It's been a while since we had our food storage discussions and a reader prompted me to touch on the subject again. It's always good to get remotivated . My shelves are looking a little anemic so I am now restocking.
This world of ours keeps getting crazier. The "What if's" seem a little more plausible. Just think about the gulf oil leak right now. What can happen with that? We already are going to suffer losses in seafood but other industries can be affected because of oil issues with transportation and ports. Who knows. It really wouldn't take much to cause a catastrophe. We need to be ready. Would you be able to live on what you have in your home right now for a month even? What about a week?
How do I run my food storage program? Well, if you missed my post on the subject a year ago, you can check out my food storage book here.
However, that was written before I started the mostly vegetarian gig so I am in the process of totally redoing the menu. That also means that I have to totally redo the whole book since the pantry lists will now be changed. It is always a good idea to revisit your game plan every year and reevaluate.
Plan out your menus. What do you like to eat? Try to keep it as healthy as you can. You need canned foods on hand. I don't like them but they are necessary. Stock what is as natural as possible and rotate when you can. I stock things that will make a meal out of my grains and beans. I can cook beans with the canned tomatillo sauce and some homemade tortillas. I can add some jalapenos and seasonings to canned tomatoes for salsa. I keep jarred garlic, pesto, sun dried tomatoes and jarred shredded Parmesan for my Italian sauces. Not nearly as good as the fresh stuff but will work when needed. My food storage meals will look much like what I cook now, just not as fresh.
Learning how to sprout now will also help you to be able to create live, green food out of your stored grains and beans. The nutrition will expound if you can't have garden fresh food.
Some of the meals I have planned are:
Bowtie Pasta with sun dried tomatoes and pesto sauce
Lentil Crustini and roasted potatoes
White bean tomatillo wraps
Vegetarian Black Bean chili and cornbread
Creamy veggie soup
Spaghetti with Bread sticks
Navajo tacos
Fried Rice with veggies and bacon
Chicken with Raspberry Chipotle glaze and mashed potatoes
Hawaiian Barbecue Pizza
No cream of soup recipes in this bunch. I think I would starve first. Ok, not really but you won't see that on my shelves.
If you are needing to stock up, my sister in law has started a new website for the AZ gals to give them the best stock up sales of the week. Click on her cute "A Full Pantry" button on my sidebar for the weekly specials.
Stock what you eat. Also don't forget that we may want shampoo and toilet paper as well. I also add in hair color to the mix. I don't want to be sporting my gray hair if times are hard! Yikes.
Let's get motivated. I don't want to share what I have with you all, and... I probably won't so fill your shelves. Make your food storage book so that it will happen. Start with one meal at a time. Make it simple. Just start.
Check out the Preparing Wisely button for great deals on food storage items. They have awesome prices on their freeze dried products, especially and much more! If you need some menu ideas, check my year supply label for past year supply posts.
6 comments:
You are such an inspiration with all your organizing. I have food storage, but I need to take it to the next level and actually get more organized so I know what holes there are. What a shame it would be if I had almost enough to make a meal. I'm curious about the cream soups thing? Why are they so bad?
Cream of soups are loaded with different forms of MSG and sodium. There is nothing good in them. If you must cook with cream of soups, there are plenty of recipes on the web for homemade versions.
Thank you! I love this.
Curious...do you store dry milk? I have some that my mom bought me but I have been dragging my feet on buying more because of the whole damaged/oxidized cholesterol thing. But, I just read a post on some nutrition blog about how perhaps homogenization and other processes (ie, dry milk) don't necessarily mean it is damaged cholesterol. I'm kind of confused. I don't want to store something (and spend a ton of money) on something I don't use ever, but I also don't want to be caught without something when worse comes to worse. Any ideas or thoughts on substitutions for that?
I do store dry milk. Not much but enough for cooking. I store evap. milk and coconut milk as well. You can't store raw cows milk so you have to store something. I rarely use the dry milk but it stores for a long time. I use the coconut milk all the time. I won't be drinking it, just cooking with it so a little won't really hurt. We just have to do our best and if we are starving, we will love what we have!
I think that sounds about right. I also store and use coconut milk, so that is a great alternative to have on hand. Thanks for the suggestions! I am working on my food storage so this is super helpful.
Thanks, Shari. I've been itching to look at my food storage closet and now that we've had a food revolution in our home :).
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