We are not starving by any means. But Gigi did have a little melt down about not having oranges, apples, or anything she could fix by herself. I understand it’s hard, especially when I am not a very scheduled food eater. I can eat a lot at 9:30am and then not think about food until 3:30pm. That has worked before since there were things available my kiddos could just grab and eat when they felt hungry. This experience of planning and cooking 3 meals a day is certainly an adjustment for us all.

This morning was pancakes on the outside grill. Both of our syrups are running low, Mrs. Butterworth’s high fructose corn syrup and the 100% pure maple syrup. I think to remedy the syrup situation for a longer term supply, I am going to purchase real maple flavoring. Then I can flavor whatever sweetener I have stored, honey, agave, or sugar made into a syrup. I also had a batch of naturally leavened brown rice waffles ready to mix up. They are so good to me. I ate those instead of pancakes. I also ate a waffle at lunch time too. My. My.

For lunch I warmed up the left over chili Thrive Express I made on Saturday night. Mr. Incredible and I each ate a plate of lettuce, thank you Amy, with the chili on top. Like a taco salad, minus the chips, guacamole, sour cream, salas, and cheese. It was filling and felt good to eat a big plate of greens.

There is an angelic look to my chili salad photo. My body is so happy to be able to eat some fresh greens.

Pagey wanted macaroni and cheese again. I was afraid this was going to happen once I started making mac and cheese. Its fine to eat if a few times a week while we are limited on our choices. But mac and cheese is wreaking havoc on my butter rations. I suppose next time I make mac and cheese I should use olive oil instead of butter and see how it turns out.

The kiddos were hungry after school today. Imagine that. I fixed them left over soup and Julz had lettuce with sunflower seeds and dressing. There was quite a bit of griping after school about our food storage challenge. I don’t want any of you reading this to think that this has been a really easy adjustment for our kids.

For dinner tonight I made black bean and rice tacos with shredded beef. I made tortillas. Its hard to have tacos or burritos without tortillas. We used the last of the very appreciated romaine lettuce. We didn’t even mind that the edges were brown from being cut with a knife. 

Julz wanted bagels for tomorrow so she could make a chicken salad sandwich on a bagel for lunch. Reese has been wanting to make pretzels again. Gigi wants grab and eat food. Tonight I made double batch of our bagel recipe then split the dough in half. Half of the dough was turned into bagels and half was twisted into pretzels. Gigi and Reese had fun staying up late and molding the dough.

Reese said, “Mom, we should get some hair nets.” Gigi, “What are hair nets?” Reese, “They keep hair out of the food. Girls should wear them because of their long hair. I would wear one if I had long hair.” He is a cutie. Reese gets it from me.  I am quite particular about how my food is handled.

The kiddos were home from school today for the holiday. Mr. Incredible made scrambled eggs and cooked up the sausage links that I had pulled out of the fridge on Sunday to defrost. I freeze sausage links in dozens so everyone can eat two sausages each when we use them. That is enough meat and keeps us from eating too much meat. Mr. Incredible added freeze dried mushrooms, freeze dried onions, and a few mixed bell peppers (all freeze dried vegetables). He uses 2 cups of scrambled egg mix every time he makes eggs for breakfast. That makes plenty of eggs. Everyone gets what they want and there are still leftovers.

For lunch I made chicken tacos. I had about 8 hard taco shells in a box in the pantry. So I heated them in the toaster oven to crisp them and warm them up. Then I used one can of chicken that I added the rest of my green tomatillo salsa to, along with some other spices, chili powder, onion powder, and cumin. My good friend Amy had a huge party at her house on Sunday, her daughter is going on a mission to San Antonio, and they had left over cut romaine lettuce. She had a couple of bags and knew it would go to waste so she gave us a bag of it. Yay!

Julz said they would be better with cheese. I wasn’t in the mood to rehydrate cheese. I have its so easy. Imagine milking a cow, skimming the cream, and making cheese that way!

Dinner

We ate left over vegetable beef soup from Sunday night. I added macaroni noodles to add variety. Also Pagey wanted macaroni and cheese. I haven’t made mac and cheese during this experience yet. I have a lot of macaroni noodles store in my food storage. I love Thrive’s cheese blend. One #10 can makes a lot of macaroni and cheese. Probably 3 cans is a year supply for my family. We could use up a #10 can in 4 months. I have mentioned this cheese before because we sprinkle it on our popcorn too. Its great for au graten potatoes, and a cheese sause for broccoli and cauliflower.

This morning I made waffles. I know I have lost count how many times we’ve eaten waffles during the past 3 weeks. These waffles turned out extra yummy today for some reason. I used half whole wheat flour and half white flour. I used the whole egg powder and powder milk. Maybe its the mexican vanilla. Easy breakfast before church. No photo of the waffles.

Some of the kiddos ate bread and butter on the way to church. I took out my frozen sausage links to defrost in the fridge so we could eat those this week. We are winding down. We have 10 more days on our food storage challenge.

Tonight I told everyone that when we go grocery shopping on March 1st everyone can pick out 3 items they have really wanted during the challenge . Pagey says she wants shrimp. Reese says mega stuffed Oreos. Apparently one of his friends at school gave Reese a mega stuffed Oreo at lunch. Gigi says ice cream. I am getting used to living on what we have on hand. What I am anxious to do is buy all of the things we are lacking or have used up during the challenge. I will share those things with you all.

This evening Julz had her book one recital at my sister in laws house. I made french bread, my wheat bread, and two soups. A vegetable beef soup and the mulligatawny soup. I almost caved in last night late when I went to put gas in the car. I couldn’t think of anything sweet to bring for dessert after the recital. So I thought it would be okay to pick something up at the grocery store. But as soon as I decided that no, I was only going to use my food storage ,I remembered the Thrive brownies and macaroons! Perfect. I made both of those and brought a yummy easy treat. When I was mixing up the batter, the kiddos who do eat sugar were putting dibs on licking the bowls and spoons. Ahhh. That’s how you know its a treat when everyone wants to like the spoon. I remember as a child always wanting to lick the beaters from the whipping cream. Because it was such a rare occasion that my mom was baking anything sweet.

The vegetable beef soup was one that I just started throwing things in the pot. I used a beef base with bouillon but just added whatever else I wanted until it tasted good enough.

My mom brought a salad tonight to go with the soups and bread. Aunt Kyla gave us some of her fresh oranges to bring home with us. She has an abundance of them. We also ate apples at Kyla’s too. Yummy fresh fruit and vegetables.

Grains

44 1/4cups flour
Did you know there are about 4 1/2 cups of flour in 1 pound of grain? 1 cup of wheat will grind into 1.5 cups of flour.

3 cups rice

3 cups macaroni noodles

1 cup other pasta

1 cup rolled oats

1/3 cup popcorn

Oil

4 tablespoon butter ( I am not really keeping track of butter, because I know we are consuming 5 pounds of butter over the entire challenge)

3 2/3 cup corn or olive oil

1/2 cup butter powder

Salt

19 teaspoons

Meat and Beans

2 cups lentils

2 can beef chunks

6 cups dry black beans

1 cup FD sausage

3 pints of chicken

2 cans of black beans

1 cup thrive FD ground beef

1/3 cup chopped chicken FD

Milk

2 3/4 cup

2 cup cheese

3 tblsp dry powder milk

4 tbsp dry instant milk

1 box shelf stable cream

Egg

5  1/4 cup Thrive scrambled egg mix

2 fresh eggs

Sugar/ Sweetners

1/3 cup powder sugar

1 teaspoon of honey (actually we have consumed 4 cups of honey through out this challenge so far)

1 3/4 cup sugar

1 3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoon agave nectar

3 tablespoon cinnamon and sugar

Yeast

6 tablespoon

Fruits

pineapple powder 2/3 cup

9 1/4 cups dehydrated apple slices

1/2 cup strawberry powder

1 cup FD stawberries

1 quart apple sause

1/3 cups raspberries

Vegetables

1 cups broccoli fd

3 2/3  cup fd onion

2 can corn

1 cups frozen green beans

3 cups freeze dried vegetables, a variety including mushrooms, onions, celery, cauliflower, zucchini, peas

3/4cup dehydrated carrots

1 cup fresh chopped carrots

2 2/3cup fd celery

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can green beans

2 cups of potato beads

Other

Thrive cheese blend 2 Tbsp

4 teaspoons baking powder

Baking Soda 4 Tbsp + 2 1/4 tsp

Peach drink 1/4 cup

1 packet Shirley J universal sauce

2 tsp garam masala

5 teaspoon curry powder

1 tablespoon garlic powder

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoon oregano

3 Thrive Express pouches

1/2 teaspoon thyme

1/2 teaspoon basil

1 tablespoon italian seasoning

2 tablespoon chicken bouillon

8 teaspoons beef bouillon

2 cans chicken broth

1 can cream of mushroom soup

3 500 mg vitamin c tablet

I started out the morning baking an apple crisp for breakfast. I know its a dessert. But you only live once and heck we are living on food storage so we have earned dessert for breakfast! Plus apple crisp had a cup of oatmeal in it, and that is a breakfast cereal. Mr. Incredible and I were going out on a date and Grandma was coming over to hang with the kiddos while we were gone. I took a photo and then put the crisp in the oven.

When we got home about 4 hours later there was only some crisp around the edges left. I should’ve taked a photo but I was hungry and instead just scraped what was left onto a plate and stuck it in the microwave. Here is what was left.

It was really sweet. The recipe I adapted it from called for fresh apples and I used dehydrated apple slices. The recipe called for 2 cups of sugar! I cut that back a little bit. By 1/4 cup but really could have just added 1 cup of sugar and would have been plenty sweet. I didn’t use any butter in the crisp topping, I substituted in corn oil.

Grandma brought with her some fresh strawberries and bananas and some grade B maple syrup to dip the sliced bananas and strawberries  She knows how to get into her grandchildren’s hearts. Especially when they have been eating freeze dried produce for the last 14 days. When we came home from our date, Pagey told me she likes to dip mini carrots into maple syrup too.

Today was a random day for cooking. My meals were all over the place and whenever. I pressure canned black beans the way my cousin Jill taught me. So easy, so good.

We ate left over soup and bread from yesterday.  I made bagels! Yes chewy plain bagels. I have a brick of cream cheese in my fridge. I have been saving for cream cheese frosting for my cinnamon rolls. But I decided to make bagels too. I still haven’t made cinnamon rolls with yeast during this challenge. The bagels we relatively easy and fun to make. Check out the recipe here. And some photos so you can see parts of the process.

This was really easy. After letting the dough rest for 15 minutes I cut the circle of dough into 8 pieces like cutting a pie. Took a wedge of dough and rolled it into a ball. Stuck my finger through the center and made a ring out of each piece of dough.

While the bagel rings were rising I boiled 16 cups of water with 1 tablespoon of sugar. Then I placed 4 bagels in the boiling water. I flipped them over after 3 1/2 minutes so each side was boiled. They bagels rise more in the water. I crowded these bagels a bit. Next time I will use a larger pot.

I removed the boiled bagels with a slotted spoon and let them drain for a second before placing them on a ceramic baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal. I baked them for 30 minutes.

They aren’t the pretties bagels. But they sure tasted good and the texture was wonderful. We used less then half our brick of cream cheese. I can still make frosting!

Fastfood when living on food storage is ready to cook entrees. I have in my food storage some Thrive Express. These are so so so easy. Boil water, dump in the contents of the pouch, stir and cook for the allotted time. We made three Thrive Express meals tonight:

The rice dishes went over the best with the kiddos. The chili was too tomatoey. I added some of my freshly pressure canned black beans to the chili to bulk it up a bit. Its quite meaty, but I wanted more beans in it. I have left over chili for tomorrow.

Here is a photo of my beans just out of the pressure canner. I use my used lids when I pressure can beans that I don’t intend to store on the shelf. I just need a lid to keep the product in the can. I plan to use the last 3 quarts of beans this week in meals. Its so convenient having the beans already cooked and ready to go, no hassel with soaking and draining and rinsing. I can customize the amount of salt I add to the dry beans in a jar. And it is much less expensive than canned beans.  The beans are still boiling that is why there are all those bubbles on top.

A dang good dinner! I made some for dessert tonight (its not a dessert, its a soup). We all had a bowl after we had finished up the small first dinner I cooked. Shepard pie and fry bread/scones whatever you call them. I was raised calling yeast dough fried in oil, fry bread. But Mr. Incredible calls pieces of dough fried in oil, scones. Reese called them scones tonight too. I call the pastries you can buy at coffee shops with blueberries and white chocolate chips, scones. Anyway that’s what we ate tonight for dinner. Gigi loved the Shepard pie. I must admit it was good. Mr. Incredible and she finished it off.

That was okay with me because I knew I had mulligatawny soup on the stove. Ummm so delicious!

This mulligatawny has my pressure canned chicken, freeze dried celery and freeze dried onion, some rice, dehydrated apples, and a fresh carrot. I do have a few carrots in my fridge still. They are dying. And some curry powder of course. Make this recipe if you like curry, you will love this!

Our other meals today were scrambled eggs and fried potatoes on the outdoor grill. Mr. Incredible cooked it up. And left over lentil soup. I was so hungry tonight while cooking dinner. I must not have eaten enough calories today. I was feeling weak. But after this flavorful dinner I felt like a new woman.

I am so grateful to have the variety of food stored in my home. I was thinking tonight how difficult it would be to eat food we don’t normally eat or just have dry goods which take a lot of time to prepare. Having the Thrive freeze dried food and the pressure canned chicken and beef have made this experience so much more fun and enjoyable.

I am looking for alternatives in my food storage that I can use to spread on bread. This was instigated by the amounts of fresh butter we use and how I do not have the freezer space to store that much butter for my family.

I am storing butter powder. I have used butter powder for cooking applications but not so much for spreading on toast.  I am one of those people who eats bread so I can eat, taste, savor the butter on top. I consulted with my good friend Heather who is also amazing with food storage, check her blog out, to get some advise on the butter powder. I have a play-by-play with photos to show you what I came up with in implementing Heather’s advice.

I rehydrated 1/3 cup raspberries in hot water. I let them sit about 3-5 minutes.

Next I drizzled the water that the raspberries had soaked in over the 1/2 cup butter powder. (Heather had advised me to use the raspberry water to rehydrate the butter powder)

I mixed it with a fork and continued adding raspberry water to the butter powder until it became a spreading consistency.

Then I added some honey. I didn’t measure, about what you see in the bowl.

Heather highly recommended adding powder sugar to the raspberry honey butter. So I did.

Then I stirred in the rehydrated raspberries.

Here is what it looked like.

I spreaded it on a slice of bread and took a bite. Yuk! Very butter powder tasting.

So back in the bowl it goes with a good helping of powder sugar. I would guess two generous tablespoons. Sorry for the lack of measurements. When I was stirring it the second time I felt like I was making frosting.

The powdered sugar turned the honey raspberry butter shiny and thinned it out a bit.

I spread it on another slice of bread and it was much, much better. Nothing like butter. Its more like raspberry flavored cream cheese. That’s how I “sold” it to my kiddos when they came home from school. It is not Julz compliant so she ate her bread with regular butter.

I am not a chocoholic. I enjoy chocolate and sweets. I don’t have to have dessert after every meal or even something sweet. But lately I have been dying for some chocolate. Not brownies, but solid milk or dark chocolate. You can imagine how happy and grateful I was to find some “emergency chocolate” bars in my Shelf Reliance party supplies. Not some but one XL Symphony bar with almonds and toffee chips. I am so happy to have it! I am breaking off a square or two and savoring them. I have shared it with Mr. Incredible but no one else knows about the candy bar, even he doesn’t know where I am hiding it.

Since Julz has been on a no candy/sugar diet she is storing her Halloween candy down in the cold storage. I am leaving that be. The kids had Valentine’s parties on Thursday at school. So they have their own stashes of treats.

Chocolate chips are most definitely on the list to add, 50 pounds, to my food supply. I do have some tootsie rolls and dum dums canned in #10 cans. My sister and I canned  them together over 2 years ago. But I am not opening those during our challenge. Those are for a real emergency.

I just found this recipe today. I made it tonight for dinner using Thrive instead and it was amazing! I love it and Mr. Incredible said it’s his favorite lentil soup now. All my kiddos ate it cheerfully. This is yummy. And oh so easy. It does take time to simmer to get the lentils soft. Just throw it in a pot and forget about it for a while. This soup was so good and easy I wanted to do a price break down on cost per serving. I am basing my ingredients off of my recipe using Thrive freeze dried food.

pasta $1.00– the recipe calls for a half of pound
onion (fd) $1.38
celery (fd) $1.10
carrots (dehydrated) $0.38
chicken broth 2 cans $1.50–using bouillon would cut the cost even further
diced tomatos (I puree so Reese can’t identify them) $1.09
sausage crumbles (fd) $3.32
herbs and spices $0.50–I pulled that number out of my head. I didn’t want to get down to the nitty gritty.

I ate 3 bowls, Mr. Incredible at 4 bowls, Julz had 2.5 bowls, and the other three kiddos had at least one bowl each. Probably three more bowls of soup for lunch tomorrow.  This recipes makes, conservatively, 12 servings for only $10.27. $0.86 per serving, that is awesome! Lentils are so nutritious too.

I served it with my homemade bread that I baked today. Yes, I am now baking bread. All of our store bought bread has been eaten. My family loves my bread. I do too. Its a recipe that my mother in law gave me. The recipe makes 3 loaves. We consumed 2 of the loaves between 3 pm and 7 pm. Thats the work of six mouths.  I don’t mind making bread. About two years ago I decided I was going to master the art of homemade bread making before I had to rely on the skill. My sweet mom in law came over and tested my dough for me until I figured out the “touch”. I have it down now. Its nice to have an expert to consult with.

Here is a loaf of dough before its baked. The bread next to the bowl of soup is the finished product. Vitamin C, I tell you, its the secret. I just ground up 1 500mg children chewable orange vitamin C with my wheat today.

Its Valentine’s Day. I saved up something special for breakfast this morning. Waffles, strawberry compote and whipped cream! Yes whipped cream. You already know my secret. Shelf stable whipping cream is handy. Julie referred to it as a dead medium, in the case of making Kefir with UHT(ultra high temperature) dairy. I don’t know how healthy it is to eat UHT dairy. But for breakfast this morning I tried not to think about it too hard and just enjoy my organic unbleached white flour (I know the whiter the bread the sooner you’re dead), strawberries, and UHT whipped cream.

I did not pressure can black beans today. But after our meals I realized we need to eat more beans because they stick to a person better than white rice.

I baked a loaf of french bread yesterday intending it for french toast this morning. And it worked. I used 2 fresh eggs and 1 scrambled egg mix egg plus our Rosehill Dairy milk. Sprinkled some cinnamon and vanilla into the mix. I cooked the slices of dipped toast on an extra oily pan so we wouldn’t spread butter on the slices after they were done. I am becoming a nazi about our butter. I should lay off. I really want the butter to last. I will whip up some of my powder butter and see how that is received. 

We have used all of our store bought bread out of our freezer. We had about 2 loaves when we began the challenge. I have made my french bread recipe several times now. The fam likes my whole wheat bread I bake too. I just haven’t baked any during the challenge. That will change now.  Did you know that adding vitamin C to your bread make it softer and fluffier? My dear neighbor taught me that a couple months ago and it really works. She said just add a tablet or 2 of ascorbic acid to your wheat while you are grinding it up. So I did and it makes such a difference in the quality and texture of my bread. I am adding vitamin C tablets to my list of supplies to store. My neighbor recommends the cheapest ones you can find. I love that!

Lunch. Pagey wanted California Casserole. The menu is starting to repeat. Its been over 15 days now. So don’t get bored. There will be some de ja vu happening this last half of the month. Its great because with Thrive I can whip up the whole meal in the time it takes to boil the macaroni noodles. I made enough of the CA casserole for the kiddos to eat after school too.

Dinner was chicken, rice and broccoli. We are a 3 cups of rice family. That means I need to cook 3 cups of rice to feed my whole family well. I was lazy and the pot I needed to use, that would fit 3 cups of rice,was dirty and so I only cooked up 2 cups of rice in my smaller pot. That was not enough. It did help me with portion control. How many cups of rice do you need to cook for your family’s rice based dinners?

I have had a packet of Shirley J Universal sauce in my spice cupboard for nearly a year. Tonight I used it for my base on the creamy chicken part. It was good but it did not make enough sauce. I added a pint of chicken, a cup of freeze dried broccoli and 1/4 cup of freeze dried onion. I love Thrive’s freeze dried onions. They smell so good and taste so yummy in everything I add them to. Thrive food is incredible food.

Snacks today: Cinnamon tortillas, I have a package and a half of whole wheat store bought tortillas. Mangos, pomegranate yogurt bites, hmmm. I think that was it.