Friday, May 29, 2009

3 months, 12 weeks---either way it's a lot of storage

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....

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good post, a three month food supply is important. I have a post about mine here if you wanna check it out.

matthiasj
Kentucky Preppers Network

Kristen said...

Spaghetti sauce with pasta is an easy one. I buy the cheapest sauce by the case plus I have the spaghetti sauce mixes and tomato paste by the case. Spruce it up with your own herbs if you like. I use canned chicken and make chicken N dumplings using bisquick or homemade biscuit mix with canned vegetables and canned chicken broth.

HermitJim said...

So far all the recipes you covered are ones that I actually like very well! I eat most of them a lot...

Keep up the good work...I like the recipes and the ideas!

Marie said...

MatthiasJ--Seems to me I remember when you posted that, and it has a lot of great information. Thanks for the link!

Kristen--I do have some pasta in storage, but not that much spaghetti sauce, (though some canned tomato products (diced)that would help with flavor) so I need to get on the ball with that. I haven't tried dumplings, so that should go on the list--all of those ideas sound tasty. Thanks for your comment!

HermitJim--Thanks for the encouraging words--they are greatly appreciated!

Anonymous said...

Great collection of recipes! You've seen many of my recipes for emergencies. In addition to cooking with my pressure cooker to preserve energy, fuel and time, I have invested in a solar oven and been cooking everything from baked goods to meats in it. Since I live in sunny Utah, it has been an excellent utilization of the sunshine. http://tinyurl.com/ozodls

Anonymous said...

And thanks for sharing the Spam fried rice recipe!

Marie said...

PreparednessPro--Thanks for sharing that recipe in the first place, and for giving the variations on it--I love that you can change a couple of things and have a different dish.
I have been considering a pressure cooker (would have to save up for it) and have been thinking about a solar oven--don't know if there is enough sun enough of the time to make it really useful--the joke is that there are 9 months of winter in Idaho, or something like that. But it is under consideration--thanks for your comments!

Anonymous said...

Nice post Marie.

Hows your garden?

Carl In Wisconsin

Marie said...

Carl--Thanks! We've only planted our potatoes so far because it's been rainy, but my husband has been enlarging it, so when the seeds go in, there will be a lot more growing. Please don't tell me you're already harvesting....unless you are, which wouldn't surprise me. :) Thanks for your comment!

Anonymous said...

LOL No, We are having funky weather as well. It is either really dry or raining like mad. We had about 1.5 inches a week ago and now it is really dry again. I have utilizing my rain water catchment system to water instead of the house water system. I have alot of things coming up. Maybe 90 days til harvest.

I dont grow my own potatos beacuse we live in big time potato country here. Potatos and corn. Up north they do alot of cranberrys.


Good lcuk

Carl

Marie said...

Carl--We don't really get a lot of rain, so water catchment wouldn't be really dependable as a source here, but it would probably be a good thing to have anyway. It has cleared up so planting soon--no cranberries though. :) Thanks and hope your crops do well!