One of my friends asked "Can you tell me when you have time if you make things from scratch every night or freeze stuff and heat up? Is it cheaper?"
Well, I almost never have time, but I'll take the time anyway to answer this important question. How is cooking from scratch important to home food storage? Besides being cheaper and thus insuring that you have some extra coin to get a reserve going, it's healthier for you and it will help you eliminate waste and spoilage through rotation.
Yes, I cook from scratch almost every night. When I am not struggling with organization, I also freeze stuff and heat up...but not in the "make a casserole and freeze it" sort of way. What I like doing is buying my meats and immediately upon getting home, I separate them into bags, plop in some kind of marinade (from scratch-hardly ever use bottled stuff) and THEN freeze. To use, I simply remove a bag of marinated goodness from the freezer in the morning, set it on the counter (I know, I'm bad) and then grill or bake for dinner. Add a can of veggies and maybe some potatoes or rice and that's it. Now, being the busy and lazy person that I am, I have to qualify this some: I prefer to do this every time I go to the store, but have to admit I sometimes get lazy on the front end and pay for it when I wish I had something fast to throw together. But I still force myself to defrost something and cook from scratch, why? The answer is simple: economics. We'd have starved to death long ago if I was trying to buy mixes and boxes. Here are some recipes in my personal collection that I use for marinades:
Orange Glazed Chicken
Honey Glazed Dump Chicken
Caribbean Dump Chicken
Spiced Citrus Dump Chicken
Herb Wine Dump Chicken
Oriental Chicken
When I have a little extra time, these Stuffed Chicken Cutlets are divine and perfect for individual freezing on a jelly roll pan, then pop the frozen bundles into a big Ziplock for one at a time dispensing.
Yes, I know. We eat a lot of chicken. But we also eat pork when it goes on sale and these recipe's all work well on pork. Marinades are easy! Sometimes, I just start dumping things in. I buy bags of lemons and limes at Sam's and I just go crazy with the spices and oils. Anything you marinade this way will turn out really well because it gets to really penetrate the food since it gets to be in contact with it for so long! I also sear the outsides of roasts and add in my braising liquid prior to freezing for positively delectable pot roasts!
I ALWAYS try to buy in bulk, it's cheaper in the long run, helps us eat healthier foods, and I always have something on hand...somewhere, which means fewer trips to the store. It's a proven fact of marketing that the more time you spend in a store, the more money you spend at the store. I get a whole lot of mileage out of my Sam's Club card and I also frequent a store that sells overstock merchandise and things that are nearing expiration. I can buy 10 yogurt cups for a dollar. I can buy 3 boxes of Bunny Grahams (Annie's Organic) for $1. (reg $3 each) I can buy ground beef for .99 a pound and my kids and I were just thrilled when I got packages of Cheese Dogs for $1 each. The thing with the meats is that they are usually frozen and hamburger is in a 5-7 pound chub. Here are some recipes to use for ground beef:
Salisbury Steak but I make meatballs, then cook, add gravy and freeze.
Mini Meatloaves Again, individual freeze and reheat.
And of course, I usually keep a big bag of frozen ground beef on hand that has been browned with onion, garlic, salt and pepper. It is a perfect start to about 101 different casseroles, burritos, sloppy joes, and even as a mix in for that wonderful standby: Mac and Cheese.
Now, this is where lots of people start needing to breath into a paper sack, cooking from scratch every night is a lifestyle change. For most, this change will occur gradually as you build your food storage program, so if you are smacking down McD's 3 times a week and Hamburger Helper is your BFF, I want you to consider why you are in this habit. Is it because you simply have nothing on hand and are too tired to make stuff to eat when you get home? Would it help you to have something to serve on short notice, even if you had to micro-defrost it? Would it make you feel less guilt to have something decent to eat without a trip to the store or a drive-thru? I will guarantee that with a small investment of time each week, you can free yourself from pre-packaged, sodium laden boxes and Fat Food Drive-Thru non-food FOREVER. You will feel better, you will look better, and you will be richer...or at least, less poor. ;O)
With just a bit of planning, you can have at least 6 different chicken varieties on hand with only about 30 min invested. Here's what you do: make up several marinades in advance. Put them in gallon size Ziplock bags. Go to the grocery store. Buy several packages of chicken, thighs and legs, breasts, whatever is on sale...and if it's marked down for quick sale...even better. When you get home, open up chicken packages, rinse off the meat, remove skin (or not), and then put as many pieces as it takes to feed your family into each Ziplock. Smoosh the Ziplocks around some, (or employ a three year old to help you carry them to the freezer) and pop them in the freezer. You're done. You just cooked dinner for at least 6 nights. In UNDER 30 minutes (not including shopping time). I know it's technically not "cooked" but it will be, most chicken cuts cook very fast, and truthfully, many of these cook up just great in the crock pot too! Plus, you'll be looking forward to trying your creations instead of groaning about having to come up with something for dinner. And the next time you make something, make a double batch: freeze one, serve one. With a little time and discipline, you will be eating better and cheaper than you ever thought possible and building your food storage AT THE SAME TIME!!! YEAHY!
Stay tuned for a post later this week on canning meats and soups! I have two bottles of chicken (surprise! lol), a bottle of ground beef and two quarts of chicken soup...and I took pictures and video as I went so you can join in the fun! Until then, happy storing.
Showing posts with label Don't get overwhelmed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Don't get overwhelmed. Show all posts
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Stop Planning and Start Buying
By now, you should have a list of stuff you need to purchase. Do you feel better knowing that you have officially started your food storage program? If you don't have your list, go to Step by Step over there in the sidebar and start reading! Today, I was approached by someone who was anxious to get some more food storage done and after a short talk, we decided running out and putting up #10 cans probably wasn't the place to start for her. You can obsess over many things in life, but please, don't obsess over what to buy first for your food storage! Find a sale? Stock up! You now have your list so you know EXACTLY what and how many you need! Keep your master list with you at all times so you can refer to it when you see green beans on sale for .33 cents a can!
I don't personally subscribe to the idea of trying to prioritize my purchasing with any real precision. Some do. Whatever works for you. I'm more likely to buy in "chunks" with a set amount of money each month, but I'm also likely to spend my regular grocery money if something great comes along and then just eat out of the freezer and pantry for a couple weeks. Special purchases like a 5 gallon bucket of honey or a bag of powdered milk are not things on my regular shopping list, but they do need to be re-stocked periodically. The main thing to remember is that you are going to be spending more on your food bill than usual for a while. Make friends with that idea and you'll be OK. Once you have stocked up, you'll be able to cut back again, and you may find, as I have, eating simpler, whole foods is much less expensive and very much worth your time in preparing dishes from scratch. I have a friend who's much too modest to admit, but I'm fairly certain she's paid off her mortgage this past year, in part due to her commitment to not eating out and eating simple foods prepared at home.
Your best friend in storing food is your Sharpie marker. Go ahead and put that on your list. Any large batches of stuff you buy needs to be dated with the Sharpie. Just write on there somewhere. Month and year. That's it. Well, OK, you can put a smiley face if you want. Wendy Dewitt outlines her method for rotating and purchasing. It is as sound as any I've seen for a food storage that is kept separate from the family pantry. Basically, food is kept under the beds, and twice a year, she consults her list, looks for stuff that is coming due for shelf life, takes that item out of storage (like her boxes of cereal, she takes them out once a year) puts it in the pantry for use and replaces it with fresh stuff. It's simple and effective. If you are doing the traditional method, you need to make certain that you are eating at home! If you do that, your food storage will stay fresh. If not, you may be looking at giving some away if you can't use it before it goes stale. The only thing I've had go bad in food storage is a can of potato pearls that got forgotten and a couple bags of beans...and I'm not sure those were bad or if I'm just traumatized by my mom's pork and beans and all beans just taste bad to me as a result. I inherited the beans. Totally not my fault. (Long story short, mom made a huge pot of beans once in a while and that's all you got to eat for a month. OK, a week, but it seemed like a month. Ketchup doesn't help. No matter what she and grandpa said.)
It's late and I'm tired. I'll have a new installment or two this next week...provided calculus doesn't kill me off. I'll even add a link or two for you to check out. Namely a link to someone who figured out how to amass a food storage for $5 a week per person. Now there's someone with a plan. And a lot of extra time on her hands. Thank goodness for good people like her, right?
I don't personally subscribe to the idea of trying to prioritize my purchasing with any real precision. Some do. Whatever works for you. I'm more likely to buy in "chunks" with a set amount of money each month, but I'm also likely to spend my regular grocery money if something great comes along and then just eat out of the freezer and pantry for a couple weeks. Special purchases like a 5 gallon bucket of honey or a bag of powdered milk are not things on my regular shopping list, but they do need to be re-stocked periodically. The main thing to remember is that you are going to be spending more on your food bill than usual for a while. Make friends with that idea and you'll be OK. Once you have stocked up, you'll be able to cut back again, and you may find, as I have, eating simpler, whole foods is much less expensive and very much worth your time in preparing dishes from scratch. I have a friend who's much too modest to admit, but I'm fairly certain she's paid off her mortgage this past year, in part due to her commitment to not eating out and eating simple foods prepared at home.
Your best friend in storing food is your Sharpie marker. Go ahead and put that on your list. Any large batches of stuff you buy needs to be dated with the Sharpie. Just write on there somewhere. Month and year. That's it. Well, OK, you can put a smiley face if you want. Wendy Dewitt outlines her method for rotating and purchasing. It is as sound as any I've seen for a food storage that is kept separate from the family pantry. Basically, food is kept under the beds, and twice a year, she consults her list, looks for stuff that is coming due for shelf life, takes that item out of storage (like her boxes of cereal, she takes them out once a year) puts it in the pantry for use and replaces it with fresh stuff. It's simple and effective. If you are doing the traditional method, you need to make certain that you are eating at home! If you do that, your food storage will stay fresh. If not, you may be looking at giving some away if you can't use it before it goes stale. The only thing I've had go bad in food storage is a can of potato pearls that got forgotten and a couple bags of beans...and I'm not sure those were bad or if I'm just traumatized by my mom's pork and beans and all beans just taste bad to me as a result. I inherited the beans. Totally not my fault. (Long story short, mom made a huge pot of beans once in a while and that's all you got to eat for a month. OK, a week, but it seemed like a month. Ketchup doesn't help. No matter what she and grandpa said.)
It's late and I'm tired. I'll have a new installment or two this next week...provided calculus doesn't kill me off. I'll even add a link or two for you to check out. Namely a link to someone who figured out how to amass a food storage for $5 a week per person. Now there's someone with a plan. And a lot of extra time on her hands. Thank goodness for good people like her, right?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Plan Your Work: Part 2
Got your list? Good. See? It wasn't that bad. The next step is actually a fork in the road and you have to decide what fits your style the best.
If you are going to plan each meal and emulate Wendy Dewitt, you need to sit down and write out 14 breakfast, lunch and dinner menu's. Now, before you go including all your fancy company dishes, I want you to remember to think SIMPLE. You may be cooking over a camp stove. Like spaghetti? Can of sauce+handful of noodles+maybe some cheese and a nice loaf of bread= perfect food storage fare. Look at Wendy's recipe's for ideas but KEEP IT SIMPLE. If you can only bring yourself to think of 7 menus, do 7. So what if you end up eating spaghetti once a week for a year? We are talking SURVIVAL here people! You don't have my permission to get any fancier than 14 different menus until you have enough to survive for ONE YEAR. If you just know you would not like living this way, you must pick the other method. Once you have your menus, you must write down what you need to prepare each dish on those menus. Then you must take a break, prop your feet up and eat some chocolate. No more for you today. Tomorrow, you can multiply everything out by 26, create a master list of what you need, and see how what you have fits into that.
If you are going to create an in home grocery store, you must go run the calculator, you must print it out, and you must write down what you do have that will count toward your needs. And then you can take a break. And eat some chocolate. And ponder what a domestic goddess you are for taking the biggest, hardest step in beginning your food storage. It's all downhill coasting from here.
If you are going to plan each meal and emulate Wendy Dewitt, you need to sit down and write out 14 breakfast, lunch and dinner menu's. Now, before you go including all your fancy company dishes, I want you to remember to think SIMPLE. You may be cooking over a camp stove. Like spaghetti? Can of sauce+handful of noodles+maybe some cheese and a nice loaf of bread= perfect food storage fare. Look at Wendy's recipe's for ideas but KEEP IT SIMPLE. If you can only bring yourself to think of 7 menus, do 7. So what if you end up eating spaghetti once a week for a year? We are talking SURVIVAL here people! You don't have my permission to get any fancier than 14 different menus until you have enough to survive for ONE YEAR. If you just know you would not like living this way, you must pick the other method. Once you have your menus, you must write down what you need to prepare each dish on those menus. Then you must take a break, prop your feet up and eat some chocolate. No more for you today. Tomorrow, you can multiply everything out by 26, create a master list of what you need, and see how what you have fits into that.
If you are going to create an in home grocery store, you must go run the calculator, you must print it out, and you must write down what you do have that will count toward your needs. And then you can take a break. And eat some chocolate. And ponder what a domestic goddess you are for taking the biggest, hardest step in beginning your food storage. It's all downhill coasting from here.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Plan Your Work: Part One
If you're ready to get more serious about food storage than just buying extra stuff all willy-nilly, I'll give you a place to start. But if you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, promise me you'll just go buy an extra case of green beans and try again another time...OK?
I like lists.
In order to have a list, you have to make a list. Clear as mud? Great!
There are a couple of ways to approach this. You can plan every meal down to the last teaspoon of salt that you'll need like Wendy Dewitt, or you can create an in home grocery store. Most people I know do something somewhere in between. No matter what you do, you need to know what you are starting with. You need to do an inventory of what you have on hand. Go count up your cans, write down what you have in the freezer, leave no stone un-turned. Count it all and make a list. It doesn't have to be fancy. You can DO it!
I like lists.
In order to have a list, you have to make a list. Clear as mud? Great!
There are a couple of ways to approach this. You can plan every meal down to the last teaspoon of salt that you'll need like Wendy Dewitt, or you can create an in home grocery store. Most people I know do something somewhere in between. No matter what you do, you need to know what you are starting with. You need to do an inventory of what you have on hand. Go count up your cans, write down what you have in the freezer, leave no stone un-turned. Count it all and make a list. It doesn't have to be fancy. You can DO it!
Friday, March 14, 2008
Start Simply and Simply Start
The thing I hear the most often from people who want to start a home food storage program is that they don't know where to start. Somewhere along the way, we've turned food storage into a mystical process that is nothing short of intimidating...Oooops. Not at all what we need to be doing. What you need to do is bookmark this site and come back every day. I'm going to give this to you in manageable bites. I'm going to do my level best to build your confidence.
I'm here to assure you that food storage is a simple thing. Like anything else, we can improve on how we do it, but the basic truth of food storage is that anyone can and should do it, and no matter what anyone tries to tell you, imperfect food storage is still food storage. Worried about how to store water? Start by washing out old milk jugs, filling them with water and sticking them aside somewhere. Yes, I know this suggestion will make die hard preparedness experts cringe, but if it comes right down to it, you've got a bit of water. Worried about where to start? How about watching for sales on canned goods and buying a case or two when you see things on sale? You can START a food storage program without any lists or fancy calculators. Anything you've bought and put aside will be a blessing to your family if you are trying to survive. Any effort you put into this will build your confidence, get you in the habit of storing and thinking about storage.
Keep in mind, we live in a litigious society. Some of this has crept into food storage. Many times manufacturers and "advice givers" tell you stuff to be on the safe side, you shouldn't ignore their warnings and advice, but you should keep in mind that they may be telling you stuff just to cover their fannies. I'll tell you what I do, you use your own judgment and decide what you want to do. Many people are absolutely militant about storage procedures, and goody for them. You'll have no trouble finding out how to do everything the "right" way. But I'm all about diving in and getting started. If all you have to store your wheat in is plastic garbage cans, wrap the paper bags up in plastic garbage bags and store your wheat in plastic garbage cans. You'll see eyes bulging from their sockets and snarky comments from some, but WHO CARES? You're one step ahead of those who have nothing and you can improve as you go. My mantra is the only "wrong" way to do food storage is to neglect doing it at all.
I'm here to assure you that food storage is a simple thing. Like anything else, we can improve on how we do it, but the basic truth of food storage is that anyone can and should do it, and no matter what anyone tries to tell you, imperfect food storage is still food storage. Worried about how to store water? Start by washing out old milk jugs, filling them with water and sticking them aside somewhere. Yes, I know this suggestion will make die hard preparedness experts cringe, but if it comes right down to it, you've got a bit of water. Worried about where to start? How about watching for sales on canned goods and buying a case or two when you see things on sale? You can START a food storage program without any lists or fancy calculators. Anything you've bought and put aside will be a blessing to your family if you are trying to survive. Any effort you put into this will build your confidence, get you in the habit of storing and thinking about storage.
Keep in mind, we live in a litigious society. Some of this has crept into food storage. Many times manufacturers and "advice givers" tell you stuff to be on the safe side, you shouldn't ignore their warnings and advice, but you should keep in mind that they may be telling you stuff just to cover their fannies. I'll tell you what I do, you use your own judgment and decide what you want to do. Many people are absolutely militant about storage procedures, and goody for them. You'll have no trouble finding out how to do everything the "right" way. But I'm all about diving in and getting started. If all you have to store your wheat in is plastic garbage cans, wrap the paper bags up in plastic garbage bags and store your wheat in plastic garbage cans. You'll see eyes bulging from their sockets and snarky comments from some, but WHO CARES? You're one step ahead of those who have nothing and you can improve as you go. My mantra is the only "wrong" way to do food storage is to neglect doing it at all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
