Week 10 food Storage Challenge

 

 

50 pounds wheat or flour/ Condiments eg. Mustard, mayo ketchup, hot sauce, salad dressing, ect.


Are you using your flour and wheat? Buy extra and start using it now make your bread and pasta . If you are buying wheat, grind it and use it. This way you know how to do these things so if you have problems you have time to work them out before you are dependant on these items. Plus your family gets use to eating this way and it will not be such a great shock to them if you have to start using your food storage not to mention so much better for them.


If money and /or space are an issue you can make most of your own condiments from stuff you probably already have, you can go Here to see how to make your own mustard . I will soon do a post on some of the others ( as soon as my kitchen gets put back together, we are about half way done.) The more we can make from scratch the less money we have to spend.

Keep putting back water

Don’t forget to add to the stash of money.

Time to start working on those gardens. Plant as much as you can it will come in handy and it will help lower your grocery bill.
How are the car kits coming along?

Any time you have a chance to pick up something extra do so. I think we are running out of time to have things put together, the stock market is at all time highs, every time in history that it has done that it eventually falls way back down. From what I can see we are following the same path as they did right before the great depression. So the more prepared you are the better you will be able to deal with things.
　

Make Your Own Mustard

 

I have two recipes that I use depending on what I am going to use it for the first one is very easy but a little more spicy. Andy does not like spicy mustard's but I love them, so this is the one I like to use on sandwiches.

 

4 Tablespoons dry mustard powder

2 Tablespoons vinegar ( I use cider vinegar)

1 ½ teaspoon turmeric

2 Tablespoons water

Optional 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder, paprika, salt

 

 

 

 

 

Put all the dry ingredients in a small bowl

 

Whisk all together.

 

add the water a 1/2 tablespoon at a time until the desired consistency. Let the mixture sit at least 20 minutes before serving. will last up to two weeks in the fridge.

 

 

 

 

The second one isn’t as spicy and is what I like to use in my macaroni and potato salads or where ever I need mustard in a recipe. This one does require a little more work but not much.

½ cup dry mustard powder
½ cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
½ cup white vinegar
½ cup water
2 eggs
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon softened margarine

 

 

 

Mix all the dry ingredients in a medium sauce pan.

 

 

add the vinegar and water and mix well

 

beat the eggs and add

 

place on low heat and stir constantly until the mixture thickens (it will thicken very fast) and begins sticking to the pan it may be lumpy.

 

remove from heat and add margarine.

 

mix with an electric mixer or stick blender on low until it is a  smooth consistency. You can add more margarine to make it thinner and creamier.

 

Put in a jar and store in the fridge

 

Dry mustard powder is a lot easier to store then prepared mustard. And you will always have mustard.

Snow Again and having babies

Well it is snowing we were hoping for rain but I guess we will get what we can get.

We have stared calving we have four so far, seems like weather like this makes them start calving so we gathered up some of the heifers that are due soon and stating to look like they might do something and got them in the corrals so we can keep an eye on them.

One of Kayla’s cows had twins the mother would only take one of them so Kayla having to bottle feed. When my milk cow calves we will probably put it on the milk cow to raise (She raised 3 calves last year).

I will try to get some better baby pictures as we have more calves.

Week 9 Food Storage Challenge

8 Cans Tuna/ Dry soups and Crackers

8 Cans of Tuna, If your family doesn’t care for tuna then get another type of canned meat.

Dry soups and crackers, I have a lot of Ramen noodles they are cheap and most people like them (except my Husband lol ). Or you could get something like the Lipton noodles or cup a soups.

Crackers you can make your own.Go here to see how. But if you do store crackers make sure they do not get to warm I had some in the outside shed in the summer and when we went to eat them they tasted like plastic from the wrapping on them. You can make your own with things you already have I will try to get that posted here in the near future.

Don’t forget to keep putting back water and money

This months item challenge is to get an alterative cooking source. There are a lot of instructions on the web for making your own solar oven one even uses a car window shade. If you have a solar cooker you are not dependant on fuels as you would be with a BBQ grill or some other cooker.

This months action challenge is Car kits. If you are stranded in your vehicle for any length of time you will be so glad you have this.

A few years ago we went to get our Christmas tree up in the mountains there was a lot of snow (which never deters my Husband) we got up high found a great tree and started back well we got stuck. We were in my pickup which didn’t have much of anything in it not even a shovel (we are usually in Andy’s truck when we do this stuff and his has everything). About 45 minutes of trying to get out someone came by and helped get us out . They were the only other people we saw up there. I keep thinking what if they had not come by. Andy had his hunting pack with him (he never leaves without it) but the girls and I didn’t have ours with us. I got to thinking what if those people had not come by I had no extra food Andy had trail mix but it has peanuts and I am very allergic to peanuts. And to make it even better nobody knew where we were we had not told anybody. So I learned two important lessons always tell someone where you are going and have a car kit in your vehicle with some necessary items and food. Oh and to always bring our packs with us Andy wasn’t to happy when we told him we didn’t have them with us.

Dehydrating Potatoes.

 

 

 

As I have said before we get potatoes once a year ( we tried to grow some but the prairie dogs ate the all) They will keep for quite a while but not all year. So I dry a bunch of them to use in stew, scalloped and to mash. I also freeze a few for frying. I am going to try and rehydrate some this year to fry and see how that works.

 

 

The first thing is get your potatoes these potatoes were so big, I

love them for doing things like this. Peel and wash them.

 

 

 

Slice into about 1/8 inch slices I use my mandolin which I love.

 

Put them in cold water after you slice to keep from turning brown.

 

After you get all them sliced put in to boiling water for about 5 to 6 minutes.

 

After you blanch them put straight into cold water.

I add some ice to help keep the water cold so they will not keep cooking.

Drain well, I drain mine then put on a towel to help dry them off a little better. I forgot to take a picture of that.

 

 

 Then put on your trays and dehydrate at 120 for 18 to 20 hours until brittle and semi transparent.

 

 

 

 

Make sure they are dry any little bit of moister will cause them to mold.

1 cup of dried potatoes will equal 1 to 1 ½ cups cooked potatoes.