Unless this is your first time visiting Muffie’s place you know
that we have just recently moved half way across the country. We have moved
from the East coast to the Mid-West which breaks down to crossing four states
and driving 1300+miles. It took three days to make the trip. Most of our family
and friends don’t understand why we did it. Explaining it doesn’t make sense to
them but to us on paper as in the new check stubs it makes a lot of sense. My
husband is finally making enough to support us; whereas, before he was barely
making just over minimum wage. So in our eyes the move was worth it even though
it meant leaving two of our adult children behind but as I have to keep
reminding myself they have their own lives. One is married and one is engaged.
One is working and going to school the other one works for a well-known large
software company. Maybe one day they
will move closer to us only the good Lord knows for sure. Until then momma will make the trip to see her babies.
Now with that said let me tell you about what it took to
move. I had a three month’s supply of food; however, not all of it made the
move. The freezer food went to the boys that stayed behind as well as a lot of
the canned and boxed food. I brought only a few weeks’ worth of food with us.
So now I am fighting down the panic feel each time I open the cabinets. My
security blanket is not there. I probably have enough now to stretch for 30
days but that would mean a lot of dry beans and cornbread. And I do mean a lot of beans and cornbread. Now that the move is
pretty much over, there are a few boxes left to deal with but I would say we
are 99% settled; I have begun to look at rebuilding our food storage. Before I only bought dry beans, canned goods
and frozen foods. This time I want to
change it up. We left the old freezer behind so I only have the freezer in the
refrigerator. I have one of the French door refrigerators with the freezer on
the bottom. I love the bottom freezer; however, with the wire baskets I don’t
think it holds as much or I haven’t figured out how to pack it yet; probably
the later. I wanted to look at purchasing dehydrated food instead of a lot of
canned and frozen food. I am sad to say I cannot justify spending that much money. That means back to the drawing board…
Back to the drawing board? Well more like back to the
internet and YouTube. I have found several how to videos on drying your own
food. This is just one of them (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF1KGmT1TF8&playnext=1&list=PL40B78170773423AE&feature=results_main)
all of them used store bought frozen vegetables to dehydrate. So with
that in mind I am going to try my hand at dehydrating frozen vegetables. Why
you ask? Well I am a big fan of Chef Tess (http://cheftessbakeresse.blogspot.com/)
and I want to do her meals in a jar. Even though I am a stay at home wife there
are days that I just can’t bring myself to cook. So I want some “I don’t feel
like cooking meals” or “mom is sick and we are on our own meals.” Since the
only safe way to home preserve meat is to can or freeze it I will need to
purchase commercially processed dehydrated or freeze dried meat.
Also I have found a Weekly Food Storage Plan that someone
made up for Y2K. It was a weekly buying plan based on spending $20 a week.
Looking at it is now more like $35 week but there are some things my family
just won’t eat that are on the list. Like canned spinach, we love spinach…raw
and in salads but getting my guys to eat cooked spinach well I had rather face
a charging bull head on that deal with serving cooked spinach. So I am making
my own list of food that we do eat and I will be posting it here each week with
the price and where I bought it. My goal in all of this is to get my food storage to the
point that I only have shop sales and do major grocery shopping once a month.
But first things first the month of December I am stocking
up on food items such as nuts, baking supplies like chocolate chips, cocoa, powdered
sugar, brown sugar, canned milk, and pie fillings; you know the things that
they have on sale this time of year. This year I found something really neat, cinnamon
chips, I have never seen them before but my local Wal-Mart has them in the
center isle with their holiday baking items.
Do you have a food storage system? If so what does your
system consist of…frozen foods, canned goods, dehydrated and freeze dried
foods? Do you have all your eggs in one basket? I would love to hear how your
food storage system is working for you.
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