2011 Food Storage Challenge

This week I started my $10 a week food storage challenge. If you would like to join me in this, it will end up supporting one person for 6 months, or two people for 3 months. If you want to support 2 people for 6 months, double the quantity.

Of course, you should only store what you will actually eat. If you can't have salt, store something else. Remember to eat what you store and store what you eat!

Week 1 $10 challenge

2 large cans tuna and 1 box salt

Week 1 $20 challenge

4 large cans tuna and 2 boxes salt

Food Storage: Food Storage Mentatility

On my quest to keep going with my food storage, I thought I'd start putting up my collection of articles and information I have been given over the years. I'm really not sure where many of my info comes from, as it appears to have been re-typed from its original source, but it is extremely sound advice.

The first is about the mentality of 3 different 'types' of storers. Here goes:-

"Food storers usually come in three categories:-

SIEGE STORERS

• use money outside their regular food budget to buy in bulk those foods they hope they will never have to use.


• barrels of wheat - jugs of water - cartons of powdered milk - cans of honey fill their shelves, but they really do not know how to use them.


• they are waiting for the "end of the world" to use their food storage.

PRACTICAL STORERS

• eat what they store, and therefore do not spend extra money to buy food that they will never get to use.


• their shelves are full of foods they like because they buy a few extra cans or cartons or boxes of those things each time they go to the store.


• eventually they will have a cache of tuna or peanut butter or frozen corn on hand that could be readily used in case of a winter storm or a break in employment.

PROVIDENT STORERS

• spend less money on food and less time in the store because they produce and preserve much of the food they eat.


• there is no "emergency food" for these storers


• their regular diet includes their storage


• they can garden, dry, dehydrate, freeze and culture their own foods. They have learned not to rely so much on others for their food.

The aim is to get you somewhere between practical and provident.

Siege mentality bought basic foods that stored well. Put is somewhere safe until the disaster occurred. Every 10 years they threw it out and replaced it with fresher supplies and again waited.

It cost money to replace it every decade or so, but it was "insurance" well spent and you hoped you would never have to use it.

This is marginally better than no storage at all, but is the least effective. Assuming that all this food stored has not spoilt, how easy do you think it would be to switch from your fast and processed foods to powdered milk and raw wheat?

Now let us look at practicals.

How many times has this happened to you...

- at the end of a long day you're home. You fancy potato chips or a chocolate bar or even a tuna fish sandwich. You know you have seen this food item in the house, but you search everywhere and it cannot be found. You have choice. Choose something else or get in the car and go buy it. Maybe when you do you buy the can of tuna...you buy three extra tins as well for the next time. Then next time you're shopping again you will purchase three more, or you see your favourite tuna is on sale at the store, so you purchase more. Maybe you will extend your purchases to include jam or mayonnaise or other things you use on a regular basis that has a reasonable shelf life.

You may not recognise this as food storage because ti is done on a small scale.

From this example , can you see the difference between Siege Mentality and Practical?

Practicals eat the food they store.

If care and rotation is used in the storage of these foods, not one calorie will be lost in spoilage.

January Challenge 2011 - Store water

Store 2 weeks supply of drinking water per person.

I store my drinking water in washed and bleached PET bottles, filled with tap water.  Our tap water here is fantastic, so there is no need for me to purify it.

Keep your stored water our of sunlight and away from concrete floors if you can.  The bottles can soak up the smells of things around them and possible toxins.  Sunlight can release a toxin in the plastic of the bottle thus getting into your water. 

Check on your water and change it every 6 months if needs be.  I store both drinking water and washing water.  The drinking water I change frequently and the washing water I don't have to worry about.

I also store some containers (like the one pictured) of store bought water due to them being easy to pour and easy to take camping - just grab and go.

Dip recipes

Here are some of my favourite dips that are so easy to make:-


French Onion Dip
Mix together 1/4 sachet of french onion soup mix and one 300 gram carton of sour cream. Refrigerate for a few hours prior to serving.


Corn Relish Dip
Mix together one jar of corn relish and one 300 gram carton of sour cream. Refrigerate.


Feta Cheese and Sundried Tomato Dip
In the food processor, blend some sundried tomatoes, fresh basil, a drizzle of olive oil and feta cheese together. Drizzle in a little lemon juice. Should come out a lovely orange colour. If you are not a fan of feta cheese (hubby dislikes it immensely), you could use cream cheese instead.


Note: You can vary the French Onion dip by adding in a little blue cheese.
Add onion flakes/finely diced cooked onion to the Feta Cheese dip.


I added a little bacon to my feta and sundried tomato dip. Was VERY nice!

Lolly Boxes - Great Christmas Presents to make

To make this lolly box you will need:-

1. A box/basket
2. Oasis (grey is better for dry arrangements, but green will work fine for this one).
3. Assorted lollies (licorice allsorts, candy canes, jelly beans, fruit rings etc)
4. Wooden skewers
5. Plastic wrap (cling wrap/glad wrap etc)
6. Secateurs
7. Tinsel
8. Christmas pick

Step 1: Prep your box.

Cut your oasis to fit snugly inside your box. I find it easier to use the box as a 'cookie cutter' and get the size that way.Step 2: Cover the oasis with a little bit of tinsel (to hide the oasis) and put your Christmas pick in the centre.

Step 3: Cut your skewers in half.

Step 4: Lolly time! Make sure you have all your lollies around you as it makes this project much easier (and you have to taste test a couple to ensure your gift recipient isn't getting poisoned lollies!)

Step 5: Cut your glad/cling wrap to size. I use a massive heavy duty roll of cling wrap that lasts me at least 5 years (in the kitchen generally), but any one will do the trick

Step 6: Lolly flowers. To make a 'jelly bean fruit ring flower', you need to skewer 3/4 way through one jelly bean.

Add a fruit ring...

Cover in plastic wrap...

Ta daaaaaaah!

Hint: If you wrap the plastic wrap over the top of the lolly then wind it down the skewer as tightly as you can, it will stay on better. Kind of like florists green tape.  Each lolly you use needs to be wrapped this way.

The end result:

You could wrap the whole thing up in cellophane if you wanted to. I do for ease of transporting it as presents for teachers at school. They look great just as they are, and usually take about 20-30 mins for a box this size.

New 'pinching pennies' site I found

I was looking for something and stumbled across this great site that has some fantastic ideas for home-made prezzies around Christmas time. Just so I could find it again, I thought I'd put the info up here: http://clarissesfinancialnotebook.blogspot.com/

I especially love the bath crystal sundaes!

Lunch Box Rules

I was given a handy little piece of advice not so long ago about what to put in lunch boxes.

Firstly, I have to say that my children aren't particularly fussy eaters. They will generally eat anything put in front of them at home, will happily try new things and even go so far as to assist me in cooking at home, and suggesting healthy meals for dinner.

My problem is that foods they absolutely love eating at home don't always go down so well in their lunchboxes. Sandwiches for example. Perhaps my children have developed such a keenness of taste that they can only eat fresh sandwiches. Either way, they refuse point blank to eat sandwiches at school however will scoff them down at home.

I have had to come up with varied ways of tantalising their tummies lunch box style.

The lunch box rule is:-

1 fruit, 1 sweet treat, 1 savoury treat and one 'big lunch' item.

The fruit part is easy. My kids have to take crunch 'n sip to school. It's a Government incentive to give kids a 5 minute breather around 10am so they can get some fruit into them and some water. Apparently it rejuvenates them. Teachers have told me it really does work, and they also have a piece of fruit in the classroom and read the kids a book at the same time. They say their classrooms just work so much better with that short break. I also usually give my kids an extra piece of fruit for their little or big lunch (their choice) or a dairy item like yoghurt or cheese.

Sweet. That can be anything from muffins to cookies/biscuits, slices, cakes, fruit bread, scones, pikelets etc.

Savoury can be chips, popcorn, crackers and cheese, rice crackers, savoury scones, cheese sticks etc.

Big Lunch could be a sandwich, wrap, savoury muffin, pinwheel, crackers and cheese and olives, quiches, home made pies, pasties, cold slices of pizza, sausages and bread, foccaccia, damper/mini dampers, bread sushi sandwiches or 'normal' sushi, boiled eggs, antipasto (cheese cubes, ham, pineapple, cherry tomatoes etc), caesar salad, garden salad, cheese scrolls, puff pastry with ham, tomato and cheese baked or dates/celery with cream cheese, cooked pasta with tuna and cheese, tuna pasta with corn and mayonnaise etc.

Some things take a little prep work, but when I thought about it, I realised that I have taught my kids to love food, varied food and of course they're not going to want the same thing every day. I know I certainly wouldn't.

They get to choose their sweet, savoury and fruit and I vary the Big Lunch every day. I make sure they know what must be eaten first (ie yoghurt and cheese generally doesn't like being left in a warm lunch box). I add those mini freezer blocks in if anything needs to be kept cold. Handy little gadgets around these days :)

I have cookie dough and mini muffins ready to go in the freezer for those days when I literally need to throw things in their lunchboxes if we're having a rare 'off' morning. Thankfully they come few and far between.

Here's to happy kids, empty lunch boxes and full tummies :D