Thursday, May 26, 2011

Macaroni & Cheese from Bulk Food Storage

It was another busy day in the bulk food kitchen today!  Of course, grits and eggs for hubby's breakfast - he was out pretty early this morning!  Then somewhat later I fixed pancakes for breakfast - I need to share that recipe one of these days - but for those, I was into the soft white wheat, powdered milk, baking powder, & salt.  I put up some strawberries this week and as a special treat I made a strawberry syrup this morning for those of us who like that sort of thing on our pancakes - YUMMY! - for that I was into the evaporated cane juice.  What I really need to do is ask Sarah over at Stir it Up! if she has a recipe for fresh strawberry syrup!  Anyway, for dinner we had Spanish rice (I did use white) and refried beans (I cheated tonight and used canned).  But the main reason for tonight's post was the macaroni & cheese I made for lunch.  I recently purchased a 6 lb container of cheddar cheese powder to make my own version of the "boxed" mac and cheese.  A friend of mine with 7 children buys the cheese powder by the 50 lb bag.  I really wanted to give it a try, so here goes . . .

Macaroni and Cheese ~

    Bring to a boil 5 cups of salted water.  Add 3 cups of elbow macaroni and cook until al dente.  Drain the macaroni.  Place the elbows back in the pot.  Add a 1/2 stick of butter, 1/2 cup of milk - you guessed it, I used my powdered solution, and 1/2 cup cheddar cheese powder.  Stir until all the lumps are gone and you have a creamy texture.  It was actually very good - as far as boxed substitutes go!!
                                                                                                                                   


I really needed to bake bread today, too, but I ended up being too busy!  Tomorrow's another day . . .

Monday, May 16, 2011

Oxygen Absorbers

My intent when first establishing this blog was more about using bulk foods as a lifestyle instead of emergency preparedness.  There are many blogs and forums on the internet about emergency preparedness, not so many about the lifestyle of using bulk foods.  I consider being prepared a "fringe" benefit of the lifestyle.  All that said, I suppose a discussion on oxygen absorbers could fall into both of the above categories.

None the less I have been asked about using oxygen absorbers for storing your bulk foods.  Any of your "in use" buckets would NOT need oxygen absorbers, but those that you are NOT currently using and are being kept for a later date, those definitely benefit from being sealed with oxygen absorbers.

Basically, oxygen absorbers do just that, they absorb the remaining oxygen out of the bucket you are storing.  Thus making it uninhabitable by anything undesirable . . . NO AIR, NO CRITTERS!!  They come in all sizes for using in various sized containers.  Click here to download a chart for your reference.  When you purchase them, they come in a vacuum packed package that also has an indicator inside.  Click here for an excellent explanation of how that indicator works.

In the past, I have purchased the FT-500 (300cc) to use in the 5-6 gallon buckets.  When you are storing something that packs tightly - like grain, flour, sugar- then one of this size is sufficient for sealing the bucket.  If you are storing something not quite as tight - like pasta, for instance - you may want to use two.

The best way to package using oxygen absorbers is first to have all your supplies together.  Go ahead and make sure your buckets are clean (whether using new or used).  Fill your buckets with the desired contents allowing about an inch and one half headspace.  Then you want to have your lids, rubber mallet and oxygen absorbers ready.  Remember, you do NOT want to open those absorbers until you are completely ready to pop them in your buckets.  Once you open a package of absorbers they immediately become active.  Just as a side note, if you leave a package of absorbers open, they will actually become hot as they activate.  Unfortunately, they are kind of expensive to just experiment with!!  : )  Now line up your buckets (it is very helpful to have two sets of hands when doing this), one person will pop the absorber in the bucket, the other will hammer the lid down tight.  You want to work quickly and efficiently.  I have found that if you cut the top off of the absorber bag but keep the packets in the bag, that the person popping the absorbers in the bucket can actually fold the top over the package of absorbers as an extra precaution.

Now when you are finished you want to have an empty glass container to put your remaining oxygen absorbers in, preferably as small as possible (less oxygen).  Be sure to drop that handy indicator in the bottom of your jar and add the absorbers quickly.  Fill up any remaining space in the jar with newspaper, paper towels, or even plastic bags and place the tight fitting lid on top.  These oxygen absorbers can last for years undisturbed in this jar.  I have a container on my pantry shelf that has been there for two years and the indicator is still quite "pink."  I should have used a smaller jar because it is a quart jar and the absorbers only actually take up about 1/3 of the space, the rest of the area is filled with paper towels & plastic bags (probably what I had on hand at the time :D ).

Hope all this help!

Monday, May 2, 2011

Being Prepared . . .

What a week!  For many in the Southeast, it will not be forgotten any time soon.  For our small neighborhood the devastation was great, BUT so were the blessings.  There were several families down our main road who suffered much material ruin, but I have heard of NO deaths in our community.  Homes can be repaired, lost lives are so much harder to bear!  It was such a blessing to me to see how our community responded to the needs around us.  I am ashamed to admit that there are families here that we have waved to for over ten years, but have not taken the time to meet until this last week.  And what precious families they are!!  I aspire to be a better neighbor in the future!

Thankfully our family was without power for only two days!  It was a good test for us.  We had gathered much water before the storms began, and so when the power went out and the water pump no longer worked we had the water we needed . . . water for flushing the commode, for washing, for cooking and drinking.  Even without power, we have a propane stove and so we are able to continue cooking (my friend in Chattanooga has been using her camping stove for almost six days!)  So, we did not go hungry!  But we did find some interesting discrepancies in our "preparedness" supplies . . . we had two crank style radios that we have had for some time that we realized were both broken.  One of them we finally were able to get working with some AA batteries.  The other larger issue was our generator.  We have also had it stored for some time and when we tried to hook it up, we found that it would not work properly.  That was a great disappointment!

I guess the moral to the story for us, is to check your stashes more frequently to make sure everything is still in working order.  Some of these items we have "counted" on.  The other thing I realized during the power outage was that I had to rely on my flour stores.  Without a generator to power my grain mill - and I am very unhappy to say that I do not have a hand mill :( - I had to just use flour.  Not the end of the world, but something I need to consider if I intend to be grinding wheat in some future, perhaps "longer" power outage.

"The Lord is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble"