, I don't like to mention them until I have cooked/baked/prepared something according to the blog authors' well-written and easy-to-understand directions, at which point I link to the recipe and write about what I have made, how I changed it if I did, what my family thought about it, etc. (If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you probably recognize the drill, and probably remember the sites I have linked to in the past... :)
Soooo, turns out that I am sometimes painstakingly slow in getting to the recipes that I would like to/should make. And I have been thinking, why should I hold back information so that you can't have it sooner? You may have found these blogs already, since if memory serves I found them because the authors were kind enough to leave comments here, but in any case, may I suggest the following websites:
Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker
The Prudent Homemaker
There is so much in both of these websites that I continue to go back to learn more. In the hopes that you will actually return to read my blog, I will not divulge at this point which recipes I have in mind for myself--have to have some suspense after all--but I would be surprised (shocked is more like it) if you didn't find something that you could use for yourself if you end up visiting. Thanks to both the Harried and Prudent Homemakers for sharing...
And that's about all the websites I'm ready to share at the moment. Maybe since I wrote this down I'll work faster on the recipes I should be mastering. Time will tell.... :)
Soooo, turns out that I am sometimes painstakingly slow in getting to the recipes that I would like to/should make. And I have been thinking, why should I hold back information so that you can't have it sooner? You may have found these blogs already, since if memory serves I found them because the authors were kind enough to leave comments here, but in any case, may I suggest the following websites:
Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker
The Prudent Homemaker
There is so much in both of these websites that I continue to go back to learn more. In the hopes that you will actually return to read my blog, I will not divulge at this point which recipes I have in mind for myself--have to have some suspense after all--but I would be surprised (shocked is more like it) if you didn't find something that you could use for yourself if you end up visiting. Thanks to both the Harried and Prudent Homemakers for sharing...
And that's about all the websites I'm ready to share at the moment. Maybe since I wrote this down I'll work faster on the recipes I should be mastering. Time will tell.... :)
Monday, May 18, 2009
First the non-food, then the food...
Our main purchase this past week in terms of storage was laundry soap to put away. Yes, we will be using it just like normal, but it's a larger quantity that will hopefully last a really long time. We use a type that has little/no additives because we worry about skin sensitivities for our children. If used correctly, it will do like 224 loads (too lazy to go check the box, but I'm reasonably certain that I have that number right... :) and it's a brand that you can't just pick up in the store, so a last-minute rush to the store in an emergency--which I am trying to avoid at all costs anyway--wouldn't do any good. So, set on that for awhile, but have to save up for other stuff now....always more to do!
Visited my parents this weekend, and came back with various plants, but for the intents and purposes of this post, let's talk-- wait for it.....drumroll.....strawberries!! We actually have some strawberry plants already in our front yard, but now we have some in the back under our raspberry bushes, (why waste space?) and hopefully they will flourish. They certainly flourish for my mother, but since she has one of the greenest thumbs I know of, we will just hope for the best. It just got me thinking about how many sources of fruit we have in terms of storage/home production. We have raspberry bushes, and some strawberry plants, and that's about it at this point. In our climate, it would not be productive to grow melons, and we could (and probably will) grow tomatoes, which are technically a fruit, but the fresh variety are not popular with everyone in the household. Well, I have left off one plant that sits in the corner of our garden, but which my husband has continuously given away because I don't know what to do with it--a rhubarb plant---which must really like our yard, given the fact that it just gives and gives and gives. So it hasn't gone to waste, at least not very much, but it hasn't helped our food stores in any appreciable way. I only mention that in the interest of full disclosure, but it's amazing how many times full disclosure ends up making me look bad.... I know the leaves are poisonous, and you should only use the stalks. I just haven't used the stalks, so maybe I should look into that.
So we could always invest in lots and lots and lots of canned fruit, (as you can imagine, already in the plan) but fresh fruit is better, and what's more, if conditions are right, fruit bearing plants can be the gift that keeps on giving if they're properly tended. (For example, my husband is quite the expert at thinning out and properly maintaining the raspberry bushes, which can get quite exuberant in their growing habits.) My mom suggested fruit- bearing trees, but we are a little hesitant to make that investment at the moment, since we had to cut down the tree in our backyard after it died last year, and now it appears that some of the trees in neighboring yards are heading for the same fate. It also takes time for the fruit-bearing trees to actually produce fruit, but the sooner you start, the sooner you reap the benefits...
Anyway, I have decided to make fruit the subject of my poll this week. When I think about gardens, I usually think vegetables, vegetables, and more vegetables. I could always use more ideas on fruits that do well in colder climates and of course, high yield never hurts.... :)
Visited my parents this weekend, and came back with various plants, but for the intents and purposes of this post, let's talk-- wait for it.....drumroll.....strawberries!! We actually have some strawberry plants already in our front yard, but now we have some in the back under our raspberry bushes, (why waste space?) and hopefully they will flourish. They certainly flourish for my mother, but since she has one of the greenest thumbs I know of, we will just hope for the best. It just got me thinking about how many sources of fruit we have in terms of storage/home production. We have raspberry bushes, and some strawberry plants, and that's about it at this point. In our climate, it would not be productive to grow melons, and we could (and probably will) grow tomatoes, which are technically a fruit, but the fresh variety are not popular with everyone in the household. Well, I have left off one plant that sits in the corner of our garden, but which my husband has continuously given away because I don't know what to do with it--a rhubarb plant---which must really like our yard, given the fact that it just gives and gives and gives. So it hasn't gone to waste, at least not very much, but it hasn't helped our food stores in any appreciable way. I only mention that in the interest of full disclosure, but it's amazing how many times full disclosure ends up making me look bad.... I know the leaves are poisonous, and you should only use the stalks. I just haven't used the stalks, so maybe I should look into that.
So we could always invest in lots and lots and lots of canned fruit, (as you can imagine, already in the plan) but fresh fruit is better, and what's more, if conditions are right, fruit bearing plants can be the gift that keeps on giving if they're properly tended. (For example, my husband is quite the expert at thinning out and properly maintaining the raspberry bushes, which can get quite exuberant in their growing habits.) My mom suggested fruit- bearing trees, but we are a little hesitant to make that investment at the moment, since we had to cut down the tree in our backyard after it died last year, and now it appears that some of the trees in neighboring yards are heading for the same fate. It also takes time for the fruit-bearing trees to actually produce fruit, but the sooner you start, the sooner you reap the benefits...
Anyway, I have decided to make fruit the subject of my poll this week. When I think about gardens, I usually think vegetables, vegetables, and more vegetables. I could always use more ideas on fruits that do well in colder climates and of course, high yield never hurts.... :)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Food storage can be a balancing act...
As can water storage, if you have more than one of these to fill up:
And we do have more than one of these, thanks to my dad, who used his vehicle to run some up to us from Utah last week. These are barrels used for drink concentrates at a company down in Utah, and my mom picked up a few for $10 each, and the best guess is that they hold about 50-55 gallons. So we bought some from her, and the "fun" began--at least for the children.
Because these are used barrels, and we want to use them for water, the first thing we needed to do was to wash them out and get all the residue from the drink concentrate out. We put in a few drops of non-toxic cleaner and some water, and then the children pushed the first barrel around and around the yard. This ensures that the barrels are entirely washed out. At one point one of the children was on top of the rolling barrel with a sibling pushing said barrel around with glee--an activity which basically ensures that their mother is probably going to have heart problems if she has to watch for very long... So my husband watched, and I went to the library to get more books out for the family. (I was planning to go to the library anyway, but it makes for a better story this way, doesn't it? :) And you may have noticed that my husband worries a lot less than I do anyway...)
Well, everything went pretty well, and now our barrels are sitting in the backyard soaking some more before rolling again and filling with water. This is a good continuation of water storage for us, but what we will be working toward is getting a water purification system, about which I have received a lot of great comments before, both on the subject of portable and longer-term systems. I am leaning toward a Berkey, which Kymber writes about in this post at Nova Scotia Preppers Network--I recommend looking at their whole water collection/ storage system--very impressive, if you are allowed to collect your own water.
The next challenge for us is to find the room to store more than one of these circus-barrel stand-ins.... :)
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Emergencies: Inconvenient by definition
Well, the title of this post is pretty much just my opinion, but I would be surprised if there are that many people who disagree with me. What happens if the emergency is that the adults in a household are ill, and the children in the household need to fend for themselves? This idea is not original to me, as you will find, but such a situation is definitely something that I should think about before it arises....
After reading the e-mail in this post over at Prepping 101, I decided that teaching my children more skills around the kitchen would be a really good idea. So I pulled out an old friend of mine: Top Ramen. That's right--those compact squares (or is it rectangles?) of dried noodles that require little more than boiling water and about 3 minutes of your time. Thanks to my best source, (Mom) I had picked some up one of the times I was visiting, so I had some on hand.
I don't know about anyone else, but back in the day I actually ate a lot of Top Ramen. The directions tell you how to make noodle soup out of the oh-so-inexpensive packages with their little flavor packet, but I've always been more partial to making them just as noodles. The difference comes when I drain off the water and just add a small portion of seasoning to mix around in the noodles. It probably just about took me longer to write this paragraph than it would to actually make Top Ramen. So you can see why I started with this particular little meal idea... We decided to have our children learn how to make it themselves, and we found that:
--People always joke about not being able to boil water, but boiling water is the skill required here, and it's not quite as funny when you are putting children in charge of the stove burners. That said, my children did a good job of getting the water to boil and placing the noodles inside.
--An added benefit to the Top Ramen meal option is that the directions say to boil for 3 minutes, so you aren't walking away from a project that takes 20 minutes only to return to find that you forgot to set the timer, or didn't add enough water, or your boiled food of choice is now stubbornly affixed to the bottom of a no-stick pan. Even if 3 minutes turns out to be long enough for a child to get bored, they won't be bored for very long...
--We added veg-all to the Top Ramen water--one of my favorite ways to eat it when it was more of a menu staple. Of course, any canned vegetable along the lines of corn or green beans would work, but only if you can open the can, so practice with the manual can opener was in order. And will be in order until it becomes a really easy thing to do...not every canned item has a tab for opening.
--Well, with my brilliant idea of eating it as noodles, I ended up draining the water for them. We will have to let them cook it as soup so that they have the option of letting it cool down and then dishing it out for themselves when it is safe to handle. Live and learn--hopefully ahead of time...
So, our little experiment went ok. The good news is that my children like Top Ramen (it was their first time trying it), which is extremely inexpensive, requires little fuel and cooking time, and is versatile because of all the add-in possibilities, like vegetables. Not a whole lot of bad news, just the necessity of teaching them to cook a few other things in case there is a situation where they need to provide their own meals. Cold cereal would only work for a little while... :)
Of course, there are things like canned soup and pastas, etc., if you have them on hand. Hopefully even if parents were sick at the same time, they wouldn't have to stay in bed for extended periods of time. But it's better to have a back-up plan, even if it's only necessary short-term--emergencies are not convenient, whether it's in the actual definition or not, and you never know who might have to do the cooking...
After reading the e-mail in this post over at Prepping 101, I decided that teaching my children more skills around the kitchen would be a really good idea. So I pulled out an old friend of mine: Top Ramen. That's right--those compact squares (or is it rectangles?) of dried noodles that require little more than boiling water and about 3 minutes of your time. Thanks to my best source, (Mom) I had picked some up one of the times I was visiting, so I had some on hand.
I don't know about anyone else, but back in the day I actually ate a lot of Top Ramen. The directions tell you how to make noodle soup out of the oh-so-inexpensive packages with their little flavor packet, but I've always been more partial to making them just as noodles. The difference comes when I drain off the water and just add a small portion of seasoning to mix around in the noodles. It probably just about took me longer to write this paragraph than it would to actually make Top Ramen. So you can see why I started with this particular little meal idea... We decided to have our children learn how to make it themselves, and we found that:
--People always joke about not being able to boil water, but boiling water is the skill required here, and it's not quite as funny when you are putting children in charge of the stove burners. That said, my children did a good job of getting the water to boil and placing the noodles inside.
--An added benefit to the Top Ramen meal option is that the directions say to boil for 3 minutes, so you aren't walking away from a project that takes 20 minutes only to return to find that you forgot to set the timer, or didn't add enough water, or your boiled food of choice is now stubbornly affixed to the bottom of a no-stick pan. Even if 3 minutes turns out to be long enough for a child to get bored, they won't be bored for very long...
--We added veg-all to the Top Ramen water--one of my favorite ways to eat it when it was more of a menu staple. Of course, any canned vegetable along the lines of corn or green beans would work, but only if you can open the can, so practice with the manual can opener was in order. And will be in order until it becomes a really easy thing to do...not every canned item has a tab for opening.
--Well, with my brilliant idea of eating it as noodles, I ended up draining the water for them. We will have to let them cook it as soup so that they have the option of letting it cool down and then dishing it out for themselves when it is safe to handle. Live and learn--hopefully ahead of time...
So, our little experiment went ok. The good news is that my children like Top Ramen (it was their first time trying it), which is extremely inexpensive, requires little fuel and cooking time, and is versatile because of all the add-in possibilities, like vegetables. Not a whole lot of bad news, just the necessity of teaching them to cook a few other things in case there is a situation where they need to provide their own meals. Cold cereal would only work for a little while... :)
Of course, there are things like canned soup and pastas, etc., if you have them on hand. Hopefully even if parents were sick at the same time, they wouldn't have to stay in bed for extended periods of time. But it's better to have a back-up plan, even if it's only necessary short-term--emergencies are not convenient, whether it's in the actual definition or not, and you never know who might have to do the cooking...
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
A couple more recipes, if you are interested...
Well, I've actually been on a roll with making new recipes with food storage items lately (well, two is a roll for me... :) In my defense, I do continue to use most recipes once I try them, like rice and beans and making bread, it's just new ones that I don't do as often as I should...
Anyway, on Friday, I used the recipe for Spam Fried Rice found over at Preparedness Pro. My kind of recipe--few ingredients, among them Spam, which my children love--and additional instructions on how to use it with canned chicken, or make it with "non-food-storage"ingredients. Plus (this is beginning to sound like one of those "call now and we'll also include" deals in the sales commercials :) there are pointers on how to make it with less fuel, which could be crucial in an emergency situation.
Oh, yeah, and it's also pretty tasty, even if it's not all smooth-sailing (oh, yeah, things can get interesting around here even with recipes marked EZ... :)
--I used chicken-flavored Rice-A-Roni instead of fried rice flavor because, well, that's what I had. It was good, and maybe one of these times I will find the rice-flavored variety for, well, variety.
--The most likely reason that I had the chicken-flavored variety for this recipe was because of the "20% more" banner across the top of the boxes. Who can resist the siren call of "more" when it comes to food storage? However, when you read the original recipe it calls for a 6.2 oz box of the Rice-a-Roni, and apparently 20% more is 6.9 oz. (If not, just be kind, because this is not a math blog...) Fortunately, somewhere in mid-cooking, I thought, more rice means I need more water to cook it with, and checked, and indeed more water was needed. Having run into insufficient water/rice ratios previously, most notably with at least one of my rice and bean recipes chronicled elsewhere in this blog, I realized the edibility factor would be compromised without swift action and was able to react quickly by adding more water. See, experience does come in handy sometimes....and better to have that experience before you're in a tense situation with limited food supplies.
--I did buy canned peas for this particular recipe, and it was helpful, though rather annoying, to find that at least one of my children would meticulously pick out everything but the peas in an attempt to avoid them. This affects future preparation because I can always serve peas separately at another time, but for this particular recipe I will probably use green beans or corn since it is only necessary to warm the added vegetable at the end. There is always the argument that if people are hungry enough they'll eat what is in front of them and be grateful for it, and unfortunately it may eventually come down to a situation like that in a food-storage only situation. But if you know ahead of time, you may be able to avoid something like that as long as possible-- after all, added stress of disliked food + emergency situations=even more unhappiness.
Oh, and if you check out the recipe link above, you'll also be able to check out a second recipe for "Mexi-Cincy Chili" which I have not tried. And if you act now, all of this valuable information can be yours for free. Thanks Preparedness Pro!
And a big thank-you as well to HSJacobus at Jacobus Family Blogspot for her "Friday's Food Fancy" archives. I finally picked up some cornmeal and was planning to make some cornbread, and the recipe on the back of the box looked pretty simple. Simple is good. Simple plus use of food storage items to improve your rotation is better. Having really specific instructions so that you can use those food storage items to double the recipe and have enough for another day tucked away in your freezer is priceless. (Yeah, still going with commercial themes here... :)
You can find all these things in the cornbread recipe found here. I used evaporated milk, which I need to do more of pretty soon because the cans I was looking at expire in a few months. I've said before that I don't really like the fact that when I use my storage the shelves get empty, but if I let the items expire before I use them, the result will be the same---no/not enough food to eat in an emergency situation. What's on your shelf that needs to be used? Come on, I can't be the only one that has some expiration dates coming up.... :)
Anyway, on Friday, I used the recipe for Spam Fried Rice found over at Preparedness Pro. My kind of recipe--few ingredients, among them Spam, which my children love--and additional instructions on how to use it with canned chicken, or make it with "non-food-storage"ingredients. Plus (this is beginning to sound like one of those "call now and we'll also include" deals in the sales commercials :) there are pointers on how to make it with less fuel, which could be crucial in an emergency situation.
Oh, yeah, and it's also pretty tasty, even if it's not all smooth-sailing (oh, yeah, things can get interesting around here even with recipes marked EZ... :)
--I used chicken-flavored Rice-A-Roni instead of fried rice flavor because, well, that's what I had. It was good, and maybe one of these times I will find the rice-flavored variety for, well, variety.
--The most likely reason that I had the chicken-flavored variety for this recipe was because of the "20% more" banner across the top of the boxes. Who can resist the siren call of "more" when it comes to food storage? However, when you read the original recipe it calls for a 6.2 oz box of the Rice-a-Roni, and apparently 20% more is 6.9 oz. (If not, just be kind, because this is not a math blog...) Fortunately, somewhere in mid-cooking, I thought, more rice means I need more water to cook it with, and checked, and indeed more water was needed. Having run into insufficient water/rice ratios previously, most notably with at least one of my rice and bean recipes chronicled elsewhere in this blog, I realized the edibility factor would be compromised without swift action and was able to react quickly by adding more water. See, experience does come in handy sometimes....and better to have that experience before you're in a tense situation with limited food supplies.
--I did buy canned peas for this particular recipe, and it was helpful, though rather annoying, to find that at least one of my children would meticulously pick out everything but the peas in an attempt to avoid them. This affects future preparation because I can always serve peas separately at another time, but for this particular recipe I will probably use green beans or corn since it is only necessary to warm the added vegetable at the end. There is always the argument that if people are hungry enough they'll eat what is in front of them and be grateful for it, and unfortunately it may eventually come down to a situation like that in a food-storage only situation. But if you know ahead of time, you may be able to avoid something like that as long as possible-- after all, added stress of disliked food + emergency situations=even more unhappiness.
Oh, and if you check out the recipe link above, you'll also be able to check out a second recipe for "Mexi-Cincy Chili" which I have not tried. And if you act now, all of this valuable information can be yours for free. Thanks Preparedness Pro!
And a big thank-you as well to HSJacobus at Jacobus Family Blogspot for her "Friday's Food Fancy" archives. I finally picked up some cornmeal and was planning to make some cornbread, and the recipe on the back of the box looked pretty simple. Simple is good. Simple plus use of food storage items to improve your rotation is better. Having really specific instructions so that you can use those food storage items to double the recipe and have enough for another day tucked away in your freezer is priceless. (Yeah, still going with commercial themes here... :)
You can find all these things in the cornbread recipe found here. I used evaporated milk, which I need to do more of pretty soon because the cans I was looking at expire in a few months. I've said before that I don't really like the fact that when I use my storage the shelves get empty, but if I let the items expire before I use them, the result will be the same---no/not enough food to eat in an emergency situation. What's on your shelf that needs to be used? Come on, I can't be the only one that has some expiration dates coming up.... :)
Friday, May 1, 2009
The blog turns one!
Well, 120 posts, many friends, several recipes, and 1 woodstove later, the blog marks a year....
Some highlights (not practical to list all of them :) ...
--The fact that when asked, one of my children said that I was a "five star cook" because--get ready for it--I make rice and beans and make bread. Yeah, all things I didn't do a year ago today.
--The friends I have made over the internet--with some I don't even know their real/full/first/last name, but I consider them my friends nevertheless. And I actually worry about them if they don't post/comment/show up elsewhere on the internet for awhile. A little weird, perhaps, but it is the truth....
--The things I have learned from other people--through their blogs/comments/links/etc. I have said it before and can definitely see myself saying it again in the future--I find that I often get a lot more back in information through comments than I actually give out in my posts. So thanks everyone!
--This blog has motivated me to do a lot of things that I might still be procrastinating about if I didn't think, "Well, if I do make that recipe, it will be something to blog about..." Yeah, for me, at least, the blog has provided a good deal of motivation, though I'm still procrastinating on some things (oh, sprouting, for example....).
--The comment left by someone who wrote that he hadn't considered food storage before, but after reading on my blog, he was thinking about it now. Those aren't his words verbatim, but that is the gist, and I hope that he has some storage in now. I hope that more people were able/are able to get storage in. I started this blog because I wanted to learn how to better use my long-term food storage. I don't want my children to go hungry in an emergency situation. Thing is, I don't want anyone else's children to go hungry in an emergency situation either...
There are a lot of preparedness blogs (more than when I started) out there now, and I have learned quite a lot from reading them. You may have noticed that I link to other blogs/articles/websites quite often. I still am not a professional, but I feel better prepared in some ways. What's that saying about education? Something like, "Education is finding out what you didn't know you didn't know." I keep finding out more that I don't know, but I keep learning as well...
Thanks to everyone who made this year great! I would make a list, but not only would it be lengthy, if I left someone out, I would feel terrible. I'm pretty sure that you know who you are, and even if you just wonder, consider yourself on the list....
Some highlights (not practical to list all of them :) ...
--The fact that when asked, one of my children said that I was a "five star cook" because--get ready for it--I make rice and beans and make bread. Yeah, all things I didn't do a year ago today.
--The friends I have made over the internet--with some I don't even know their real/full/first/last name, but I consider them my friends nevertheless. And I actually worry about them if they don't post/comment/show up elsewhere on the internet for awhile. A little weird, perhaps, but it is the truth....
--The things I have learned from other people--through their blogs/comments/links/etc. I have said it before and can definitely see myself saying it again in the future--I find that I often get a lot more back in information through comments than I actually give out in my posts. So thanks everyone!
--This blog has motivated me to do a lot of things that I might still be procrastinating about if I didn't think, "Well, if I do make that recipe, it will be something to blog about..." Yeah, for me, at least, the blog has provided a good deal of motivation, though I'm still procrastinating on some things (oh, sprouting, for example....).
--The comment left by someone who wrote that he hadn't considered food storage before, but after reading on my blog, he was thinking about it now. Those aren't his words verbatim, but that is the gist, and I hope that he has some storage in now. I hope that more people were able/are able to get storage in. I started this blog because I wanted to learn how to better use my long-term food storage. I don't want my children to go hungry in an emergency situation. Thing is, I don't want anyone else's children to go hungry in an emergency situation either...
There are a lot of preparedness blogs (more than when I started) out there now, and I have learned quite a lot from reading them. You may have noticed that I link to other blogs/articles/websites quite often. I still am not a professional, but I feel better prepared in some ways. What's that saying about education? Something like, "Education is finding out what you didn't know you didn't know." I keep finding out more that I don't know, but I keep learning as well...
Thanks to everyone who made this year great! I would make a list, but not only would it be lengthy, if I left someone out, I would feel terrible. I'm pretty sure that you know who you are, and even if you just wonder, consider yourself on the list....
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