Week Ten

I am so sorry to have missed last week. I have been in and out of town for the last month and I just could not get it together to post here last week. That said I hope there are a few benefiting from this. It has really helped me to get focused and organized.

I talked last week about 72 hour kits and when I was working on another project I realized I left off something important from the list. Personal hygiene items. I have saved over time the small bottles of soap and shampoo from hotels that we have been to. I usually take my own stuff so I don't use it while staying at the hotel. My mom also saved stuff for me. So now everyone has there own personal hygiene kit and the girls also some feminine products added to theirs. If we had to evacuate to a shelter I know this would really be a blessing to have. Sample size products also are the right size but the ones from the hotels are free! (Well, sort of if you don't count the cost of the room, he! he!) I will get to the larger kit but will save that for later. I have not had time to get all the information together.

School is getting ready to start and there have been great sales for the back to school stuff. I picked up extra crayons and pencils and stuff for the 72 hour kits for pennies! Storing things is so fun when there are bargains involved! I also saw that snacks and things like that are on sale right now. I picked up a few things to add to the food storage shelf that would be fun treats. Those are easily rotated because David always thinks we are in an emergency situation if we run out of treats - that said storing the basics really is the priority but when sales come along it is fun to see some treats on the shelf along with the basics.

WEEK TEN: 4 cans of tuna, 4 boxes of macaroni and cheese

Week Nine

This week I want to talk a little about individual 72 hour kits. There are many ways to put one of these together. Our family has used 5 gallon buckets in the past and that was good and easy to store in their closets. I have been saving older backpacks that the kids don't use for school anymore and that is what I am using now. I think it is a little easier for little ones to carry and they seem to store pretty good. They are not air tight so your food needs to be in zip lock baggies. Generally speaking what you put into a kit you probably already have around the house. This is an activity that we do at a FHE. I make a game out of gathering the items and we have prizes for who finds things the fastest. Here is a basic list that I use:
1. One outfit, generally a pair of sweats and t-shirt and sweat shirt. (I have them get things that are play clothes out of their drawers. I never buy anything new for this, also I try to do this around September when they have all their new school clothes and shoes so it is easier for them to find something they don't want to wear for a while.)
2. 3 pairs of underwear, (diapers & wipes if you have a baby) 2 pairs of socks, and a pair of tennis shoes.
3. 3 bottles of water
4. A small first aid kit
5. Color book, crayons, a pad of paper, and pen. (kids will get bored while in a shelter if we have to be evacuated, so some type of thing to keep them entertained works good) If you have a baby a couple of baby toys and maybe some kind of blanket for them to snuggle with.
6. Food: this usually is granola bars, fruit snacks, instant oatmeal, individual cracker or cookie pkgs. This part of the 72 hour kit is more for snack type foods. We put together a larger kit that includes more dehydrated type things that can be put together for meals like when we go camping. Remember this is the individual kit and your kids have to carry them.
7. A small mess kit.
8. If you are on a certain kind of medication it is possible to be able to store some of that as well. Talk to your doctor and let them know what you are doing. My step dad has done this with his medication and sealed it with one of those food sealing machines.

This is a real basic kit. Next week I will go into more detail as to what to put into the larger kit. This is one that generally can be carried by mom and dad along with the individual one.

If you have any suggestions or ideas to share please do, we all could benefit from other's experiences. I have never had to use our kits for anything so if you have had to use yours and thought "I should have had this or that" please share. We do rotate the food every year during a family home evening. We eat what is in the kits for dinner and add new food. This has been interesting as we have found out what the kids absolutely did not like to eat and what they did like. This is also the time that we rotate the clothing - children grow and sometimes what I had for one child could be passed down to the next.

Week Nine: 5 lbs. of honey, 1 lb. of yeast (by the way store your yeast in the freezer - and keep in the refrigerate after it is open - you can store it quite a while this way!)

Week Eight

I have been on vacation and even while vacationing I have been thinking a lot about our food storage. What prompted the thinking was the fact that I was in California when they had their "little" earthquake. My immediate thought was how do you store things that you can in Southern California (glass jars would break when they fell from the shelves) Where did I put all my jam I just made and would it be safe if an earthquake hit here at home? But I did not think about that very long but asked myself these other questions. How can I make my storage grow faster? When is the next order going in for the cannery? Am I buying the right kinds of food that my family will eat? OK , so I have gone a little overboard with the fixings for taco soup. My family loves this recipe and it can be made without the meat. But I am sure they will get tired of that so I do need to move on to a new recipe:) Seriously, that is such an important aspect of food storage. You need to store what your family will eat. That takes a little planning. Sorting through recipes for meals that don't have to many perishable ingredients can be tricky. Taco soup is a perfect example of that:

TACO SOUP
1 pound of browned hamburger
28-oz. can crushed tomatoes
151/4-oz. can corn, undrained
15-oz. can black beans, undrained
151/2-oz. can red kidney beans, undrained
1 envelope dry ranch dressing
1 envelope dry taco seasoning
1 small onion, chopped
tortilla, or corn chips
shredded cheese
sour cream
1. Combine all ingredients except chips, shredded cheese, and sour cream in slow cooker.
2. Cover. Cook on low 4-6 hours.
3. Garnish individual servings with chips, cheese, and sour cream.

You can leave off the garnishings but if you have the other ingredients stored in your food storage then you can buy only those things if times are hard! Hopefully things will not be so bad that we can't get our sour cream and cheese! The secret ingredient though is the ranch dressing so don't leave that out! I would love to hear of other recipes that you can just make from a can. Campbells soup has a great recipe book that has lots of ideas!

Next week I"ll be sharing some recipes for things you can make ahead and freeze. The storage life is not as long as shelf food but it is always nice to have something in the freezer for unexpected dinners needed for a neighbor or on a night you just don't have time to think about making dinner. Plus once you start cooking like this you save lots of $$$ on your grocery bill and that extra cash can go for more food storage. See I have been thinking lots about this:)

Week Eight: 5 lbs. of powdered milk