Planning

One of the hardest things for me is planning the food. I am a very organized/detailed person. I have to have everything written down or put into a table on the computer so I'll understand it. I got started with Food Storage Made Easy their button is also on my blog. Anyhow, they have great ideas and got me super excited to start, but I needed an even more basic start. So I made a table in word. I made the columns and rows so it resembled a calendar with 7 columns for days of the week and rows enough that I could made a 30 day plan. On Food Storage Made Easy they have an awesome Excel Spreadsheet that helps you calculate what you need. It's awesome. GO GET IT HERE. But even before doing that I needed to have 30 days worth of meals planned. So I followed their advice, create 30 meals and repeat them 3 times. Boom 90 day meal plan. I'm picky about my food. Mostly my dinners. I rarely repeat things in a month. I know, I'm a brat. But coming up with 30 dinners all willy nilly didn't work for my organizer brain. So this is what I did:

Here is Breakfast (they can be repeated--I'm not that creative)



Here is Lunch (I'm not picky about that either)



But then there is dinner, I needed an easier way to plan, so this is what I came up with:




I took each day of the week and replaced it with a food Genre, i.e. Chicken, Beans, Hamburger, Pasta, Beef/Fish, Mexican, Other. That made it easier, so then I only needed about 4 dinners per genre. Easy Peasy. So this is what I have so far. It's my first plan, I'm going to post recipes for all this stuff, and possibly replace some things. But this is what I have stored for now.

Storage

I have had a problem with food storage from the beginning. I don't like canned vegetables, I don't want to eat all of my meat from a can, how do I get to enjoy potatoes? The list goes on. Then it hit me. It should have been clear but my view finally shifted in my head. Three month supplies are supposed to be of food we EAT. I don't EAT canned crap. Unless I can mix it with other stuff. However, I do eat frozen crap . . .I mean food. Anyhow, I usually freeze most of my meat anyway, why not just get three months worth. So we waited for our Tax Return and we set out to buy a freezer. At first we thought we'd want a smaller one, but then my oh so wise husband and also sister convinced me otherwise. GO BIG OR GO HOME. Or just go as big as you can afford and have space for. So this is what we got:



Kenmore 8.8 cu. ft. Chest from SEARS

We got it on sale for $263.99 + tax

One of the best things we ever purchased. This is why I now have a 30 day supply. It's now full of bacon, butter, chicken, hamburger, roasts, peas, corn, spinach, potatoes, fish, ham and chocolate chips.

Originally I wanted a freezer so I could make homemade wheat bread and freeze it. I no longer have room. If you want to do that you might want to upgrade.

Trader Ming's Mandarin Orange Chicken

When I'm doing food supply, I want it easy, with the least amount of ingredients. So here goes--Mandarin Orange Chicken. I get this from Trader Joe's for $4.99. Oh what your city doesn't have one? Boy that's sad. I'm sure you can find something where you live. Anyhow, I can feed my family of 6 on it, but not for long. I'm going to have to double it soon, then we'll have leftovers.


Ingredients:

Trader Joes's Mandarin Orange Chicken (from the freezer section)
Rice



Cook rice (get a frickin rice cooker--it's easy and better than that minute rice crap)
and heat chicken in pan with a bit of oil


Diggity done.


Now that's how I do food storage

Intro

Hello. I've decided to have yet ANOTHER blog. As of now I've decided to keep myself anonymous. Why? I don't know. Well I do know. I told my friend that I was going to have a blog about food storage and she said:

"When the @$%! hits the fan, they'll come to your house because they know you have food." To which I said:

" I live in a major metropolitan city, if the first person doesn't get me, the second one will"

But she planted the idea, so for now I'm anonymous. But if you figure out who I am, don't tell anybody. It will be fun. Come one, just play along.

Anyhow, as my topper says . . . I googled "Three Month Supply" and I didn't find what I was looking for. I wanted specifics. I want to know exactly what that family is eating, how often, what ingredients, and how they were storing it. In my search I did find a few good website which I will link once I get my crap together. This blog may be a bit slow going, since I really should be doing other things. Like mothering. But in the end I'll produce some valuable information. And I welcome input. If you have an idea, or have found a good resource--let me know! I want this to be beneficial to many people. Also, I'm toying with the idea of having multiple authors. So if you have your junk together and want to share what you've done--Drop me a line. But if you just have random bits you want to post, I'll just link to stuff.

Also, I'll be posting recipes and they won't all be food storage. Face it, food storage stinks. It's nice and all, but really---I'm not a big fan of canned vegetables. Who is?

So welcome, I hope I this helps somehow.