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I still hear people talking about how they could never tolerate eating “all that wheat” they are going eat when they are forced to “finally” eat their food storage. Although there are some decent dried food storage items, and some really nasty tasting dried food storage items (and some people seem to think that wheat is part of that), the question that I have to ask is: Do you really want to rely only on reconstituted food and wheat for your back up food supply? I’m not. People still think that food storage is to be stored – for a very long time and that it is requisite that it has to taste bad. Are you trying to hurt yourself and make a bad situation even worse? I mean, sitting in front of a bowl of steamed wheat with a glass of warm powdered milk is just not going to do it for me – especially for more than one meal. After all, without chocolate and spices is life really worth living? Yes, you do need to get your wheat stored. And yes, there are so many items that we eat that involve wheat in some form or another: bread, biscuits, pie shells, cookies, BROWNIES, pancakes, waffles, and the list goes on, and on. Store your wheat, but don’t stop there. Store a year’s worth of whatever you and your family like to eat and then go one step further and DON’T store it too long – EAT IT. Remember that rotation is the key. I like to do “R&R.” No, not rest and relaxation, but rather ROTATE and REPLENISH! You don’t need to buy meat and vegetables in #10 cans that need to be reconstituted, unless you really like eating that kind of expensive stuff. Don’t get me wrong. Dried items can be helpful, and I love my freeze dryer, but you really don’t want to rely on living off of them. The better thing to do would be to freeze, can, bottle, or buy prepared items that you like in amounts that would take care of your family for a year. I’m begging you to please stop making your food storage a drudgery! The pioneers stored enough food for a year and no, it wasn’t all dried food. Yes, they did dry a lot of their fruits and vegetables, but they also preserved their foods to taste good and they did it all without refrigeration or freezers. Let us try to be as creative and use what we have. Our opportunities to store food are so much more varied and tastier than in the past. Do not go out and buy your food storage all at once, unless of course you have the money for it. Do not go into debt to get your food storage built up. If you give up a $20 pizza once a month, and your daily soda pop for a year, you would be shocked at how much food storage you could purchase and store in such a small amount of time. With gas prices going up, we are probably already tightening our belts, but buying edible food storage, a bit at time, will help us to save money and eat better. By watching sales and picking up a case or two of your favorite meats, soups, or fruits you can make a lot of headway into building your food storage while making it enjoyable. After all, I don’t want to be sitting around eating nothing but reconstituted vegetables, meat and wheat, and washing it down with powdered milk – and I don’t intend to. No, I intend to eat pork chops, grilled asparagus, both of which I have thawed out (because I sealed them up and froze them in their own sealed pouches) with a side of rice (see you don’t have to eat wheat for every meal). For desert, I think a chocolate pie (homemade of course) with Dream Whip topping, which can be whipped up at a moment’s notice, or maybe a nice cake from one of the many cake mixes that are stored. Of course, you could always reconstitute some vegetables or mystery meat and see how that turns out. If you make the cake, you might want to have a really good and easy frosting that you can make from scratch from your food storage items. Easy Chocolate Frosting 3 tablespoons of butter or margarine ¼ cup cocoa 1 1/3 cups powdered sugar 2 –3 tablespoons milk ½ teaspoon vanilla extract and about a tablespoon of Crisco (optional) Mix everything together and beat until it reaches a smooth, light texture (I added the Crisco because it gives it a little bit nicer texture – you can leave it out if you want.) Or you could just chew on a semi-dried cake bar that came out of a packet – at least it is easy to clean up. Just throw the package away — or keep it to chew on — it would be just as tasty as the cake bar thingy. I know that the dried food companies do their best, but doesn’t the “regular stuff” just taste better? I know that it is cheaper. And, to figure out how much you need, just go to our food A Prepared Home food storage calculator and get it figured out! And don’t forget your water! Dawn

I saw the cutest idea the other day. There was a company that was selling sunflower playhouses. The idea was simple enough – they sold you enough sunflower seeds to plant sunflowers in a row in order to make three-four foot walls with the fourth wall that had a door opening. How fun is that? Privacy and shade with style. After I saw that cute little playhouse, my mind really started working. What about a bean house or a pea house? You could even make your new playhouse multi-faceted by planting one wall of peas, one wall of beans and finishing it off with the sunflowers. Your kids could go out and play in their playhouse and eat a healthy snack at the same time. It is certainly cheaper and less time consuming than building a playhouse out of wood, and you can reclaim your grass at the end of the year. Another thing that I discovered was that you can eat a specific sunflower tuber. They are called sunflower chokes or are sometimes better known as the Jerusalem artichoke. The healthy eating gourmet cook that I watched on TV, said that you can use them much like water chestnuts or potatoes. You can eat them raw or cook them, it really doesn’t matter. You don’t want to harvest them until after the first frost because the frost will make them sweeter, kind of like it is best to wait for the first frost with grapes so that they reach the height of sweetness (don’t get the idea that chokes are sweet like grapes, they’re not). My kids grew sunflowers once when they were young, but we’ve never grown this type. The Jerusalem artichoke plant grows about four to six foot tall and could probably hide a fort inside, but I think I would use the regular sunflower because the Jerusalem artichoke can really spread out. I am really curious about what sunflower tubers taste like. For this particular sunflower you plant it similar to the way you plant potatoes, making sure that you have a chunk of tuber that has at least two to three eyes and is no less than 2 oz. in weight, but you don’t want to cure them or let them dry out like you do with potatoes. Plant them right away after cutting them up. The gourmet cooks on TV showed the chokes and they were actually bigger than I thought they would be, about the size of a small to medium potato. I am so curious. These plants grow well in the North (our area) and in just about any kind of soil. When harvesting them you want to be gentle because their skin is very thin, and you don’t want to bruise them. You can buy the tubers on-line at www.johnnyseed.com or www.gurneys.com. “Stampede” is supposedly the best tuber to buy. Of course, I am sure that you can buy the ready to eat tubers at some health food stores, but where is the fun in that? I got this information from Meredith at the USU Extension Service in Provo (I have them on speed dial) and she was most informative. She also said that if you want more information about the Jerusalem artichoke (or sunflower choke) that you can go to www.ces.ncsu.edu (North Carolina Extension Service) and they have a really good fact sheet on how to take care of the Jerusalem artichoke and more. If you don’t want to worry about eating the tubers, still plant the regular sunflowers that give you sunflower seeds (and build the playhouse) and then in the fall, have the kids cut the heads off and hang them in the trees for the birds in the wintertime – or just eat them yourself. This brings up a really good thought about your food storage – do you have seeds? Seeds are very important to include in your food storage. Some seeds you can eat just as they are and you really don’t have to do much to use them, like sunflower seeds or sesame seeds. Other seeds can be sprouted so that you can get the necessary nutrients you need without having to wait for an outdoor garden to mature. Did you know that you get more nutritious value from broccoli sprouts than you do from mature broccoli? It’s true, and that’s pretty hard to do considering that broccoli is the most perfect vegetable on the face of the earth (personal opinion, but true). Actually, that is true for most sprouted seeds; nutritionally they are the tops. It is very important when choosing the seeds that you are buying for planting and the seeds that you are buying for sprouting, to make sure that they are high quality seeds and that they are purchased from a reputable seller. It is also very important that you rotate your seeds. Yes, some of the seeds MAY sprout when they get old, but the majority of the seeds will no longer be viable and able to do what they were meant to do when they get too old. I would hate to put the time and resources into something that won’t produce in the end. And don’t forget your water! Dawn

When I was young, I thought that Quiche was some kind of an exotic food because it sounded so, well, exotic. When I got older, I found out that Quiche was just a fancy way to say egg pie. As you can guess, we’re going to talk about eggs again. The reason that I like eggs so much is because they are so versatile, and they are a very easy way to get protein. Eggs just taste good and if you have chickens, they are also a renewable resource. The first time that I ever made Quiche I measured everything out perfectly thinking that if I made one miscalculation in my preparation that it would not turn out. It was nerve wracking, and I didn’t make it again – at least until I was inspired by my friend. My husband and I went to stay at her house back east for a short vacation. The morning that we were getting ready to leave, I went downstairs, and my friend was “throwing” together breakfast for us before we left to catch a plane. She finished stripping off the meat from the bones of a ham and started throwing them in a pie shell. She then mixed cheese in with the ham until it filled the shell about ¾ full. She salted and peppered it, threw in some diced onions, added a shake or two of garlic granules over the whole thing, and then added about six eggs that had already been mixed with little bit of milk. She then poured the mixture over the ham and cheese and baked it in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes, or until the middle had set. She let it set for about 15 minutes and then served it up. She measured nothing – and it tasted wonderful! I decided that when I got home, I wasn’t going to be such a fraidy cat and that I would try making Quiche my own way – without measuring absolutely everything. Since that time, I have made Quiche with ham or bacon, whichever one I had on hand (I have never tried bacon bits, but I would bet that they would work). I have used whatever cheese I had in the refrigerator, sometimes even mixing different ones together like cheddar cheese and mozzarella. Of course, I have used the Swiss cheese, as is used in most recipes, and I like it, but my favorite is with the mild cheddar cheese and Swiss cheese mixed. I also like to add cut up spinach, and make sure that you add dried onion flakes or diced up onions. I have never tried it with asparagus pieces, but I saw a picture of it one time and it looked delicious. Just remember – it is an egg pie, and the egg and cheese hold everything together, so if something tastes good with eggs and with cheese, then throw it in the pie shell and cook it up. Start experimenting and find your family’s favorite, whether it is simple, or extravagant. If you have a favorite pie shell recipe, then use it to make your egg pie (a.k.a. Quiche). There are many different types of pie shells, but my favorite one is the old-fashioned pie dough that my mom taught me to make when I was young. It is really easy to make, but if you play with it too much it will get tough. Pie Dough 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 2/3 cup shortening 7 tablespoons cold water Mix the flour and salt together and then cut the shortening (vegetable shortening, like Crisco, works best) into the flour until it is small pea size. Add the water and mix together with a fork. DO NOT PLAY WITH THE DOUGH or it will get tough. Turn it out on the counter and roll it out. This will not look pretty, and you will lose some flour, but if done correctly it will make the crust flaky. This recipe will make enough dough for two single pies or one pie with a top and of course, some leftover dough for pie dough cookies. If you don’t like the above recipe, then try the following recipe. This is the recipe that my mom likes to make because she can freeze it ahead of time, a good food storage idea, and it always comes out flaky – hence the name “Never-Fail Pie Crust”. Never-Fail Pie Crust 4 cups flour (not sifted) 1 tablespoon sugar 2 teaspoons salt 1 ¾ cups solid vegetable shortening 1 tablespoon vinegar 1 egg ½ cup water Mix flour, sugar, and salt together with a fork. Add shortening and cut into flour until crumbly. Beat together vinegar, egg, and water. Combine it with flour, stirring with fork to moisten ingredients. Shape with hands into five flat, round patties, ready for rolling. Wrap each patty in foil or plastic wrap and store in freezer until ready to use. When ready to roll pie crust, remove pastry from freezer (a.k.a. your food storage) and thaw in refrigerator. Roll out, fill with desired filling (eggs and cheese this time), bake, and enjoy. Just remember – food storage can, and should, TASTE GOOD! Dawn

Because we are dealing with eggs and because I wanted to make sure that you get accurate information, I went to The American Egg Board (www.aeb.org) web site to get you the best frozen egg information out there. Below is what they say works. “If you receive a windfall of eggs far beyond your capacity to use within a few weeks, they can be frozen—not in the shell, of course. Freeze only clean, fresh eggs." Whites: Break and separate the egg, one at a time, making sure that no yolk gets in the whites. Pour them into freezer containers, seal tightly, label with the number of egg whites and the date, and freeze. For faster thawing and easier measuring, first freeze each white in an ice cube tray and then transfer to a freezer container. Yolks: Egg yolks require special treatment. The gelation property of yolk causes it to thicken or gel when frozen. If frozen as-is, egg yolks will eventually become so gelatinous that it will be almost impossible to use in a recipe. To help retard this gelation, beat in either 1/8-teaspoon salt or 1½ teaspoons sugar or corn syrup per ¼ cup egg yolks (4 yolks). Label the container with the number or yolks, the date, and whether you’ve added salt (for main dishes) or sweetener (for baking or desserts). Whole eggs: Beat just until blended, pour into freezer containers, seal tightly, label with the number of eggs and the date, and freeze. (You can use the ice cube tray trick for this one also.) Hard-cooked: Hard-cooked yolks can be frozen to use later for toppings or garnishes. Carefully place the yolks in a single layer in a saucepan and add enough water to come at least 1 inch above the yolks. Cover and quickly bring just to boiling. Remove from the heat and let stand, covered, in the hot water for about 15 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain well and package for freezing. Hard-cooked whole eggs and whites become tough and watery when frozen, so don’t freeze them. To use frozen eggs: Thaw frozen eggs overnight in the refrigerator or under running cold water. Use yolks or whole eggs as soon as they’re thawed. Once thawed, whites will beat to better volume if allowed to sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Hmmm. Pretty interesting. Of course, I had to freeze a whole egg just because I was curious as to how hard the yolk got and yep, it got hard. My frozen yolk was the consistency of thick, hard peanut butter. Not very useable. The egg white, however, did just fine. I fried it up to see if it tasted okay, or if it was grainy at all, or curdled in texture. I couldn’t tell the difference between the fresh egg whites versus frozen egg whites. I didn’t prepare the yolk with salt of sugar before freezing, but I did try barely mixing the yolk and the white together and then freezing it. After thawing it out I wasn’t too impressed because it looked kind of thick, and it seemed a little darker in color. I decided to fry it up anyway just to see how it would turn out when cooked. I was really surprised at how well they turned out! The minute the eggs started cooking in the pan they turned back to the color that I was used to. They fried up nice and fluffy. When I served it to my test subject, my son, he said that they tasted really good, and after I tried them, I had to agree with him. I would suggest that you test your favorite egg recipes out by freezing them and serving them to your family. The most important part of this test is to NOT tell your family that you first froze the egg based item. This way you will get a better, non-prejudiced, answer. In this case, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. After trying egg freezing, I think that I am going to continue to do it. The big thing to remember is to rotate them and make sure that the frozen egg is well packaged so that they won’t pick up freezer tastes. There would be nothing worse than to bake a cake that had a hint of fish added. Dawn

Eggs. Aren’t they pretty much perfect? You can boil them, fry them, scramble them, poach them, pickle them, or bake them. They make a wonderful breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, or dessert. I love eating eggs; easy over and poached are the best. Even when the fad was to avoid them like the plague because somebody linked them with high cholesterol, I stuck with them – and I was proven right; eggs are once again healthy for us. One thing that I want you to do is to think about the different ways that you can store and/or preserve them. I am a big fan of dried eggs. I know that all of the people that have served in the military are probably having shudders run up and down their spines right now thinking back on the dried scrambled eggs – and you would be right if you think that they are horrible. Thank goodness I’m not asking you to eat them scrambled. No, instead I’m asking you to use them to bake with. I love eating cookie dough (and who doesn’t?), but to be safe you want to use the powdered eggs to bake with so that there isn’t any chance of getting salmonella. I have used powdered eggs in cakes and cookies, and in an emergency once I even used them in my Mile High Biscuit recipe. Everything I have used powdered eggs in to bake with has always turned out delicious. Isn’t that another reason we have food storage – for safety and for cooking emergencies?! I also like to freeze dry my eggs. I scramble them and pour them into the freeze drying pans, throw them into the freezer first, and then into the freeze dryer. I then seal them in cans with an oxygen absorber for long term storage. I use my freeze dried eggs quite often, and when you add water and fry them up, you can’t tell that they aren’t fresh. It is wonderful! Another way that my family loves their eggs is pickled. If you haven’t tried pickled eggs, then you really need to become more adventuresome. It is a really good way to preserve boiled eggs for a very long time – if you can keep people from gobbling them up. The easiest way to make pickled eggs is to eat pickles – and then save the juice. It doesn’t matter if they are hot pickles, sweet pickles, or just regular pickles; any kind of pickle juice will do. Boil the eggs, peel them, and then put them in the pickle juice to marinate. Hide them in your second fridge downstairs, or the fridge in the garage. You can even try to hide them in the back of your everyday fridge, and then just leave them alone for at least a month, maybe two. Once you try these pickled eggs you really will have to hide them because everybody will want to eat them before they are fully marinated. Once I was trying to marinate a whole gallon jar of eggs in my downstairs fridge, thinking that I had hidden them well enough (behind some cabbage and other vegetables). When I went to use them to make my family some pickled egg sandwiches for lunch, I found only one lone egg left. Out of the whole gallon jar! I ate it. I made tuna fish sandwiches for the family instead. I had originally boiled two dozen eggs to pickle (I buy my pickles by the gallon), but they were all gone. One person had found them, and everyone joined in the guilt of eating them without telling me. Next time I’m going to have to be sneakier. You could also use pickled beet juice and it would make not only yummy, but also very lovely red pickled eggs. In the old days, my husband’s grandmother used to wipe the eggshells with butter or oil to preserve them, which stopped the air from passing back and forth and stopped the eggs from picking up flavors from the fridge or storage area and kept them from drying out. Nowadays we have refrigerators and so eggs will stay fresh for quite some time, but it is best if they are left in their original containers. I actually buy my eggs in the crates that are sold together and just use one shelf in my fridge to store all my eggs. Like I said, I like eggs. From experience, fresh eggs can be safely stored outside of the fridge for a week or two+. I have used eggs that have been stored for up to six months or longer in the fridge. If you have your own chickens, you can also store them in slaked lime and water. If you do this, you don’t wash the protective layer off of the egg before putting them in a jar with water and the slaked lime. They say that the fresh eggs can last up to six years this way. You can’t do this with store bought eggs. Another way that you can store eggs is by freezing them. No, really. Eggs can be frozen, but you don’t want to freeze them in their shells, and you need to prep them just a little. I’m going to experiment with freezing eggs a little bit this week before I tell you how good they taste. I actually suspicion that some, or most, of the eggs that we eat in fast food establishments have been frozen at one time or another. I have a few recipes that I want to try out and see how well they work, after being frozen. That will be next time. In the meantime, while you’re waiting for the frozen egg recipes, this is a really quick and easy breakfast, lunch, or dinner – whichever you need to be fast and easy. Muffin Tin Ham and Eggs - Take a muffin pan and spray with vegetable spray. - Line the muffin tin with a thin slice of ham, forming a ham cup. - Crack an egg into the middle of each ham cup; if you want to scramble them you can, but I don’t. - Salt and pepper to taste - Add a little bit of cheese on top to garnish. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15–18 minutes, or so - just so the center doesn't jiggle. Serve with salsa. These are really yummy. If you take five minutes to put a pan full together before jumping in the shower, you and your family will have a hot breakfast by the time you finish showering. Throw in a piece of toast, a glass of milk or orange juice, and you have a complete breakfast. For dinner, add a salad, some corn on the cob, and salsa (one of my favorite condiments), and you have a complete dinner. Okay, now that I have figured out what you are going to have for an easy dinner, go do something productive – like making sure that you have your water storage in place (two gallons per person, per day, for a two-week period.) Dawn

I hope that everybody has included wheat in his or her food storage (except maybe those you have celiac). I know that everybody is probably rolling their eyes right now; I mean, the wheat thing again? Oh brother. The thing is, wheat is high in protein and nutrients and unless you don’t eat ANY roughage it won’t be as hard on your system as you think it might be. But there are those few that do have problems with wheat, or are allergic to it, and it would be good to find out ahead of time if there is a problem (again, the celiac). Make sure to try the white wheat. A lot of people that don’t tolerate red wheat very well, don’t have any problems with white wheat. Also, if you have small children or people that are physically unable to eat wheat, then you want to make sure that you have plenty of rice on hand. Brown rice has more nutrients, but white rice stores longer. I prefer the Calrose sticky rice. Please stay away from the instant rice; they just aren’t as good for you and they don’t store as long (and I don’t think they are as tasty either). The point that I want to make about wheat is that you might want to think outside of the box when using it. If you are ever in a situation, that the only way that you can grind your wheat is by a hand grinder, you might end up using more calories to grind the wheat (depending on your grinder) to make the bread than what you will get in return to fuel your body after you have eaten the bread. For those of us who carry around a little extra food storage naturally, that might not be a bad thing for the first little while, but it could be counterproductive in the long run. This is where thinking outside of the box comes in. Try using your wheat in ways that you might not have considered before. There are other things you can do with wheat than just make bread, and you can even make bread that might be a little less conventional. Some wheat, depending on what it went through in order to be stored, may or may not be able to sprout. Even if you can’t sprout it, you can always cook the wheat berries and throw them in a salad, add them to soup or use them as a garnish on other foods. You can also eat it as a cereal with a little sugar or honey, and milk. Most of the time you think of wheat cereal as having been cracked first and more of a smooth texture, but it is also good to eat as the whole berry, it is just a little chewier. I rather like it. Another thing that I have done is developed a different bread recipe. When I first started making whole wheat bread I wondered if the reason that it was too dry was because I put in too much flour before it had time to fully absorb the liquid. I figured that if I could get most of the liquid absorbed before the flour was actually added that it would work better. What I started doing was boiling the wheat berries until they were tender. I would then drain the berries and put them in the blender and blend them with a little milk until they were mush. I then added the salt, sugar, yeast, and oil, and mixed them up together. At the very end I added the rest of the wheat flour that I needed, but only until it held together nicely, I kneaded it for awhile, let it rise, and then baked it. Basically, I just used my regular bread recipe, with a twist. The bread was actually very tasty and my family really liked it. It is a little heavier than regular bread and it wouldn’t be a good sandwich bread, but it did eat well with soups, or as an open faced sandwich with a spread on it. My husband liked to pour Italian dressing over it and eat it – sort of like the dipping bread with oil and balsamic vinegar, only different. The thing is, in times that are troubling, and the problem is community wide, you might have to think outside your normal routine when it comes to wheat, that is, if you have a wheat routine. During a disaster, people use more calories than they normally would because there is more to do. You need to consider that if you are putting more calories into fixing your food than you are putting in your mouth, it will eventually catch up to you. This is just bread (food) for thought. Dawn

When building an effective food storage, it is imperative that you make it accessible. I started thinking about this when I asked one of my kids to go downstairs and fill the counter-top salt container. They groaned. Oh brother. I have 50 lbs. of salt in a container downstairs, so what is the big deal? Our food storage room is a little crowded because it is also the laundry room and the “don’t know where else to store it” room. This does mean that when we need to get something, it might involve moving things around a bit. I have found that human nature is a little lazy at heart and if you don’t make your food storage easy to get to, then you probably won’t use it like you should. In other words, if it is easier to run to the store to get the item you need than to find it in your food storage, then you need to re-evaluate what you are doing. A friend of mine was telling me about her mother. She was an orphan that grew up during the depression and was hungry much of the time growing up. She swore that she would never let her family go hungry as long as she lived. She continued to build her food storage to take care of her family, even after they had grown up and left. When she passed away, my friend and her family went to clean out her house. What she discovered was a phenomenal food storage – most of which couldn’t be used anymore because it was way out of date or the cans had been compromised and they felt the food would be unsafe to eat. Part of the problem was that the place she had it all stored was in a difficult place to access, the old time cellar under her house. The stairs were too small, only a four inch tread, and way too steep and difficult to access easily on a daily basis. It was really scary. Another problem was that she was buying enough food for her entire family, even though they had all grown up and moved away. There was no way that she could keep it rotated. As the family went through the food, they found that most of the food had expired and was unusable. It was very distressing to see all of that food wasted. If you want to store extra for your family that has since moved away, give it to them now. Let them know that you are trying to help them build their food storage. If they won’t accept it, remember, there is only so much you can do. You can eat canned food that is out of date as long as the can isn’t bulging, isn't rusted, and is still intact. The first thing to go with older canned is the nutrition. (When I say that the nutrition goes first, know that it is only by a very nominal amount and your older stored food will still have nutritional value.) If it smells bad or tastes bad, you definitely don’t want to eat it. One thing you can do if you are forced to eat food that might have possibly lost some of its nutritional value is to make sure that you have multi-vitamins on hand – that haven’t expired. You can eat the food to at least fill your stomach and give you calories, and take vitamins to make sure that you stay healthy. The better way to go about it though is to just keep your food storage food up to date and rotated. The sad thing is, they ended up throwing a lot of food away, three truckloads worth. What a shame. The one happy ending about this whole thing is that she had stored a lot of water (two gallons per person, per day, for a two week period) and all of her wheat was still good. Let’s get back to the storage part of this. Storing food items has come a long way. We can still use those useful plastic five-gallon buckets, but we don’t have to have those obnoxious lids anymore that you have to have a special tool in order to get those stupid things off. Now we can get those adaptable gamma lids that just screw off. (Just an FYI – I don't use the gamma lids and I still have the hard to remove lids and TWO lid remover tools - that make it not so hard. You don’t have to go expensive in order to store effectively.) You can also buy, or even better, make those really nice shelves that help you easily store and rotate your canned items. I don't have those either. Make sure to label your containers on all sides so that they can be easily identified. I like to use medical tape. I have found that it sticks really well to plastic and metal, and it doesn’t dry up and fall off like masking tape. Another thing I like about it is that if you do need to take it off, it doesn’t leave a residue. It is also easy to write on with a magic marker. Remember – store lots of what you eat, rotate what you store and make sure that you can access it easily enough to make it usable. I know that we talked about storing your food storage in small areas, and if that is all you have – then definitely do so. Hard to get to food storage is better than no food storage. If you have more space, then I would suggest that you make sure that you put your food in airtight (anti-bug, anti-water, anti-air) containers that are easy to store, easy to access and convenient to use and then make sure that you use it. That is important; it is better to use it than lose it. And get your water stored! I’m thinking of that expression – “JUST DO IT”! Dawn

This week I learned that if you leave a dark chocolate Dove bar in the car and let it melt, you should just open it up and let it slide in your mouth. This is because if you let it re-harden again, it is grainy and not that creamy gone-to-heaven experience that you have experienced in the past with an un-marred bar. This is just a warning – summer is coming, protect your chocolate. Now on to 72-hour kits. First thing – chocolate is not good to put into your kit because it melts. Instead, grab the 72-hour kit and the chocolate bar and eat the chocolate as you are leaving, wherever that is – you will need your strength. This brings me to the second point about 72-hour kits – bring them. Really. My mom was telling me about some of her neighbors that were displaced from their homes for a night. I’m not sure, but I think that the gas line was broken or something – it doesn’t really matter why. Fortunately, all of the families were given the option to stay the night at a local church. This was good because they could save money and test out their 72-hour kits and know what they would need to make them better. After all, this was a disaster, right? But all was not well. When everybody arrived at the church to stay the night, they were asked to bring out their 72-hour kits. "Our 72-hour kits? We were supposed to bring our 72-hour kits?" Let’s address at what point in time you should bring your 72-hour kit. The answer: ANYTIME YOU ARE LEAVING YOUR HOUSE UNDER DURESS. I think that is a good answer. A few of the families did bring their kits with them to the church. Those few made a whole lot of brownie points in my book. I’ll bet that they were a lot more comfortable in their time of dire need and very grateful for the preparations that they made ahead of time. The others? Well, I’m sure that they were taken care of, but… What I see here makes me concerned. Why don’t we consider what we are going through a disaster? Do all of our houses have to be lying in rubble before we consider it a true disaster? Or does our entire community have to be going up in flames, or maybe be washed away with a ton of water, or even completely moved to a new address by a wall of mud in order to be a true disaster? No, a disaster is anything that forces us to leave our residence and stay away until the problem, no matter what it is, is taken care of. It doesn’t matter if it just affects your house, your neighborhood, or the entire community. You don’t have to be on the 6:00 news in order for something to be considered a disaster. Take your 72-hour kit with you. It is not a magic bag that you are saving for the “BIG” one, no, it is pre-gathered variety of useful items that are helpful to have at anytime, anywhere. Would it hurt you to throw it in the back of the car when you head up the canyon for a family picnic? No! You have your first-aid kit and a change of clothes for when the kids play in the water and get filthy. If you have a first rate kit and thought of putting one of those small hammocks in it, you can string it up and take an afternoon snooze. And if you have a flat tire and can’t get home, well that is okay because you have your 72-hour kit. Your 72-hour kit is not a sacred-do-not-touch collection of items. Instead, it is a bunch of really useful stuff all put together in an easy to grab container that you can use anytime. If you are going to start using your 72-hour kit, which I think is a wonderful idea, just make sure that you replace what you use up, like food, water, and first-aid items, but then again you are supposed to rotate those items out anyway. It is kind of like food storage – you want to use it, rotate it, know what you have, know what really works, and what really doesn’t work. Now, go find some excuse to use your 72-hour kit, disaster or not. Dawn

I had no idea what a proverbial can of worms I opened when I wrote about Shepherd’s pie. Everybody has their favorite way of making it and even different names for it (Hamburger Plop? What kind if name is that?!) Everybody is quite ready to defend his or her favorite recipe. Well, if you think that is controversial (if a casserole can be controversial), then just wait until we talk about this week’s subject – Funeral Potato Casserole. I am not an expert on this dish because, now you may not believe this, but I have never, ever, made a Funeral Potato Casserole in my whole life. I did have the opportunity once to make it for a church function, but I didn’t have the time and so my husband made it for me. The ingredients sound good – potatoes and sour cream, can’t go wrong there. One of my favorite versions of Funeral Potatoes (I said that I hadn’t made it, not that I hadn’t eaten it) is made with Tater tots and potato chips (you just can’t over do the potatoes). I have also had it with Corn Flakes, saltine crackers, and even Wheaties on top (they just look like a darker corn flake, right?) Some people make it with pre-cooked hash browns, and others make it with boiled potatoes. You can grate them, mash them, or dice them. It’s all good, I know this because I haven’t eaten a bad Funeral Potato Casserole yet. I have solicited three of the best cooks I know to share their version of this multi-use, food storage friendly, filling, and very satisfying casserole. You can try these recipes and then take it from there and come up with your own favorite recipe. After finding your favorite version, I’m not adverse to taste testing it for you and giving my seal of approval. Bon Appetit (I’m assuming that means “good eating.” I don’t speak French.) 1. Funeral Potatoes (Gaye Cook) - Fill a 9×13 casserole dish with grated potatoes (frozen or freshly cooked) - Drizzle 1/2 cube melted butter on potatoes. - Salt and pepper to taste Combine: 1 can cream of chicken soup, 1 cup milk 1 to 2 cups of grated cheese green onions to taste (including green tops). Pour over the potatoes and mix carefully. Top with buttered corn flakes* (there is no good substitution). Bake at 350 degrees Farenheit uncovered for 45 minutes. Don’t wait for a funeral to try it; they are best when eaten while you’re healthy. *Hint for the corn flakes….buy a large bag of inexpensive brand of flakes and before opening the bag, break up the flakes with your hands. After opening the bag, add 1 cube of melted butter and mix together. Freeze the remaining flakes that you don’t use by sealing the cereal bag and putting it into a freezer bag and popping it into the freezer. Voila! you have the topping ready for the next few casseroles. 2. Funeral potatoes (Karen Haskell) - 12-15 tennis ball size or a little smaller, red potatoes - Boil until tender. Peel potatoes and then grate potatoes into dripper pan. In a saucepan: melt ½ cube of butter add and mix 1 small container of sour cream add and mix 1 can of cream of chicken soup. Then add: Grated cheddar cheese (I don’t measure so make it look good) about 1- 1 ½ cups Chop up some green onions (probably 4-5), Stir the creamy mixture into the potatoes. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees Farenheit until heated through. (Please don’t gross me out and put corn flakes on top, or potato chips yuck!! If you need to add extra calories use a whole cube of butter and more cheese not the crunchy crap on top!) Also, I would never use fake potatoes as in frozen hash browns. If you are going to eat comfort food, it needs to be real! 3. Funeral potatoes (Kathy Rawson) - 6-8 medium Russet potatoes - boil and grate into a 9X13 inch pan. In a saucepan, combine the following and heat until melted and mixed: o 1 can cream of chicken soup, o 1/3 cup green onion, sliced, o 1 ½ cup cheddar cheese, grated, o 1 pint sour cream o 1 cube of butter or margarine. Pour sauce over the top of the potatoes. Top with Corn Flake crumbs and drizzle 2 tablespoons of melted butter on top. Bake at 350 degrees Farenheit for 45 minutes. There you have it – three terrific cooks and three different, albeit wonderful, very different philosophies as to what makes a funeral potato casserole taste great! Now, go make them and compare each recipe and find your favorite. Eat to your heart’s delight and enjoy every mouth full! Dawn

Now would be a good time to re-evaluate why you eat a certain way and why you buy certain types of foods. Do you buy things to eat because they are healthy and tasty for your family, or do you buy food because it is convenient and easy? Do you cook from scratch, or is opening a box your thing? There is a really good book called “Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence” co-authored by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. Basically, the book talks about our relationship with purchasing convenience and how much it costs us. It talks about how advertisers convince us that we need “and deserve” convenience. Advertisers have convinced us that we just can’t do “it” as good as they can and that our families will be better off if we let them do it for us so that we have more time to what? Go to work so that we can earn more money so that we can buy more convenience? How inconvenient, and so very expensive. I know that everyone that works is going to say, “I just don’t have time to fix dinner and I’m too tired”. I know, I understand. I work full time, I also clean a house for a woman every other week, I write a newspaper article, I serve in my church and community, and I have a family. I get it. I understand what you are saying. I’m tired too. I just find it too costly to buy “convenience” as an everyday way of life. I am not saying that I don’t ever stop off and get a pizza on the way home, but my family does consider fast food a rare and unexpected treat – not an everyday way of life. In order to keep my sanity, I have come up with my own “Fast Food” and I will share it with you. You probably have your own favorite quick fix meals but remember, they don’t all have to be casserole or crock pot meals and you can use your food storage items. My first and favorite recipe is one that my friends shared with me. It is called Salsa Soup: Brown 1 lb. of hamburger and drain the excess oil. Add 1 pint of your favorite salsa and 1 quart of stewed tomatoes. Heat and eat. Really that’s it. By the time it is warmed up, it is ready. I serve tortilla chips with it on the side, and a bit of shredded cheddar cheese on the top, with a dollop of sour cream (both are optional). This soup only gets better with age – think yummy homemade lunch the next day at work instead of the old, tired sandwich or the expensive “buy on the run” meal. This next recipe is actually a two-nighter planned meal. Have spaghetti the first night (that is easy enough) and cook twice the amount of spaghetti noodles. With the leftover spaghetti noodles you can make my family’s favorite meal – Spaghetti and Veggies (a variation of some Chinese dish). Warm up the spaghetti by putting it in a colander and running hot water over it. Meanwhile either steam or fry up some frozen oriental vegetables from a bag. After the vegetables are hot, toss the noodles and vegetables in a large hot pan (the one you cooked the vegetables in) with just a little bit of olive oil. Season with some granulated garlic, black pepper, and lots soy sauce – to taste. You might use more soy sauce than you are used to, but it will make all the difference in the taste. Warm everything up together so that the sugars will caramelize a little. You can also add a dab of butter at the end for taste, or drizzle just a little bit of sesame oil on it. Throw a couple of shrimp or chicken chunks in with it, if you have them, but that is optional. Serve with soy sauce so that everyone can season it to taste. Remember you are using leftover noodles – very EASY and TASTY! Very quick. Next time I will share with you how to make rice come alive. Remember that stuff in your food storage? No longer is it just a side dish. Dawn

We have discussed the Siege mentality and the Practical mentality and now we will look at the Provident mentality. The Provident storer is a combination of Siege and Practical storer with one big difference. Instead of just storing what the Siege storer stores (i.e., wheat, dry milk, sugar, etc.) the Provident storer uses it. The Provident storer will also have a large garden and will bottle, freeze, and dehydrate the foods they grow. They will raise animals where they are able to and will do their best to not rely on the grocery store. When they go grocery shopping, they buy in bulk, taking advantage of sales and only go to the store once in a while for fresh foods like milk and eggs (unless they have a cow and chickens, or barter with a neighbor). Some Provident storers will even make their own cheese (which, by the way, is A LOT OF FUN!) A Provident storer will incorporate foods in their everyday diet that most people wouldn’t consider taking on like wheat and powdered milk. Which, if you started to incorporate these “gotta’ have, but don’t ever actually use” items into your diet, you would be surprised at how easy and tasty they can be, not to mention how much cheaper and healthier your diet would become. I’m not advocating that everyone goes back to the pioneer days of becoming completely self-reliant, but I am saying that you can find a balance between your food storage and the way that you build it, use it, and rotate it. I find that I am a Practical storer with tendencies of the Provident mentality. I love trying to find different ways to use what I have stored. I know that wheat, whole grains, and beans are healthy for us, but how do I use it? Well, I just jumped in. I started grinding and blending and going to classes to learn more about how to use everything that I knew was good for my family’s health. I also did it because I wanted to know that my family would enjoy the food that I had stored and that it wouldn’t make them sick. To introduce wheat to your family, try using wheat flour instead of white flour when making the tortilla shell recipe that I shared with you. (3 cups flour, 1-tsp. salt, 1-tsp. baking powder, ¼ cup oil and 1 cup warm water.) We actually prefer the wheat tortilla shells to the white tortilla shells. The way that I started to incorporate powdered milk was to take a class on how to use powdered milk. What a fun class! The teacher gave us lots of wonderful recipes (that are available at the USU Ext. Service, Darlene Carlisle milk pamphlet) and I will never be able to look at powdered milk the same. After trying this pudding recipe, you will be hooked and will want to sign up for her class the next time she teaches at the USU Extension Service in Provo, Utah. Basic Pudding (or pie filling) 1 cup of sugar 2 eggs 5 tablespoons flour (6 for pie) 2 tablespoons butter 1 tablespoon cornstarch (2 for pie) 2 teaspoons vanilla ½ teaspoon salt 2/3 cup non-instant powdered milk 3 1/2 cups of water (3 cups for pie) Bring half of the water to a boil, take the other half of water and blend in a blender with the dry ingredients and the 2 eggs, add to the boiling water. After it comes back to a boil, cook for 1 minute stirring constantly. Stir in 2 tablespoons of butter and the 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Pour into pudding bowls and serve cold with whipped cream. You can also serve warm if you don't want to wait. Chocolate: add 4 tablespoons of baking cocoa to dry ingredients. Coconut: add 1 cup shredded coconut. Can use coconut flavoring instead of vanilla. Banana Cream: use banana flavoring instead of vanilla. This recipe is yummy and soooo very easy to make, and a lot cheaper than if you bought it in a box or pre-made. THIS is good food storage. Dawn

I like eating. I have found that most people do. I have also noticed that most people tend to eat several times a day – three main meals and snacks every now and then. I have also made the observation that people like to eat food that tastes good and looks good. That is why I am a big believer in being a Practical food storer. I store lots of the food that my family likes. Instead of shopping at the store every day, like my Danish family, I come home and shop in my basement. A few years back my bishop asked for volunteers to live off their food storage for a week as a preparedness experiment. When he made that announcement, my kids snickered and said to me, “Yeah mom, let’s see if we can live without going to the store for a WHOLE WEEK!” and then they chuckled some more. At that time, I would only go shopping once a month. I would buy the gallons of milk that I would need and place all but three in the freezer and then as I would use one up, I would take another one out of the freezer to start thawing. I bought eggs in large sized crates (15 dozen), baked my own bread, and would only buy things in cases or bags. We decided as a family to accept the challenge, but we decided to try for two weeks. Granted, not much of a challenge, but if we did run out of something I wanted to know why. During those two weeks we feasted on Salmon, ate homemade Key Lime Pie, and enjoyed homemade chicken noodle soup. We did run out of cold cereal because we always ran out of cold cereal (I’m not a really a big cold cereal fan and so it is not high on my priority list). Basically, we did really well and wanted for nothing, but as some of our neighbors and I discussed the experience that the bishop had asked us to try, I felt really bad because some of them had to break down and go to the store. They found that they just couldn’t go without shopping to supplement what they had on hand – and they had only tried to go one week without outside resources. Some even had to go after only two days! You might think that being a Practical food storer would be expensive because you buy in bulk, but actually just the opposite is true – it is less expensive. I started a “$10.00 Will Do It Club” in my church to show people that if they would just spend $10.00 on a case or sale item instead of buying a pizza or fast food each time they went shopping, they would be shocked and surprised at how fast their food storage would start to grow. At first, they didn’t believe that $10.00 would really make that much of a difference, but I soon changed their mind. Every week I would choose items on sale that would equal $10.00 or less and go buy it for them and deliver it to their houses (yes, they paid for it), and people’s storage started to grow. The fun thing about it is that you can wait until a good sale comes on and buy then and get even more for your money! One time I bought 100lbs. of chicken for only $19.00 (in 1996). You say, “Yeah, right”, but really, I did. An incredible sale came on for only .19¢ a pound and so I took advantage of it. The next week when it was back up to .79¢ a pound I had saved $60.00 AND I had chicken that I froze and bottled, and broth that I had bottled, and it lasted my family for a very long time. Food storage, if approached correctly and rotated as part of your daily eating experience will be the most economical, healthy, and tasty way to save money, and stay healthy and happy. Your food storage shouldn’t just be used during the hard times, but during all times, good and bad. You question how much you need of something to last a year? Don’t worry, you will figure it out over time or you can use our A Prepared Home food storage calculator to get a good idea. Buy two cases and see how long it lasts, and then buy more the next time you see a good sale. If two cases of “whatever” lasts you six months, then buy four cases and see if it lasts for a year. I write on my sacks or boxes the date, cost and how much I bought (e.g., 1 of 4, 2 of 4, etc.) That way I get to know how much I need without making my inventory system too complicated. Work out what works best for you. It isn’t as complicated as you want to make it. Believe me. Dawn