Emergency Essentials is a food storage, preparedness, and camping store just a few blocks from my apartment in Orem. I've walked up there two or three times since moving in to pick up things like powdered eggs, buttermilk powder, and 200 calorie bars for my 72-hour kit. Like most stores of this type, they have some really good prices (millennium bars, customizable first aid kits), and some things that you can get cheaper elsewhere (gamma lids, buttermilk powder). I like it because the employees are helpful, it's close by, and there's a good selection.
I was watching a show on the History Channel recently during a long fight with strep throat, and was learning about how Utah got it's shape, when I saw a familiar sight; this store. The host of the show was interviewing people inside the store about why Mormons are so into food storage and preparedness. I was excited to see "my" store on TV. It's possible I get excited by dumb things.
Anyway, the store's website has a food storage analyzer. You type in how much food you have stored, and they tell you how long you can survive, and what nutrients you will be getting each day if you have to live on it. It's pretty cool, and showed me some glaring holes in my storage (yellow and orange veggies, mostly, though I need more iron, as well.) I try to do this in my head, but it doesn't work as well. You can create an account, which saves your information, so you can keep up a list of what you have in storage. It's pretty awesome.
The link: foodstorageanalyzer.com
I must note that I am getting a ten dollar gift card for posting this review. Since it relates directly to this blog, and is useful information, I don't feel bad about it. Also, you can post a review of the analyzer and get a gift card, too. Info here: http://preparednesspantry.blogspot.com/2009/10/food-storage-analyzer-gift-card.html
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Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Food Storage Recipe: Tamale Casserole.
I LOVE tamales. Love them. I discovered them when we moved to Ogden, and I can't get enough. Problem is, they are a. expensive and b. not that easy to make. I ran across a substitute on a food blog a few weeks ago that I thought might be acceptable. It wasn't. The leftovers languished and were tossed out. So I tweaked a few things, and it's better now. It's still not smothered tamales from Javier's in Ogden, but it's good enough to make every couple of weeks, and it's food storage friendly, which makes me happy. One of the kids ate it, and the other just at the cornbread off the top, but that's not too bad for a new meal.
The dish is a seasoned meat mixture topped with cornbread. The sauce from the meat mixes with the bottom of the cornbread, making that really good seasoned corn flavor that I love from real tamales. Overall, I like it, and I'm happy to have a new food storage recipe to add to my rotation.
Bottom layer:
1 pound ground or shredded meat. I used ground turkey, but chicken, beef, elk, or whatever is in the freezer or in a can on the shelf would work just fine. That strange TVP stuff might even work, but I haven't been brave enough to try it yet in anything. Or even buy it. Or even look at it too closely.
Onions. I used dehydrated, which I put in the pan with the meat when it was mostly cooked.
1 small can tomato sauce
2 small cans green chiles
Cumin
Red chili powder
Put meat in pan and brown it. Add the onions and brown them, then the other ingredients. Stir until cooked and seasoned.
Topping:
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup corn meal
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
dash salt
1 cup skim milk (or powdered substitute)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg or two egg whites (or powdered eggs)
Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat egg with a fork. Add milk and oil. Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.
Put meat mixture in a square casserole dish. Spoon cornbread over the top. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.
The dish is a seasoned meat mixture topped with cornbread. The sauce from the meat mixes with the bottom of the cornbread, making that really good seasoned corn flavor that I love from real tamales. Overall, I like it, and I'm happy to have a new food storage recipe to add to my rotation.
Bottom layer:
1 pound ground or shredded meat. I used ground turkey, but chicken, beef, elk, or whatever is in the freezer or in a can on the shelf would work just fine. That strange TVP stuff might even work, but I haven't been brave enough to try it yet in anything. Or even buy it. Or even look at it too closely.
Onions. I used dehydrated, which I put in the pan with the meat when it was mostly cooked.
1 small can tomato sauce
2 small cans green chiles
Cumin
Red chili powder
Put meat in pan and brown it. Add the onions and brown them, then the other ingredients. Stir until cooked and seasoned.
Topping:
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup corn meal
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
dash salt
1 cup skim milk (or powdered substitute)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg or two egg whites (or powdered eggs)
Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat egg with a fork. Add milk and oil. Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.
Put meat mixture in a square casserole dish. Spoon cornbread over the top. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.
Jam
There is a store here in Utah County, our new home, called Sunflower Market. Actually, it's called Sunflower Farmer's Market, but it has no resemblance to an actual farmer's market, I refuse to call it that (close rant).
This store is basically a Whole Foods clone, complete with overpriced bakery, overpriced snacks, bulk bins, and occasional good sales. Every week they do have a produce loss leader, which I take full advantage of. Last week, it was peaches for 47 cents a pound.
I made four trips for peaches, so as not to clean them out. A helpful employee told me which days they get produce deliveries, so I showed up on those days, ready to pick up another ten or fifteen pounds of peaches.
We have peach cobbler. We have bottled peaches (though not very many. I didn't remember just how much time and work those take. A whole day, and I got eight quarts). We have a lot of peach jam. This sale coincided with a sale of strawberries at another store, so we have a LOT of jam. Like, thirty pints of jam. I added it up, and I think I spent sixty dollars on all the jam, which should last us a good long time.
I love to see all the jam stored on the shelves in my new pantry. I love that I spent a lot less on it than I would have had I bought it in a store. Mostly, I just love homemade jam.
This store is basically a Whole Foods clone, complete with overpriced bakery, overpriced snacks, bulk bins, and occasional good sales. Every week they do have a produce loss leader, which I take full advantage of. Last week, it was peaches for 47 cents a pound.
I made four trips for peaches, so as not to clean them out. A helpful employee told me which days they get produce deliveries, so I showed up on those days, ready to pick up another ten or fifteen pounds of peaches.
We have peach cobbler. We have bottled peaches (though not very many. I didn't remember just how much time and work those take. A whole day, and I got eight quarts). We have a lot of peach jam. This sale coincided with a sale of strawberries at another store, so we have a LOT of jam. Like, thirty pints of jam. I added it up, and I think I spent sixty dollars on all the jam, which should last us a good long time.
I love to see all the jam stored on the shelves in my new pantry. I love that I spent a lot less on it than I would have had I bought it in a store. Mostly, I just love homemade jam.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Poor, poor neglected blog. Between the car trouble, the CNA class I just started, which occupies me four times a week, potty-training, and the rest of life in general, this blog just hasn't been updated for a while.
I did make a change to my food storage use. The homemade oatmeal packets that I made in this post
did not turn out at all. Nearly three months in, I'm giving up in defeat. They don't have the same texture as the store-bought packets, and the flavor isn't as good when you use the freeze-dried fruit, as opposed to the flavored sugar bits that come in the store-bought oatmeal. Most importantly, the girls don't like it, so they aren't eating it, so what's the point? The store bought packets were on sale for a dollar a box this week, so I bought 24 boxes. It's worth it to spend the extra few dollars each month if the kids will eat it. I still use oats to make oatmeal; I make cinnamon-raisin oatmeal in a pan on the stove, and it works out fine. I also make baked oatmeal, which the girls love.
I did make a change to my food storage use. The homemade oatmeal packets that I made in this post
did not turn out at all. Nearly three months in, I'm giving up in defeat. They don't have the same texture as the store-bought packets, and the flavor isn't as good when you use the freeze-dried fruit, as opposed to the flavored sugar bits that come in the store-bought oatmeal. Most importantly, the girls don't like it, so they aren't eating it, so what's the point? The store bought packets were on sale for a dollar a box this week, so I bought 24 boxes. It's worth it to spend the extra few dollars each month if the kids will eat it. I still use oats to make oatmeal; I make cinnamon-raisin oatmeal in a pan on the stove, and it works out fine. I also make baked oatmeal, which the girls love.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Apples, apples everywhere
There's a little produce stand here in Ogden called Carlos' Produce. It's owned by the same people who own the Sacco's stands, and it's open year-round. I've meant to go in since moving to Ogden four years ago, but didn't make the time until I was driving by a couple of weeks ago and saw the sign;
"Local apples, 49 cents/pound"
I stopped immediately, and came out a few minutes later with a bushel of Gala apples, and another ten pounds or so of red delicious and Fuji apples. I then bought a peeler and a corer/chopper, and went to work.
Kezie was my good helper; she peeled dozens of apples for me and make everything go much faster. After a night of work, we had about eight quarts of applesauce, and twenty of apple slices, all canned and lined up in the pantry.
A week later, I went back for more apples. By then, I had bought a Foley food mill with some Amazon gift cards, and hoped that would make the applesaucing process go faster. It did not. That was $30 I wish I had spent on something else. I prefer peeling and coring the apples before cooking them, rather than removing the seeds and pulp in the mill later. It's faster and it tastes better.
Kezie and I settled in for another night of apple processing, and I was hoping for another dozen quarts of applesauce, hoping it would turn out as well as the first batch. It did not. It had the weirdest texture; it tasted like apple-flavored pudding with lumps in it. Trust me, no one wanted to have to eat it. It was the same method I used before, so I have no idea what went wrong. I was not throwing out all fifteen quarts, though, so I came up with the solution; apple butter. I've wanted to make apple butter for years, ever since becoming addicted to it, served on a piece of fresh bread from the campus bread bakery, my freshman year.
Crock put apple butter recipe
In a nutshell; put applesauce in crock pot with sugar and cinnamon. Cook for a really long long time, stirring occasionally. When it's cooked down to about half the former volume, add more sauce and sugar and cook some more. Remove from slow cooker. Eat, refrigerate, or can immediately.
The result: the kids love it. The weird texture applesauce worked perfectly for apple butter. Now I have thirteen pints of applebutter in my pantry. Total cost: $22 for apples, sugar, and cinnamon. This does not count the waste of $30 for the food mill, or the $35 for the peeler and the corer/chopper, which was money well spent.
"Local apples, 49 cents/pound"
I stopped immediately, and came out a few minutes later with a bushel of Gala apples, and another ten pounds or so of red delicious and Fuji apples. I then bought a peeler and a corer/chopper, and went to work.
Kezie was my good helper; she peeled dozens of apples for me and make everything go much faster. After a night of work, we had about eight quarts of applesauce, and twenty of apple slices, all canned and lined up in the pantry.
A week later, I went back for more apples. By then, I had bought a Foley food mill with some Amazon gift cards, and hoped that would make the applesaucing process go faster. It did not. That was $30 I wish I had spent on something else. I prefer peeling and coring the apples before cooking them, rather than removing the seeds and pulp in the mill later. It's faster and it tastes better.
Kezie and I settled in for another night of apple processing, and I was hoping for another dozen quarts of applesauce, hoping it would turn out as well as the first batch. It did not. It had the weirdest texture; it tasted like apple-flavored pudding with lumps in it. Trust me, no one wanted to have to eat it. It was the same method I used before, so I have no idea what went wrong. I was not throwing out all fifteen quarts, though, so I came up with the solution; apple butter. I've wanted to make apple butter for years, ever since becoming addicted to it, served on a piece of fresh bread from the campus bread bakery, my freshman year.
Crock put apple butter recipe
In a nutshell; put applesauce in crock pot with sugar and cinnamon. Cook for a really long long time, stirring occasionally. When it's cooked down to about half the former volume, add more sauce and sugar and cook some more. Remove from slow cooker. Eat, refrigerate, or can immediately.
The result: the kids love it. The weird texture applesauce worked perfectly for apple butter. Now I have thirteen pints of applebutter in my pantry. Total cost: $22 for apples, sugar, and cinnamon. This does not count the waste of $30 for the food mill, or the $35 for the peeler and the corer/chopper, which was money well spent.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Finally, tortilla success
Managed to make edible homemade tortillas today. Also discovered a pretty good homemade enchilada sauce. If only I had discovered these things while I wasn't in the middle of a weight-loss competition.
Homemade tortillas (Food storage only!)
4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 T baking soda
Whisk these together. Add
1/2 cup shortening. Mix this in with your hand or a pastry cutter. Mix very well, until the mix looks like moist crumbs. This will take a few minutes
Add about 1 cup of water. Knead until mixture forms a soft dough that isn't sticky (you may need more water). Break dough into small balls, and use a rolling pin to flatten. Cook on frying pan until browned on each side.
Enchilada sauce
1 small can tomato sauce
1/4 cup roasted red chili sauce
Cumin
Chili powder
Small can green chilies
Mix the ingredients together, and use in place of enchilada sauce.
I am tired of buying enchilada sauce, especially since my favorite brand never goes on sale. As soon as red peppers go on sale, I'm roasting them and canning this sauce.
Homemade tortillas (Food storage only!)
4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 T baking soda
Whisk these together. Add
1/2 cup shortening. Mix this in with your hand or a pastry cutter. Mix very well, until the mix looks like moist crumbs. This will take a few minutes
Add about 1 cup of water. Knead until mixture forms a soft dough that isn't sticky (you may need more water). Break dough into small balls, and use a rolling pin to flatten. Cook on frying pan until browned on each side.
Enchilada sauce
1 small can tomato sauce
1/4 cup roasted red chili sauce
Cumin
Chili powder
Small can green chilies
Mix the ingredients together, and use in place of enchilada sauce.
I am tired of buying enchilada sauce, especially since my favorite brand never goes on sale. As soon as red peppers go on sale, I'm roasting them and canning this sauce.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Food Storage Meal: Chicken and Rice Soup
Chicken and Rice Soup (food storage edition)
1 onion (or dehydrated onion)
2 stalk celery (or dehydrated celery)
2 carrots (or dehydrated carrots)
1 can chicken breast
2 cups chicken bullion
3 cups water
1 1/2 cup rice
Oregano
Pepper
Salt
Cook celery, carrots, and onions in oil until soft. Add chicken and broth from bottle. Add broth or bullion, water, rice, and seasoning. Cover, cook for twenty minutes. Add more water if necessary.
1 onion (or dehydrated onion)
2 stalk celery (or dehydrated celery)
2 carrots (or dehydrated carrots)
1 can chicken breast
2 cups chicken bullion
3 cups water
1 1/2 cup rice
Oregano
Pepper
Salt
Cook celery, carrots, and onions in oil until soft. Add chicken and broth from bottle. Add broth or bullion, water, rice, and seasoning. Cover, cook for twenty minutes. Add more water if necessary.
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