2011 Food Storage Challenge Complete List

Just a summary of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge I did.

The idea is that you keep a jar called a 'kitty' to put aside the $10 or $20 each week for your food storage.  If you find some specials and you have a little extra money left over in your kitty, purchase those.  There are two weeks set aside to replenish your kitty when we have more expensive items coming up to purchase - like vitamins.

If you don't like the food listed in this challenge, substitute.  Store what you would use, and what your family would eat.  It is no good, for example, to store wheat if you have no way of grinding or using it. 

The $10 plan should provide a couple with a 3 months supply of food.  The $20 plan should provide a family of 4 a 3 months supply of food.

Here's the complete list of the Food Storage Challenge we did last year:-

Week 1
$10 Plan - Store 2 large cans tuna and 1 box salt
$20 Plan - Store 4 large cans tuna and 2 boxes salt

Week 2
$10 Plan - Store 3 kgs sugar and 1 box salt
$20 Plan - Store 5 kgs sugar adn 1 box salt

Week 3
$10 Plan - Store 3 cans soup
$20 Plan - Store 3 cans soup, 1 kg peanut butter

Week 4
$10 Plan - Store 1 bag of 10 pack noodles
$20 Plan - Store 2 bags of 10 pack noodles

Week 5
$10 Plan - Store 2 cans soup, 2 kgs powdered milk
$20 Plan - Store 4 cans soup, 4 kgs powdered milk

Week 6
$10 Plan - Store 5 kgs rice
$20 Plan - Store 10 kgs rice

Week 7
$10 Plan - Store 3 large cans baked beans/spaghetti
$20 Plan - Store 3 large cans baked beans, 2 large cans spaghetti

Week 8
$10 Plan - Store 2 kgs powdered milk
$20 Plan - Store 4 kgs powdered milk (or 3 kgs powdered milk, 1 kg custard powder)

Week 9
$10 Plan - Store 1 kg honey (unless you have a child under two years old - see 'Botulism')
$20 Plan - Store 2 kgs honey (see above)

Week 10
$10 Plan - Store 1 large can tuna and 1 box macaroni cheese
$20 Plan - Store 2 large cans tuna and 2 boxes maraconi cheese

Week 11
$10 Plan - Store 2 boxes macaroni cheese, 2 cans soup
$20 Plan - Store 5 boxes macaroni cheese, 4 cans soup

Week 12
$10 Plan - Store 3 cans soup
$20 Plan - Store 6 cans soup

Week 13
$10 Plan - Store 2 bottle vitamins (100 tablets each bottle)
$20 Plan - Store 4 bottles vitamins (100 tablets each bottle)

Week 14
$10 Plan - Store 5 kgs wheat (or flour if you don't have a grinder)
$20 Plan - Store 10 kgs wheat (or flour if you don't have a grinder)

Week 15
$10 Plan - Store 6 packets spaghetti
$20 Plan - Store 12 packets spaghetti

Week 16
$10 Plan - Store sandwich spreads (ie vegemite, cream cheese spread, jam, nutella etc)
$20 Plan - See above

Week 17
$10 Plan - Store 2 large cans tuna and 1 can soup
$20 Plan - Store 4 large cans tuna and 2 cans soup

Week 18
$10 Plan - Store 4 large cans fruit
$20 Plan - Store 8 large cans fruit

Week 19
$10 Plan - Store 5 kgs wheat
$20 Plan - Store 10 kgs wheat

Week 20
$10 Plan - Store 2 kgs sugar, 1 packet instant potatoes
$20 Plan - Store 4 kgs sugar, 2 packets instant potatoes

Week 21
$10 Plan - Store 2 kgs sugar, stock cubes/powder
$20 Plan - Store 4 kgs sugar, stock cubes/powder

Week 22
$10 Plan - Store 5 packets French Onion Soup Mix
$20 Plan - Store 10 packets French Onion Soup Mix

Week 23
$10 Plan - Store 5 kgs rice
$20 Plan - Store 10 kgs rice

Week 24
$10 Plan - Store $10 worth of Jelly crystals
$20 Plan - Store $20 worth of Jelly crystals

Week 25
$10 Plan - Store pepper, mixed herbs and soy sauce
$20 Plan - Store pepper, mixed herbs, soy sauce and mustard

Week 26
$10 Plan - Store 5 kgs lentils
$20 Plan - Store 5 kgs lentiles, 5 kgs split peas

Week 27
$10 Plan - Store 1 large can tuna and 1 large tin fruit
$20 Plan - Store 2 large cans tuna and 2 large tins fruit

Week 28
$10 Plan - Store 1 kg honey (unless you have a child 2 yrs or younger - see 'Botulism')
$20 Plan - Store 2 kgs honey (see above)

Week 29
$10 Plan - Store 2 kgs milk powder
$20 Plan - Store 4 kgs milk powder, 5 kgs lentils

Week 30
$10 Plan - Store 2 large cans tuna
$20 Plan - Store 4 large cans tuna

Week 31
$10 Plan - Store 4 cans corn
$20 Plan - Store 4 cans corn and 2 cans peas

Week 32
$10 Plan - Store 3 tins corn and 2 tins peas
$20 Plan - Store4 tins corn and 3 tins peas

Week 33
$10 Plan - Store 4 cans peas and 1 pack instant mashed potato
$20 Plan - Store 4 cans peas, 1 pack instant mashed potato and 4 cans fruit

Week 34
$10 Plan - Store 2 large cans fruit
$20 Plan - Store 4 large cans fruit

Week 35
$10 Plan - Store 5 kgs rice
$20 Plan - Store 10 kgs rice

Week 36
$10 Plan - Store 3 packets spaghetti/pasta
$20 Plan - Store 6 packets spaghetti/pasta

Week 37
$10 Plan - Store 4 cans soup, 1 bottle vinegar
$20 Plan - Store 4 cans soup, 2 bottles vinegar and stock cubes/powder

Week 38
$10 Plan - Replenish kitty tin (or put the money aside for purchases coming up)
$20 Plan - Replenish kitty tin

Week 39
$10 Plan - Store 5 kgs wheat/flour
$20 Plan - Store 10 kgs wheat/flour

Week 40
$10 Plan - Store  2 kgs powdered milk
$20 Plan - Store 4 kgs powdered milk

Week 41
$10 Plan - Store 2 cans Four Bean Mix
$20 Plan - Store 4 cans Four Bean Mix

Week 42
$10 Plan - Store 2 cans Four Bean Mix
$20 Plan - Store 4 cans Four Bean Mix

Week 43
$10 Plan - Store 1 packet mixed dried fruit, 1 packet dates or prunes
$20 Plan - Store 2 packets mixed dried fruit, 2 packets dates or prunes

Week 44
$10 Plan - Store 2 cans fruit and 2 packets jelly
$20 Plan - Store 4 cans fruit and 4 packets jelly

Week 45
$10 Plan - Replenish Kitty Tin
$20 Plan - Replenish Kitty Tin

Week 46
$10 Plan - Store 2 bottles vitamins (100 tablets each)
$20 Plan - Store 4 bottles vitamins (100 tablets each)

Week 47
$10 Plan - Store 2 kgs powdered milk
$20 Plan - Store 4 kgs powdered milk

Week 48
$10 Plan - Store 4 cans soup, 1 can spaghetti
$20 Plan - Store 8 cans soup, 2 cans spaghetti

Week 49
$10 Plan - Store 2 large cans baked beans
$20 Plan - Store 4 large cans baked beans

Week 50
$10 Plan - Store 4 tins corn and/or peas
$20 Plan - Store 8 tins corn and/or peas

Week 51
$10 Plan - Use all your remaining money and purchase as much spaghetti/pasta sauce as possible
$20 Plan - See above.

Week 51 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

Image from lunchboxmagazine.com

I can count, really I can, but this challenge is a 51 week challenge, so that you can have a week off post Christmas to recover ;D  So this is the last post for the 2011 Food Storage Challenge!

It has been quite a journey, but I hope as you have followed along, that you have learned what your family will eat, what you can store and how to better prepare your family in an emergency situation, should one arise.

$10 Plan
Use the remaining money and purchase as much spaghetti sauce as you can.

$20 Plan
Use the remaining money and purchase as much spaghetti sauce as you can.

All that pasta we stored needs something else to go with it.  You can store plain tomato sauce, or ones with veggies or herbs already included.  The choice is yours!

I will do one last post on this challenge, and that will be an overview of all the weeks in one document.

Don't forget to "Store what you eat, and eat what you store".

Week 50 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Plan
Store 4 cans corn and/or peas

$20 Plan
Store 8 cans corn and/or peas

You could store just corn, or just peas, or I think you can get a combination of the two.  I mostly store corn (due to my dislike of the gross little green things), but I will store some for the rest of my family who do actually eat them.

You can add them to savoury mince, heat and serve with carrots, cook them in fritters, use them up in chicken and corn soup or ham and pea soup.  There are endless possibilities.

If you don't like storing these veggies, store something else that you could eat.  If you are worried about using canned products, hunt around and see if you can get product in glass jars.

Week 49 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

Hmmm so my Blog seems to have a mind of its own.  When I set posts to be published at a certain time, it likes to be precious.  Dear Blog...just behave, will you! *winks*

Anyways, here's the details for Week 49:-

$10 Challenge
Store 2 large cans baked beans

$20 Challenge
Store 4 large cans baked beans

The bigger the can, the better for these challenges.  You can use the opened and rinsed out can as a camp cooker.  They're quite handy!

Of course if you don't like baked beans (I'm a disliker ;D), you can always store something else.

I'd prefer spaghetti, so I store that, but I have a husband and son who will quite happily eat baked beans.  Typical.

Week 48 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 4 cans soup and 1 can spaghetti

$20 Challenge
Store 8 cans soup and 2 cans spaghetti


Soup

I know a lot of you are clever enough to make your own soup, and I personally love the taste of my home-made chicken soup, but when you don't have the resources (financially or food-wise) to be able to make your own soup, the canned variety is great! 

Spend your extra energy making bread (or better yet, put the kids to work on that;D )

Not to deter anyone from this challenge, but there also needs to be moderation in all things.  I came across this article today on elevated BPA levels in a study of some people who ate canned soup for 5 days straight: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/11/23/High-BPA-levels-linked-to-canned-soup/UPI-26961322067158/

I just have to add though that I have my food storage there as an emergency.  I don't eat from cans every day but when I have had to rely on my food storage, boy have I needed it!  Not even all of that was canned either.  Rotate with pasta and sauce (bottled sauce, not canned) and frozen foods if you can.

Spaghetti

Canned spaghetti on toast is cheap and easy.  It can be eaten cold straight out of the tin if it's a desperate situation.

You can add extra things to it to make it more of a meal, like frozen peas and corn, bacon and tomato, even fresh herbs.

Week 47 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 2 kgs powdered milk

$20 Challenge
Store 4 kgs powdered milk

I'm not keen on powdered milk, but that may be because I'm not fond of milk in general.  I used to be highly allergic to cows milk and any soy product.  I remember wandering up the street with my brother with some glass milk bottles to ask an older gentleman if he could supply us with goats milk, which he would happily do.

I'm not sure if my mother paid him money or with veggies from the garden, but he was a lovely elderly man.  That was the only milk I could have.  Sometimes we would have it warm.  I shudder to think what that was like...

I digress.  I still like to use milk and milk products in my cooking, and powdered milk is definitely necessary in the bread I make.

Here is some information on powdered milk on a previous post of mine: http://denleydiaries.blogspot.com/2011/01/powdered-milk.html

And this one, with some useful 'uses' for powdered milk: http://denleydiaries.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-to-do-with-powdered-milk.html

The biggest hint is to check the use-by date on your powered milk.  You don't want off milk.  It's nasty!

Week 46 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 2 bottles Vitamins (100 tablets each)

$20 Challenge
Store 4 bottles vitamins (100 tablets each)

I guess the main reason for this challenge is that if you have to life off your food storage, and you have very limited access to fresh fruit and veggies, you may need some extra vitamins in your diet to keep you healthy.

I have heard some vitamin tablets are better than others.  Some will go straight through your system and not be absorbed - kind of defeats the purpose.  There are so many different brands and varieties.  Store them if you will use them.

Week 45 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Replenish the Kitty Tin

$20 Challenge
Replenish the Kitty Tin

If you have been using a jar or tin to put your leftover money in, you get to top it up this week, as we have another vitamin week coming up.  Vitamins are rather expensive.

If you don't want to store those, think of something else useful you would like to store instead.

Week 44 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge

Store 2 cans fruit and 2 packets of jelly.

$20 Challenge

Store 4 cans fruit and 4 packets of jelly

 A great Summer storage food, and easy to make dessert.  If you get the canned fruit in natural juice, you can drink it as well.

Make sure you store extra water if you store Jelly crystals in order to make it up.

Week 43 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Purchase 1 packet mixed dried fruit and 1 packet dates/prunes.

$20 Challenge
Purchase 2 packets mixed dried fruit and 2 packets dates/prunes

A bit of an odd challenge this one.  Depending on why you require your food storage, fruit may not be easy to get.  I mean...we're just starting to see bananas come down in price. 

Prunes are great for...keeping you regular.  I'm not going to go into that in any more detail!

There are many types of mixed dried fruit out there as well.  I like one that has dried halves.  It includes apple, pear, peach, prunes and apricots.  I'm not keen on sultanas for some reason.

You can dry your own fruit with a food dryer, as I sometimes do, if I get a great haul of fruit cheaply.

Some ideas on what you can do with your dried fruit:-

• Make muffins
• Make your own muesli
• Add to your breakfast cereal
• Hydrate in syrup and serve with ice cream
• Make coconut/condensed milk/dried fruit balls
• Make fruit cakes
• Make scones
• Eat right out of the packet
• Combine with seeds/nuts and something like Nutri-grain or puffed wheat to make a trail mix.

If you want to store glace fruit instead, go right ahead.  I love to keep glace cherries handy, and typing this, I realised I haven't replenished my store of them. *Gasp*.

Week 42 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

Same as the previous week...

$10 Challenge
Store 2 cans Four Bean Mix

$20 Challenge
Store 4 cans Four Bean Mix

More lentils.  You can mash these up and serve them over corn chips and salsa with cheese on top for a simple Nachos.  Add them to mince to bulk it up.  Add to a salad.  Mash them up, add some cheese and herbs and serve them over a baked potato.

Add them to a soup, to tortillas and toast away, to a tuna salad with pasta.  Endless possibilities, if you like the things ;D

If you store dried lentils, you will need to store extra water to soak them in overnight, and for rinsing.  The canned ones don't need soaking, and you can probably get away with not rinsing them as well.

Week 41 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 2 cans Four Bean Mix

$20 Challenge
Store 4 cans Four Bean Mix

I can see the advantage of this challenge - added protein to your food storage diet, but I really dislike lentils.   I'm going to replace this with canned ham, or filled ravioli or the like. 

That's the beauty of this challenge.  You can adapt it to suit your own family, yet get some ideas on what to store as you go along.

Week 40 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 2 kgs powdered milk

$20 Challenge
Store 4 kgs powdered milk

Powdered milk again.  Make sure you check the use-by date on your powdered milk.  I once purchased some that had to be used up within 2 months.  I use a tablespoon of powdered milk each time I make bread, but I didn't get to make that much bread!

Other options if you already have enough powdered milk, or if you don't wish to store it are sweetened condense milk, or evaporated milk.  I like to keep both of those in stock too, as I use them whenever I make Nigella Lawson's Flan (aka Creme Caramel).  It gets devoured quickly here, and I confess, I could eat an entire thing by myself.  Well, almost by myself.  Over two days perhaps ;D

Week 39 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 5 kgs wheat

$20 Challenge
Store 10 kgs wheat

If you can't store wheat, store flour, or rice, or whatever your family eats most of. 

This wheat can be put through a grinder to make bread, or tortillas daily if needs be.  I do have some wheat stored (20 kilos, or something like that), but I tend to store more flour as I used to be allergic to wheat when I was a child. Some people can develop intolerances for whole wheat in breads.  I am not willing to risk that should I need to rely solely on my food storage.

You can sprout wheat too, and munch on that.  There is a recipe for 'Swamp Water' floating around in my food storage folder which uses ground up wheat grass.  I have tasted it.  I was very nearly sick.  I don't think I'll be making that unless my life depended on it - and I'm seriously hoping it won't come to that! ;D

Week 38 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Plan
Replenish the Kitty Tin

$20 Plan
Replenish the Kitty Tin

If you have been doing the 'Kitty' method, where you put the $10 or $20 into a jar or tin each week, and use only that money to purchase your Food Storage, this is where you would put that money in and leave it in for this week.  There are some expensive things coming up that you need to 'save' up for, like vitamins.  In order to get ones that will actually be of benefit, you'd need to spend a bit of money on those.

And how cute is that kitty tin?

Week 37 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 4 cans soup and 1 bottle vinegar

$20 Challenge
Store 4 cans soup, 2 bottles vinegar and stock cubes/liquid

Soup: Because it's so easy to make up when you're short on fuel resources.  Make sure you store a little extra drinking water to cover the soup you are storing.

Vinegar is very handy for so many 'wierd' reasons.  There are 1001 of them here: http://www.vinegartips.com/Scripts/

I use vinegar mainly for cleaning purposes, but I do use it to drizzle over a leg of lamb before I season it and roast it.  It makes it very tender.  Yum!

I also use vinegar for a citrus zest cleaning solution.  See this post for information:  http://denleydiaries.blogspot.com/2011/08/orange-vinegar-cleaner.html

I did try and make a pineapple vinegar at one point, but it smelled so bad I had to throw it out. I may have forgotten to stir it every day to introduce oxygen.  If you want to know how to make it, the instructions are here: http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2009/11/wild-fermenting-making-vinegar.html

Stock: Oh what would I do without my bacon stock cubes!  I use them in soups, chowder, savoury mince, meat patties, and sometimes in a creamy sauce I cook chicken in.

Week 36 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 3 packets of spaghetti

$20 Challenge
Store 6 packets of spaghetti

If you find spaghetti a bit messy when you're eating it however, store whatever pasta you and your family likes to eat.  I like to store Pene and Spirals, because I can get that easily at my local Aldi store.

I store my pasta in a large plastic tub (with sauces) on top of my kitchen cupboards.  This keeps rodents and other nasties away from the pasta.  I haven't had any weevil problems yet either *knock on wood*.

I really do like to make my own fettuccine, but let's face it - sometimes there isn't time to be Super-Mum and the family have to survive on packet pasta sometimes.

This is what I use packet pasta for:-

• Tuna Mornay
• Pasta Bake
• Pasta Salad
• Pasta, Tuna, Tomato pasta sauce and fresh herbs from the garden

I'll put up a quick pasta salad recipe that I made last night that was rather yummy in another post this week.  It has my secret recipe dressing, so once you read it, you will explode into a thousand pieces ;D  Well maybe not.  But it is very tasty!

Week 35 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Plan
Store 5 kgs rice

$20 Plan
Store 10 kgs rice

I put some information up on the different types of varieties of rice up in week 6 of this challenge, when we first stored rice here: http://denleydiaries.blogspot.com/2011/02/week-6-of-2011-food-storage-challenge.html

You might like to store 4 kgs of long grain rice, and one of risotto rice.  I like to store some Calrose rice to make rice pudding just to vary our diet (and to use up some milk).

You could also store alternatives like Sago for even more variety.

Week 34 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Plan
Store 2 large cans fruit

$20 Plan
Store 4 large cans fruit

You can store:-

• Peaches
• Nectarines
• Apricots
• Plums
• Pineapple
• Cherries
• Lychees
• Two Fruits
• Fruit Salad
• Apple pie filling
• Mixed Berries
• Pears

Etc.

I love having canned fruit on hand.  It is really yummy with egg custard made in the Thermomix, or with ice cream in Summer.  You can make fruit crumble with it, turn it into pies if that particular fruit is out of season.  I guess the whole point is that if for some bizarre reason our fruit supply went downhill, we could still get some of those nutrients out of our tinned fruit.

I dehydrate fruit as well.  I still have some fruit-leather bananas from before Cyclone Yasi hit.  Unfortunately we're not so big on bananas as my place, but my son will happily munch on these, or snip some up and put them in his porridge.

Week 33 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 4 cans peas and 1 packet Instant Mashed Potato 

$20 Challenge
Store 4 cans peas, 1 packet Instant Mashed Potato and 4 cans fruit

I think the fruit and the peas are fairly self explanatory, but the Instant Mashed Potato could be an odd choice.

Use Instant Mashed Potato when you don't want to eat rice...or pasta.  I recently purchased and used a packet of  Aldi Instant Mashed Potato and was expecting to taste as gross as the stuff my parents use to buy.  I was pleasantly surprised though.  It was actually edible, and I would happily use it if I didn't have fresh potatoes in my cupboard.

Uses for Instant Mashed Potato:-

• Tuna Pie
• Shepherd's Pie
• Potato Pancakes
• Bubble and Squeak
• In a chocolate cake (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/potato-chocolate-cake/detail.aspx)
• Croquettes
• Gnocchi
• Potato Soup (http://www.grouprecipes.com/18126/near-instant-potato-soup.html)