Class #3

What a great three weeks!

I think we had a great turn out, I love that you all are following on-line too, and I feel like we all have really made progress. I have to say to my class though, thank you for your support, your encouragement and your examples of faith in being so willing to jump into this. For some of you I know you are stretching some muscles, and it inspires me.

Today we cleared up a lot of questions. We clarified again, the recipes! What a F.S. recipe really is. I encourage that when really thinking about this, you try to have as much variety as possible. I can tell you that when you are in a position where this is your mainstay, you do not want to be bored eating the same meals over and over.

And even more so for me, I think that if you are using this because of a financial strap, having more variety in what you can make takes away the reality a bit. As a woman, it won't make you feel distraught about your situation.

My mother always said, "There is no greater feeling to a homemaker than to have her cupboards full!" I know that's so true. When I go shopping and I come back and I am all stocked up, I feel like I have variety, I feel like I am successful.

So, when in a situation where you can't freely go out and "stock up" it helps not to feel like your cupboards are bare when your three month is full of different things to pull from.

I remember early on in the process thinking, "well if we have to, we can eat peanut butter and jelly, jello, pancakes, I have my wheat. We will be fine." And yes, you will survive, but it's not fun! And kids complain more! Ok, so do I!

Coupons and deal shopping came up. I like to know what each stores price is for certain items so that when I see a coupon or a sale I can match it up with the best prices. For example. if Kroger has their KRAFT cheese on sale for $2 and Walmart has their regular cheese for $1.98. But I have a coupon for $1 off KRAFT plus coupon to load on my Kroger card and or cell fire card too, then i am getting KRAFT cheese for $1 or less.

Walmart might match or be cheaper in some things but If you are really watching the sales and coupons and know what price each store is selling it for- you can get some real bargains.

We talked about rotation ideas. There are lots of ideas to choose from. I think this can be a hard thing to wrap our heads around, so I want to just give a couple ideas that I think are the easiest.

Besides getting the fancy shelf relience shelving that I would love to have and dream about but can't afford so I have to be creative and do a little more work there are some good tricks. :)

When i come back from grocery shopping, I take my storage items and say I bought can chicken, then I will put that new bought can chicken in the back of the row of can chicken. Then during that week when I make the meal that I will use it in, I grab from the front.

Now getting off subject a bit here, but the question arose, what if you want to use fresh and you are still buying canned, how do i use up the canned chicken?

GOOD QUESTION! You just have to break open a can once in a while to keep it moving through rotation. It is great to make a quick chicken salad with. I put in on our rolls that I make during the week. Makes for great quick go to meal. It is great to throw in your chicken pot pie. And for that day when you forgot to take your chicken out of the freezer! So you can do it easy.

OK, back to rotation. Now this one i have a picture of so you don't get too confused.

What you will do is have the expiration dates that are the farthest from expiring on the left hand side, and the ones that are close to expiring on the right.

When you go to use an item, you will pull from the right only. When you buy new, you will stock on the left only.

Then you will bring the back can on the left, and move it over to the right.

Hope that made sense.

Then there is the rubber band idea, you stick one around an item and when you reach the one with the rubber band you know you have to restock. Personally- I'll pass.

You can do colored stickers, yellow sticky notes, black marker, whatever makes it easy on your brain!

Once you have a handle on how to do your three month, start looking at toiletries. I got 4 pk of Cottenelle Toilet paper for free last week with Kroger sale and coupons. You can really stock up easy on these items when you hit a good clearance. Nice thing about this is when you hit your three month mark for a toiletry item- your done! you don't have to worry so much about rotation. I don't believe they have an expiration on Toilet Paper!

I have loved going to this class, it has kept my fire lit and I am so excited to be sharing this joy of food storage with all my new Food Storage Junkies!!!

Great Job Gals.

For 3 Month Inventory list or other great planning tools, click on this link HERE

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!!

Class #1

These next four classes are based on how I do my 3 month food storage. I gave a brief explanation here.

Class One

Today's class I gave a big disclaimer- This is only how I learned to do it. I know there are many ways to do this and as I have said before- It is so adaptable that you can make changes that work for yo and your family. I just needed something to make it click for me and hopefully taking this class will get it to click for you. 

So we started out talking about the spiritual side of Food Storage. Yes, there is a spiritual side! 

I read the quote we have posted here on the Right side of this blog by Vaughn J. Featherstone

The key here for me is: Decide, Commit, and Keep it

Also, it was pointed out that although we may want to just go out and buy it all up and be done with it, or we are just so excited that we want to get it all bought and get going with it, we would be missing out on some important principles and building quality characteristics. All things that help us to know our Savior. As the 5 wise virgins did, let us prepare and trim our lamps that we might know Him when He calls. (Matthew 25)

Now for the FS (food storage) part. 

To make this work we have to change our mind set. Sometimes we want things too easy and too quickly. I believe this is on e of those principles we were talking about. Patience, persistence, faith. So, we have to be willing to change some behaviors to make this work. 

Also, the "organization" is not a bad word! The more we can be organized with this the easier and the better. See, there is your easy word right there! So today we talked about recipes. 

Recipes:

What is a good food storage recipe? Good Question. When gathering yours up, you want to store what your family eats. This isn't gather foods that we will eat in an emergency, but not everyday. That WILL NEVER HAPPEN. You won't eat it. So, look at all the things you make weekly that you know your family eats. 

Look at the ingredients. How many ingredients are Storage/Pantry items? 

Lets look at an example.

Tortilla Casserole

Ingredients:

1 ½ C Sour Cream


2 Cans (10 ¾ oz) Cream of Chicken Soup


1 Can (7 oz) Diced green Chilies


1 Can (10 oz) Mild enchilada sauce


3 C cooked chicken or 

3 cans chicken or turkey, drained (save the juices for broth!)


12 Corn tortillas, torn into bite size pieces (or Tortilla chips)


1 ½ C grated Cheese (Cheddar)

Everything here is a food storage item. Sour cream? dehydrated, add a little water, refrigerate and wa-la. Seriously it's good. And chicken? Canned Chicken. I think it's better in the can personally. And I don't have to touch it very much! (I have a meat thing)

And I keep shredded cheese in the freezer. There is also freeze dried cheese! 

If you would normally use lets say fresh carrots in a meal. Then buy a can of carrots for the storage. You can still use fresh when you have access to a store, but substitute storage for fresh as much as you can.

So this would be labeled and an ALL FOOD STORAGE MEAL

Now lets take another example:

Anniversary Chicken

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (I highly recommend THIN cut breasts)

1/2 cup teriyaki basting sauce

1/2 cup Ranch-style salad dressing

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

3 green onions, chopped

1/2 (3 ounce) can bacon bits

Now the hard thing about this on would be the Chicken breast. You really can't use can shredded chicken for this, or you could but it wouldn't be, well very good. BUT. I would say that if this is one of the dinners your family LOVES. then clip it as a FS recipe. WHY? because you can store veg. oil, teriyaki sauce, ranch dressing, and cheese from the freezer. 

These are things you can store. You will just be buying the fresh chicken that week. Now, when you can't go to the store and get fresh chicken- then you probably wouldn't be running to this recipe. 

SO, I suggest that you have at least 7 full proof FS recipes that you know will be on hand. 14 would be awesome. And then you can work the others in throughout the month. We will be talking about menu planning next class!

Now, if so far you are confused, e-mail me why- I can answer. 

OK, so your homework is to go through your recipes and come up with all your Solid FS ones, and ones that you can use mostly pantry items with. Type them up, print them out. Put them in a binder. I suggest on that has a clear pocket in the front (I'll tell you why later)

I even went so far as to make all FS items in bold and then write in the substitute FS item. like can carrots next to fresh carrots. 

However nutty you get with it, just make it so it works for YOU. Organize it how YOUR mind woks where it will be the easiest. 

Alright, now if you need some ideas there are a ton out there, also here on our recipe page we have tried and true recipes that we know works for us. I always like to know that so I am not wasting my time ya know?

GOOD LUCK and let me know if you have a question.

Making Mixes

Click Here

Yipeeeee

So I came across this food storage website and the ladies here have put together an excel spreadsheet to keep track of meal planning, food storage ingredients, and even prices to help watch for sales! It's all I have been doing with my own but on paper, ahhhhh. SO check it out. Watch the tutorial they give about the spread sheet and tell me if you are not so excited that you are going to stay up all night filling it out. Ok, well you might not but I am!

 

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/

It's A Date!

I have found that one of the big ways to keep a handle on three month food storage, your recipes, and all that is to have some consistency in your meal planning. I know some of you hate that word- Planning- but get used to it! Saturday is my cooking date. I for sure make my breads/rolls/ and pizza dough that I shape and freeze so it's ready to go on Friday. Just pull it out, top  and stick in the oven. 

I have all my ingredients for the weekly meals so I'm ready to start cooking. I will make cookies to freeze. The kids love pulling them out and eating a cold cookie! I will make at least 2 meals that I have in the fridge ready to pull out. 

I know this sound totally nuts to take this much time, but it helps me in a couple of ways. First, I am ready for dinner when the monsters come running in ready to devour. Second, it helps me not to waste the food I buy at the store. I so often will buy something (fresh) with every good intention to cook it but don't. Then have to throw it away- ahhh - it's throwing away money. 

I use it all up, cook it all up and have no waste. For me, that's a biggie.

Every Friday night is our Pizza night. Home made of course. But it's a great relief come Friday to know that I have a easy meal to throw in the oven. I also let the kids have soda so that they have their fix! OK, so I can have a fix :)

You can also just buy the pizza dough packets at walmart for like $.59 and keep in your food storage to make up real quick that night. 

Also, a great tip that My friend taught me was to make up your cinnamon rolls, freeze them and when ready to eat stick in the oven- don't even thaw they turn out great. She does this for Sunday mornings. I like this idea for Saturday morning because I hate to make breakfast on the day I will be cooking so much as it is. I bake them in muffin tins-just a little thing I learned at school, gives a fun look.

So Make it a date to PLAN your meals, cook your meals and then eating your meals will be much nicer!

Food Storage Rotation

Click  Here

3 Month Food Storage

I have been working on my 3 Month Food storage for the last year and finally have it down! 

I have always been so lost and frustrated about this topic. But I know it's so much easier than I made it out to be in my head. It just has to click. So don't give up until it does!

I know there are so many ways to get this done, lots of different systems to follow it can get overwhelming and confusing. The trick is to find what CLICKS for you and run with it, modify it to your home and wa-la you've done it!

 I wanted to share the system that worked for me and if it is your" CLICK", great!

I want to first say that I have learned through this process that this "food storage thing" has to become a lifestyle. It's not something to just check off a list. When we look back to what the prophets have always said and counseled it SHOULD be! So to make this work we have to change our mind set. 

OK, 

The goal here is to stock up on a three month storage that is always stocked- this means you are not using these items you buy while you are stocking up. This is when they refer to rotation(I will explain how I rotate in next post).

First Step: I organized  my recipes- I had so many I wasn't really using them! So I went through and actually typed them out so I have them on file and just got organized with it.

Second Step: Then I went through my newly organized recipes and picked out 30 meals that I know my family eats and likes. I included snacks and treats I make from scratch too. Cookies, rice crispy treats, bread, muffins, etc. Keeping in mind the ingredients need to be more storage items rather than fresh items. Don't forget Breakfast and lunch items too! I buy the big bag of pancake mix and oatmeal at Costco for example.

Third Step: Next I wrote down all the ingredients from every recipe right down to the salt and pepper. I mean anything I might use, I wrote down, sugar, flour, chocolate chips. 

Fourth Step: As I made out my weekly meal list (meals from the 3 month list) I wrote down all the ingredients from those weekly meals. Again, everything down to the salt. I put all the storage items from my shopping list on one side of the paper, I will then buy double of these items. Now I know you are thinking "I don't have money to buy double" You will be surprised that if you STICK TO THE LIST, use your coupons and store sales, you can actually spend LESS!! (I did this when we have not been at our most financially stable stage in life) But even if you only buy double on ONE MEAL, you are progressing. I would suggest if money is tight to look for meals you can do based around the sales in the grocery store that week. 

I know that even of it's the smallest bit added to your storage, you will be blessed for it and God know that you are doing your best and will not forsake you. 

Fifth Step: Now I have all my ingredients for the meals I was making that week + my storage week of meals! I then started to write out the more long term pantry items like flour, sugar,wheat,barley, six grain, powder milk, #10 cans of dehydrated onions, etc. I then used the extra money from my grocery budget (because I really am saving) and put it toward the bulk items that I can order from the cannery or on-line.

Sixth Step: Start making a list of toiletries, paper plate, cups,batteries, personal care items and using the same shopping method to build your supply.

Now I stay up on it because I am cooking meals I have "assigned" if you will, to my calendar of meals. I do however have meals I want to try out and experiment with which I just add to my grocery list. And If I want to Add a meal to my list I just follow the same steps to acquire a stock up of those ingredients. 

I hope it helps or at least gets you thinking about what you can do in your home. I DO have a testimony of this more now that ever because I see the all around blessing that come from making this my lifestyle. I stick to a budget better, I am more frugal, and I actually make dinner!

Check out the 3 month food storage classes we had to get even more detailed information!