I know it is atrocious that I have been SOOOO long in posting . . . such is life at times!!
I have been on a major bulk food kick lately - thinking of ways to use all the stored foods I have to S-T-R-E-T-C-H the grocery bill - if you know what I mean! And tonight I have spent a lot of time online hunting homemade breadfast cereals. My gang is not huge on granola which I have made in the past, so I wanted something else to try. Well, you gotta love the internet because I have found so many I am not sure where to start. I thought I would share some of these awesome sites with you . . .
My Food Storage Cookbook - Two different flake cereal recipes.
Mr. Breakfast - A GrapeNuts recipe to make even Euell Gibbons drool.
Willow Bird Baking - A Bran Flake recipe and a really cool blog!
Well, I am off to try one of these right now . . . hopefully I'll have time to tell you how it turned out.
Showing posts with label saving on your grocery bill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label saving on your grocery bill. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
How to Store - Part 2
So, we have been discussing storing items in bulk to save money and to be prepared in case of emergency - even if that emergency is your husband being laid off for a few months. We have talked about starting with basic food stuffs that can stretch your grocery dollar. We have covered the best way to store bulk, that being in food grade buckets with gasketed lids.
I would like to cover today long-term storage vs short-term storage and Gamma Seal lids. Since we are in the getting started stage, probably most of the items you buy will be "in use." These items can be stored in a bucket with a regular gasketed lid -OR- something called a Gamma lid. A Gamma lid is a two part lid, one part fits down on the bucket and then the second part twists off for easy access. I will admit that a Gamma lid is VERY convenient, BUT they are NOT necessary! I have some buckets with Gammas and some without. I keep a metal bucket opener and a rubber mallet handy as part of my kitchen utensils. Kept close to where my buckets are stored they make it easy to get in and out of those buckets.
Now, if you are ready to start storing items for future use, we want to pack those for what we call long-term storage. These items you are going to keep in a more temperature controlled place like your basement or root cellar. Since these items are "in storage," you don't want them directly on a concrete floor. Put the buckets up on a pallet or something where air can circulate around them. When you are preparing buckets for long term storage they need to be "sealed" against varmints and air. The easiest way to do this is to purchase oxygen absorbers (I will cover this in its own post soon) to drop down in the bucket on top of its contents.
Here is how this works:
1) Make sure your bucket is clean (whether new or used), free from dust, debris, etc.
2) Open your bag of flour, sugar, grain, whatever, and carefully pour into your bucket, shaking the bucket occasionally to allow the contents to settle.
3) You want to allow about an inch and a half headspace at the top of your bucket.
4) Next you want to drop the recommended number of oxygen absorbers in the 5 or 6 gallon bucket. (Again more on this later - handling oxygen absorbers can be tricky if you have never used them before.)
5) Last, quickly set your lid on top and use your rubber mallet to hammer that lid in place, turning the bucket a quarter turn with each mallet swing. You don't want the lid sticking up at all, but level and sealed completely.
Buckets sealed in this way can for the most part, be put aside until you need them. There are certain items that we will later discuss in detail that DO NOT last as long.
Coming soon - a resource list of suppliers for buying your bulk food and/or co-oping!
I would like to cover today long-term storage vs short-term storage and Gamma Seal lids. Since we are in the getting started stage, probably most of the items you buy will be "in use." These items can be stored in a bucket with a regular gasketed lid -OR- something called a Gamma lid. A Gamma lid is a two part lid, one part fits down on the bucket and then the second part twists off for easy access. I will admit that a Gamma lid is VERY convenient, BUT they are NOT necessary! I have some buckets with Gammas and some without. I keep a metal bucket opener and a rubber mallet handy as part of my kitchen utensils. Kept close to where my buckets are stored they make it easy to get in and out of those buckets.
Now, if you are ready to start storing items for future use, we want to pack those for what we call long-term storage. These items you are going to keep in a more temperature controlled place like your basement or root cellar. Since these items are "in storage," you don't want them directly on a concrete floor. Put the buckets up on a pallet or something where air can circulate around them. When you are preparing buckets for long term storage they need to be "sealed" against varmints and air. The easiest way to do this is to purchase oxygen absorbers (I will cover this in its own post soon) to drop down in the bucket on top of its contents.
Here is how this works:
1) Make sure your bucket is clean (whether new or used), free from dust, debris, etc.
2) Open your bag of flour, sugar, grain, whatever, and carefully pour into your bucket, shaking the bucket occasionally to allow the contents to settle.
3) You want to allow about an inch and a half headspace at the top of your bucket.
4) Next you want to drop the recommended number of oxygen absorbers in the 5 or 6 gallon bucket. (Again more on this later - handling oxygen absorbers can be tricky if you have never used them before.)
5) Last, quickly set your lid on top and use your rubber mallet to hammer that lid in place, turning the bucket a quarter turn with each mallet swing. You don't want the lid sticking up at all, but level and sealed completely.
Buckets sealed in this way can for the most part, be put aside until you need them. There are certain items that we will later discuss in detail that DO NOT last as long.
Coming soon - a resource list of suppliers for buying your bulk food and/or co-oping!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Stretching Milk
I know this is a bit of a departure from our beginning instructions but it is something I have been doing the past couple of weeks and it needed mentioning . . .
One of the things that we stored back before 2000 was powdered milk. Believe it or not, I got into one of those stored containers just two weeks ago. The powdered milk was stored in a mylar bag within a 5 gallon bucket. There were oxygen absorbers in the mylar bag and this particular mylar bag was hand ironed shut by me - this would probably make for its own post sometime!! Anyway, we don't drink a huge amount of milk at my house but enough. Probably the biggest consumption of milk is what I cook with, so this was my plan . . .
My children DO NOT like powdered milk and they DO NOT drink powdered milk! And thank the Lord up to this point they have not HAD to!! But I figured I could stretch my gallon of milk twice over if I simply used powdered milk for my cooking. So I got a quart jar and placed one cup of powdered milk into it. I first added about a cup of cold water and stirred with my whisk. Then I continued to add water periodically placing the lid on it and shaking it well, alternating stirring with the whisk. This mixture can be lumpy, but eventually the lumps dissolve.
I have been using this mixture for ALL my cooking - pancakes, bread, soups, quiche, muffins, etc. I am sure I have saved myself two gallons of milk in the last two weeks. May not seem like much, but at $4.79 a gallon that is $19.16 savings per month and $229.92 per year. Of course, I already had the milk on hand - I can't even remember how much we paid for it in 1999 - but currently powdered milk from my source is about $112.00 for a 55 pound bag.
I guess I will try to keep up with how long it takes me to go through this 5 gallon bucket and see how my savings measure out. I'll try to remember to keep you posted . . .
One of the things that we stored back before 2000 was powdered milk. Believe it or not, I got into one of those stored containers just two weeks ago. The powdered milk was stored in a mylar bag within a 5 gallon bucket. There were oxygen absorbers in the mylar bag and this particular mylar bag was hand ironed shut by me - this would probably make for its own post sometime!! Anyway, we don't drink a huge amount of milk at my house but enough. Probably the biggest consumption of milk is what I cook with, so this was my plan . . .
My children DO NOT like powdered milk and they DO NOT drink powdered milk! And thank the Lord up to this point they have not HAD to!! But I figured I could stretch my gallon of milk twice over if I simply used powdered milk for my cooking. So I got a quart jar and placed one cup of powdered milk into it. I first added about a cup of cold water and stirred with my whisk. Then I continued to add water periodically placing the lid on it and shaking it well, alternating stirring with the whisk. This mixture can be lumpy, but eventually the lumps dissolve.
I have been using this mixture for ALL my cooking - pancakes, bread, soups, quiche, muffins, etc. I am sure I have saved myself two gallons of milk in the last two weeks. May not seem like much, but at $4.79 a gallon that is $19.16 savings per month and $229.92 per year. Of course, I already had the milk on hand - I can't even remember how much we paid for it in 1999 - but currently powdered milk from my source is about $112.00 for a 55 pound bag.
I guess I will try to keep up with how long it takes me to go through this 5 gallon bucket and see how my savings measure out. I'll try to remember to keep you posted . . .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)