Week 20 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

Brrr it is getting cold here, which means I can't feel my fingers when I am typing ;D - or when I'm hanging out the washing, or doing the gardening, but what do I need fingers for? *moves the heater just a little bit closer*

Wow, we're up to week 20!  Exciting stuff!!

$10 challenge
Store 2 kgs sugar and 1 packet of instant potatoes/potato flakes

$20 challenge
Store 4 kgs sugar and 2 packets of instant potatoes/potato flakes

Sugar

We have one more week after this of sugar storage and then we're done with sugar.  I consider sugar an absolute necessity for my food storage.  Making bread with yeast requires sugar, you need it for sweet baking (cakes, biscuits), even to add to a basic pasta sauce with salt to bring out the flavour of the tomatoes.

I use sugar when making hot chocolate, in rice pudding, in custard, sprinkled on top of peaches and puff pastry then baked (yum!).

Remember you can store different kinds of sugar as well.  http://www.sucrose.com/ltypes.html from the Sugar Knowledge International site (SKIL) has some useful information about sugar.

I have learned that brown sugar doesn't store as long as the white sugars because of the higher amount of liquid contained in it.  It has been stored successfully for a few years in my own pantry cupboard though, and on occasion has only required a 'thwack' on the kitchen table to loosen it.  I haven't had it go 'bad' on me yet, but I do keep rotating it and haven't stored it for more than those few years without using it up.

I use raw sugar in my Thermomix and it converts the raw sugar into icing sugar if I need that.  Quite a handy machine!

Potato Flakes/Instant Potato

Okay so I wasn't a fan of instant potato years ago when my parents stored it, but I tried some from Aldi recently and was pleasantly surprised.  Even my husband commented that he liked it much to my amazement.  He isn't fussy, but does have a high standard when it comes to food.

You may not always be able to get potatoes, or decent ones and because we are trying to vary your food storage here, it can be a useful thing to have on hand.

Use it in Shepherd's pie, with gravy and caramelised onion, with chopped cooked/canned veggies (my kids call this 'rainbow potatoes'), with tuna in tuna cakes, in bubble and squeak/hash browns, in gnocci, with bread crumbs to crumb meat or chicken, make potato bread or everlasting yeast (recipe here: http://denleydiaries.blogspot.com/2011/01/everlasting-yeast.html)

The idea of storing instant potatoes is that it is something that will fill tummies, like pasta and give you some variety in your food storage.

Of course, you don't have to store sugar or instant potatoes if you don't want to.  Store something you and your family will eat and remember to "eat what you store and store what you eat".