Week 21 Food Storage Challenge

 

 

50 Pound Wheat or Flour / Toilet Tissue

 

50 Pounds of wheat or flour.

I don't remember the exact price of flour at Wal-Mart, but I know it was right around 9.00 for 25 pounds. So a little under 20 dollars for 50 pounds.

50 pounds of flour or wheat, if you have a grinder you can get wheat, if not get flour. White flour will last longer then wheat flour in storage. If you live in a place that freezes during the winter get your flour now and you can store it out in a shed or somewhere where it will freeze. Just pour in a bucket, add a couple pieces of spearmint gum, and put the lid on.  If it freezes real good for at least a few days, it will last a very long time ( I opened some flour a few months ago from 08 and it was still good). If you don't live where it freezes you will need to put it in some Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers.  If using Mylar bags you still need to put them in buckets, this will keep varmints from trying to chew through.

 

Toilet Tissue This is one of those things that you can never have to much of haha. But the one bad thing about it is it is hard to store as it takes a lot of room and if stored in an out building the mice may decide it makes for great housing material. An alterative is the family cloth I have a post on it  HERE now this is defiantly not for everybody but is is something to consider having on hand.

 

 

How has the cooking from scratch been coming along?

 

Have you found any alternative lighting ideas? 

Don't forget to add to your water and your money stash.

Have a great week.

 

Week 20 Food Storage Challenge

20 Cans of Soup / 20 Pounds Rice

20 cans of soup, get what your family will eat.  Wal-Mart has soup for 1.00 to 1.68 a can depending on what you get. You can also can your own.

20 Pounds of Rice. Wal-Mart has 20 pounds of rice for 8.92. You can store in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers or in buckets I put a couple bay leaves in my buckets of rice to help keep out unwanted critters.

How is the cooking from scratch going?

Have you been able to work on the alterative lighting sources ?

Put back some more water and add a little more to your money stash.

Hope you have a great week. 

Week 19 Food Storage Challenge

25 Pounds Sugar / Tomato products

25 pounds sugar or 5 pounds of honey which ever you choose to use. Even if you use honey for everything it would be a good idea to have a little sugar on hand. You can use raw sugar if you don't want the processed. I keep my sugar in 5 gallon buckets. My honey is in quart jars.

Tomato products, paste, sauce, whole, crushed, rotel and what ever else you use. I can most all my tomato stuff with the exception of sauce, I never seem to have enough tomatoes for that. Even if you can all your own tomatoes it is a good idea to have extra on hand just in case your garden doesn't do well one year.

Keep trying to cook all you can from scratch.

Put back more water.

Add some more to your money stash.

Have a great week

Week 18 Food Storage Challenge

 

6 Pounds Shortening / Cheese


6 Pounds shortening, oil or lard I use lard and olive oil to cook with since it is better for you then the hydrogenated shortenings. I do keep a little shortening and vegetable oil on hand. I use the oil in a spray bottle to spray the bottom of pans. The shortening I use in soap. As with everything be sure to rotate. If you plan to make your own soaps you might want to try and get a little extra.
Shortening does have a very long shelf life if keep unopened and in a cool place. I also have lard and tallow canned which extends the self-life. As with everything be sure to rotate.


Cheese we eat a lot of cheese, I try to buy on sale and keep in the freezer I get the shredded, because when you freeze block cheese it will fall apart when you thaw it out. You may want to get some cheese powder I have two different kinds and really don’t care for either one of them so I don’t know if I am just picky or if I just haven’t found a good one, the kids like them so maybe it is just me.

I make most of our soft cheese like, cream cheese, mozzarella, and cottage cheese.
You can also wax some cheese and store in a cool place. The only problem with this is if there is even a pin size hole it will get very moldy, and it does get sharper as it ages. I tried this and didn't care for it. I haven't using a food saver on block cheese plan to try this soon and see if it would work better than the wax.

The Action item this month is learning to cook from scratch if you don't already. It is so much cheaper and healthier.

The extra item this month is alterative lighting. Oil lamps are very affordable and you can use Kerosene which is less than ten dollars a gallon and keeps for a very long time. You will go through batteries in your flashlight pretty quickly so be sure to have lots of candles, oil lamps maybe even some solar powered lights and other light sources.

Put back some more water.

Add more money to your money stash.

 

Freezing Grated Carrots

 

I was given several pounds of carrots then I got several in my bountiful baskets decided to grate them then freeze them. These are so handy for carrot cake, muffins, meatloaf, or filler in hamburger.

 

 

First I grated all of them.

 

 

Then blanched them in boiling water for about 3 minutes.

Put them into a pan of cold water to stop them cooking, after I get all the carrots in the water I add a couple trays of ice cubes to help it cool off fast.

 

After they are cooled down I put them onto a large towel to help get them dried off.

 

I like to fold the towel over and pat them dry.

 

Then I put them into fold over sandwich bags I did half in one cups and half in two cups.

 

After I fill them I fold them over and try to push out as much air as I can. Then I put several into gallon sized freezer bags ( forgot to get a pic of that). One cup in bags and two cups into other bags, be sure to write on the bags how much is in the individual bags. 

 

After the gallon bags are filled I push as much air out of them as I can. Then put into the freezer. When I use them I put them in the microwave for a few seconds to part way thaw then add them to what ever I am going to use them in.

300 a Month April

Another busy month, Not sure where all the time goes.
The first of the month we got my Mother in Law moved into the house in town. Andy had to make a wheel chair ramp for it, then went out to her place and brought back her chair and several other things that she wanted.

One of Joleen's friends is going to be staying with us for a while so we brought up a camper that I had bought a few years ago. They got it cleaned out and doable for her to stay in, there is no water so she will have to come inside to shower and eat but it gives her her own space.

We branded one weekend, the weather was horrible windy, and a little chilly. We were only going to do half but decided to just get them all done. We do have one cow that hasn't calved, so we will have to brand it and a couple that Andy bought at the sale barn as soon as it is born. The day after we branded we moved 3 loads to different pasture.

Katie had prom this month. It is so sad to think that this was the last prom, since Katie will be graduating this year, kind of sad to think I will not have kids in school anymore. They had grand march outside it was pretty chilly and had been raining earlier, I felt so sorry for all the girls you could tell they were freezing. They all had fun though.

We spent one weekend working on taxes finally got them all done, we said last year we weren't going to wait until the last minute this year, oh well maybe next year we can get them done sooner haha.

Andy and I went to Farmington for the weekend just to get away, it was nice to just kick back a little, We ate at Texas Roadhouse so so good.  We were going to go to Aztec ruins Andy has never been but it was pouring down rain so maybe another day. On the way back home we decided to go through Durango, we got rained on all the way to Durango then it turned to snow until we got about twenty miles from home then nothing. We were really hoping to get a little rain out of this storm.

My spending for the month wasn't to bad, but not great, but I did get some things on sale.

 Milk which was 20 dollars a week so 100 dollars for that.
City Market had cheese and canned broth on sale so I got some of each I spent 46.99 on that.
Then the miscellaneous stuff eggs, frozen raviolis, #10 size cans of tomato sauce(for spaghetti sauce) 40.07
2 Bountiful baskets 33.00

100.00
 46.99
 40.07
 33.00

Total 220.06  I had 3002.10 left for the year so minus the 220.06 I have 2782.04 left for the year.

I did get 7 quarts of spaghetti sauce canned hoping to get some more done soon.

Have a great week and hopefully starting next week I will have the menus and goals going again.