Rolls and Rotation

Decided I would finally try another recipe that I entered into my emergency notebook awhile ago, this one, from Mennonite Girls Can Cook, in fact. They came out looking like this:





Yeah, if you check out the link, their rolls are prettier, and they probably taste better, too, since I forgot to add the salt. Fortunately, I don't think anyone else noticed that I forgot the salt, and these rolls disappeared pretty fast. An added plus--this recipe made so many that some are headed for the freezer for another meal anytime now.

Now for the rotation part. This recipe calls for 5+ cups of flour, which I knew by looking was more than was sitting in my handy-dandy flour container on my counter. I had some small bags of flour in my storeroom, and a big bag of flour in my storeroom. Those who read my blog regularly may recall that I would rather just buy something and put it in my storeroom and walk away, coming back occasionally for a visit that results in warm fuzzy thoughts that run along the lines of, "I love big bags of flour...", or "Tuna is a good source of protein, tuna is a good source of protein...", than to actually use said storage. Unfortunately, warm and fuzzy thoughts do not necessarily turn into useful and necessary action, so the big bag of flour has been sitting there for awhile instead of being used in new and/or old recipes.

So today was the day I opened the big bag of flour and later secured it with a clip. I need to properly store it in a bucket with one of the colored reusable lids that I have (sorry, the name of said lids escapes me at the moment) and do it right. To be honest, I probably would have used the flour that I consider to be more every day flour in the smaller packages if I didn't know that flour does not have an incredibly long shelf life, like say, wheat, some of which I also have stored. The long shelf life of wheat is one of the justifications I use for not grinding it yet, but yeah, that also is not the most productive way of thinking.

So yes, I am rotating my flour now, and have yet to start using a grinder on my wheat. Still kind of a victory for me anyway. Ah, baby steps. And those who may be like me, please remember to rotate your flour--you can only visit it so many times in your storeroom before it goes rancid....sad, I know. I love those visits....

Not that much to post about...

It's true that I haven't been doing that much this week in terms of new things for emergency preparedness (but we did have rice and beans one night and those biscuits I posted about another night, so I hope incorporation of emergency preparedness methods counts for something... :) except continuing to apply the "little by little" principle.

Turns out that actually using the food in your storage room so that your children and/or others won't be overwhelmed with emergency and totally unfamiliar food at the same time tends to make your shelves emptier somehow. I like to buy huge bunches of on-sale food storage food at a time, but since this is not always possible, I have been adding a few storage things when I do the regular shopping (a couple of cans of stew here, some yeast there, etc.). A couple of things I bought recently were not in the food category, but I did get a good deal on them. To alleviate possible boredom with this rather bland post, I am going to add links where appropriate....

1) I bought a couple of bandanas. Can't really say how much I would have loved to have one of these lovely acquisitions when we were out of state--they would have come in handy. But now I have a couple, so we're that much more ahead. For a really good idea of just how handy bandanas can be, check out this post over at Stealth Survival.

2)Picked up a couple extra taco seasoning mixes at $.50/each. I love to have flavor options, and the cheap flavoring packets, ready to go, are pretty cheap, and easy to accumulate. On a side note, is entirely possible that someone reading this is just starting their own emergency food supply, and/or is interested in buying all of their food supply in one step. Learned in an e-mail about this site, where you can order "paks" like the "family pak" (which I heard about someone purchasing, and which apparently, at the time of this writing is still on sale) and have a year's supply of food at your fingertips. A little costly for me, but someday I might try something a la carte, just for the variety. In the end, it doesn't matter what your dinosaur looks like. I just care that you and yours have enough to eat in an emergency....

3)Picked up a candle (peach-scented) that was reduced to $1.00. Sweet-smelling, and inexpensive too.....

That's about it--not all that exciting, I know, but at least some of my supplies are being replenished a little at a time. Beats by a long run how they used to sit on my shelf and threaten to expire.... :)

Hope everyone has a very, very, happy Easter!

The importance of rotation

Well, according to my latest poll, I am not the only one with canned food (in my case store-bought) as part of my food storage supply. At the point that I am writing this, 87% of those that have responded either have store-bought or home-canned food stored. Perhaps none of them have the same problem that I sometimes have--eating the oldest items first and saving the newer items for later, thus keeping them properly rotated.
My husband and I went down in the storage room last night and got part of it organized. Here's an example of my usual method of operation:

1) See an advertisement for a great sale on say, soup, (although some of those 10 for $10 are becoming 10 for $20 more and more consistently) and rush to the store on the last night of the sale.
2) Buy a little extra of perhaps another type of soup (or other item) that was also on sale, though not as well advertised. (As noted, those 10 for $10 sales are becoming more and more scarce--this method doesn't actually happen very often, so I have to take advantage of the prices while I can.)
3) Come home. Explain to my husband why I bought so much soup and/or insert other item here. (Fortunately, he's very understanding. :)
4) Fill my cupboards with new soup.
5)Take the remaining items downstairs to the storage room. (Or get my husband to do so. Yeah, he's pretty great. :)

On the surface, this system looks pretty great. Hey, I got what passes for a good deal these days, and I can probably hold out on the stored items until the next sale comes around, if everything goes right. I'm buying (and this is key) something that my family eats regularly anyway. I've checked the expiration/best buy date, and it is far enough in the future that I feel assured that it will last forever. Sounds pretty good, right?

True confession: I occasionally go down to the storage room specifically to look at my storage to reassure myself that it is coming along. Problem is, I don't always take some of the older cans upstairs with me when I go. I sometimes do #4 above with all of the new items and use them, then repeat, while all those food items downstairs that were going to last forever get older and older and older. This is easy to do because I forget, after checking the dates once, (oh, and I did mention that the storage room is downstairs, right? :) to check them again until I am actually in the process of using them. This (to my shame) is an example of poor rotation.

So last night, we went downstairs and tried to fix the problem. We did one area of canned items, and came up with one casualty--a can of soup that had its date run out more than six months ago. It is no longer on our shelf. We found others whose date is coming up. We are donating them to the local foodbank (which has indicated that it is also in pretty dire straits) long before that date arrives. We also unloaded some bags that were victims of the "drop the bag and run" syndrome down there, and are donating some of those items because we got a really great deal on them and feel it would be good to share--and those dates are the kind that bring up images of forever. Some of the cans will need to be used soon, and those have been placed on the shelf nearest the door for easiest access. The others are placed in roughly chronological order elsewhere, and hopefully we will do better in the future.

Like I said, we aren't done with our "weed out the old' expedition, and unfortunately, I'm sure there are more casualties to come. Some items come without dates, (at least some fruits and vegetables that we have purchased) and in the future, we will mark them with the purchase date in marker on the bottom so that we have some idea of how old they are. In our case, we can sometimes tell by brand when we bought them, because we are always looking for a deal, or buying at more warehouse-type establishments, which sell very brand-specific items. It would still be wiser to mark them with a marker and be sure of the purchase date.

Maybe none of you have this problem, and are more organized than I am. If so, I am impressed, because it is something that I need to work on. If you are just starting on food storage, rotation is something to keep in mind. Put your oldest items to the front, and as you buy/can new items, put them in the back of the rotation so that the older items are consumed first. Makes sense, of course, but it is human nature, I think, to do what is easiest, and just shove the new items in.

Just a note--I would be surprised if not one person who reads this were to say/think, "The dates on the cans are just guidelines. Even if the food gets older, it is still edible, it just has lost some nutritional value," because, frankly, I have heard something along those lines myself. Everyone has to make their own decisions on what they think is suitable to do with outdated food. I myself am a little weird about expiration dates and generally am of the mind, "when in doubt, throw it out." That's why I want to eliminate the possibility of outdated food on my shelves altogether. I just have to be more conscientious about my own rotation.

One final note on expiration dates--I will not donate those items that are outdated or have no dates that I know are old. I remember reading about (sorry, no source, but this was striking enough to me that I remember the gist of the story) someone (I think it was a woman) who was a recipient of donated food. She said that if you couldn't donate food to a food drive, she understood, because she herself couldn't. She just asked that people not donate outdated food because she had opened some and there were some nasty things inside and it was inedible. To find it yourself is one thing. To send it away to someone else who potentially has nothing else to feed their children or grandchildren, and have it be inedible, is something else, and I would hate to be the one responsible for that. I am donating some of the things we got at a fantastic price that have a good date, because we were able to get such a good deal. And because for some, the emergency is now.

Whew, long post, short point. Check your dates. Put canned items in chronological order. Put newer items behind older items as they are purchased. Use oldest items first. Repeat. All of which could be entitled, "note to self." So what's on your shelf?