food, food, food!

Welcome to another week of our adventure in preparedness together!

The earthquake and devastation in Haiti and now Chile have really inspired me to be ready. I may not be 100% prepared- nor can I be in 1 day- but I can do something today to be more prepared,

As I mentioned last week, Let's talk about food!


Frank Davis, as you may or may not know, prepares ready made meals in mylar packaging for emergency situations. He has developed some new meals and has an "overstock" that is available for purchase. (It's actually a cancelled order that he will sell at cost.)


Here's the details: Each mylar pouch holds 5 servings of the particular food. Each large 5 gallon bucket contains 80 meals.

Each bucket has the following meal pouches:

• Blueberry Pancake
• Potato Soup
• Whey milk
• Chocolate whey milk
• Oatmeal
• Beef Stroganoff
• Mac n' Cheese
• Alfredo chicken
• Teriyaki chicken
• Basil Tomato soup
• Lasagna
• Chili
• Vanilla Pudding
• Chocolate Pudding
• Granola

Each pouch has 5 servings. This food has NO Animal Protein and is all soy based. (The lack of animal protein help it store/last longer.) Buckets are sealed and easy to stack and move.

The buckets are each $50- which makes each meal serving 62 cents.
Here's the catch: There are only 800 buckets. That's it.

If you're interested, please let me know. I will take all the orders, collect all the money and deliver your buckets. (It's easier with only 1 point of contact.)

Let me know!
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Another crazy idea:

What if you helped me write a cookbook based on food storage ingredients? If we tested 2 recipes per week, we could in a year's time have over 100 recipes.

But here's where I need your help: Would you be willing to test some of these recipes? Good cookbooks will have more than 1 tester cook the recipe in order to ensure a high quality product. So your part would be: that you would cook some of these recipes and give me feedback. If the recipe flopped, if the recipe needed to be tweaked, whatever.

This way, we could together create a great collection of recipes that had been tried and tested.


Would you be willing to be my partners in this?


I'm visualizing that by next year, I will have a collection of recipes both you and I have tested. I will compile them and provide them to anyone who would like. I'm also visualizing that each recipe will include your feedback on the recipes so we can all learn together.


So is everybody in? GREAT!!


Let's get cooking! Don't feel compelled to cook ALL the recipes if you don't want.

And please send me your recipes that you'd like us to try out...I love input!


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Hormel Foods Clarification

Hormel canned chili, canned meats, canned stews, etc. will last for a long time. (20 + years) This is due to their can metal thickness and their processing method (extra high temperatures combined with vacuum sealing). These canned foods are a great option for "instant" preparedness meals.

Here's their website: www. hormelfoods.com

Maceys grocery store has told me that they would be willing to order in any Hormel Canned product for us. Peek at Hormel's website and let me know if we have any interest in placing an order from Maceys.

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ABC Soup Mix

If you don't have any more 10# cans of the ABC soup mix, you can make it!

For 1 cup mix:

1/4 cup dry lentils

1/4 cup dry split peas

1/4 cup alphabet noodles

2 tablespoons long dry rice

2 tablespoons dried onion

Your ABC soup mix can be used for soups, meat pie, etc.

Basic Soup ABC recipe:

9 cups boiling water

8 tsp beef bouillon

1 cup ABC soup mix

Add everything together in pot. Cover & cook for 45 minutes. Serves
6.

Jazzed up ABC Soup
9 cups boiling water
5 tsp bouillon
1 cup ABC soup mix
Mix above ingredients. Cook for 30 minutes, covered. Then add:

1 15 oz can tomatoes
1 can beef chunks

Cook for 15 more minutes. Serve. (With fresh bread is best!!)
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That's enough for today.
Your action items: Talk to me if you want the food buckets. Give me feedback on the whole cookbook craziness. Have a great week until I talk to you again. ;)
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I can give you a six word formula for success: Think things through, then follow through.

Capt Rickenbacker

And in honor of Dr. Suess birthday (today!):

"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting... so get on your way!"

"The more things that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go!"

another adventure

And we're off! (on another adventure that is..)

If you're preparing along with us, you should have water barrels.

Now let's talk food. (I love to talk about food. It's one of my "things". Taxes are another one of my "hot" items... but enough about things I like to talk about.)

Do you have enough food?

I have a very interesting option available that I will tell you about in next week's e-mail. It's food storage that you just add water. Even better, it's got a great variety.

Check in next week and I'll give you all the details.
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Michelle Golightly has a great wood burning stove that is available.

Here's the specs she provided:

"Great wood burning stove for emergency preparedness or home heating. As you know, we have been heating our home with our wood burning stove for years. We recently purchased a larger one and have our smaller one available. Details below:

Installation options: Freestanding, Freedstanding in Mobile Home, Freestanding in Alcove, Freestanding Hearth Stove.

Features:

• 1.6 cubic foot firebox volume
• EPA Phase II approved (4.4 Grams per Hour)
• Single operating control
• holds logs up to 18 inches long
• steel plate construction
• heavy duty refractory firebrick

Heating Specs: Max Burn time: 8 hours
Heating capacity 600 to 1200 sq ft

Dimensions: 26 1/2 " high x 14 5/8" deep x 23 5/8" Wide-- weighing 270 lbs

CALL Michelle Golightly for more info. 801-787-3711.Or e-mail her at mgolight@hotmail.com

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More powdered egg recipes!
I dared even more. I've tried eggs in muffins and cakes and fruit breads. Here's my next adventure: Puff Pancake. The kids ate the entire batch and asked for more!
Puff Pancake
4 Tbs Dried Whole Egg Powder
8 Tbs Water
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place glass pie plate with 3 tsp butter in cold oven. Blend other ingredients in a blender. When the oven is ready, Pull out hot glass dish (which now has melted butter). Pour blended batter into glass dish, return to oven.
Bake for 15 minutes.
Serve immediately.

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Gardening... Already??
My sister encouraged me to look into planting peas soon because they will help my garden soil in time for me to plant other plants.

here's what I found on the topic...

STARTING THE PEA PATCH

The best way to grow peas is to sow seed directly into prepared garden soil according to the National Garden Bureau. Because they are frost tolerant and germinate best in cool weather and soil, sow them in early spring as soon as you can work the soil. An easy way to calculate your sowing date is to count back four to six weeks from the last expected frost. In most areas that means in March, traditionally on or close to St. Patrick’s Day. If the soil is too cold ( –(below 40 degrees) , the seeds take much longer to germinate and may rot.

PEAS GIVE BACK TO THE SOIL

Peas, like beans, are legumes. Legumes have the ability to fix nitrogen in the soil, which makes that important nutrient readily available to other plants. With the help of a bacterium that lives in a symbiotic relationship in nodules formed on the roots of the plants, the plants “fix” the nitrogen. The nodules store any excess nitrogen and, as the roots decay, release it into the soil, benefiting plants growing nearby. Pea plants also produce long root systems, which help to loosen the soil as they reach out for moisture. Spent plants decompose into organic matter to further enrich the soil. At the end of the season, simply dig the plants into the soil -- no need to add them to a separate compost pile.

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That's all for this week. I'm looking forward to next week!

Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.
-Joshua J. Marine

Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia. ~Charles Schulz

May those who love us love us,
and those who do not love us,
may God turn their hearts,
and if He cannot turn their hearts
may He turn their ankles
that we may know them by their limping.
~Irish Prayer

quick action item... if it applies to you!

Action!
Last night at Lowe's, I saw their kerosene room heaters on clearance.
The 10 K BTU radiant Kerosene space heater made by Day-Glo is on Clearance for $89.25 (down from $119).
The 23 K BTU convection kerosene heater is $96.75 (down from $139).

There was maybe 3 of each at the Orem Lowe's.

This is a great bargain.
I own one of these heaters... The $139 one... and it is GREAT!! John uses it to heat the garage when he's working; we've used it to heat rooms or dry carpet... we really like it.

It's easy to turn on and off (well, the first time took me a bit longer, but then I understood how to do it!).

If you're in the market for a heater, this is the BEST PRICE I HAVE EVER SEEN.

Have a great day!
-saria

p.s. I'll get out a real "Cupboard" soon. :)

soap bubbles, old fruit & hot water

Hello for another week of Saria's cupboard.

Last week I promised you an update on the laundry detergent. Since the last time we talked about making your own laundry detergent, we've made changes. What's interesting here is that my home has been using homemade detergent only. But so have other people. And as I've used it, I've tweaked the recipe... and so have others!
So here's what we've found: (The new recipe)

Laundry Detergent (wet- Saria's tweaked version)
Ingredients:
1 bar Fels Naptha Soap
1 cup Borax (in the green box)
1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (Yellow box)

Instructions:
Grate Fels Naptha Soap into pot of hot water on stove top. (5 ish cups of water) Stir until Fels Naptha soap is dissolved.
Pour hot water into 5 gallon bucket. Add hot water to fill bucket at least half way.
Add Washing Soda and stir until dissolved.
Now add Borax and stir again until dissolved. Top off bucket with water.
Put a lid on the bucket and let it sit overnight. It will be thin and runny. Don't panic.
Next morning: Open bucket. Stir the coagulated mixture. Break up the big white clumps of detergent.
Use about 1/2 cup per load.
Fine for high efficiency washing machines because it's low sudsing.

Laundry Detergent recipe: (Dry version- Thanks Jackie!)
Grate 1 bar Fels Naptha Soap into 2 cups Borax and 2 cups Arm & Hammer.
Store mixture DRY.
Use 2 TBS per load.

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Water Barrel Update:

They're being cleaned. Some of you have received your barrels. The rest of you WILL receive your ordered barrels. Do not lose hope. Eagle Scouts are busy people but we will get to you.

Thanks for your patience.

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Hot water

Sunday morning, my husband & I tried an experiment. We wanted to bathe the kids for church. But we wanted to heat the water on the stove top. We estimated that it would take 4 - 8 potfuls of boiling water, mixed with the cold bath water to make a nice bath temperature for the kids.

It took more than 16 potfuls of boiling water to bring the water temperature to acceptable. That's a lot of water and a lot of boiling. Good thing we had plenty of time before church!

The eye-opening aspect of the adventure was how much water it took! If we were in an emergency situation, We would not only need lots of water, but lots of fuel to heat it all. (Perhaps we'd only bathe the kids once a week?!) It was a great learning moment for me- how much it would take to continue living in an emergency.

Does this mean that after water barrels that I'll be looking for a good deal on fuel?? Stay tuned....

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Old Fruit Cake

I confess, it sounds awful. BUT... hear me out here... I was given this recipe and it's actually pretty good. Especially if you have some older canned fruit (that is perfectly good but might be slightly discolored or soft)... and you know there is NO WAY you'll ever get your children to eat it...

Recipe:
1 quart old bottled fruit- pureed
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
4 cups flour (whole wheat works great)
4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp nutmeg

Beat oil & fruit puree. Mix dry ingredients then add to oil/puree. Bake in a greased 9 x 13 pan for 45 -55 minutes. Cool and frost if desired.
Can add nuts, raisins, or coconut to cake if desired.

Saria's notes: I decreased the sugar to 1 1/2 cups. I added 1 1/2 cup oats, decreased flour to 3 cups, omitted the frosting and served this as "Breakfast Fruit Bars".

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Action Items:
1. Keep thinking preparedness.
2. Try out a new recipe- be it detergent or food or whatever- but try something new!

Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of the mind than on outward circumstances.

Benjamin Franklin

Life is like a taxi. The meter keeps a-ticking whether you're getting somewhere or standing still.

Lou Erickson

Expecting life to treat you well because you are a good person is like expecting an angry bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian.

Shari Barr