Class #2 !!!!!

So, another great class ladies! It has really kept me motivated being able to "teach", I really am just sharing.

So, by this time you should have your recipes in order. What do I mean by order?
You should have gone through your recipes (dinners for now) and picked out all the ones your family eats, ones you know they will eat, and put together a binder at best, so that they are organized and easily accessible. You should have gone through those meals and looked at the ingredients to see how it measures up for a food storage recipe. To clarify that, a food storage recipe is one that you can have enough of the ingredients to the meal that if you can NOT go to the store you will still be able to eat that meal. This is where you need to think outside the box- if it calls for fresh carrots, get a can of carrots for your pantry. if it calls for chicken, get a can of chicken for your pantry. (Costco chicken is really good!) If you have a recipe that calls for so many fresh item that you can't eat the meal if you can't get to those ingredients then it will not be a food storage recipe.
Now, we had to clarify this too- I suggest that you have at least 7, 14 is better, recipes that every ingredient is or can be substituted for a pantry (freezer) item. This is what you want to make sure you have a solid three months of. This does not mean that you can not have other recipes that you will stock up on ingredients for that are not all F.S. items. Like my White Bean Soup, this is one I won't consider a solid F.S. recipe but I still stock three months worth of the pantry ingredients.
The reason it is important to establish solid F.S. recipes, is because there will be a time when we can't run to the store. I know it's hard to believe for some, but it's the truth. These solid recipes you will have three months of.


NOW- moving forward-

Making your meal calendar:

Ok, so now that you have your meals we need to make a menu. I started out filling in a full three months of meals with my Solid F.S. recipes first. Yes, I did stick to it because for me, it was the only way I knew I would get it done. YOU DO WHAT WILL WORK FOR YOU! As long as you get it done! I did however only fill in 5 of the 7 days of a week. you can do four if you want.

here is an idea of what I did.



Again, fill yours in how you want, keeping in mind that your goal is a three month supply of at least 7 -14 solid F.S. recipes.

Every week write down your meals for the week based on your calendar. As you write the ingredients from the recipes here is how you are going to do that:




Now you will see all the food storage items and then you would double those items. One is for the use during the week. The other is for your storage!
NOW I know the first thought when you think of having to double the purchase is "I can't afford that!" I will say first that you will be surprised at how reasonable it is because you are sticking to a list and actually using the ingredients that you buy!
However- This is what I tried to stress in class, if all you can do is buy one extra can of soup, if that's your best effort then you will be blessed and just like the quote from Vaughn J. Featherstone, miracles will happen and the way will be opened and your storage areas WILL be filled! What a promise.

Now, this is the homework for the week

*Make out your monthly meal plan. Use whatever calendar style you want.
*Then write down your meals ingredients right down to the salt and pepper. You want a master inventory list of these meals.
*Then write out your weekly meals based off the calendar, write out your shopping list separating the F.S. items from the perishable.
*Decide how much you can double.
*SHOP- STICK TO THE LIST- STORE AWAY!!