Week Seven

Sorry this is a little late. Getting caught up after trek has taken me some time. Anyway, I can't believe how well I have done in just six short weeks. My storage is really beginning to look like a food storage! This week is item is a little more costly than the $5. I know that I have talked to a couple of people and they were having a hard time finding some wheat. The cannery did not have any when they called and so they went to another cannery and purchased quite a bit and split it with people.

For myself I have my wheat already so I am going to be working on my 72 hour kits. I will have a longer post on this in a couple of weeks so I will wait to tell you all what and how to get this going.

A sister has been emailing me and giving me great advice about bread making. You will want to learn this skill as practice is what makes great bread! Storing your yeast in the freezer and then the refrigerator will extend the life of your yeast. She has been using hers for 1 1/2 to 2 years now and it is still making great bread. Personally we are still working out the balance with the white flour and the wheat flour. My goal is to get into the habit of bread making once a week and then only using our homemade bread. At $3 a loaf at the store for the good bread it only makes sense that I can save in our food budget by making my bread. I am not there yet but we are working up to it. We have been using our bread maker but that only makes one loaf at a time. By September it is my goal to a full time bread maker! A little side note: We use honey in our bread and the kids also like honey for their sandwiches. If honey sits a little while it starts to crystallize and all you have to do is heat it in a pan of warm water and it will remelt. Anyway, Taylor saw my jar of honey and thought it was bad so she threw it out. It was not very old and not much had been used. When I asked where the honey had gone - she said oh, it went bad so I threw it away. I had to laugh because one time when I was little my mom had bought some bread that still had flour looking stuff on the crust and I kept throwing out the bread and she could not figure out what was going on. I thought it was bad, it was just flour on the crust. Anyway, it was a good opportunity for me to teach her about honey and we had a good but expensive laugh!

WEEK SEVEN: 100 lbs of wheat

Week Six

This last week I was thinking about how to use my dehydrated refried beans from the cannery. Also, that I had never tried the soup mix I purchased - how was that going to go over with the kids? The beans are not that bad when reconstituted but my children did not want to try them just as they were. I have a great recipe called "Tostado Pie". My children gobbled it up and did not even know I had used the dehydrated beans! Yeah for me! Next I am going to use the soup mix - of course, I am waiting until it is a little colder out:) Learning how to use some of the foods that we are not that familiar with before we need to is very helpful. I feel like they will eat it because they will be hungry but children can be stubborn so if they have been introduced to it before hand then you can learn a lot of things. 1. You will know if you even want to purchase it again. 2. They end up loving it and you need at least another case of it. 3. They sort of like it and with the right recipes you can get them to eat it. Again, as always this will help with the rotation of the food.

Tostado Pie -

1lb. ground beef
1 chopped onion
1 pkg. chili seasoning mix (I only use half)
1 can refried beans ( I reconstituted enough to equal 1 can)
1 can crescent dinner rolls
1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 c shredded lettuce
tomato chopped

Brown beef and onions. Stir in chili seasoning and beans. Place roll dough in ungreased pie plate (push dough together until it looks like a pie shell). spoon in hot meat mixture. Sprinkle 1 cup of cheese. Bake @ 375 degrees for 15-25- minutes (until the dough is cooked) Top with lettuce, tomatoes and remaining cheese. (For my family I now double this recipe and cook it in a 9x13 pan)

Taco Dip-

1 lb. ground beef cooked and drained. Add 1 pkg. taco seasoning.
1 large can refried beans
8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese
8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese

Layer hamburger first in a 9x13 pan, then beans, then cheese's. Put in oven until cheese melts. Spread sour cream on top after removing from oven.

Happy Cooking!!!!

WEEK SIX: 1 bottle aspirin (500 tablets) or what you use for pain relief medicine.

Week Five

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July celebration! I have heard from a few people with some suggestions and feedback. Thank you for all your comments. If you cannot leave a comment here on the blog, please email me @ motherofeleven@msn.com I will answer the best I can and pass on your wonderful suggestions. This week some of the questions were on where to store all the food you get. Storage can be a problem but there are some very creative things we can do. Three suggestions that came to me from Bobbe Trommlitz (thank you) were #1. purchase risers that can go under the bed and that will lift up the bed enough to store quite a bit of food. You can also make a longer dust ruffle or add fabric to your existing one to lengthen it so you can't see what's under the bed. If you don't want to buy risers you can use wood blocks or cinder blocks. #2. In some closets there is wasted space above the top shelf. Shelves can be added or taller bulkier things can be stored there. #3. Stack the cases of food in a corner and cover with a table cloth. You can purchase small round wood table tops that could sit on top of the boxes and you would have a cute but functional side table. I know of families that have stored food all over the house in the children's closets, under beds, you name it if there was a space there was food stored there. I have purchased shelves for my garage. I also have put shelves in the closet that is under my stairs. I think for me I will rotate it better if I see it. We don't use our garage for cars so we are making use of the space out there.

Did you work on your water storage. We got our barrels out and cleaned them up and now have our water for cleaning or what not (not drinking) for everyone. I am almost there with the drinking water. It is so fun to see it all coming together when you work a little at a time on it!

WEEK FIVE: 4 cans of tomato soup, 10lbs. powdered milk.