I miss blogging about what we are eating everyday from our food storage. I made tortillas tonight. But I mixed it up and did half wheat flour and half white flour. They turned out delish!

Here it is!! A one year supply of food for six of my people.

Flour/Grains 

10 pounds of popcorn

72 pounds of rice

44 pounds of oats

222 pounds of flour (4.5 cups per pound of flour)

180 pounds of pasta

Dairy/Eggs

12 #10 can of Instant Milk

3 #10 can of non instant dry milk

9 #10 cans scrambled egg mix

2 #10 cans whole egg powder

15 #10 cans of Thrive freeze dried cheese

Vegetables

12 #10 cans freeze dried onions

6 #10 can of each of the following freeze dried vegetables

cauliflower, asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms, peas, zucchini, celery, tomato dices, green beans

2 #10 cans Dehydrated carrots

8 # 10 cans of potato beads

2 #10 cans Tomato Powder

12 #10 cans of freeze dried corn or 72 cans of canned corn

54 cans of tomato dices

Fruit

120 #10 cans of freeze dried fruit, any combination. Favorites are listed below

Fuji Apples

Grapes

Peach slices

Mangos

Pineapple

Bananas

Strawberries

Raspberries

Blackberries

Meat and Beans

6 #10 cans of freeze dried sausage crumbles

12 #10 cans of ground beef

132  pints of canned chicken (my home canned chicken) 66 pounds of fresh chicken
I need to acquire a lot more pint jars for my canned chicken

84 cans of beef chunks (14.4 ounces)

3 #10 cans  Pinto beans

12 #10 cans Black beans

1 #10 can White beans

3 #10 cans Lentils

24 cans of Refried beans (15 ounce)

Cream of …

Chicken soup 60 cans

Mushroom soup 36 cans

Oil/Fat

60 pounds of butter

36 quarts of oil or 9 gallons

Sugars

36 pounds of raw honey

6 quarts of maple syrup

1 gallon of agave nectar

96 pounds of sugar

Thrive Express

6 Variety Packs

Extras to add:

24 #10 cans of drink mixes

6 #10 cans brownie mix

6 #10 cans of macaroon mix

8 pounds of salt

2 pounds of sprouting seeds like alfafa

25 cans of coconut milk 15 ounce

1 case of 24 shelf stable whipping cream 8 ounce

Extracts: vanilla, almond, lemon, maple

12 pounds of mixed nuts and seeds

1 brick of yeast

24 pound chocolate chips

25 cans tuna fish

6–64 ounce containers of peanut butter

This is the fun part, adding up all the food we ate throughout the month from our food storage. This was one of the main objectives for why I wanted to do this challenge. I wanted to figure out how much food my family would eat in a whole year.

So many preparedness companies offer a year supply of food for one person or more people but has any one actually lived off that package of food for a whole year? I would love to know. I am guessing the packages are created from projections of food to keep you a live. Honestly, having children complain about food around makes me crazy. I might rather die than listen to how terrible cornmeal mush tastes.

Food storage is such an individualized thing. What works for my family is one thing and what works for your family is another thing. But these numbers will hopefully help you get an idea of how much food your family would consume in a month’s time. If you only are a family of 3 divide it by two. If you are a family of 12 multiply the numbers by two.

Flour/Grains

1 1/3 cups of popcorn

12 cups of rice 6 pounds

10 cups of oats 3.63 pound

83 cups of flour (4.5 cups per pound of flour) 18.444 pounds of flour

15 pounds of pasta

Dairy/Eggs

1 #10 can of Instant Milk

1/4 #10 can of non instant dry milk

3/4 #10 can scrambled egg mix

48 whole egg powder

14 cups of Thrive freeze dried cheese

Vegetables

1 #10 can freeze dried onions

1/2 #10 can of each of the following freeze dried vegetables

cauliflower, asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms, peas, zucchini, celery,

Dehydrated carrots 1/5 of a #10 can

7 cups of potato beads

Tomato Powder 1/6 of a #10 can

Cans of corn 6

Cans of tomato dices 9

Cans of green beans 5

Fruit

We opened a lot of fruit during our month challenge. I didn’t want to ration fruit I wanted us to eat what we wanted to see what that would amount to over a months time

We opened and ate all of the following freeze dried fruit in #10 cans.

2 Fuji Apples

Grapes

2 Peach slices

Mangos

Pineapple

Bananas

Strawberries

Raspberries

a pantry can of blackberries

10 and 1/3 can of fruit! Whoa.

Meat and Beans

1/2 #10 can of freeze dried sausage crumbles and 1 #10 can of ground beef

11 pints of canned chicken (my home canned chicken)

7 cans of beef chunks (14.4 ounces)

Pinto beans 2 cups dry

Black beans 6 cups dry

Lentils 2 cups dry

Canned  beans:

3 cans of Black

2 cans of Refried

1 can of White

Cream of …

Chicken soup 5 cans

Mushroom soup 3 cans

Oil/Fat

5 pounds of butter

3 quarts of oil

Sugars

1 64 ounce container of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup

4 cups of raw honey

16 ounces of maple syrup

4 ounces of agave nectar

15 cups of sugar

Thrive Express

6 pouches

There it is. A month supply of goods for a family of six, two adults and 4 kiddos.

I wanted to post a photo of what our refrigerator looked like on the last day of our food storage challenge. February 28, 2013

Here is what it looks like today stocked with food. March 1, 2012 Reese ate his whole lobster tonight. I wish I had gotten a picture of him and his big ole lobster.

Pagey has been asking about crepes with ice cream during this past month. Tonight I made them for her after dinner. I love this recipe for crepes. My friend Melissa gave it to me years ago.  I make it with fresh eggs and milk or powder eggs and milk. It fantastic either way!

Our butter rationing worked. At the end of our challenge we had about three quarters of a cube left. I was worried about three weeks into our challenge that we would not have enough butter to make it through. So we started rationing our fresh butter. We need a cube of butter every two days.

Today was our last day living on our food storage. I know we could continue on this path for longer than 33 days, January 26th- February 28th. We told the kiddos this was the challenge time frame and we did it! Not only does having food stored in my home provide me immense peace of mind but knowing how to use the food to create yummy balanced meals for my family is empowering!  To be resourceful, like making brown sugar syrup, when I ran out of Mrs. Buttersworth  is so satisfying. And the brown sugar syrup is so incredibly yummy. Who knows how long I would have gone without knowing how to make my own breakfast syrup had I not done this challenge? We as humans don’t look for solutions unless we have to. I am so happy to have created this experience to learn these bits of wisdom for myself.

I was talking with my sister the other day and she asked, “doesn’t cooking consume your life now that you are making everything from scratch?” Yes, at first it was consuming my life. I was learning and looking for recipes. But after two dedicated weeks of cooking from scratch it became more natural.  Like we have laundry day we have baking bread day now. Or pressure canning beans day. Do we realize how time consuming grocery shopping is? Tonight after dinner we went shopping at Winco. We got to the store at 8:30 and was loaded in the car at 9:45. This doesn’t include drive time another 15 minutes each way, plus fuel.  An hour and fifteen minutes to grocery shop and 30 minute drive time, nearly two hours. Yeah that was the whole family and I was tired and moving slowly. I used to grocery shop once a week. Now with my Q shipment every month and my homestore built thoroughly, I go only twice a month.

On our way to Winco tonight I felt melancholy about going grocery shopping. Mr. Incredible said he was thinking, “why are we doing this? We don’t need to go grocery shopping.” That is the empowering feeling again. To not have to rely on anyone, any business, or any government for survival, that is self reliance.

We spent $251 on our groceries tonight.  I think it could last us all March, except Mr. Incredible is going to start a juicing thing (diet/cleanse) for a number of days, not sure what his goal is.

All the kiddos picked out 3 things for being such troopers during our whole challenge.

Julz picked: baby carrots, dehydrated apricots, and Gardettos

Reese picked: jelly beans, Lay’s BBQ chips, and a whole lobster

Gigi picked: Peeps, grape soda, Gushers (junk I know)

Pagey  picked: Peeps, strawberry ice cream, and a grape fruit roll (fruit leather)

and I picked licorice allsorts!

We didn’t just survive…We THRIVED!! I love Thrive and I am so grateful I am storing so much of it!

I am ready to do a 60 or 90 day food storage challenge once I build back up my food storage and add all those things we put on our list. I will share those “things” as I acquire them.

Today was our last day on our food storage challenge. I was a busy day for me  and not normal. I was setting up and working a Thrive booth at a boutique here in town. Meals today were just whatever was easy.

I had a big bowl of steel cut oats with almond butter. The kiddos have oats too or Chex. I brought with me the left over peanut butter noodles while I worked the booth today. In Pagey’s lunch we packed freeze dried pineapple and tri color rotini with cheese sauce. We ate lots of pasta with butter to get through the day. When you know you are going to have the smorgasbord of the grocery store available to you, you just want to get through the day.

Tonight was the Blue and Gold Banquet for Reese. I am one of his den leaders. After being at the boutique  all day I didn’t want to make a separate dinner for half the family, so we all went to the Blue and Gold Banquet. It was very enjoyable. Sometimes I don’t have a good attitude about scouts. I was so happy Mr. Incredible and all the kiddos came. There was a lot of fresh fruit! After 33 days of freeze dried fruit that was a sight for sore eyes. To stay in the tradition of photos I took a picture of our plates of food.

Happy Thriving!!

I am going to mix it up tonight and start with dinner. Mr. Incredible suggested I make tamale pie. I have never made one but found a recipe that I had all the ingredients to and thought I would give it a shot. Of course I substituted all the fresh ingredients like onions and green bell peppers for my freeze dried ones. I used tomato powder to make the tomato sauce and pureed a can of tomato dices in the blender so it would be free of tomato chunks. I used freeze dried corn instead of canned corn too. The ground beef? Freeze dried, one cup of ground beef is plenty of meat in our meals. I tripled the amount of chili powder at least. I mixed up the filling and was afraid it tasted too tomatoey. It also made a lot of filling. I added some Colby cheese to the filling. First because the recipe calls for cheese and second to lessen the tomato flavor.

I dumped a third of the filling in a bowl to get it out of the way. I will have to turn that into taco soup tomorrow for lunch or something. Then I got another pot out to make up the tamale corn part. This recipe was time consuming even when using the freeze dried food. I was afraid this was going to be a dish I would be scraping into the garbage. The irony is that I was just talking to my sister this morning telling her how blessed I have been through out this whole experience because everything I have made had turned out and was well received by my family. Until now.

The tamale pie came out of the oven and I took a spoonful of it to try. Julz came in and said, “that looks weird, how is it?” I tell her, “Interesting.” Then I ask her,” what kind of incentive should I offer to everyone who finishes their helping?” Julz asks, “Not good, huh?”.  So I did it. I am ending this experience the way I started by bribing my kiddos to eat the food. I said I would pay everyone who ate their whole serving, that I dished up $1. Everyone did it! And the girls actually liked it and probably didn’t even need an incentive. Julz went back for seconds and said it was a very flavorful meal. Reese needed a glass of water to wash down every bite. I laugh because I was just like him when I was young and I would not have like the tamale pie either.

Check out this thrilling picture.

Gone! It began like this:

Here was the serving each person must eat to receive the incentive:

That was a relief. I thought I was going to hear a lot of complaining tonight. On our second to last night of our food storage challenge.

Lunch was left-over stuffing from Monday night and some canned chicken I had in the fridge with a chicken gravy over it. Longing for the fresh veggies.

Oh me oh my. Last night after posting how we are out of syrup an idea flashed in my mind. Perhaps I could make syrup with brown sugar! I did a google search for brown sugar syrup and found several recipes that looked so easy.  I could use my sandy brown sugar! I chose this one. I made pancakes today and whipped up my third and final box of Trader Joe’s shelf stable whipping cream. I made a strawberry syrup with water, freeze dried strawberries, and honey. And we had the brown sugar cinnamon syrup. It reminded me of brown sugar poptarts.

Pagey and I had round two of pancakes and brown sugar syrup at 11:00 am.

Snack time? Who needs snack time? Pagey helped herself. Eating out of the can is a no no. But Pagey has always love snacking on Thrive’s freeze dried peas and corn. I love it. Such a healthy snack.