Food Storage Tuesday

Every Tuesday, we post specific items you should gather in order to supplement your emergency car kit, your three-month supply, and your longer term storage.  If you are new to our blog, don't worry!  You won't be left behind.  Just start up where we are and follow along.  You will eventually have everything completed.  Once the car kit is complete, we'll be putting together 72-hour kits again (week by week).  Once those are done, we'll gather the car kits again.  So don't worry, just jump on in and join us where we are today!   


This week for your emergency car kit, add some high-energy (high calorie) snacks, and a flashlight & batteries (or, a crank flashlight that doesn't need batteries).


Some ideas for snacks would be: some sort of jerky, mixed nuts, granola bars (without melt-y chocolate!), etc.  You could also put in crackers, etc... whatever you feel like you might want or need.


How's your three-month supply going?  To be honest, I'm struggling at the moment.  Do you ever go through phases where you are just tired of food?  I'm sure I'm not the only one.  I get tired of thinking about it, tired of all the planning it requires, tired of just looking at it sometimes (is it obvious that I'm pregnant?  Thankfully the first trimester will be over in a few days and hopefully I'll be back to normal soon!).  But seriously, I have been having a really hard time even looking at food that food storage has been a bit challenging lately.  The idea of food in general has just been nauseating.  In fact, some of our supply has been depleted lately because I can't even think about making a trip to the store and seeing all that food.  Just another reason why a three-month supply is so important!  We have certainly not starved as a result of my temporary sickness, thanks to a rather healthy supply that we started out with.

This month for our longer-term storage, we are gathering rice.  However, don't let that keep you from stocking up on other things that you might want or need!  I just scored an incredible deal on some #10 cans of wheat that I bought from a friend who is moving... I'll share the details with you soon.  But, don't forget to think outside the box when it comes to acquiring food storage, and don't limit yourself to what you will buy each month... you don't want to pass up an opportunity to stock up on something different!

Motivational Monday

"Behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise."

 

Alma 37:6

Food Storage Recipe from the Archives: Homemade English Muffins

Don't you hate when you reaaaally want a certain thing to eat, but it's nowhere to be found in your house?


I hardly ever buy English Muffins, but I love them.  Instead of hopping in the car to go buy some, it's a bit easier to just make them at home sometimes (because let's face it, when you have kids at home all day, there's no such thing as hopping in the car and going to the store for just one item).


Abs shared this English Muffin recipe a while back, and it's definitely worth a shot if you're a bread lover like I am!



Do you ever see a recipe and decide to make it right then? That's what happened when I saw an english muffin recipe at The Happy Housewife. I love english muffins and started them mere seconds after reading the recipe. They were delicious, so naturally I thought that I ought to see if I could make them food storage friendly. So I did, and here they are.




And just because they are made with only non perishables, didn't stop me from slathering the freshly baked ones with loads of butter.


Ingredients: Flour, powdered milk, water, honey, oil, salt, yeast and cornmeal. When 70% of the food is in nontraditional packaging, you know it's food storage.


Start off by adding your powdered milk to a mixing bowl. When you reconstitute powdered milk you add 1/3 cup of powdered milk to 8 oz or one cup of water. Perfect measurements right? Well, when you only need 1/2 cup of milk you can still do 1/2 cup of water but you have to eyeball the powdered milk because, unfortunately for me, I don't have a 1/6 measuring cup. Oh, how I wished I did if only for the sake of food storage.


Add the water to reconstitute the milk, as well as the water called for in the recipe.


Add the salt


and the honey and mix together.


Now add half the flour


and the yeast


and mix again until it looks like pancake batter. I did this all by hand by the way.


See? Pancake batter.


Now cover and let rise for one hour.


When you come back, the dough should look like this, all bubbly and hopefully bigger.


Now add the oil, I used canola oil.


And the rest of the flour. The first time I made these, I used half white flour and half whole wheat, and they were delicious. This time I used all white flour, and they were still delicious. It's a win-win situation.


Mix together, if you aren't using a mixer, you may have to get your hands dirty a little bit to combine the dough.


Sprinkle a clean surface with cornmeal


And roll out the dough


Dip a cup or cookie cutter into flour to keep it from sticking to the dough


Princesses are very big at our house and coincidentally are perfect size for making english muffins.


Cut out the english muffins, and when you've cut out as many as you can out of one rolling, gather up the leftover dough and roll out again to cut out more muffins.


And place them on a sheet of wax paper. Place them cornmeal side down (not like I did) and then they won't stick to the wax paper.


I can't remember from making these how many the recipe turns out, but it looks like from this picture there are 18.


Cover with a clean dishtowel and let rise for another hour.


They should look like this, nice and puffy.


Heat a griddle over medium high heat and drizzle with a little oil to make a nonstick surface.


Grill your english muffins on each side. You'll have to watch your first batch carefully to determine what your optimum cooking time is. You want them to be browned on each side and it's okay to taste test one to make sure its done in the middle.


Hello, beautiful. You can actually pull this apart with your hands, just like the store bought ones, no knife necessary.


Eat straight off the griddle, or toast to have with your breakfast in the morning. They are delicious any way you try them!


English Muffins
adapted from The Happy Housewife


1 cup hot water
1/2 cup prepared powdered milk or 1/2 cup water and half of 1/3 cup powdered milk
2 tsp honey
2 tsp salt
4 cups flour (you can use 1/2 white 1/2 whole wheat)
2 tsp instant yeast
2 Tbsp oil
Cornmeal


Add water, powdered milk (and water for powdered milk), honey and salt to a mixing bowl. Combine. Add 2 cups of flour and yeast and stir until combined. Cover with a clean towel and allow to rise for one hour. Add remaining 2 cups of flour and oil and stir until well combined. Roll out onto a cornmeal covered surface and using a cookie cutter or cup, cut out round shapes. Let cut muffins rise, covered, for another hour. Heat a griddle to medium high heat and grease with a little oil. Grill muffins on both sides until lightly brown and cooked in the middle. Eat!