3 Month Start

I am working on a Three Month Supply of food and Essentials. Originally what I was doing to build up our 3 month supply was putting anything that was left in the cabinets at the end of the week in the basement. I had mostly a disorganized mix of foods. They were also the foods that we chose not to eat when they were upstairs. This built up a little quantity, but it was our last choice foods. I decided that these were not the best things to store. If under stress, we will want to eat some of our favorite foods.

I started to buy extra of what we eat the most. Great idea right? Kind of. After a little while I had some of the ingredients for some of our favorite meals. Not really all that helpful either.

In the past I focused mainly on dinners. We eat breakfast and lunch too! I have tried to accumulate breakfast foods lately. My easy shelf stable breakfasts are cereal and fruit bars. My kids love pancakes and sausage. My goal is to learn how to store this stuff. I have the Ball Canning Guide and it says that sausage patties can be canned. Someday I will try it.

Our lunch menu is coming along. I have planned for chicken salad sandwiches, pb&j and pasta. I need to learn how to make bread and what I need to store for it. The Safely Gathered In blog has a recipe I plan to try.

I need to make a plan for dinners. Something is better than nothing. I do have something.

Win a Food Storage Organizer

You could win a food storage organizer. I have seen them at Time Out for Women. They look like a really great way to rotate cans in your food storage. The shelf reliance blog is giving away one of the 72" Food storage organizers. I entered to win. You can too. Just visit their blog and enter. www.shelfreliance.com/blog/ Good luck. I hope I win. If not, I hope you win.

There Are Beans in the Cake

Several places on the internet suggested using beans in baked items as a way to rotate food storage. I was not sure it would work. I had to try it for myself. I have dry beans in my food storage but I do not use them. I do not know how to rehydrate them. After I try it I will show you how. I am sure it is not hard, but I have never done it.

The beans are used as a substitute for cooking oil. This cake mix called for 1/3 cup of oil. I chose to use white beans because it was a light colored cake. Chocolate cake or brownies would be great for black beans I've read.

Here's how you do it. Put the rinsed re hydrated or canned beans in the blender. Puree them. My blender required a little bit of water along with the beans. About a tablespoon.

This is what they looked like when I was done.

Below is a picture of my baked cake. It looks about the same. It does not have a beany smell, although the entire kitchen smelled like beans from the prep work.
Here is the finished cake frosting and all on a plate, so you can see the inside. Could I taste the beans? NO. Did my family know? NO. I made a yellow cake because I had it already. I do not like yellow cake. My son has issues with chocolate. I am not that familiar with yellow cake, but it seemed to me that it had a little more dense of a texture than one made with oil.

Will I do it again? Probably, but not frequently. It only used 1/3 cup of re hydrated beans. Very little rotation involved in this recipe. I did not save my pureed beans for future use. I will just make more.

72 Hour Kits

Last year we made two 72 hour kits. I was pretty impressed with our efforts at the time. As I went through the contents more recently I decided they were probably lacking a few necessary items. They are better than nothing.

I put a lot of thought into the container/holder for our kits. I finally decided on rolling backpacks. They have more than one method of transporting them. They can be worn like a backpack, pulled behind by the handle and wheels, or they can be carried by the handles on the top and bottom of the bag. I researched them before I bought them. There are tons of them on the internet. They are quite expensive. The good ones ranged from $65 to $120. I thought I would take a look at what Walmart had to offer before making my purchase. Our backpacks were $17.95! What a bargain. They have sturdy construction and good wheels. The backpack itself should survive 72 hours. The blue one is for the girls and the orange one is for the boys. I think I will change that because when I took them down I was certain that the boys should have blue.

When I emptied the backpacks I remembered I had no water. I had contact solution, but no contact case or glasses. A waterproof match holder but no matches. They definitely could use some improvement.

Later I will make a list of the contents to my revised 72 hour kits.

My Purpose

Recently I have been obsessed with food storage. It is my goal to learn how to obtain a usable one year supply of food and other essentials for myself and my family. To help me with my goal I have decided to start a blog to mark my progress. I hope that this will help me reach my goal.