The comments trump the post....

Again... :) Thanks to kind readers, I now have more information about gluten. Without further comment from me, here are responses I got to my last post:

From Catherine:

"We've had to do as-gluten-free-as-possible storage (my daughter ad I both react to gluten). The only mix I have to buy is Pamela's Pancake/baking mix. It's kinda like Bisquick. We use it for pancakes and pot pie crust.

Store lots of potatoes, and learn to use the potato starch to thicken dishes instead of flour. For example, when making scalloped potatoes, if you slice your potatoes ahead of time into the milk you are going to use in the recipe and let them soak for a few minutes, the starch in the potatoes will leach into the milk and thicken the sauce while it cooks. Voila, gluten-free scalloped potatoes.

Other than that, we eat lots of slow-cooker/solar-cooker meals: Minestrone with either rice pasta or just rice, chicken soup, chicken pot pie, chicken enchiladas (all from one chicken, I might add), risotto, polenta, cassoulet (a bean and pork/lamb/goat/whatever-meat-is-available stew), frittata, latkes (potato pancakes), Cuban beans, lot of squash dishes, posole, and lots of vegetable dishes.

When cooking gluten free, you pretty much have to ignore the standard American diet, because almost everything in it has gluten/HFCS/coal-tar-based colors (red40/yellow5&6/blue1)/other nasties. Think ethic foods and you'll do fine. Mexican food (minus the flour tortillas)is almost totally gluten-free.

Our food storage consists of lots of beans and rice, but it is also heavy on the potatoes. We stock lots of corn in several forms (corn on the cob for fresh, corn off the cob for soup, hulled and dried for hominy, ground for polenta). We have goats, so we use milk in many of our meals. We use eggs as our "meat dish" frequently. We eat 1 chicken per week (which I stretch to cover at least 4 meals) and use about a pound of bacon each week for flavoring.

Hope that helps."

From Jenn:

"This is my life -- I started a blog to detail this - glutenfreefoodstorage.blogspot.com. Hopefully, I'll find some free time to update it again someday. Still plenty of good info, though."

(You can press on the address to link to the blog.)

From Vlad:

"I tried millet, amaranth, quinoa and oatmeal in my chili.
Oatmeal taste good, is very nutritious and a lot cheaper.
BTW I cannot find anyone who knows
if cleaned whole oats (oat groats) at the feed store are ok
for human consumption. (From what I read a lot of foods from
China n the grocery store are not suitable for human consumption)
Whole oats 50 lb $9.95 = 20 cents a lb.
Oatmeal 42 oz $2.49 = 95 cents a lb.

Chili
2 lb ground beef chuck
2 cups oatmeal (crimped oats)
water
15 oz can Ranch Style Beans
two tablespoons
cayenne
turmeric
one tablespoon
chili powder
yellow curry
two teaspoons
cumin

boil meat and oatmeal until done
add beans
put spices in half cup water,
shake well and stir into chili"

Thank you so much, Catherine, Jenn, and Vlad! Gotta love when you not only get information, but practical ways to use that information...

Some tips are so good...

That they deserve their own post. A huge thank you to Kristen, from over at Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker, left this comment on my last post about frybread:

"Anyway, make sure you keep your oil consistently hot while making it and it won't seem as greasy. Put a kernel of popcorn in the oil and when it pops, it's hot enough. Continue to put kernels in periodically if you are frying on the stove and don't have a handy electric appliance."

I didn't have a consistent heat, (although the oil was obviously hot) because I switched it from higher to lower temperatures as I cooked when I thought the temperature was off in some way. Hope I can use this information to my advantage the next time I try frybread--I do think that extra oil in the bread was a problem....

Thanks again, Kristen! I highly recommend her site because it is full of great recipes and she makes cooking look easier than I generally think it will be--gotta love easier...

How to write a better blog: Water purification part 2

Well, the long and the short of writing a better blog is to have more and other people write it--in this case in the form of comments. Just in case you are not a comment reader, I will share some of the comments on my last post, "Water, water, everywhere" (though I won't include all of them--you have to leave people wanting more, and maybe this will turn some non-comment readers into comment readers... :) which were basically full of more information than I gave out. Thanks everyone! Now on to further information, since that is what we are all craving (besides water, of course):

---The McKeachnie Family shared the following link and information: " http://www.amazon.com/First-Need-Deluxe-Water-Purifier/dp/B0009RP8T2

It's a compact, light weight (less than 1 pound), award-winning water purifier. We have one that we keep in our 72-hour kit and we love it! We store water as well, but we feel much better having this product."

This product, or one like it, now that I have a starting point for researching this kind of thing, is going on my list as a must-obtain item. Less than one pound is hard to beat if you can only take what you can carry in an emergency situation. I will probably get a couple of replacement filters to go with it, seeing as how I'm a worrier... :)

--Carl in Wisconsin added this information, especially important to remember because he stresses that you need to use bleach with no additives for water purification:

"Marie, I have to toss my 2 cents in on the water issue. When using bleach even clorox bleach you must make sure it additive free, no scents, no nothing, but bleach. I buy Farm bleach at my local Farm store in 4 gallon cases for under $5.00. I went over to Wendy's excellent site and noticed that the warning about additives is kind of buried at the end.

I add 13 drops to a 2 litter pop bottle or 25 drops to a gallon.I have 4 55 gallon food grade containers in the garage ( probably frozen right now) with only bleach as a preservative. I would use this water for Non-potable applications like the toilet...etc

I would check again with my original Clorox link for amounts of bleach/ water you are planning to use for human consumption--they are considerably less than those Carl cited, and as mentioned, the water he talks about is not intended to be used for drinking water.

---Stephanie came back more than once, and answered my question about using bleach past its prime potency with this excellent link. In her original comment, she mentioned pool chemicals, which are dealt with, along with numerous other methods of water purification (including solar!) via a comment left later...

-- ...in a six-page document put together by Connor. He has kindly included a link to his information in his comment and said that I could share, so I leave you to access it through the link provided there--his is the last comment besides mine in the comments at this writing. ( I wasn't sure how to transfer it correctly here....sorry. But believe me, it is worth checking out.)

Thanks again, everyone---I learned a lot (as usual) from the information you were willing to share. Hopefully Connor won't mind when I add one of the final sentences in his document here:

"Please do not consider this information to be comprehensive; you should still do your own homework!"

Please be sure that you use any kind of water purification system carefully--it's better to learn now so that you will be able to use them safely later. Some of the systems (such as chlorine /pool chemicals) would likely be my very last choice for water purification if they made my list at all, because they scare me, (there's my worrier side again) but I still like to know all my options. Please research thoroughly and use carefully any method that you decide to use.

I could probably find a way to add that phrase about homework to just about any blog post that I write--there is still so much out there that I need to learn, and the information that I do put out often leads to comments that teach me a lot. Thanks to everyone that comments--I really appreciate it. Sometimes, I find out that you have done a little more of my homework for me--at least in this case it's just helping, and not cheating.... :)

Opinion and some polls

I received a comment on my last post concerning canned butter from EJ, who sent this link, which links to information against canning butter. I have only read and/or heard positive things about canning butter besides this, so I leave it to you and your opinion, as always, to decide what is best for you and your family. Thanks to EJ for the comment and link.

Thanks to everyone who answers my poll questions, as always. Thought you might find the following to be of interest:

When it comes to canned foods like soup, pasta, etc. is your family picky about the brand that they will eat, so that you have to be picky about what you store?

Yes 39%
No 30%
Sometimes 30%

This leaves me thinking that if your family members are picky now, (which mine sometimes are) it will only be intensified if they are unhappy and in the middle of an emergency situation. Something is better than nothing, but if you can get your choice at an affordable price now, there will be less to worry about later... :)

Then there was this poll:

Did you plant anything in your garden that you will use for food storage for the first time (like I will try with my pumpkins) this year?

Yes 87%
No 12%

After I posted the poll I realized that some people might take marking no as a negative, but I know some people have been using everything in their garden in the most efficient way possible for years, so for them to mark no just shows that they are miles ahead of me, in a good way.... :)

Sometimes my poll questions might seem odd, but lots of times they are generated by something I have been thinking about for awhile. Like this week's question about rising prices in the various food departments--we don't eat all that much meat, but we do like to buy ground turkey at the local national chainstore. We buy it in 3 lb packages, brown it, and freeze it to use as needed. It has been $6.54 for a long time now, but even when I am not buying it, I will check it, so I can gauge what's going on with the economy. I also buy ham slices that are $2.98/package now, and they have gone up $.10 since I started checking, as have some of the dried beans I buy, which are now $.88/package. Not a big change there. The places I feel most squeezed are probably the cereal aisle and the toilet paper aisle in the store. I have mentioned before that cheese gives me sticker shock. I appreciate your input, because even though I don't know exactly where you are, I like to know if it's the same all over...

I always appreciate your poll participation and your comments. I think a lot of times I learn more information in the comments than I put out in the posts..... :)