25 year old lids get brittle

We bought a lot of wheat in buckets in 1987.  In the last few years we have found that the slightest touch or weight will shatter the lids.  They have become very brittle, so we have to keep replacing them.

This photo should also serve as a warning not to ever stack buckets on top of each other!  Maybe these lids would have held up another bucket when they were new, but not when they were older.

(Note: If I want to stack two buckets, I put a board in between them.  The sides of the buckets seem  strong enough to bear the weight if it is spread out on a board.)

Vacuum sealed chocolate got too hot

 We moved into a new house last fall, and later found these melted chocolate chips that I had vacuum sealed the previous year.  We think they got too hot in the truck.
I was going to throw them away, but my husband said, "Don't throw it away. That chocolate is still good."

He melted the chocolate in the bottle in a pot of water, and dipped graham crackers in it.  Mmmm mmm good!  I'm so glad I didn't throw those jars all away.

Vacuum canning Chocolate Chips

 I like to buy chocolate chips when they are on sale, and then vacuum seal them into canning jars.  I use this white attachment that fits into the port on my FoodSaver vacuum sealer.  I own a "wide mouth" and a "regular mouth" attachment.

Here are the chocolate chips after I vacuum sealed them.  They are supposed to stay fresher longer without the oxygen surrounding them.

Can of seeds

I buy at least one can of canned garden seeds per year, and keep it in my freezer.  Then the next year, I use it and buy another can to store.  I am hoping that this strategy will enable me to grow a garden even if some big catastrophe happens.

Five Inexpensive Ways to Store Food

Here are some good ideas, in an article written by Tess Pennington.

http://readynutrition.com/resources/are-you-packing-5-inexpensive-ways-to-store-your-food_28062012/

White Flour in storage

In my food storage, from 2003, I had some white flour.  I don't know why I bought the flour, it was the only can of it I had.  I usually just buy flour as I need it, in bags from Sam's.  My long term storage would be grinding flour out of my wheat.

I started reading horror stories of people who had opened white flour that was just a few years old, and it was rancid.  I got curious as to whether mine was still good, so I opened it last month and made a small recipe of biscuits out of it.

I didn't tell my son anything, and he ate the biscuits.  I asked if they were okay, and he said they were fine.  I never told him that I was using him as a guinea pig.

If he would have said they were disgusting I would have thrown the whole can of flour away.  But I guess this proves that sometimes flour is still good after 9 years.

I have to say that this can was stored inside my house, so it was in a pretty good temperature.  Maybe the cans that went rancid really quickly were stored in someone's garage or attic (never a good idea.  Too hot.)

Interesting observation on the food supply

I read this on http://www.iceagenow.com/US_Food_Supplies.htm :

"I spent about thirty years working in commercial agribusiness. My main job was to purchase ingredients, mainly grain, for flour mills and animal feed mills. As a part of my job I was forced to understand the US food supply system, its strengths and weaknesses. Over the years I became aware of some things that nearly all Americans are completely unaware of. I am going to make a list of statements and then you will see where I'm going.

            --1% of the US population grows all of the food for all
               Americans.

            --Nearly all Americans know essentially nothing about where
               the food they eat every day comes from. How it gets from the
               ground to them. And they don't want to know about it. It's
               cheap, as close as their local store, and of high quality. So
               no worries.

            --The bulk of the food we eat comes from grain. Although
               they raise a lot of fruits and vegetables in California, Arizona,
               Florida, Oregon and Washington, those things don't compose
               the main part of the average diet. Half of what a meat animal
               is raised on is grain so when you eat meat you are really
               eating grain. And, of course, we eat grain directly as bread,
               bagels, doughnuts, pasta, etc. Milk (and milk products like
               cheese) comes from cows that eat grain. A lot of grain. And
               the grain they eat is not produced where the cows are located.

            --The lion's share of grain produced in the US is done in a
               concentrated part of the US Midwest (Illinois, Iowa, Kansas,
               Missouri is the center of this area). The grain is moved to the
               coasts (where 70% of the population live) by only two (2)
               railroads.

            --Nothing is stored for very long in a supermarket. One day
               grain travels (by rail) from Kansas to Seattle to a flour mill.
               The next day the flour mill makes the flour and sends it to a
               bakery. The next day the bakery makes it into bread (and
               other baked things) and the next day it is at the store where
               it is purchased that day. Nobody stores anything. The grain
               is produced and stored in the Midwest and shipped daily in
               a single pipeline to the rest of America where the people live.

            --Up until the 1980's there was a system that stored a lot of
               grain in elevators around the country. At one time a whole
               year's harvest of grain was stored that way. But since tax-
               payers were paying to store it, certain urban politicians
               engineered the movement of that money from providing a
               safety net or backup for their own food supply in order to
               give the money to various other social welfare things. So
               now, nothing is stored. We produce what we consume each
               year and store practically none of it. There is no contingency
               plan.

(From Amy:  Reading this makes me feel very vulnerable.  Any disaster could cut off the transportation of our food.  And we have no backup plan for droughts or any type of crop failure.  Doesn't this make you want to have food stored in your own house? )

How to make Homemade Buttermilk

http://9fordinner.blogspot.com/2011/01/bit-more-buttermilk.html

Go to this link to see how Jenny buys a small container of buttermilk, then adds powdered milk to it to create a whole gallon of buttermilk.  This is a great money-saving tip, and a great way to use your food storage powdered milk.

Bucket Opener Tool for 98 cents

I have paid around $12 for a metal one of these, and around $4.50 for this same type of plastic one from Emergency Essentials.

But I found this one at Northern Tool and Equipment in Cary, for $0.98.  You should all get a couple of these, how else are you going to open all those buckets of wheat?

It is called a "5 Gallon Lid Opener" and it is in the paint aisle at Northern Tool.  (All those professional painters need them to open those gigantic buckets of paint.)

Sandwich Style Whole Wheat Bread

(Kimberly Bloomfield sent me this email.  Thanks, Kim, for permission to put it on my blog.)




Hi Amy!

I saw on your blog that you are in search of some sandwich style whole wheat bread.  I'd love to bring one of my loaves over (I'm baking today) for you to try.  With all the work you do for our ward, it's shameful I haven't done it yet.  It's soft and perfect for sandwiches.  Not a hint of crumbles. I got the recipe from a friend who's a professional baker.  I'm going to send the recipe in this email, both with cup measurements and with weight measurements. 

 I purchased a kitchen scale a while ago when I started doing cakes for Sally and then I converted my bread recipe to weight measurements.  The difference has been night and day with consistency from batch to batch.  A pound and a half of flour is always a pound and a half of flour but you can't say the same for a cup of flour!  Plus, you just measure everything into the mixing bowl and don't get any measuring cups/spoons dirty.  I taught Jenny M. how to make it and she's had great luck.  Hopefully these directions will seem pretty straight forward - I love non-complicated recipes.  If you want, you can come over any time and see the process in action, just to get a feel for what stuff should look like.

Another note - I buy vital wheat gluten at amazon.com in their grocery section.  I get eight (small) boxes at a time and signed up for their auto-shipping option and saved 15% on top of their low prices.  It ends up being the best price on the internet.  And since the gluten doesn't really go bad, I don't worry about getting 8 boxes at once.  I bake so much bread with it that I generally go through a case every 3-4 months.

Another note - I prefer red wheat in this recipe.  I love white wheat for other baking things (cookies, pancakes, waffles, etc) but the red wheat seems to give me more consistent results and better flavor.  The white wheat is still great, it's just my back-up when I run out of ground red wheat and don't feel like getting everything out.

Another note - the amount of powdered milk I used is the amount that the package says will yield two cups of milk.  Check your label if you think yours is different.

Dan's Whole Wheat Bread (cup measurements)

5 cups whole wheat flour

1/3 cup Vital Wheat Gluten

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1 1/2 T salt

2 T yeast (instant active)

2/3 cup powdered milk

2 cups slightly warm water

Dan's Whole Wheat Bread (weight measurements)

1 1/2 lbs whole wheat flour

60 g Vital Wheat Gluten

58 g brown sugar

1/4 cup butter or margarine

25 g salt

22 g yeast (instant active)

46 g powdered milk

2 cups slightly warm water

Directions:

1)  Put all ingredients in your mixing bowl.  Mix until everything is just combined.  The dough will be shaggy and there will be pieces of butter that aren't fully mixed in.  This is okay.  They will knead together beautifully later.

2)  Cover the shaggy dough with saran wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes (this gives the wheat a chance to absorb the liquid so that when you start kneading, you can judge if it needs more liquid).

3)  After 30 minutes, knead for 12 minutes (I use a KitchenAid, Jenny uses a Bosch and it seems to be consistent between the two mixers).  The dough should be smooth and elastic.  If, after a minute or two of kneading, there is still flour left in the bottom of the bowl, add water a teaspoon or two at a time.  When I use the scale measurements I'm almost always exactly perfect with the moisture level.

4)  Form a ball with the dough, cover the bowl with saran wrap or damp towel and let rise for one hour or until just doubled in size.

5)  Punch dough down and divide into two equal pieces (when I use my scale, it's just over 700 g per loaf.)

6)  Shape into two loaves and place in bread pans.

7)  Let rise until double or tripled in size (takes between 1 and two hours depending on how warm your house is.  for me, in the summer, it's about an hour.  Winter, it's longer).

8)  Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, until the crust is a beautiful deep golden brown.  I go closer to 30 minutes but have noticed different pans cook differently.

9)  Immediately turn out on to cooling racks to cool.

This slices and freezes beautifully.

How to make bread just like store-bought

http://everydayfoodstorage.net/2009/03/11/making-homemade-bread-the-food-storage-recipe-challenge/food-storage-recipes

Crystal Godfrey made two videos, teaching you how to make bread that is just as squishy as store bought bread, and that doesn't crumble or fall apart when you make peanut butter sandwiches.  (I hope it works for me.)

Why I can meat

You might be wondering about yesterday's post.  You might say, "Why should I can meat when I have plenty of freezer space?"

My main reason for canning meat is that I want my year's supply to be shelf stable.  I keep a few things in the freezer, but with the hurricanes and the ice storms we have in North Carolina I do not trust the freezer.  I don't want all my food to go bad at the exact same time we have a disaster.

I am lazy, so I buy canned chicken.  I don't see the need to can my own chicken since the price is so good at the store.

I have ten or twenty cans of canned Hormel ham, to add to beans.  And I buy canned tuna.

But the store doesn't have canned ground beef or canned pork or canned roast beef.  So I have to can my own.

Price of Pressure Canning Some Pork

Last week I found some pork loin on sale for $1.95 a pound, and some pork butt roast on sale for $1.89 a pound.  I bought $60 worth of meat.  (Note:  I won't buy the butt roast again, I threw away about 2 or 3 pounds of fat.  So I think the pork loin was less money per pound because I didn't throw away any of it.)

It took me 4 times filling my big pressure canner with almost 8 bottles at a time, and I came out with 30 pint bottles of canned pork.  That turns out to be $2 a pint.

It is my estimate that a pint holds a similar amount of meat as one of these 13 oz. cans of canned chicken that I can buy at Sam's.  A 5-pack right now costs about $8.55, so that is about $1.71 per can.

I don't want to bottle my own chicken because buying it already canned is such a good price.  I have a year's supply of chicken.

But I am trying to can pork and roast beef and ground beef because I use those also, and wanted them in my food storage.

It is nice to know that the pork turned out somewhat similar in price to what I could buy the chicken for.

This isn't mine, but I wish it was

How would you like this in your food storage?

They say candy lasts about 3 years if it has been vacuum sealed with a FoodSaver vacuum sealer.  But peanut or peanut butter things go bad faster.  At least thats what I've heard.

(Note:  I know candy isn't very nutritious, but when that time comes when you are having a difficult life because of natural disasters, etc., you will really appreciate having a little treat.)

Ground Beef Now or Later

Years ago I learned a great timesaving tip.  I learned to bring raw ground beef home, and immediately brown it, then I store the browned ground beef in baggies in the freezer.  That saves tons of time as I am cooking a meal.

Then I started learning about food storage, and the importance of having very little of your food storage in the freezer.  (I don't want to lose all my food when the electricity fails.)

So I learned how to pressure can my ground beef.  It doesn't look very pretty, because the grease settles around the top, but when I open it I throw that grease away.

I still freeze some hamburger every time I buy it, but I keep most of it in bottles.  This gives me a lot of satisfaction because I don't have to worry about the power going off.

(Note:  I don't know why this bottle is only half full.  Usually I put more in.)

Benson: Be productive and store what we produce

President Ezra Taft Benson has urged each of us to be productive and to store what we produce: 


“You do not need to go into debt … to obtain a year’s supply. Plan to build up your food supply just as you would a savings account. Save a little for storage each paycheck. Can or bottle fruit and vegetables from your gardens and orchards. Learn how to preserve food through drying and possibly freezing. Make your storage a part of your budget. Store seeds and have sufficient tools on hand to do the job. If you are saving and planning for a second car or a TV set or some item which merely adds to your comfort or pleasure, you may need to change your priorities. We urge you to do this prayerfully and do it now.” (Ensign, Nov. 1980, p. 33.)

A&Z Produce market report has great information

 Here is a great website to look at every week, A&Z Produce Market report.  You need to click on the newsletter to view it.

 It will tell you what produce is in short supply, and what will be scarce in the future.  Here is an excerpt from this week:

http://www.azproduce.net/newsletter.shtml

GENERAL OUTLOOK:  Damage assessments continue from the massive February 4thfreeze that affected  

our domestic southwest vegetable growing regions plus the production areas in the Mexican states of  

Sonora and Sinaloa.  Fear as well as early devastation reports caused panic buying that forced prices  

sharply higher.   It is true that many growers suffered terrific losses while others came through the ordeal  

in fairly good shape.  What has happened this past week is “salvage harvesting” which has resulted in a  

false sense of supply and lower pricing.  We are still several weeks away from really knowing how much  

damage actually took place.  Retailers have raised prices to reflect multiple news reports and early high  

pricing.  This has severely hurt demand.  Grower prices are lower than last week on most products as they  

try to stimulate lost demand in an effort to move their temporary heavy inventories.  We expect lower  

prices for about two weeks before supply gaps begin to develop and prices inch higher.  Even with all the  

changes that have taken place, there are still some great temporary profit opportunities and values as we  

navigate through this very interesting market adjusting.  

Gardening- Spencer W. Kimball, 1976 and 1977

Ensign » 1976 » May

The Stone Cut without Hands
President Spencer W. Kimball
http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=372efd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

If every family had a garden and rural families had a cow and chickens, some fruit trees, and a garden, it is amazing how nearly the family could be fed from their own lot.

We believe in work for ourselves and for our children.... We should train our children to work, and they should learn to share the responsibilities of the home and the yard. ......Children may be given assignments also to take care of the garden, and this will be far better than to have them for long hours sitting at a television.

Ensign » 1977 » November

Welfare Services:
The Gospel in Action
President Spencer W. Kimball

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=51c51f26d596b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

“I hope that we understand that, while having a garden, for instance, is often useful in reducing food costs and making available delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, it does much more than this. Who can gauge the value of that special chat between daughter and Dad as they weed or water the garden? How do we evaluate the good that comes from the obvious lessons of planting, cultivating, and the eternal law of the harvest? And how do we measure the family togetherness and cooperating that must accompany successful canning? Yes, we are laying up resources in store, but perhaps the greater good is contained in the lessons of life we learn as we live providently and extend to our children their pioneer heritage.”

(in Conference Report, Oct. 1977, p. 125; or Ensign, Nov. 1977, p. 78.)

Crystal Godfrey's Bread recipe

http://everydayfoodstorage.net/2011/02/07/bread-runs-in-my-genes-well-that-and-food-storage/food-storage-recipes

On Everydayfoodstorage.net,  Crystal Godfrey teaches about dough enhancers and how you can make your own out of regular kitchen ingredients.  And there is a video to watch, and her bread recipe.  I am ALWAYS trying to find my perfect bread recipe so I am going to try that one soon.

How to make alfalfa sprouts

On Thursday, I gave "Alfalfa Sprouting Kits" as prizes at my ward's Relief Society activity.  I used the instructions here:  http://www.backyardnature.net/simple/alf-spr.htm.

The photo above is from that website.