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.

I found a better recipe for the German pancake and decided to try it again this morning. And it turned out how I expected. I used my food storage of course. Thrive scrambled egg mix, instant milk, flour, salt. Oh and I blended it in the blender like the recipe says to do. Everyone loved it and ate it up. I made a smoothie again today. 

For lunch I had popcorn. I had made the bowl earlier while the German pancake was cooking, Pagey wanted to eat some. We love to sprinkle the cheese blend over the popped kernels. It turns regular popcorn into cheesy popcorn. Add a bit of salt, no butter we are rationing it. But the oil it was popped in was enough to get the cheese powder to stick. I store 50 pounds of popcorn. I picked it up at Sam’s club for about $20 last summer.

Mr. Incredible ate the left over pasta salad. I added some blue cheese crumbles and sunflower seeds to it for a little more pizazz. I am in love with Thrive freeze dried asparagus. Its wonderful and just like fresh asparagus.

Reese has a field trip tomorrow. I thought I would make the french bread recipe and use half of the dough for a loaf of bread for tomorrow’s breakfast, french toast. And the other half of the dough to make pretzels. Pretzels have been on my mind since the challenge began. Probably because I remember making pretzels when I was 12 almost all by myself. I was so pleased. When the kiddos got home from school they helped me roll out and shape the last of the dough we were turning into pretzels. We boiled them in 4 cups water and 4 tablespoons baking soda until they floated about 30 seconds. Placed the boiled twists on a cookie sheet and baked them for 10 minutes. Julz and I ate them with salt and mustard, everyone else had them with cinnamon and sugar. Yummy and fun afternoon snack. Reese said he likes eating from Thrive because we try new things like pretzels. He is my adventurous one. And he is taking two pretzels in his lunch for his field trip tomorrow.

Mr. Incredible requested beef, bean and cheese burritos tonight. He made the tortilla dough while Julz and I were at viola. When we got home it was ready to roll and cook. We whipped those out. Opened a can of our beef chunks, added 1/2 cup of salsa and some brown sugar. Also used 2 cans of our black beans. Sprinkled on some Thrive freeze dried cheese and they were eaten up. Everyone had at least two and loved them. Mr. Incredible said he could eat those every night for the next 15 days. I have some cans of black beans we used tonight. But I am going to pressure can some dry black beans tomorrow so I can rotate some of the dry beans. Plus they are so much less expensive.

Another day is done. They do go by so fast.