August Goals

August is almost here and it's time for a new month of goals.  Focus on what you can accomplish and what your budget allows!  And remember that you need to store what your family uses. I give suggestions, but the ultimate decision of what to buy and store is up to you!!

3-Month Supply Goal

  This month you need to organize your kitchen.  Being able to use your 3-month supply in everyday cooking means being able to know what you have.  Having a place for every item makes day-to-day food preparation simpler.  Take notes on what items you need to shop for and keep a shopping list in view so you are reminded of what to watch for during sales.

Water Goal

  Add baby wipes and pre-moistened wipes (Wet Ones wipes) to your storage.  These are very effective for cleaning and showering without using your precious water storage. If you don't have access to water the wipes will allow you to take a sort of sponge bath.  In times of stress it is amazing how the feeling of being clean is to our sanity!!

 

 

 

Financial Reserve Goal

  The case lot sales are coming next month and you can get some amazing deals on bulk food!  Set aside some money this month to use in September for the case lot sales. 

Long-Term Supply Goal

  This month we will be focusing again on GRAINS. This category encompasses a wide group of items so we are breaking it down into two months worth of goals.  Pick one area to focus on and get a year supply of that grain.  Don't feel you have to have the amounts given in each category, only buy what your family eats!!

Amount to store for 1 adult for 1 year: 
Wheat 150lbs               Rice 50lbs
Flour 25lbs                   Pasta 25lbs
Cornmeal 25lbs
Oats 25lbs

Emergency Preparedness Goal

  This month you need to add or inventory your first aid supplies.  If you currently have a first aid kit, look through it and check that the bandages will still hold if used.  Add a couple bottles of hydrogen peroxide to keep cuts clean and to disinfect surface areas.  There are many pre-packaged kits that are affordable and widely available.  Keep a kit in your car and a small one at work.

Don't forget about the Prepare Your Ark Preparedness Fair THIS Friday and Saturday, August 5th & 6th, at Honeyville Grain.  They are located in Salt Lake City at 635 N. Billy Mitchell Rd.  Take I-80 West and take the Wright Bros. Drive. Head north and make a left turn onto Billy Mitchel Rd.  This fair is FREE!!!!  AND there are amazing giveaways and amazing information!!!  Don't miss it!!  Click HERE for more info on classes!!

Enjoy the Journey!

Enjoy the Blessings!

    Feel the PEACE!!

Prepare Today Homemade-Classic Macaroni Salad

Happy 24th of July!!  For those readers not in Utah, this is the day we celebrate our Pioneer Heritage.  It's as big as the 4th of July!

Today's recipe is all about the bbq side dish, Classic Macaroni Salad.  So if you are headed to another bbq makes this quick and healthy side dish.  This recipe comes from Familyfun.com (a really helpful website)

This is the macaroni salad you know from childhood: sweet and zippy, creamy and comforting. Use a good quality whole-wheat macaroni, and nobody will even know it's in there, but along with all the veggies, it'll tip this old standby towards wholesomeness. A couple of finely chopped hard-boiled eggs is a welcome addition, as long as nobody in your family is averse to them. Recipe by Catherine Newman
Total time: 20 minutes
Yield: Serves 8-10
Ingredients (switch out fresh for dehydrated ingredients to make this storage friendly)

1 pound whole-wheat elbow macaroni, boiled until tender in heavily salted water, drained, rinsed in cold water, and drained again 

1 1/2 cups coarsely grated carrots (about 2 large) (use dehydrated carrot)

1 cup diced celery (about 2 stalks) (use dehydrated celery)

1 fat scallion, sliced in half lengthwise and slivered (use dehydrated green onion)

1 cup Hellman's or Best Foods mayonnaise 

1/4 cup white vinegar 

1/2 cup sugar 

1 tablespoon hotdog relish

1 tablespoon yellow mustard

3 teaspoons kosher salt (or half as much table salt) 

Freshly ground black pepper 

2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Directions

1. Combine the pasta and vegetables in a large bowl.
2. Whisk together the mayo, vinegar, sugar, relish, mustard, salt, and pepper, pour this over the salad, add the parsley, and stir together gently. The salad is good like this -- but it's even better if it gets a chance to sit in the fridge, covered, for an hour or two.

See all recipes from Catherine Newman's "Dalai Mama Dishes" blog.

I Dare You To Eat It

I dare you to eat it!  Is that how some of you feel about the food you have stored in your basements?  If a time came when you had to eat and use your long-term storage, you would probably wish you had had a system of using your food storage in your everyday life.  Liesa Card wrote a wonderful book called "I Dare You to Eat It" and I was lucky to hear her speak{at Honeyville of course!!}on how she does food storage.  

Liesa freely admits she doesn't like to cook and is too busy to spend all day in the kitchen. She has come up with a system that works for her and she wrote her book to share it all with others.  Liesa encourages us all to store what we use and not store mystery food that we would maybe need in an emergency.  (sound familiar?)  Food storage needs to become a lifestyle, not a big project we keep meaning to do.

Liesa stores a years' worth of the basics (wheat, oats, rice, pasta, beans, & potatoes) and makes her dinner menu from these ingredients.  She has a calendar and each night is assigned one of the basic ingredients.  Monday is wheat, Tuesday rice, Wednesday pasta, etc.  It is as simple as adding cooked wheat berries to your sloppy joes, or using your canned chicken in white chicken chili. You can see in the picture, that on the left she lists all the basic 7 ingredients and in the middle are all of the recipes days.  The 3-month ingredients, including the grocery store and all fresh ingredients are incorporated into the monthly recipes. Liesa organizes her recipes in a binder with a tabbed section for each basic ingredient.  Start with a few recipes and add on when you find others that work for your family.  


An amazing tip that I learned was how easy it was to store a years' worth of food for my family.  Liesa gave us the formula to figure out how many cases of the basics you would need to store.  These are the cases of 6 #10 cans that come from the cannery. 

# of people in your family x 2 = # of cases of each of the 7 basic ingredients that you would need for each person in your family


I would need:
7x2=14 cases of each basic ingredient (which = 98 (14x7) cases per person for my family)
The 7 basic ingredients are wheat (count twice to be able to make bread etc), rice, beans, pasta, potatoes, oats. (oats are for breakfast and cooking, Liesa didn't include them in the dinner rotation)

Make it a priority that you will spend your extra money on your food storage.  We really can do without many of the items we sometimes feel are necessities and are really wants.

There are so many ways to store and use your food storage and you need to find what works for your family.  Once you get into the grove of finding, using, and storing, it becomes a part of your everyday lifestyle.  The overall feeling of peace will leave you happy and confident that you can be the one to comfort your children and friends and neighbors!

Liesa Card has a great website idareyoutoeatit.com, check it out! 

I can't tell you how much I learn from going to the classes at Honeyville Grain!  On Tuesday at 11:00 am the class will be all about the electric pressure cooker.  You don't want to miss it!!

Don't forget:  
Honeyville is having the most incredible Prepare Your Ark Preparedness Fair on August 5th & 6th!!  They will have classes, giveaways (a Sun Oven, Volcano Stove, just to name a few!!), demonstrations, food & more!!  On Saturday there will be a free breakfast that includes, eggs, pancakes, hashbrowns, & drinks-all using food storage items!!

Honeyville Classes are taught by the experts in home storage and emergency preparedness.  I encourage you all the attend those that interest you!  They are FREE and so informative (plus we have fun and eat yummy food)!!  I have met some amazing friends in these classes along with learning useful information. 

Tuesday, July 26, 11 AM – “Pressure Cooking – Perfect Under Pressure!” with Lisa Barker.  Wouldn’t we all love to have a little more time in our day?  With an electric pressure cooker you can cut down on the time spent in the kitchen so that you can spend more time OUT of the kitchen.

Upcoming class during August - "Replacing the Five White Deaths", "All About Oats", "Dehydrating", "Coconut Oil-It's A Must", "Canning Basics"

Watch for our Preparedness Fair August 5 – 6th - Classes, Demo’s, Fabulous Prizes - You really shouldn’t miss this event!  Some of the Teachers are: Chef Tess, professional chef and nationally known blogger, Debbie Kent, presenter at BYU-Idaho Education Week, Glen Weeks, Leisa Card & Michelle Snow among others.

Call the store for more information about the classes & fair  801-972-2168 or click HERE to see their website.
Honeyville Grain
635 No. Billy Mitchell Rd.
Salt Lake City

It's the last week of July.  Have you stored you water yet?  Click HERE to see all of the goals for July.

Mix-A-Meal Cookbook

Do you want to spend less time in the kitchen and still make delicious meals for your family?  I know I do, especially in this July heat.  I attended another great class at Honeyville Grain today that was taught by the Mix-A-Meal ladies.  If you haven't heard of Mix-A-Meal, it is a cookbook with recipes for mixes that you make in bulk and then incorporate them into your daily cooking.

With Mix-A-Meal you will:

• Save up to 90% of the cost of commercial mixes by making your own delicious and tasty mixes! 
• Spend less time in the kitchen and enjoy that good old-fashioned taste.
• Lower the preservative content in your foods.
• Adjust mixes as necessary to fit special dietary needs.
• Make a shelf-stable mix for traveling, camping trips or unexpected company.
• Enjoy no-nonsense cleanup.  Just add water or a few simple ingredients.
• Give fun and useful gifts for any occasion (Baby & Wedding showers, Christmas, Neighbor gifts,etc)

The Mix-A-Meal Ladies

I know I wouldn't use a mix for everything I make, but there are several mixes I feel would be handy to have on hand.  The ladies showed us the onion soup mix and then they made a dip and Swedish meatballs with a white sauce with the onion soup mix.  I am not an onion dip fan, but this tasted really good! It didn't have that processed, fake food taste to it.  
Onion Soup Mix 
Combine:
2/3 C dehydrated chopped onions
1/2 C beef bouillon
1/2 C dehydrated butter or margarine
2 T cornstarch
2 t onion powder
2 t parsley flakes
Mix well and store in a quart jar.  Use in any dry onion soup recipe. 1/3-1/4 C of the mix equals one package dry onion soup mix.

These are the mixes that I am going to put together:

• Banana bread mix (I just canned 20 pints of bananas and this will make banana bread a snap to make!!!) 
• Onion Soup Mix
• Waffle Mix (my kids use this all the time by themselves to make breakfast)
• Tortilla Mix (again, don't ask about the first time :) 
• Hot Roll Mix

There are many more in the book, but these are the mixes I feel I would use. You can purchase the book on amazon.com  OR support your local business' and buy it at Honeyville Grain!!  

Honeyville does not compensate me for saying all the good things I do, I just honestly feel they are a wonderful company and they offer amazing products.  Honeyville is having the most incredible Prepare Your Ark Preparedness Fair on August 5th & 6th!!  They will have classes, giveaways (a Sun Oven, Volcano Stove, just to name a few!!), demonstrations, food & more!!  On Saturday there will be a free breakfast that includes, eggs, pancakes, hashbrowns, & drinks-all using food storage items!!

Honeyville Classes are taught by the experts in home storage and emergency preparedness.  I encourage you all the attend those that interest you!  They are FREE and so informative (plus we have fun and eat yummy food)!!  I have met some amazing friends in these classes along with learning useful information. 

Tuesday, July 19, 11 AM – “I Dare You to Eat It!” by Liesa Card.  You love her Wheat Fiesta Salad and now come and find out how easy it is to understand food storage and how it works best for your family.

Tuesday, July 26, 11 AM – “Pressure Cooking – Perfect Under Pressure!” with Lisa Barker.  Wouldn’t we all love to have a little more time in our day?  With an electric pressure cooker you can cut down on the time spent in the kitchen so that you can spend more time OUT of the kitchen.

Upcoming class during August - "Replacing the Five White Deaths", "All About Oats", "Dehydrating", "Coconut Oil-It's A Must", "Canning Basics"

Watch for our Preparedness Fair August 5 – 6th - Classes, Demo’s, Fabulous Prizes - You really shouldn’t miss this event!  Some of the Teachers are: Chef Tess, professional chef and nationally known blogger, Debbie Kent, presenter at BYU-Idaho Education Week, Glen Weeks, Leisa Card & Michelle Snow among others.

Call the store for more information about the classes & fair  801-972-2168
Honeyville Grain
635 No. Billy Mitchell Rd.
Salt Lake City

Check out the goals for July and get your water storage!!

Enjoy the journey!
Enjoy the blessings!
Feel the PEACE!!

Prepare Today Homemade-Asian Sesame Pasta

This dish really has no recipe but I saw it on biterite.blogspot.com and I had to try it!  I'll admit it probably isn't a kid pleaser, but my kids went camping with Dad and I couldn't wait to use my garden greens for this meal.

Asian Sesame Pasta

whole wheat pasta (a mix of whole wheat/white pasta or all white)
mixed greens
green onion
shredded carrot
chicken, cooked
Asian Sesame Dressing (I used the Kraft dressing)

I cooked the pasta, drained it, poured some of the dressing on it and stirred.  (I don't eat chicken, but you would cook it and let it marinate in the dressing while you make the pasta) I layered the pasta, greens, shredded carrot, green onion (and you would add the chicken), and then drizzled a little bit of the dressing over the greens.  

I thought it was yummy and so healthy!  I had a side of strawberries from the garden too!  I love fresh food from the garden! 

Water

I don't know about you, but I LOVE water.  It's the first thing I drink in the morning and the last thing I put in my mouth before bedtime.  I am not a juice or soda drinker and I easily drink 90+ ounces of water per day.  If I don't drink enough water I get sluggish, tired, and I get massive headaches.  (something my kids inherited from me)  I honestly can't live without water!  (I know no one can actually live without water, but I really couldn't :)

Water affects so many parts of our bodies and most people do not get enough of it!  Water makes up about 75-80% of our brains, helps carry nutrients and oxygen to cells, removes waste, protects an cushions vital organs, helps the body absorb nutrients, etc, etc!

WATER.....

• One glass of water shuts down midnight hunger pains for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study
• Lack of water is the number one trigger of daytime fatigue
• A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy, short-term memory, trouble with basic math (so that's why I didn't do well in math classes)  and difficulty focusing on the computer screen
• You lose brain cells if you are dehydrated
• 2 glasses of water after waking up helps activate internal organs
• 1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal helps digestion and helps you eat less
• 1 glass of water before taking a bath helps lower blood pressure
• 1 glass of water before bed helps avoid heart attack or stroke

As you can see water is essential and all of our lives depend on it!  This month our storage goal is to store water, water and more water!  It is a hot month in Utah and if there was an earthquake many of us would become dehydrated pretty quickly.  The best item to start with in your storage is WATER!!!!  Don't wait any longer, store water in juice, detergent, and soda bottles.  Buy 24 packs of water and store some in your car.  If you have the 55-gallon drums make sure you have a pump and also a container to pump the water into.  I never really thought how I was going to get the water from my 55-gallon drum to my kitchen.  I bought a 5-gallon container to use for this purpose.


Store your water today!!!


Click HERE to view all of the goals for July.

Enjoy the journey!
Enjoy the blessings!
Feel the PEACE!

Prepare Today Homemade-Corn Dogs

Happy 4th of July!  Are you headed out for a BBQ today?  Hopefully the rain will hold off, but if you get stuck indoors I have a kid-tested & kid-approved recipe for you today. These corn dogs are really easy to prepare, and to cook, AND so much cheaper than buying them in the store!

tasteofhome.com

CORN DOGS
(allrecipes.com)
1 C cornmeal
1 C flour
1/4t salt
1/8 t pepper
4 t baking powder
1 egg
1 C milk

4 C oil
2 packages hot dogs

Combine the first 8 ingredients and stir.  Heat the oil in a pan. Using Popsicle or lollipop sticks, stick each hot dog onto a stick and pat dry with a paper towel.  

The trick to dipping the hot dogs into the batter is to use a tall kitchen glass.  Pour the dough (you can thin the batter with a little milk) into the glass and dip each hot dog into it, covering completely.  If the dough won't stick to the dogs, try dipping them in flour first then the batter. Fry the corn dogs until golden brown.  Drain on a paper towel.  Repeat for all the hot dogs.  


I have also baked these in the oven at 450 for 10-12 minutes.  The batter tended to flatten out, but they tasted good (my kids approved:)

You need this DELICIOUS honey mustard dipping sauce to go with your corn dogs!!  My sister made it for Father's Day for our sweet potato fries and we almost had to get spoons out to finish off the bowl. Check out the original recipe HERE from Paula Deen!

Honey Mustard:
3/4 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
1 tablespoon lemon juice or juice from 1/2 lemon
Horseradish, to taste
2 tablespoons orange juice (more or less as needed)
Combine all ingredients except orange juice; stir well. Thin to pouring consistency for dressing or dipping consistency for dips with orange juice. Cover and chill for 2 or 3 hours.
Yield: 1 1/4 cups
 

{Check out the goals for July HERE!!}

New Goals For July

Scorching heat, fireworks, BBQ's, and family reunions=July!  Summer is in full swing and it's time for a new set of goals.  This month is all about water and storing lots of it!  It is suggested that you should store 14 gallons of water per person for a 2 week supply. This is the bare minimum for water storage, strive to store as much as possible.    

Goals For July

3-Month Supply Goal: Your assignment this month is to make an entire meal without using electricity.  No mixers, microwaves, ovens, stoves, toasters, you get the idea.  Use your camp stoves, sun ovens, BBQ's, Dutch ovens,  or campfires to cook your meal.  There is no use in having a camp stove tucked away.  Learn how to cook with it BEFORE the emergency!

Water Goal:  This month you need to learn how to shut off your water to your home.  Click HERE to read a great article with illustrations on how to turn off your utilities.

Financial Reserve Goal:  Try using a "cash only" system for grocery shopping this month.  Set a budget and only use your cash for purchases.  It makes you think twice about buying things when you are actually handing over cash and not just swiping a card!!

 Long-Term Supply Goal:  July is one of the hottest months in Utah and we all need to have extra water on hand.  Keep it in your cars, at your work, at home (in several places) and in your garage.  Use all of your soda bottles, detergent bottles and juice bottles to store cleaning water in.  I don't think I can stress enough the importance of having plenty of water stored.  

Emergency Preparedness Goal:  It is camping season and all the stores will have camping gear on sale!  When is that last time you had your family tent out, or aired out your sleeping bags?  Your goal is to set up your tent to make sure it doesn't need repaired or cleaned, and have a sleeping bag for every person in your family.  I would also suggest having a camping pad to go under the sleeping bag.  You will be extremely cold if you sleep in your sleeping on a tent floor.  The ground will seep the warmth right out of your body.  Your other goal is to have a Utah map in your car, with at least 3 different routes mapped out, in case you needed to evacuate quickly.


{Watch for sales this month on all BBQ items including charcoal, condiments, paper goods, etc.  Now is a great time to stock up on them and have them in your pantry to use all year round.}


Enjoy the Journey!
Enjoy the Blessings!
Feel the Peace!!