Food Storage Recipe Index

For anyone who still has this blog in their feed instead of my new one, it may be of interest that I have made a page of all my food storage recipes. I'm still using my food storage and periodically finding new recipes which I had to my Food Storage Recipe Index Page. Happy cooking.

Pantry Challenge Week 4

I meant to put this up yesterday, but family and friends come before blogging.
Grocery spending last week:

• Whole wheat hamburger buns- $2.45

• 2 cans pinto beans- $1.08

• 2 gallons milk- $4.25

• package of tortillas- $1

• package of pretzels- 50 cents (after coupon)

• package of Yoplait- free (after coupon)

• can of Carnation Instant Breakfast- $3.70 (after coupon)

• Bountiful Basket (apples, bananas, pears, oranges, cauliflower, broccoli, kiwis, pomegranates, lettuce, corn on the cob)  + bread pack that I split with my mom- $12

Total- $26.36 after tax
Total for the month so far- $79.36

Now I have to admit that I cheated. My family was visiting from out of town and we took them to lunch. Lunch for 5 adults and 2 children came to $59. Not really compatible with the $100 challenge. But I'm not going to be a bad hostess just because I'm doing some crazy pantry challenge. And I did make them eat food storage experiments for their other meals, which actually turned out pretty good. And I never got around to making the BBQ beans because I had too many other leftovers.

Menu Plan:
Breakfast
oatmeal
cereal
yogurt
fruit
smoothies

Lunch
leftovers
Ramen noodles (my kids love them)
shells and cheese
sandwiches

Dinner
BBQ beans
leftovers
Whole Grain Vegetable Lasagna*
Mac & Cheese with Cauliflower
Cream of Vegetable Chowder If you want to add chicken, be my guest.
Taco Salad

Sides & Snacks
Corn on the Cob
salad
roasted vegetables
fresh fruit
homemade bread and jam

*If you live in the Utah county area there is a Stouffer's thrift store near the plant in Springville, UT. Anything that isn't perfect goes to the thrift store. This could mean that they messed up the product, but most often it means that the package is under or overweight. Recently when my mom was there she found frozen Whole Grain Vegetable Lasagnas for $1.99 each, so she brought a few down when she came to visit. They tasted great. Hope that helps someone who is trying to get dinner on the table for less without spending their lives in the kitchen. :)

Preparedness Wednesday: December in Review

Oops! Took the kids to the pediatrician this morning and had this set to publish automatically before I finished it. 

For those of you just tuning in, every week of 2011 I tried to do something to get my house in order (fix things, get out of debt, etc.) and purchase something to add to my emergency supply. If you are interested in following deals as I find them I post them on my public facebook profile.

Doing:

• Installed a coat hook rack in my entry way. *Hopefully* this will make finding coats and getting out the door a little easier.
• Did a little research on supplies that are good to have in an emergency. Besides food, water, and toilet paper, a few suggestions that I repeatedly saw included: iodine water tablets, tarps, solar blankets and a shovel. I also bought some heavy duty plastic pins to put these items into.
• Bought several plastic bins to put toys in. At some point I will have enough time and motivation to organize all of the toys, so they will be in these bins and not on the floor. Someday...

Emergency Preparedness:

• Pompeian Olive Oil- $3.99 for 48 oz @ Albertson's
• case of Charmin from Amazon- 21 cents per roll
• more peanut butter from Amazon- I can't remember how much it cost, but when I signed up for it to come automatically it was a great deal.
• brown rice- $13 for 20 lbs @ Costco
• #10 can of freeze-dried strawberries- $8.79 @ Costco

$100 Challenge and Menu Week 1

Happy New Year everyone!
 So it's a new year and one of my resolutions is to organize (and maintain) my pantry. In order to do this I need to clean it out, which from what I've read is something that you should do once a year anyway. So I'm going to try to live off my pantry this month and to make it slightly more realistic I'm giving myself a budget of $100 for groceries (food storage meals go down easier with some fresh produce). So this month I'll give you a rundown of how much I'm spending and what we're eating. Hopefully it will give you some ideas to use your own food storage and save some money. And there will be prizes!
 So here's what we're eating this week. (I have to have multiple meals sometimes because my husband is a vegetarian and I have my own dietary restrictions.) On weekends and holidays, I tend to make big batches of breakfast foods like waffles and use the leftovers throughout the next week. This week I'm also focusing on using a lot produce that's in my fridge.

Breakfast
Pumpkin Waffles
Baked Apple Pancakes
granola
cold cereal
oatmeal

Lunch
sandwiches
leftovers
mac and cheese (for the kids)

Dinner
BBQ Chicken and Wheat Salad (without the chicken)
Stir-fried Green Beans & Brown Rice and Tropical Sweet Potato Casserole
Hawaiian Haystacks
Red Pepper Pesto and Pasta
Taco Soup (Vegetarian style)
leftovers

Snacks
Wheatberry Salsa and chips
fresh apples
canned peaches
smoothies
crackers and cheese

Now for this weeks giveaway: I'm going to give away a copy of I Dare You To Eat It by Liesa Card. This is my favorite food storage book. If you have no idea where to start with your food storage, this book is a great starting place. It's full of tips and ideas that make using your food storage feasible. Here's what you have to do to enter:

1. Be a follower of Secrets of Mom (required) and comment on this post.
2. Join the $100 Challenge and comment.
3. Share your favorite food storage recipe.
4. Share this post on twitter.

The winner will be chosen using a random number generator. The giveaway ends at midnight on Sunday January 8, 2012. The winner will be announced Monday morning. Keep checking for more recipes and giveaways throughout the month.

Preparedness Wednesday: November in Review

October was a crap shoot: newborn with pretty bad reflux, 4 surgeries, a root canal, Halloween, ring-around-the-rosie with the insurance company over my baby's medication and a few more curve balls that life had for me, meant that I didn't accomplish any of my preparedness goals. But I did better in November.

Doing:

• Bought a second shoe rack (this one for my closet), so the area by the backdoor could feasibly be a little more organized
• Attended a meeting where mom's shared ideas about how they manage to keep their houses clean and organized.
• Paid off a chunk of my husband's student loan with my credit card, because the interest rate is significantly better. (Sad, huh?)
• Had a gate installed so my neighbors dog won't be able to poop in my backyard anymore. Yay!

Food Storage:

• Dole pineapple tidbits- 50 cents per can @ Albertson's
• Campbell's cream of mushroom soup- 39 cents per can @ Smith's
• Swanson's vegetable broth- 39 cents each @ Smith's
• Natural canned black olives- $8.97 for 8 pack @ Costco (We recently discovered that not only are these cheaper than your average black olive, they also taste much, much better.)
• S&W canned black beans- 49 cents each @ Smith's
• Progresso Vegetable soup- 75 cents each @ Albertson's
• Cold milled flax seed- $8 @ Costco, shelf life is not as long as whole flax seed, but it's still a couple years and it sooo much more convenient.

Preparedness Wednesday: September in Review

For those of you just tuning in, every week I try to do something to get my house in order (fix things, get out of debt, etc) and purchase something to add to my emergency supply. If you want to follow my deals as I find them, I post them on my public facebook profile. For those of you who have been reading for awhile you know that I have an adorable new baby with reflux. The upshot is that I am no where near as productive as usual, so there was a lack of getting things in order this past month. It was all I could do to maintain things, and even that was questionable. But look how cute my baby is!

 

Doing

• Paid off one of my husband's student loans- the big one with the higher interest rate. Hooray!

Emergency Preparedness/Food Storage:

• Made and canned Asian plum sauce (recipe to follow in an upcoming post)
• Canned homemade salsa
• Canned apple pie filling
• A case of instant oatmeal from Smith's- $18
• #10 cans of powdered eggs @ Costco- $12.47 (Best price I've ever seen, I highly recommend you take advantage of this if you can.)
• Vital Wheat Gluten @ Walmart- $6 for 15 oz (although I discovered you can get 27 oz for $8 at the local Bosch store, so if you live in St George, I recommend that.) Wheat gluten is a great shelf stable source of protein. Unopened it is good for 10 years.

Homemade Salsa Revisited

 You may have noticed that my posts have been a little more sporadic lately. I'm still here, still buying and using food storage, still trying to do my small part to make the world a better place. Having a third child has sucked away all of my free time, even if she is my easiest baby yet. And in addition to sucking away my time and energy, she has also sucked away all of my pregnancy weight, so it's not all bad. So believe me I still have plenty more to say, I just don't have as much time to do it.
 Along with everything else that has been happening I found myself in possession of two boxes of beautiful tomatoes from my parents' garden (they tried to give me more than that.) After giving a bunch to the neighbors I decided that newborn or no, I really had to make salsa. I just did it crockpot style. That way I spent about 45 minutes chopping & rinsing ingredients, let it simmer for 6 hours and processed it for 20 minutes at the end. Totally doable.

Aren't they beautiful?

There is something so satisfying about home canning. It makes my house smell good and it means that I'll have yumminess in my pantry for quite awhile. 3 dozen tomatoes made 12 pints canned, plus 3 more pints that are in the fridge. (And I still have plenty of tomatoes.) For the recipe I used go here. Although instead of jalapenos I used the red Anaheims from my garden, and instead of the green Anaheims I used some green Hatch chiles from my thirty pound monster bag of a couple weeks ago. This made for spicier salsa than usual. That's ok, I like spicy food. Unfortunately we have discovered that baby really doesn't like it when I eat anything remotely spicy, and lets me know by giving back any tainted meals that she is given. Speaking of which I have laundry to do. ttfn

Preparedness Wednesday: August in Review

I didn't quite make my typical preparedness goals, but I feel entirely justified because it was over 100 degrees here every single day of the past month and I had a baby. I'm amazed I got anything done .

Doing:

• Had the air conditioning fixed, which should dramatically reduce our next power bill
• Made 4 digital photo books (I think this falls under getting things organized)
• Experimented numerous times with my sun oven
• Harvested onions and peppers from my garden, then planted seeds for our winter garden

Emergency Preparedness

• Cottonelle Toilet Paper- $3.25 for a 12-pack at Walgreens
• Geisha canned mushrooms- 25 cents each at Walgreens
• Skippy Natural Super Chunk Peanut Butter- Amazon Subscribe & Save- I love it when my food storage buys itself.

Green Chiles

So last week, a few hours after delivering Miss Cindy Lou-Who, I got online to order a Bountiful Basket (which btw was an awesome basket). One of the extras they had available was a 30 lb bag of Hatch green chiles. I love green chiles and my in-laws really love green chiles so I thought I would split a bag with them. My husband got up early Saturday morning to fetch our produce and I mumbled  "Don't forget our 30 lb bag of green chiles". He thought I said 3 lb bag of green chiles because there is no way I could have bought a 30 lb bag of green chiles. Oh, I did.

So Saturday morning I opened the bag and looked at a few of the beautiful chiles within. Fantastic. Sunday morning I noticed a small puddle next to the bag. By Sunday afternoon a good part of my house was permeated by a rotten earthy smell. My ox was in a mire of rotting chiles. The original plan was to bag and freeze the top half of the sack and give the bottom half (or more) to my in-laws when I see them later this week. I'm sure that's exactly what they want to deal with on the day of the wedding reception. Not to mention that I am not really keen on having my house smell like rot until we leave, or having it in my car. Gross.

 So to my in-laws "Happy-your-baby-is-getting-married-and-I-know-that-you-don't-want-a-smelly-bag-of-rotting-peppers"

  To everyone else I recommend that when cutting large quantities of peppers that you wear gloves, because even mild peppers have oils that can cause burning and skin irritation.

 I was disappointed that so many of the chiles had gone bad and that it caused such a mess. I would say about a third of them were rotten. Even so $19 for 20 lbs of green chiles is a great deal. In the future I will post multiple recipes showing how I go through my half of the peppers. But for now here is one of my father-in-law's favorites (he's from New Mexico and happens to know his chiles)

 New Mexico Chile Verde
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 lb pork loin (remove visible fat and cut into 1/2" chunks)
3 small garlic cloves, finely minced
1 red onion, finely chopped (optional)

8 T flour
4 T cornstarch
4 T water

28 oz Hatch green chiles (roasted, peeled, seeded and finely chopped)*
1-2 T chopped fresh jalapeno
2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
4 chicken bullion cubes
1  14.5 oz can crushed tomatoes

1. Saute pork in olive oil until pink is gone. Move pork aside in skillet. 2. Add garlic (and onion) and saute until sizzling. Put in crockpot on high. 3. In a small bowl make thickener of flour, cornstarch and water. After mixed thoroughly add to crockpot. 4. Add chiles and spices to crockpot. Bring to a low boil, then turn to low and add tomatoes. Simmer for at least an hour or preferably all day. Serve plain over rice, burritos, chile rellenos, chimichangas, etc. Freezes well. Serves 4-6

*His notes say 1 bag, which is about a quart ziplock bag, roasted.
For those of the vegetarian persuasion I haven't tried making this without the pork before, but the pork is such a small part of it I think that it would still taste great without the meat. I know my other chile verde recipe worked just fine when I left out the pork.

And when I wasn't washing, sorting and chopping chiles, this is how I spent my weekend:

I'm in love.

Thoughts on LDS Doctrine & Vegetarianism

 Last week I wrote a post with a vegetarian recipe and some good reasons to consider becoming a vegetarian, or at least eating less meat. Anna commented that she and her husband have been considering the change because of what is said in the Word of Wisdom. This is something that I have been thinking about, but not saying. For those of my readers who are not LDS, the Word of Wisdom is a name given to some guidelines given to us in the scriptures that we believe will increase and preserve our health. In addition to the advice to avoid "wine, tobacco and strong drinks", it gives recommendations on what we should be eating. Some of the relevant points I will summarize and discuss below.

• wholesome herbs are for the use of man
• fruits and herbs are to be used in season
• flesh of beasts and fowls of the air are to be used sparingly and only in times of winter, famine and excess hunger
• grain is good for the food of man and to be the staff of life

 When I was in college I was required to take a class called "Nursing Ethics and Values". One discussion centered around diet. I remember one of my classmates mentioned that she was a vegetarian and she received a lot of flack for it. Almost everyone asked "How in the world can you not eat meat?" (BTW, this was at BYU, where the vast majority of the student body is LDS.) Her response has stuck with me. "The Word of Wisdom says that meat is to be eaten in times of famine and excess hunger. I don't feel that during my lifetime I have ever really experienced a famine. If I do experience a famine I will start eating meat." That makes a lot of sense to me.
  As I read it, the scriptures are saying that our diets should be built around grains and include fruits, herbs and vegetables in season. We can have meat, but very rarely. Sounds almost like a vegetarian diet to me.
  I also believe that the Lord loves the animals that he has created, and while he said that their "flesh is ordained for the use of man", I don't think He approves of animal cruelty. The more I read and hear about how livestock is raised in America, the more unsettling it is to me. I don't believe that He intended the lives of those creatures to be such a completely miserable experience. There is something very wrong about raising an animal to spend its entire existence in a cage, fed on a diet mixed with steroids so that it's legs can not support it's own body weight.
 And lastly as members of the LDS Church there are some basics that we have been advised to have in our food storage: beans, rice, wheat, oats, pasta and potatoes. We have been advised to store these staples and rotate them on a regular basis. We have been told to store these items because they have a long shelf life and these items can sustain life. It seems logical that meals that are centered around these food items would include many vegetarian entrees.
  Now I am well aware that giving up meat is a huge life-style change for most Americans. We love our meat. In most restaurants, most options are centered around meat. I can't say that it is easy or convenient, but I do believe that it is good for us to cut back the meat content in our diet. And I can't say that I personally have been able ever go 100% without meat, but I'm working on it. The way to do it is start with one vegetarian meal a week and build from there. And I just have to say that I think that sometimes pregnancy and breast-feeding count as times of excess hunger. There were times when I was breast-feeding my kids that I would have a baby on the breast in one arm and a tall glass of undiluted eggnog in my other hand and I felt that there weren't enough hours in the day for me to get in all of the calories that I needed. The Word of Wisdom says that if "they do these sayings they shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones; and shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge...and shall run and not be weary and shall walk and not faint. And I, the Lord give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them." Those are some pretty great promises, and it seems that they are worth putting forth an effort to earn them. I'm not trying to tell anyone what they should believe or what they should eat, that's up to you, but I believe that eating less meat is definitely worth some consideration.

Preparedness Wednesday: July in Review

For those of you just tuning in, every week I try to do something to get my house in order (fix things, get out of debt, etc) and purchase something to add to my emergency supply. If you want to follow my deals as I find them. I post them on my public facebook profile as I find them if you are interested.

Doing:

• Had the yard done. It looks soooo much better. It makes me happy.
• Bought a sun oven. Actually my husband bought this for my birthday. For all of the sun that we get here in St George, why not use it to cook my meals instead of heating up my kitchen? (I'm putting this with doing because it makes my home more energy efficient.) Expect a post about this in the future.
• Replaced the air conditioning filter to help it run more efficiently
• Got an estimate on air conditioning and heating installation for our basement so we can start finishing it.
• Made curtains for the area under Thing 1's loft bed. Ok, actually I just bought the material and my mom made them when she came to visit for my birthday while I took a nap. Thanks Mom! This was very important to Thing 1.

Emergency Preparedness/Food Storage:

• Made peach salsa & peach raspberry pancake sauce
• Bought a few jars of Classico Pasta Sauce- $1.04 each after coupons at Smith's
• Maggie Moo's Powdered Milk & Chocolate Milk- $11 each for a #10 can at Walmart (this is was their everyday price) I've had friends claim that their families can't taste the difference between this and fresh milk.
• Wheat Gluten- I thought we would try this stuff out, but I didn't buy much because I've yet to find it at a good price. But we have been experimenting with it.

What I did with a case of peaches

Recently I got a good deal on a case of peaches from Bountiful Baskets. They were the Rich Lady variety and peeled very easily which was nice. Here's what I did with them:

1. Ate lots and lots of them fresh (as did the rest of my family) :D
2. Blended them into smoothies
3. Made Peach Melba Waffle syrup. I got it into my head that this would taste good and looked everywhere for a recipe, unsuccessfully. So I made one up.

Peach Melba Waffle Syrup
10 cups pureed peaches (peeled and de-stoned)
1 cup fresh raspberries
4 cups sugar
4 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons vanilla
1. Combine the first four ingredients and bring to a boil. 2. Simmer for 5 minutes. 3. Add vanilla. 4. Seal in a hot water bath for 20 minutes (Increase time as needed if you live at an elevation above 1000 feet.) Makes approximately 3 quarts.

It didn't turn out the color that I was hoping and imagining. but it tastes good on waffles. And I'm sure that it's great on ice cream, angel food cake, etc.

4. Made Peach Salsa. I cut the sugar back by 1 1/4 cups and I still felt that it was too sweet. I also added a few more peppers, more cilantro and cut back the cumin. (I don't really like cumin.) I think I will make this one again someday but cut back the sugar even more. My family came to visit this weekend and they inhaled the stuff. I liked it on Cafe Rio Rice and I think it would also be good on grilled fish or chicken, or maybe grilled fish or chicken tacos. My batch made 5 pints, plus some extra that I put into some tupperware.

5. Made Peach Pie This pie was good, but not magical. I put the peaches in the mix instead of on top, and used a graham cracker crust. It was simple enough that Thing 1 was able to help make it which is always fun.

Food Storage Friday: Storing Water

 As I have mentioned before I live in a dry hot climate. At no time has this been more real to me than now being 34 pregnant and finding myself drinking 3-4 liters of water a day. (If I don't drink that much I find my throat parched and I wake up in the night because of terrible Charlie horses.) So I find myself thinking, do I have enough water stored for an emergency? (The answer is probably not.)

WATER—Water is more essential than food in sustaining life.  Store a minimum of seven gallons of water per person for drinking and food preparation.  Store an additional seven gallons per person of the same quality water for bathing, brushing teeth, and dishwashing.  Use heavy plastic containers with tight-fitting lids.  Metal containers, which may corrode, tend to give water an unpleasant taste.

    If you have any doubt as to the bacterial safety of stored water, you may purify it by boiling vigorously for one to two minutes or by adding chlorine bleach (5 percent sodium hypochlorite solution).  Generally, half a teaspoon of bleach will purify five gallons of clear water, and one teaspoon will purify five gallons of cloudy water.  If you store it away from sunlight in clean containers, and if it is safe bacterially at the time of storage, water will remain pure indefinitely. EPA water treatment recommendations are for 1/2 teaspoon bleach per gallon of clear water.- The First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints January 20, 2002

So that means that for my family of (soon to be) 5, for a 2 week supply of water. I need to store 140 gallons of water. That is a bare minimum. That means we're all a little on the dehydrated side, we're not bathing everyday and we are staying out of the sun. Yet, 140 gallons of water still sounds like a lot. Where do you put 140 gallons of water? Not to mention that containers that large can be expensive.The answer is a little at a time.

One of my favorite food storage stories happened to my aunt. She lives outside of Seattle. At the time she didn't have money to invest in food storage, but she wanted to be actively working on it. So she started storing water in rinsed out soda and juice bottles. Her friends and neighbors thought that she was insane. The Seattle area is never going to have a drought, she was never going to need the water that she was storing. Then one winter they had a very hard freeze and every one of her neighbors' water pipes broke. Because she had water stored she was able to share with them and help them in their crisis. (And it helped that her water pipes happened to not break.) So you can't say that you and your family don't need to store water, because you never know when you will need it.

So where do you put all of that water? Well, you get creative. Before I lived in the home I do now, we owned a townhouse that was not designed with storage space in mind. We didn't have a garage, our pantry was small and the closet space was insufficient. We did however, have a space under the stairs that you had to crawl over the washer and dryer to get to. There was no lighting and the space was tiny and awkwardly shaped. It was totally impractical for storing anything that I intended to use on any kind of regular basis. But instead of letting that space be wasted I filled it with water in old juice bottles. And at the time it held enough water for my family. When we moved I dumped out the water, gave away the containers and started over.

 Now I wait until bottled water goes on sale for less than a dollar a case, (and it does if you watch for it) and I stock up on that. My husband mocks me and my habit of buying bottled water, but I only buy it when it is cheaper than the price of the bottles themselves. And when Powerade goes on sale for $5 a case I buy several of those. My husband drinks them after his bike rides and I save the bottles to refill with water. Over the past couple years I have acquired a substantial supply of water bottles.

What ways have you found to store water?

Preparedness Wednesday: June in Review

I hope that everyone had a great holiday weekend.  I would have to say that it was a pretty good one for us. I think it was the first time that we've done home fireworks that both kids were old enough to appreciate them. :) And here's what we have been up to this month...

Doing:

• Decided to give up on the battle with the weeds. I called a landscaper who came and told me that whoever had done our yard in the first place was an idiot (which I unfortunately agree with) and we needed to rip most of it up, put down a weed guard and then put it back together. So that's where all of my spare money (and then some) will be going in the next little while. Put when it's done it will save me tons of time and effort on yard maintenance.
• Bought a mini-van. Now we have room for the four of us plus baby and storage room. We planned on doing this later, but having our other car totaled made this a little more imperative.
• Created a game plan for paying off the student loans
• Took a well-needed mini-vacation :)

Emergency Storage:

• Made Strawberry Vanilla Sauce
• Went to the local cannery where we put together a few cases of powdered milk and a few cases of various kinds of dry beans
• Went back to the cannery a couple weeks later and bought a couple cases of pancake/waffle mix (After trying it out my family has become big fans, especially when I top it with strawberry vanilla sauce)
• Bought 8 lbs of cheese on sale, my friend was telling me about a way to preserve it  so it will last in your pantry for 25 years. (Expect a blog post to come on that one.)

Daikon Radish Pickles

Awhile back I got a few daikon (Japanese for "large root", and  they also made me think of "the radish spirit" in Spirited Away) radishes in my Bountiful Basket. When I saw it I thought "What is this and what in the world do I do with it?" I let them set in my fridge for almost a month before I forced myself to do something with them. Most suggestions that I found involved turning into sweet pickles or some sort of sweet pickle salad. I hate sweet pickles, so I kept searching. I found a recipe on Root Simple, that involved  cutting them into strips and pickling them.
 Now when I say pickling, I mean really pickling. Not the cold pack preserving that we Americans of the 21st century think of when we think of pickles, but letting the naturally occurring bacteria multiply and produce lactic acid. This lacto-fermentation is the same process that is used to make sauerkraut, Swiss cheese  and sourdough bread. This is the way that dill pickles are traditionally made.
  So I thought I would give it a whirl with a few minor modifications of my own.

Daikon Radish Pickles
Daikon radishes (I found that one and a half large radishes filled a jar, roughly 2 lbs)
2 small heads of garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon dried dill
2 Tablespoons sea salt (It is very important that there is no iodine in the salt.)
1 quart water

1. Mix salt and water. This will be your brine.  2. Cut radishes into small strips. 3. Stuff garlic and radish strips into a very clean quart mason jar. (I sterilized it just to be safe.) 4. Add dill and cover with brine. Make sure that all of the vegetables are covered with the brine, if they are exposed the entire jar may spoil. 5. Let set for 1-4 weeks depending on how strong you want your pickles to be.  Oh and your brine is supposed to get cloudy. That's how you know it's working, and if you put your jar through a hot water bath it will kill the bacteria that are doing the lacto-fermenting.  Refrigerate after opening.

When we opened them they popped a fizzed quite a bit, but tasted like pickles, only with a different texture. When I chopped up the radishes there was some leftover, so I ate a few raw. It kind of reminded me of a cross between jicama and a radish. Chopped a few into a salad.

Strawberry and Vanilla Sauce

I found this recipe in Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Make Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Chutneys & More, and when my best friend came to visit last weekend we decided to give it a whirl. It was so yummy! We made two batches, but I am wishing that we had made more. My family loves this. It's really great on waffles, and I'm sure it would taste great on vanilla ice cream or angel food cake as well. Perhaps if I catch up on the other many things that need to be done around my house I will make a few more.  The recipe in the book called for the seeds of one vanilla bean. I used one long vanilla bean and didn't feel like it was enough vanilla flavor, so I added a teaspoon of good Mexican vanilla and it was perfect.

Strawberry Vanilla Sauce
5 pints strawberries, hulled and sliced
1& 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup water
3 Tablespoons bottled lemon juice
2 vanilla beans, sliced lengthwise (or 2 teaspoons high quality vanilla)

1. Sterilize jars, lids and screw rings. 2. Measure 3 cups of sliced strawberries into a glass bowl. Crush with a potato masher. (I used a plastic one for this and I really wish I had a metal one, it would have been easier.) 3. Combine water and sugar in a large saucepan over low heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved. 4. Add crushed berries and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 7 minutes. Stir frequently. 5. Add remaining strawberries and lemon juice. 5. Scrape vanilla bean seeds from pod into pot. 6. Bring the mixture back to a boil and cook for 3 minutes. 7. Ladle into hot sterilized jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Tighten until finger-tip tight. 8. Place in canner and process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. Makes 6-7 half pint jars.

Book Review: Canning & Preserving

 Recently I won Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English from The Morris Tribe. I have to say that I really enjoyed this book. It is full of recipes and tips for canning your harvest and is written in such a way that makes me totally excited about spending hours in my kitchen preserving local produce.  The way she describes it, it's more than food storage, it's an art form. I loved that the author included stories on the history of canning and explained the chemistry behind keeping your canned goods from spoiling.
Here are some of the tips that it included:

• "Know why you are [canning], and be honest with the work it will require. This ain't no disco!" 
•  "Always cook small batches, and always use a wide pan. Also only use the best fruit for preserves."
• "Strawberry jam foams. A lot. No, really, a whole lot."
• "Grocery stores are a convenience, but there is nothing better than homegrown or homemade food."
• "Always remove the rings from my jars when storing; if anything spoils, the lids will come off. Food that is good will hold its seal."
• "Can because you enjoy it, never make it a job or task."
• "Keep your food preparation area clean, and always sterilize your jars well."
• "Canning provides a means of dealing with an abundance of fresh produce. It tastes good, is healthy and saves money. It's the only way to eat certain foods."
• "Always prep extra jars and lids. Yields can very according to the water content of the fruit or vegetable and how tightly they pack into jars."
• "The canning process sometimes dictates it's own time line. You should have a meal plan that simple and easy and have some snacks nearby."

I'm not a total rookie to canning. I own my own canner and I can make some fantastic salsa and apple pie filling, but I have to say that I learned a lot from this book. After reading it I feel better equipped and more energized about canning. I recommend it to any one who is new to canning, anyone looking for a good canning reference or someone looking for a few new good ideas. (I'm excited to test out her recipe for peach lavender butter when peaches are in season.)

Preparedness Wednesday: May in Review

For those of you just tuning in, every week I try to do something to get my house in order (fix things, get out of debt, etc) and purchase something to add to my emergency supply. If you want to follow my deals as I find them. I post them on my public facebook profile as I find them if you are interested.

Doing:

• Pulled and sprayed weeds like a crazy woman, paid the neighbor boys to pull more weeds and finally bought some industrial strength weed killer
• Set up an appointment to visit the cannery next month
• Read a book on canning and preserving
• Hung up several pictures on my walls.

Emergency Storage:

• Case of Skippy Peanut Butter- $1.55 per jar (another fabulous deal from Amazon Subscribe and Save)
• Case of various staples from the local LDS Cannery- I just walked in and bought a case of whatever was already canned, and now they let you put it on a credit card. Sweet!
• Planters peanuts- $1.49 per 16 oz jar @ Albertson's
• #10 can of biscuit mix- $9 @ Walmart- that plus cream of chicken soup makes a complete meal
• New wheat grinder- my husband recently surprised me with this, it comes with much higher reviews than the last one I bought. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.
  

Awesome Deal on Skippy Peanut Butter from Amazon

Now normally my blog is not the place to come when you're looking for the hottest deals. There are many other bloggers out there who just do a better job. But if that hot deal is super convenient and involves food storage, I promise that I will let you know about it.

1. Select one case of Skippy Natural Peanut Butter-Super Chunk from Amazon.com. (The price is listed as $13.23) Also available in the Creamy variety

2. Select Subscribe and Save. This should bring the price down to $11.25. (You can have it delivered as often as you want, and cancel later if you please.)
3. At checkout enter code TOTALUNI (This should bring your total down to $9.32) Although for some reason my total came to $9.27, not complaining. That makes it $1.55 per jar, shipped.
4. This same set of instructions also works for the Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter- Natural with Honey for a few cents more.

Amazon prices fluctuate, so I would hop on this deal NOW.

Thanks Freebies to Deals!

Food Storage Friday: Pregnancy

Last Saturday my husband and I were sitting in the shallow end of the pool watching our kids play in the water.
My husband patted his stomach and said "I need to exercise more."
I patted my stomach and said "I also need to exercise more."
"That's not fat. That's a baby." It's not that I think I am fat. It's just that since I became pregnant, exercise has dropped down to less than once a month. I need to do better, but growing a baby just makes me tired.
I grabbed a love handle and said "This is not a baby."
"No, that's food storage for the baby. You're just practicing what you preach."
That man never ceases to make me laugh.
Happy Mother's Day and have a great weekend.