We really want to work on our food storage this year. Our small family could maybe last for a month on our current amount of food in our pantry...maybe. I honestly am at a loss as to what/how much food that we need to buy and am a little concerned at the practicality of some specific food items that people generally have amongst their year supply.
Take wheat for example.
My mother-in-law bought us a 50 pound bucket of wheat for Christmas. I was REALLY excited because I really love wheat!
Here is the very large, and HEAVY, bucket of wheat:
Take wheat for example.
My mother-in-law bought us a 50 pound bucket of wheat for Christmas. I was REALLY excited because I really love wheat!
Here is the very large, and HEAVY, bucket of wheat:
I borrowed a hand wheat-grinder from my sister-in-law with high hopes of grinding the entire 50-pound bucket of wheat in one evening. HA-HA!!! Boy was I wrong. :)
You put the wheat in the top of the grinder:
You put the wheat in the top of the grinder:
And then you proceed to turn the handle over and over and over again. As the handle is turning, minuscule (almost microscopic) particles of wheat come out and fall into the bowl placed under the grinder.
Lo and behold...I ground that wheat for nearly an hour and I barely got TWO QUARTS!!!
Afterward, my hand was pretty sore. I'm definitely wearing gloves next time! :)
I barely made a dent in my bucket of wheat. I can realistically look forward to an entire week of grinding non-stop if I am ever going to get through that bucket! It would be nice to have an electric wheat-grinder. Maybe we'll have to invest in one soon...I just hope that a big natural disaster doesn't come before we get one. Because what good would an entire bucket of unusable wheat do for us?
We also have a HUGE bag of oatmeal, which I can picture us using pretty easily. And HUGE bags of dehydrated re-fried beans, dehydrated carrots (who knows what I'm going to use them for...they stink really badly), dehydrated apples (could be promising), and dehydrated potatoes. We have been trying to buy extra water every time we go shopping, but it still isn't enough.
If anyone is reading this blog and has ANY ADVICE whatsoever on how to start a decent food storage, please send your advice this way!! It would be very much appreciated!! :)
As a side note, I have used the wheat flour that I slaved over and it is actually really delicious. I have made a couple of batches of whole-wheat rolls with it, as well as home-made graham crackers (which were unfortunately pretty addicting and surprisingly tasted almost like the real thing!).
Speaking of baking, I love to bake. Too much for my own good. After Lizzie was born, I swear that the baby weight just came off without me even thinking about it. But with Bryce, it's a completely different story. A few weeks after giving birth to him, I had only lost 10 pounds of what I gained during the pregnancy. I didn't really care because I thought that the rest would come off pretty easily since I was exclusively breast-feeding. Um...I don't think so! Unfortunately, I seemed to have hit a very stubborn plateau! I'm kind of stuck because I honestly feel like I eat pretty healthy for the most part and I make it a point to exercise regularly too. It wouldn't be that bad if I didn't have an entire closet full of clothes that don't fit me! :) I finally gave in and bought a pair of jeans that are 2 sizes bigger than the rest of the pants in my closet that I can't seem to pull over my hips. I don't want to get obsessed over my weight, because I don't want to go insane. But losing this baby weight has been really difficult! Someone told me once that losing weight is more difficult than quitting smoking. Because although cigarettes contain nicotine (one of the most addictive drugs), if you simply avoid cigarettes, you can go without them. Food on the other hand is a basic necessity of life and is, therefore, unavoidable. Hmmmm...very true. I am definitely a food addict! :)
And so is my husband. The other night, he was craving oatmeal cookies. And I love him so much that I told him that I would make him some. Even though I knew that eating those cookies would take me further and further away from my quest to lose weight.
Fortunately for me, when I took the pan of cookies out of the oven, I accidentally burned my hand and I dropped the cookies all over the floor! Hooray for me! :)
We also have a HUGE bag of oatmeal, which I can picture us using pretty easily. And HUGE bags of dehydrated re-fried beans, dehydrated carrots (who knows what I'm going to use them for...they stink really badly), dehydrated apples (could be promising), and dehydrated potatoes. We have been trying to buy extra water every time we go shopping, but it still isn't enough.
If anyone is reading this blog and has ANY ADVICE whatsoever on how to start a decent food storage, please send your advice this way!! It would be very much appreciated!! :)
As a side note, I have used the wheat flour that I slaved over and it is actually really delicious. I have made a couple of batches of whole-wheat rolls with it, as well as home-made graham crackers (which were unfortunately pretty addicting and surprisingly tasted almost like the real thing!).
Speaking of baking, I love to bake. Too much for my own good. After Lizzie was born, I swear that the baby weight just came off without me even thinking about it. But with Bryce, it's a completely different story. A few weeks after giving birth to him, I had only lost 10 pounds of what I gained during the pregnancy. I didn't really care because I thought that the rest would come off pretty easily since I was exclusively breast-feeding. Um...I don't think so! Unfortunately, I seemed to have hit a very stubborn plateau! I'm kind of stuck because I honestly feel like I eat pretty healthy for the most part and I make it a point to exercise regularly too. It wouldn't be that bad if I didn't have an entire closet full of clothes that don't fit me! :) I finally gave in and bought a pair of jeans that are 2 sizes bigger than the rest of the pants in my closet that I can't seem to pull over my hips. I don't want to get obsessed over my weight, because I don't want to go insane. But losing this baby weight has been really difficult! Someone told me once that losing weight is more difficult than quitting smoking. Because although cigarettes contain nicotine (one of the most addictive drugs), if you simply avoid cigarettes, you can go without them. Food on the other hand is a basic necessity of life and is, therefore, unavoidable. Hmmmm...very true. I am definitely a food addict! :)
And so is my husband. The other night, he was craving oatmeal cookies. And I love him so much that I told him that I would make him some. Even though I knew that eating those cookies would take me further and further away from my quest to lose weight.
Fortunately for me, when I took the pan of cookies out of the oven, I accidentally burned my hand and I dropped the cookies all over the floor! Hooray for me! :)
Jon was devastated. He salvaged what he could until I made him throw the rest away because I didn't really want to kiss him after he had eaten stuff off of the germ-infested floor. :)
This post is so random.
Here is a picture of Lizzie playing with play dough. Yeah...random.
Here is a picture of Lizzie playing with play dough. Yeah...random.
Little Bryce-a-roni LOVES listening to Jon play the piano. He can listen to him for at least 30 minutes non-stop. I think that we have a future concert pianist in our hands...
Just for fun, I wanted to put pigtails in Bryce's hair to see if he resembled Lizzie at all. He is definitely all boy. Lizzie was much more girlish in my recollection.
Bryce's new funny thing to do is to stick his tongue out. I remember Lizzie doing the same thing and I think that it's so cute!
Anyway, enough of my complete randomness. I write more on my blog than I do in my real journal lately...I should just make this my journal like lot's of other people do.
5 comments:
Hey Andrea, good job on getting your food storage started! I have an electric wheat grinder and if you ever want to use it, let me know. It was expensive, but definitely worth it. The only thing with grinding wheat is you don't want to grind too much at once, because it starts to lose its nutritional value over time when it's ground up.
I have a lot of food storage. Last year, I used our tax return money to get it. I have wheat, oatmeal, flour, sugar, rice, spaghetti, pinto beans, black beans, corn meal (but I don't know how necessary this is), etc. Plus a lot of canned stuff and hygiene stuff like shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. I store everything in buckets and you can get free buckets from bakeries. I had the most luck with grocery store bakeries. Call them early in the morning, because they throw them out. I just cleaned them with bleach water. Make sure you tell them you want the lids. I still need to get oxygen absorbers for them, but everything is still okay so far.
We use the wheat and oatmeal a lot. we like to make homemade chili with the beans. I have a ton of food storage recipes that I haven't tried out yet, so if you want them, I can email them to you. romarachel at gmail dot com.
Your kids are so cute! Good luck getting the last bit of weight off, that must be frustrating. You can do it!
Oh and another thing, sorry this is all so long. I found Winco had the best prices for sugar, flour and oatmeal. The cannery has the best prices for wheat by far and beans and spaghetti, I believe too. If you buy this stuff in bags, you don't have to volunteer hours there, you can just go and buy it. Good luck!
I don't know much about food storage, so I'm of no use to you in that area... sorry. I'll enjoy learning from the comments other people leave you though!
Your kids are juts so cute! They have so much beautiful hair, I bet lots of other moms are envious. :) I hear you on trying to lose the baby weight, even though I'm sure you look great... let me know if you figure out the trick to that one!
Hey Andrea, cute post! I don't know a whole lot about food storage. If I'm grocery shopping and am under budget then I buy some things for my storage. It's slowly become larger but by no means could we last more than a month, right now anyway. So that's my suggestion (and of course follow Rachel's advice!). On providentliving. org they have whole sections dedicated to how to start and starter kits.
About losing weight... with Caleb it took a little longer but I got back to my weight within 4 months, I think. I gained 20 with him so I didn't have that much to lose. It's ok to have sweets but only one or 2 of something, like a cookie and not all the time. On top of walking and eating better, I didn't and still don't drink soda. I ate 5 small meals a day. Snacks were no more than 30g. Breakfast was 15g and dinner was 40g. I stuck to my diabetic diet that I was on with Caleb because I had gestational diabetes with him. Anyway, as more time went on I started to eat bigger portions to keep my milk supply up. Anyway, good luck!
Your poor hands! You are so awesome to begin your supply! You should go with me to some of Debbie Kent's meetings. She is the preparedness person for the Lancaster steak and I have been wanting to crash her meetings. She is VERY well informed! I believe her website is peaceofpreparedness.com. I am sorry you burned your hand! Derek would've totally ate the cookies off of the floor too!
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