Category: Prepping For the Zombie Apocalypse

Inventories and Menus

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In a quest to solve the age old question, ‘what’s REALLY in the freezer?’, I decided to embark on a mission for answers. While I was at it I decided to answer a few more pressing questions like ‘how many cans of garbanzo beans are actually lurking in the depth of the cupboard?’ and ‘do I really need four more bottles of ketchup?’. It did take a little time from start to finish but we teamed up and took a couple relaxed days to get it done. We still want to inventory dry goods, but one step at a time. It’s also taking some time to get in the habit of crossing things off as they get used and adding items as soon as we return from the grocery store. All in all, well worth it! I recommend this to everyone.

I guess I should back up a little bit and start from the beginning. Seemed like every day we were having this ‘struggle’  to decide what to make for dinner. We cook everything from scratch without processed foods. Which is great but also means if you don’t have a dinner plan by late morning (or even the night before) you are sh*t out of luck. So we were always digging through the freezer looking for things we either had a surplus of or that ‘needed’ to be used. So to prevent the daily game of  “What’s for dinner hun?”, we decided to make a weekly menu. It goes up on the large dry wipe board. It runs Thursday through Thursday and we even put the weather forecast next to each day. Soup sure tastes good on a cold rainy day. We can also plan for easy meal days if we have a busy schedule. The new grocery ads start on Wednesday and we use them to plan our weekly meals (hence Thurs-Thurs). Just recently we have started adding a free day. Seems like somewhere in those eight days we either needed to clean out the left overs in the fridge or just plain didn’t feel like cooking. Here’s what the board looked like before we added a ‘free day’.

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I can’t tell you what a game changer the menu is. Seriously. It’s so nice to only have to plan meals once a week and we know ahead of time if we need to pull something out of the freezer. It’s also making grocery shopping much more efficient and there is a lot less food waste. The occasion veggie would go bad because we would purchase without a clear plan of when and how to use it. Shopping for the menu also means I have (x) ingredient on hand to make a specific meal. We also plan to use left overs in another meal. Say, pulled pork sandwiches the day after a pork roast or maybe jambalaya after a roasted chicken. We also have a culinary hit list on the board. It’s just things we are thinking about making or that sound good. Not shown here is the smaller dry wipe board attached to this one. I took it off for the photo. It’s embarrassing that our dry wipe has it’s own dry wipe hehehe.

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At this point we were still pretty much grubbing around the freezer, albeit only once a week, but it was still a chore. I made the comment one day that if we were smart, we would just take an inventory of the freezer. When meat is on sale for a really good price, that’s what we purchase. It gets portioned out, vacuum packed, labeled and chucked in the freezer. So inventorying the freezer not only let us know what we had, but what we should or shouldn’t purchase regardless of price. One day we just decided to go for it and see what happened. We inventoried all the meat and specialty goods. Then I went back later and added all the weird and one offs like royal icing in various colors and a jar of homemade Bloody Mary mix. Here is one of the first ‘drafts’. I soon realized I needed more than one sheet for the freezer. I have three now but probably only need two. See how nice a pretty the sheets started out? Well they don’t stay that way for long!

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Here is what they look like now…

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The day after we did the freezer we decided to inventory all the home canned goods. We have very little storage here at the house and we had been stashing cans of beans, tomatoes and chicken stock all over the place since summer. Once we were done it was easy to convince Sam to ‘just go ahead and count the store bought stuff too’. As some of you know we frequently get boxes of food from our neighbors. They just show up on the back porch like magic lol. Most of it is excess from food banks and pantries. I can’t even begin to tell you the insane variety of things we get. Just this week the food fairy brought over a big bag of kiwis (which will hopefully be jam tomorrow). We’ve had cases of ice cream and every kind of juice you can imagine and a ton of produce. But I digress, they also contain various canned goods, that’s where I was going with this 🙂 Many times it’s stuff we would not usually buy so it ends up in the very back of the cupboard. We keep our canned goods on the bottom shelf of a corner cabinet. So I either have to get the boy to go spelunking for a can of something from the back or just give up and buy another can of say, black olives. Here is what those lists look like.

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Once I had all the lists I got on the computer and printed everything out. I hang the lists on a clip board in the kitchen. They literally get used every day. We are still working out the kinks and trying to make it a habit but I couldn’t be happier with the results. So now every week when we sit down to work out our menu, we also use the inventory lists. I try to put dates on the inventories so we know which items need to be used first.

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The hardest thing is remembering to add and subtract items from the lists. We are doing pretty good but I’m sure we’re not getting everything. The other biggie is, after you have your initial list make changes in pencil!! I’m sure at some point I will need to head back to the computer and make a new ‘master list’ to start chicken scratching on again. I know this seems a little over the top with the menus and lists and all. I know most of you don’t think you have time for this. You’ll be surprised to find out you probably do. With two of us it only took 20 minutes tops. It took more time to type it up than it did to do the counting. The truth is, it actually saves you time. Being able to glance at a list rather than holding someone’s legs for retrieval as they disappear into the back of the cabinet for a can of corn is much quicker. And you will usually end up with a few ‘treasures’ you never knew you had. Like two cans of black eyed peas that expired in the late 90s. Wtf? I seriously had to pack those up every time I moved in the last 20 years! I will admit the menus take a little time, but again, well worth it. It can take 3o to 45 minutes to get the menu together. We are cross referencing the grocery ad, inventory lists and old menus.

Our family eats three meals a day, at home, every day. So we need to be prepared or we’re making endless trips to the store. It’s so nice to go to the grocery now with a list of only what we need. Our next step is to try and inventory dry goods like flours, beans and rices. Oh and I tagged this article under ‘Prepping for the zombie apocalypse’. At least when the zombies come I will know how long our food stores will hold out. We took a trip to the Mormon Home Storage Center a few weeks ago and picked up some stuff for both zombie prepping and immediate use. We got a 25lb bag of hard red wheat for $6. Some we will grind into flour now but we will store some too.

Bottom line is, this will save you time, money and reduce food waste. Other than the obvious time saving benefit, you can plan to use left overs. You won’t be as likely to waste precious real estate in the freezer if you already know what’s in there. I hope some of you will actually give this a try (at least a little). It has been a total game changer for us. I just can’t believe we didn’t do this sooner…

Take it simple    -Sam and Stacey-

 

 

Our Answer To The Rising Cost Of Eggs And How To Preserve Them

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Last week I was shocked when I went to the grocery store and a dozen eggs were close to $4. Because of new ‘chicken crowding’ laws and an avian flu outbreak in the Midwest, the cost of eggs has skyrocketed and is anticipated to continue climbing. If you are lucky enough to have your own chickens, the following is a great way to store eggs if your girls are laying more than you can use. Short of getting our own laying hens (which by the way is closer than ever to happening), we needed a way to stock pile them when they are on sale. Sale price here has been $2.99 a dozen for large eggs. I checked out Costco the other day and they have about that same price. They do have a good bargain but it’s for medium sized eggs and I’ve never seen a recipe etc. that calls for medium eggs. The standard is large or extra large. Of course if medium eggs work for you, there are often deals to be found. My intentions are to purchase them in an 18, 30 or 60 pack when they go on sale. For now I am starting with a 30pk. So the basic method of preservation we are using is coating them in food grade mineral oil. This method can preserve them for a year. Yes, I said a year! What we are doing is replacing mother nature’s protective coating (called the bloom) that gets washed off in preparation to be sold at the store. The only draw back is you will not be able to use them in recipes where you need to whip up the whites into stiff peaks. As you know, even a small amount of oil left over on a spatula or mixing bowl, will thwart you efforts at such endeavors. A minuscule amount of oil can get into the egg through it’s porous shell and that’s all it takes to prevent whipping up those peaks. However, they are still perfect for over easy, hard boiled eggs and to use in cookies, brownies and cakes that don’t call for whipped whites.

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If you live in an area that is cool and humid (or blessed to have a root cellar), you are in luck as the eggs will not be hogging up your refrigerator. If you have 50 to 65  degrees with 50+ percent humidity you can store them out in a cool dark space. I have no such place so the refrigerator is the spot for me. I got this large, old school Tupperware container from my mother in-law Margaret. Before I had a chance to purchase the eggs, I put this empty container in the fridge just to see if it was something we could work around. It’s huge and I had my concerns. Turns out it works fine but it does take up a large amount of space. You don’t have to put them in storage containers, I just didn’t have another option. I plan on saving some styrofoam eggs containers as we use them and storing in those eventually. Make sure to clearly mark and date your eggs in each container. I know I will end up with several different ‘start’ dates as we move along. My plan is to use these stored eggs as back ups and not in everyday rotation. However, like I said before, if Sam is whipping up a meringue we will need to use new, un-oiled eggs.

The first thing to do is sort and check every egg. I thought is was pretty funny how there were some really different sizes and shapes in this 30 pack.

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The  size or shape doesn’t really matter. What you are looking for is small cracks and of course broken eggs. I had a few with small cracks so I just set those aside for immediate use. Then you want to test for freshness. This is something you want to do before and after storage. The easiest way to do this is gently put them in water. If it sinks it’s good. If it floats, throw away that stink bomb. You would be surprised at the amount of ‘not so fresh’ eggs we get directly from the store. I like to have deviled eggs in the fridge for a healthy snack option and Sam says every once in while he finds a floater. So please check every egg. I would not want you to think your technique failed if you started with a stinker.

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Once you have sorted and checked every egg, let them dry (or dry them off if you are impatient like me). Making sure they are dry insures all the surface will be covered in oil. Because I didn’t have any styrofoam egg containers, I lined the cardboard with cellophane. I’m not sure, but in my mind, the cardboard will pull some of the oil away from the egg and I don’t want to take any chances. With my container ready, I poured about 2 tablespoons of food grade mineral oil into a little prep bowl. I have read in a few places that you should wear gloves because the oil can do some funky estrogen tricks. However, it has always been taken internal by the spoonful as a laxative, so I’m not sure what to think about it. Always do your own research and wear gloves just in case. I have a box full of gloves under the sink that I use for just about anything messy. I’m like some 3 year olds as in I don’t like sticky or dirty hands. If you haven’t noticed, go back and look at the photos in every other article, I’m always wearing gloves 🙂

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Put a small amount of oil in the bowl and either stick one end of the egg in it or put some oil in your hand. Rub it over the egg. It doesn’t matter how much you use just make sure to completely cover the entire surface. I really shouldn’t need to warn you but be careful or you will be cleaning egg off the floor, the little suckers are slippery.

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Place your eggs into the container of your choosing pointy side down. Turn the eggs once a month to insure the integrity of the yolk. There is an air space at the fat end. One reason for the monthly turn is to keep the yolk from settling against the shell during it’s long term storage. I actually wrote on the calendar one month from now to remind me to turn my eggs. Clearly mark and date them and you are done!

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I will keep you all updated along the way and give ‘reviews’ of the eggs at regular intervals. I’m thinking every three months? These eggs should easily last a year. I read a great article from Mother Earth News that was written in the seventies (sorry I do not have a link). It basically said you could hardly tell the difference between a fresh egg and one preserved in this manner at the one year mark. It also said the eggs were great at 6 months, in the fridge, with no preservation. Go figure.

So what do you think? I know it kills me to spend $4 on a dozen eggs. We don’t use an exceptional amount of eggs but 2 eggs in a loaf of bread every three days really increases the base cost of homemade bread. Every little bit adds up. We try to conserve anywhere we can, otherwise there’s no way we can maintain this rock-n-roll lifestyle.

Take it simple   -Sam and Stacey-

 

 

 

The Green Bean Experience

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Are you gonna grow my way…..I got to got to know. See, every morning something new. And now you too can have Lenny Kravitz banging around in your head all day, you’re welcome! This year’s green beans quickly became last year’s cucumbers. Last year all I wanted was enough cucumbers to make pickles. This year I just wanted enough extra green beans to can or ‘put up’ (I love that old timey term!). Well my friends, be careful what you wish for. Both this year and last, we had said vegetable coming out of our ears. In reality, we were extremely happy and fortunate that our little green buddies were so healthy and prolific this year. We had plenty to eat fresh, share with friends and neighbors, and 16 jars to put up. Here are two pics from about mid season. The first is of the pole beans, although they never really did any climbing. The second is of the yellow and green bush beans.

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They got much bigger and wilder than this. It seemed like we could go out every day and harvest, yet the next day there were another two or three baskets full. Very Jack and the Bean Stalk-ish.

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We were also of course blessed with an abundance of zucchini. Once we were good and tired of fresh green beans, it was time to can. One might ask, “why not pickle them?”. Well, I ask you once again to remember the great pickling of 2014. Plus (and I haven’t had a chance to write the article yet) we just pickled around 8 half pints and another 6 or 8 pints of pickles from a giant bag of Armenian cukes the neighbor brought over.

So we began the process of prepping them to can. It’s as easy as wash, snip off the end and cut or snap to about 1.5 or 2 inches long. Speaking of prepping, this counts as prepping for the zombie apocalypse. We will need a large stockpile of food with a long shelf life. Hey man, we’re gonna eat well while defending our stronghold!

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We get quite the assembly line going. Then off to the pressure canner for about 20 minutes

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My mom and step dad gave us their pressure canner and we have been making quick work of using it! Here are our beautiful canned green beans. They are going to taste amazing this fall and winter. We opted for pints rather than quarts. There are only three of us here and, 16oz=2cups, is an appropriate serving size split between us. If we have guests we can just open more than one can 😉

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We canned another 8 pints a week or so after these. We have since moved on to the great tomato preservation event. I hope to have some of those articles up soon. I saw a photo on social media from our friend Cali Mike who had several ‘shirt fulls’ of tomatoes that were bright red and gorgeous!  Have you had a bumper crop of anything? Are you putting anything up this year? Do you have neighbors with a garden that you benefit from? Let us know, we would simply love to hear your stories, comments and suggestions!

Until next time,      Take it simple  –Sam and Stacey–

Beans Beans The Musical Fruit

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We finally got a pressure canner and  wasted no time trying it out! We have already canned 5 quarts of beans and 7 pints of chicken stock. Because freezer space is such valuable real estate, we are excited to have a different storage option and this counts towards prepping for the zombie apocalypse. First on the mark was dried beans, pinto in our case. We had a little trouble finding a recipe that we liked and make sense to us. Our concerns were either ending up with jars of unidentifiable mush or crunchy little under cooked beans. The beans process in the canner for 75 minutes so we needed to consider that as well. We decided to just wing it. We knew there was going to be a learning curve and figured if we screwed up a batch of pinto beans, it wouldn’t break our hearts. This will be more of a quick ‘sharing’ post rather than a recipe or instructions. I’m not sure how I feel about giving directions to pressure canning. It’s all fun and games until someone dies from botulism. The other blogs have serious disclaimers and links to the Food and Drug Administration, and they should, botulism is no joke! So if you are interested in pressure canning please visit the FDA guideline page or the Ball brand site. Let them be responsible if one of you croak. Not to mention the fact that I did not use a recipe, which is how I cook 98% of the time. OK, back to fun and games!

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First I poured the beans out on a cookie sheet and picked out any weirdos or pebbles. Then they got a good rinse and I soaked the beans overnight. This is the lovely ‘proofing’ bucket Sam bought for me. It’s really an all purpose bucket but it’s intended purpose was proofing bread. I also use it to brine chicken. The beans swell up quiet a bit as you can see. They got a final rinse and I put them in the cooking pot.

I used this much garlic and onion…….

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Our peppers were so prolific last year that I still had a couple bags in the freezer. As you can see I was pretty much bored with prepping them before freezing. I have two bags one labeled ‘hots’ and one labeled ‘nots’. I used a combination of both. They came straight from the freezer into the pot. Once they thawed I pulled them out and seeded them.

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I cooked the beans until they were close to being done, about an hour? I seasoned them with cumin, black pepper, bay leaf , salt and a little can of tomato sauce. The tomato sauce made the end product surprisingly red. I swear I only used a little 4 ounce can.

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Because I had cooked the beans so close to being done, I wasn’t too worried about the beans continuing to swell during the canning process. Because of this, I filled the jars pretty full of beans and then topped them off with the cooking liquid. I hadn’t finished putting in the beans in the next photo.

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We used the water bath canning pot to sterilize the jars prior to filling them.

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They process in the canner for 75 minutes at 10lbs of pressure.

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BAM! We have beans for the zombie apocalypse.

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Next on our hit list was chicken stock. See the new goodies we got. OK, I know it’s weird to get so excited over a couple cases of canning jars.

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I got chicken breast on sale for $1.09. I deboned them and turned them into boneless breast and chicken tenders. I then put the bones in a stock pot and cooked it on low for a few hours. I usually add turmeric to the chicken stock. It is so good for you and medicinal that we try to sneak it into our food whenever we can plus it gives the stock a pretty yellow color. I think I forgot it in this batch. We seriously have a bunch of projects happening every day. We decided pint jars would be the most useful. Next time I hope to can quarts, just so I have an option. They get processed for only 10 minutes.

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BAM! 7 quarts of chicken stock.

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With the heat of summer upon us, we are going to try to figure out how to use the pressure canner on the side burner of the grill or maybe a camp burner. There’s no way we can do this inside our little house if it is even over 80 degrees. Our next project will be with the water bath canner. Our amazing neigbors brought over a grip of cucumbers and we are making pickles as soon as the hubs get home from the coast.

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As soon as we finish pickles we are canning lemonade concentrate. I honestly have 3 one gallon ziplock bags full of lemon juice cubes in the freezer and another box of lemons came over with the cucumbers. That way we can have delicious lemonade while holed up killing zombies. I hope you enjoyed this post. Have you canned anything lately? Are you ready for the zombie apocalypse? Leave us a comment and let us know.

Essential Oil Treatment For Athlete’s Foot

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This is my little apothecary. In our home, we have come to rely on essential oils for a variety of things. We use them for cleaning, in our laundry, personal care and beauty products, and for healing. I will share more of these recipes and remedies with you as I continue to write more articles.

Because of the injuries to my legs, I am almost always in comfy supportive shoes. This creates a perfect environment for foot fungus a.k.a. athlete’s foot. Although I never get full blown athlete’s foot, (mostly because I takes measures to prevent it), my feet sometimes feel itchy and not quite right. There are however folks in my family that get it. I love to declare with an old timey bellowing voice, “There’s a fungus among us!”. So I have aptly named this ‘recipe’ Fungus Amongus. Here are the specific essential oils I use and the reasons why.

First let me say a few things about essential oils in general. It is very important that you only use 100% pure therapeutic grade essential oils. Fragrance oils are NOT essential oils. They hold no therapeutic properties and will do more harm than good. I guess I should also say that I have no allegiance to any particular brand. I have Now, DoTerra and Plant life. They all work the same for me. I would however caution you to do some research on brands you are interested in, to find out extraction processes, company ethics, etc. I haven’t got around to it yet but I need to put a notice on my website somewhere that I do not endorse any of the specific brands of anything I use. I’m not that ‘big time’ (yet) to have sponsors, but hope to be some day.

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  • 100 drops of Melaleuca also called Tea Tree Oil.
  • 50 drops of Lemongrass
  • 50 drops of Lemon
  • 5 drops of Peppermint
  • 5 drops of Oregano
  • 5 drops of Myrrh
  1. Melaleuca- This is a super oil. You can use it for just about everything. During my backpacking days I would carry some with me as first aid in a bottle. Here are the applicable properties for it in Fungus Amongus- Anti-fungal, tissue healing, antiseptic, treats infections, kills bacteria and viruses on contact.
  2. Lemongrass- Anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, soothes aching feet
  3. Lemon- Antiseptic, antibacterial, improves circulation
  4. Peppermint- Antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, astringent, analgesic
  5. Oregano- Antibacterial, anti-fungal, antiviral, anti-inflammatory
  6. Myrrh- Cleansing properties, calms the skin

I put all of these in a dark colored dropper bottle. It fills the bottle about 1/3 full which = .33 oz= 10ml. Always store your oils in a dark cool place to keep them from degrading. Yes I actually count drops. I haven’t figured out another way of doing it yet without wasting a single valuable (and by valuable I mean expensive) drop. Apply 2 to 3 drops to a cotton ball an apply ‘neat’ (without dilution) to affected area. We use it twice a day or so. I even wipe some on my leather flip flops if I feel like they are becoming a petri dish. I used to use only melaleuca but Sam says this combination actually works better.  I plan on using essential oils for most of our medical needs during the zombie apocalypse, so as you can see, I’m stocking up. Who knows, they may also make for good trades.  I really REALLY shouldn’t have to say this but just in case; don’t put it around any sensitive tissue or area ie; your eyes, your mouth, your hoohah, your twig-n-berries, or your butt! Sometimes I really wonder about people.