Eating what you store

[arbilad]

I've resolved to eat more of the various things I've stored. In the past I've made tortillas and a lot of other things from scratch to practice using my wheat. But I've never used the beans much, other than the refried bean flakes. Honestly, I figured that since I knew how to cook with beans, I didn't need to practice much.
A few things influenced me to change that. First, last year one of the local church farms offered a huge discount on black beans that had had too much moisture and had thus split, making them unable to distribute them at the level of quality they normally did. So I bought a fifty pound bag thinking that it would be a cheap way to extend my grocery budget. The second reason is that I decided to make a concerted effort to eat more fiber, and black beans are an amazing source of fiber.
What I discovered is that while yes, technically I know how to cook beans, I didn't actually know many recipes for them. I've been on an amazing journey of discovery as I try new bean dishes. Right now I have some baked beans going in the oven (using pinto beans, not black beans). I'm looking forward to trying home made baked beans. I've made refried beans, chili (which I've actually made before), soup, etc. There are a lot of wonderful things that you can do with beans.
The moral of the story is that it pays to cook with and get familiar with various elements of your food storage, even if you think you have the skills to cook it in case of disaster.

[arbilad]

BTW, one thing I learned is that when you cook beans at high altitude, you need to use baking soda to help soften them, or cook them in a pressure cooker before adding other ingredients. A traditional soak or cooking will leave them hard.

[DMGNUT]

What altitude are you at?

[arbilad]

About 5000 feet.

[Earthling]

I live at 5000 feet too! I follow high altitude directions on food packages such as cake & brownie mixes to get them to turn out right.

[iggy]

I lived in Kingman AZ for about one month - at 3,333 feet in altitude. I never could get a potato to bake or boil till they were done. When fried they got done though. Yet the baked and mashed potatoes in the restaurants we ate in, they were done through! Go figure.

Aribald, your post has encouraged me to utilize my food storage. We will have to pay a $100.00 increase in our monthly lot rent come this April, plus we HAVE to pay down on one of our credit cards - the one with the HIGH interest rate. So I have to curtail purchasing the 'good sales' on store-able foods & hygiene items. My favorite canned chili, canned green beans and corn, stocking up on my body wash and facial cleanser and face/body moisturizers. For the past 3 months they have been BOGO free plus I get $3.00 off coupons on purchase of two. Did a reorganizing of my hygiene storage and I have 8 bottles of the body wash and four bottles each of the face cleansers and face moisturizers and 3 each of the large pump bottles of the body moisturizers. I use the lavender/chamomile/ylang ylang fragrance, Hubby uses Unscented. These are the Aveeno brand. Yes it tends to be spendy, that is why I hunt down coupons and take advantage of sales. Even the BOGO at half price or the B2G1 free plus coupons off really help with the cost.

I have quite a variety of seeds (alfalfa, mung, lentils, etc.) and enough to sprout weekly for several years - those will be our fresh greens. Have plenty of instant mashed potatoes and shredded potatoes. Time to open up and use the sweet corn and green beans. The Asparagus was opened and it is NASTY! THAT is going into the Nutri Bullet with the grinder blade and turned into dust to season soups, gravy's and possibly added to freshly ground wheat when I make noodles and maybe even bread sticks. Time to gather the FD veggies and put together stir-frys. Still have a #10 can of FD chicken chunks. A year ago I unearthed the large container of Great Northern Beans. These beans were so old, they never cooked tender. I ground them up into flour and now I add that flour to freshly ground wheat to make soft bread sticks. Also use the bean flour to add to freshly ground flour to make beef gravy, added to thicken stews. They make fantastic noodles to serve with left over shredded pot or pork roast gravy w/onions, celery, & carrots all chopped in. I also took some dehydrated onions that had sat opened and turned into a rock. Ground it up in my blender, added it in when I added the bean flour to make the noodles. They were wonderful.

Was rearranging my counter high, front door freezer and discovered three 4 lb bags of chicken breasts. One bag cooked & chopped will be made into Hubbies favorite Mexican Tomato Chicken Soup (28 two cup servings). I sprout garbanzo beans and cook them up for 1/3 of the soup, and sprout & cook Anasazi beans for 1/3 of the soup. Health wise I add Chia seeds to all of my soups and stews. One tablespoon per serving. So for the Mexican soup I make I add 28 tablespoons to the batch. This batch of soup ends up in 3 stock pots!

Have frozen tiny bay scallops - these are local and they are so amazingly sweet and good. The only sauce I cook and serve these with is garlic, fresh basil & butter. My local Safeway store will sell me the nectar only from the fresh scallops. They only charge me a $1.00 for a pint! This is what I cook the frozen scallops in along with the butter and herbs. Also found three 2 pound bags of med-small (50-61) cooked shrimp. Added to FD stir fry is good.

Once I have rotated & are using my dehydrated/FD foods, then I will only need to shop for fresh meats and those frozen that come on really good sales. Two years ago I did some serious shopping at Bi-Mart. Got Marie Callender's snack sized brownie mix, corn bread mix and a variety of cookie envelope mixes. The snack size got overcooked in my smallest pan 8x8x2. The regular size envelope mix of brownies and corn bread were really too much for just the two of us. I bought a set of Pyrex glass Serve and Store at Freddy's for 1/2 price plus a store coupon at 10% off. The largest rectangle piece is 1 quart, then the next one is 3/4 of a quart. The round ones are 1 quart and 3 cups. These are microwave and oven safe. The 1 quart is the perfect size for the snack size cakes. Finally bought two cookie sheets that are the smaller size. My oven is small. Can not cook a 20 pound turkey in it, it is that small.

[arbilad]

That's a great plan, Iggy. There's a special feeling about practicing cooking with food storage. And it is also a healthier way to eat. Although lately we always have more cooking projects we want to do than we have time to do it. Tonight, for instance, I am going to try to find time to make wheat bread with steel cut oats added.
The next step is learning how to use my lentils. Soup comes to mind, but man cannot live by soup alone.
When on my mission in Ukraine I had lots of practice cooking in small ovens. They didn't even have temperatures on the dial, you just guessed.

[iggy]

Soak your lentils overnight, then in the morning drain (save the liquid and use it for your soup stock, feed it to your dog(s), water an outside plant with it) rinse well, drain and let sit for at least 8 hours. By sprouting them this little bit you will get almost 75% more nutrition from them.

Grind dry lentils into flour (I have a small coffee bean grinder I use to grind tiny seeds and rice into flour) and add a cup or so to your bread.

Sprout your lentils.
Lentils come in many colors and various sizes. They are all beautiful and delicious!
Nutritional info:
Vitamins A, B, C and E
Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Phosphorus
Amino Acids
Protein: 25%
RECIPES: Raw
Curried Lentil Sprout Salad (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/saladsandsides/curried_lentils.html)
Lentil Bulgur Salad (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/saladsandsides/lentilbulgur.html)
Sprouts and Salads (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/saladsandsides/salad.html)
Spicy San Francisco Snack (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/appetizers/sf_spicy_snack.html)
Herbed Bean Sprout Snack (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/appetizers/herb_sprout_snack.html)
Gazpacho (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/soups/gazpacho.html)
Tropical Gazpacho (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/soups/gazpacho_tropical.html)
Cooked
Sprouted Bean Rice Pot (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/entrees/sprouted_bean_rice_pot.html)
Sprouted Bean Burgers (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/entrees/sprouted_bean_burgers.html)
Awesome Potato Salad (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/saladsandsides/awesome.potato.salad.html)
Peasant Omelet (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/breakfast/omelette.html)
Minestrone (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/soups/minestrone.html)
Hungarian Vegetable Soup (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/soups/hungsoup.html)
Spiced Sprouts in Mustard Sauce (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/entrees/spiced_in_mustard_sauce.html)
Sprouted Beans in Garlic Sauce (http://sproutpeople.org/recipes/entrees/sprouts_in_garlic_butter.html)

These all come from http://sproutpeople.org this site as well as https://www.wheatgrasskits.com/ are great. Their prices are okay - though a store in Lincoln City, OR called Trillium Natural Foods http://trilliumnaturalfoods.net/ has better prices, and is an easy drive for me. I put together a list of sproutable seeds for a RS Evening Meeting several years ago. If anyone is interested I have it saved as a PDF file, if you pm me with your email address, I can email it on to you. Oh, I made the Hungarian Vegetable Soup for that night - Thought I would have plenty of leftovers for the Missionaries to take home - Everyone had seconds (one serving was 1.75 Cups) and they wanted more!! It called for Beanies Awesome Mix which has these beans: Green, Crimson & Red Chief Lentils, Green, Marrowfat & Yellow Peas, Beige Garbanzos and Adzukis. The only one I can't get is Marrowfat Peas. I multipled the receipe by 6- we had 25 sisters there. Didn't use the wine, used V-8 juice in place of tomato juice and I reduced the amount of cabbage, & used pre-shredded. Used canned dice tomatoes rather than fresh and added two extra cans to replace the cabbage. For the soup I made at home, I added cooked diced chicken, and I let the peas & beans sprout for almost two days longer. I wanted them really sprouted, plus I added Mung beans.

[PhoenixRising]

About 5000 feet.
I'm at about 4000 feet and I have no trouble soaking beans. Perhaps you just need to soak them longer? I usually soak them 24-48 hours so that the sprouting process begins, which unlocks more of the nutrients in the bean.

[arbilad]

I've left them soaking for more than two days on occasion.

[NoGreaterLove]

I just opened two cans of Crisco lard dated 08/2008. It was perfectly good. I used it in a fryer for fish. No bad taste. However, I had a can dated 8/2008 that I opened a year ago and it was rancid. So when you open it, you better use it or it will go bad.

[PhoenixRising]

I've left them soaking for more than two days on occasion.

Maybe those were the rocks you sometimes find in your beans... ;-)

[iggy]

I ground the FD Asparagus bits the other night. A #10 can was reduced down to approximately 2.5 cups of dust. I was cooking Turducken, instant mashed potatoes, instant gravy + canned gravy and fresh steamed broccoli for the Missionaries and the elderly neighbor Lady. (found out she is only 5 years older than me!!! Elderly{giggle, snort}.

I debated whether I should add a tablespoon(s) of Asparagus Dust to the potatoes and or gravy. Decided not to since the missionaries have never had Turducken, neither had our neighbors whom I also invited. Didn't want to do an overload of new stuff on them.

BUT I didn't bat an eye, or hesitate one bit to use the water I steamed the broccoli in to mix up the gravy. Fixed four cups of gravy, and now only have 3/4 C. left over. I sent the missionaries home with a large Rubbermaid container full of left over Turducken & dressing+ the turkey legs in a baggie.

Oh, for desert I did Orange Jello made with the syrup water drained off two cans of Mandarin Oranges + water. Hubby doesn't like any flavor jello, the the rest of us finished it off. Oh, did two large boxes of Jello.

My BIL sends us either a Turducken or a Black Forest Ham for Christmas. Turducken's are a royal pain. I much prefer my birds done separately!

[iggy]

In the process of switching banks and having to wait until the money taken from old crappy bank to open new and hopefully much better bank goes through the new banks 7 day process time, I can't go shopping for fresh foods. Before I totally close out old account, need to make sure the direct deposits are making it into the new account. Also, bill paying is on hold too, until the old check to open new account clears. I printed off the entire history at the old bank - and did the math. They show 60.89$ more than I show. On paper, paying the bills due this month will leave us under 100.00$ until the next deposit of our major money on the fourth Wednesday of the month. This is why I added up 4+ months worth of grocery store purchases. I know I spent a lot of money on food/supplies/pet supplies.

Adding up all the money spent at grocery stores since March 7, 2016 until July 22, 2016. Food/household items [non-edibles but necessary stuff]/ pet food & litter/ etc. Total cost 4,353.78$ Works out to approximately 967.479$ a month. YIKES. Yeah, YIKES!! A lot of it is in food storage. Like the TP. When one of the stores had the Cottonelle brand, 12 pack of double rolls, on sale for 4.99$ with a store coupon-no limit I bought 6 packages. Gave one to the Missionaries and put the rest in the clothes closet. Well, I no longer have room on the uppermost shelves for anymore TP. We are now set for about a year to year and a half!

When kitty litter was on sale @ Safeway on Friday's for 5.00$ for a 20# jug- no limit, I bought 4 to 6 jugs at a time. They ran that sale for nearly two months. Boxes store better - can stack. But the jugs were the better buy. Ended up storing them on their sides on the floor of my clothes closet. TP on the uppermost shelves, kitty litter on the floor, clothes in the middle.

We need to eat the foods that are stored. Not wait for a catastrophe or calamity. I have enough canned Salmon for roughly one meal a month for about 10 years. Canned fish lasts 10 years longer than other canned foods. Often there isn't even a Sell By/Use By/ Etc By date. Take the cans of the various sea foods to your computer. Enter the company - and on their website search using the code stamped on the can. That will bring up the canned on date. Add ten years to that, and put can(s) back into storage. At the year you marked on your can, it may taste a bit metallic, or not as fresh/strong as the day you purchased it. That doesn't mean it is bad. Just that it isn't as fresh tasting as if you had opened it up and ate it 10 years earlier.

Canned salmon - Mom made salmon patties using all the parts (except the black skin). The bones were separated and crushed then added back in. For lunch for Dad, Grandma, herself and any child that was home sick and wanted to eat it, she would mix up two or three cans and make a salmon loaf, served with fried potatoes-n-celery-n-onions and petit pois peas. Problem is Hubby doesn't like Canned Salmon. He'll eat it, but he won't eat enough to fill him up and then he will fill up with flour tortilla's -n-peanut butter.

Canned sardines - eaten on toast or crackers, for lunch. Hubby won't touch them.

Canned clams - made hearty chowders for lunch or dinner. Hubby won't eat it.

Canned oysters - made chowder, or scalloped for holiday dinner side dish. Hubby won't eat it, plus he acts like I am trying to poison him.

Canned tuna - sandwiches, or several cans (2-4) made into casseroles. Hubby will eat this, BUT not enough to fill up with.

Mom never had FD or dehydrated anything until my older sisters came across Sam Andy cheeses. Those she sprinkled on her hot popcorn! BLEH!!

Okay, so I have food storage galore. I have a serious need to reduce my grocery store spending. Does anyone know of an app or internet link where I can enter what is in my food storage and it can tell me what kind of meals to make???

[arbilad]

I know apps that track what you have, but not what you make with it. The closest I know are apps that you tell it what meals you want to prepare, and it compares what is in your pantry, then tells you what to buy at the store.

[iggy]

I know apps that track what you have, but not what you make with it. The closest I know are apps that you tell it what meals you want to prepare, and it compares what is in your pantry, then tells you what to buy at the store.

I would be interested in that arbilad.