As I was laying in bed last night about to fall asleep it dawned on me that the food storage we need to do for my special diet needs and Pierce's is pretty much Paleo with some rice/potatoes/dairy added in. That means we need to focus on dried fruits, nuts, canned meats, dried and canned veges and any kind of raw organic dairy that is storable (which right now is pretty much zero dairy!). Some of this I have been doing, raisins are great in sealed bags and pouches, I food-saver seal up nuts and have a bunch plans to can tomatoes and green beans in the next few weeks.
What we have not been doing is saving any kind of canned meats, I think I will start picking up some kipper snacks and sardines every time I grocery shop and see if I can find any good brands of other kind of canned meats and buy them in bulk at Sam's club. I am also going to explore canning my own meats as well. Its a relief to think this way because I was beginning to think if we didn't store grains and corn my family would starve. And grains and corn make at least 2 of us very sick, so that was a lose/lose proposition.
I also got an inspiration to actually reserve the paloepreppers.com web name so that in the future if I can find some others who are like me (which seems pretty unlikely at this point!) we can have a place to talk about how we non-mainstream eaters can stash away food for emergencies and just to save money in general.
I am reading a really good book on Paleo eating called "Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat" . I actually got it for free as my kindle loaner book (thanks again Steve!) for the month and it is a wonderful instructional book with lots of recipes and idea included. It also has ways to save money, cook all your own food and making the bulk of it in one day to eat for the week, which is kind of how we do things around here already. it is so good I will probably end up buying it to keep. She does keep it a lot lower carb than we can with 2 thin growing children so I will add in my usually dairy and extra fruits and some starch for the kiddos as well, plus some of our cocnut flour goodies that I bake regularly. The book also gave me some really good ideas for stuff to keep on hand preparedness wise as well as just for being able to whip up a fast yummy nutritious meal. All in all if you have a special diet or even if you don't and are just interested in moving toward a more healthy eating style I recommend you check it out.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Dejunking is prepping too!
I am on a mission to get my house organized and de-junked and our prepping stuff more easily accessible. I am spending 15 minutes (or more) a day cleaning out cupboards, organizing supplies and just making things easier for us to grab and go if needed. I am getting back into writing, so I am going to blog daily as an exercise in consistency. Some on this blog and some on my other personal blog that I tend to ramble on with my health issues. Keeping them separate allows me not to bore people to death!
Each day I come across so many reasons to be prepared and so many good ideas that I want to implement. So for now it will be baby steps, 15 minutes of cleaning and writing a day, and learning to dream and have goals again. I am starting a nice list of "wants" for our prepping and everyday life and I am going to save for things that overlap on both lists. My new addition for today is a Sun Oven that Mary Hunt reviewed. I thought that would be a wonderful addition to our home now and for preparedness.
I still feel like I am lacking in community and friends, I spend most every day home alone not really talking to anyone, which is a nasty by-product of being such a hermit for the past few years. Unfortunately, I couldn't choose not to be sick and my illness took all I had leaving me nothing to give anyone, and barely enough to do even the basic care for my family. Mood swings and general crankiness probably chased a few people away as well. As I am climbing out of that health pit I am slowly moving back into the world and craving some companionship and more importantly community or kindred friends to share my time and my life with. Lets hope I can collect some more along the journey.
The garden is going really well, our tomato plants grew absolutely huge for some odd reason, like 6.5 ft tall and 3-4 feet across. We are just starting to pick the ripe ones, but with 10-12 of those enormous plants I am going to be drowning in tomatoes pretty soon. In other news the peppers and spices are also taking off. We already froze up one batch of basil/oregano/garlic seasoning cubes and there is enough basil to do another one of those. I think I may package them up and give them as gifts this Christmas. With our new lower budget I need to get creative for gift giving! It has been a short but productive summer and I feel like I am moving forward for the first time in years.
Each day I come across so many reasons to be prepared and so many good ideas that I want to implement. So for now it will be baby steps, 15 minutes of cleaning and writing a day, and learning to dream and have goals again. I am starting a nice list of "wants" for our prepping and everyday life and I am going to save for things that overlap on both lists. My new addition for today is a Sun Oven that Mary Hunt reviewed. I thought that would be a wonderful addition to our home now and for preparedness.
I still feel like I am lacking in community and friends, I spend most every day home alone not really talking to anyone, which is a nasty by-product of being such a hermit for the past few years. Unfortunately, I couldn't choose not to be sick and my illness took all I had leaving me nothing to give anyone, and barely enough to do even the basic care for my family. Mood swings and general crankiness probably chased a few people away as well. As I am climbing out of that health pit I am slowly moving back into the world and craving some companionship and more importantly community or kindred friends to share my time and my life with. Lets hope I can collect some more along the journey.
The garden is going really well, our tomato plants grew absolutely huge for some odd reason, like 6.5 ft tall and 3-4 feet across. We are just starting to pick the ripe ones, but with 10-12 of those enormous plants I am going to be drowning in tomatoes pretty soon. In other news the peppers and spices are also taking off. We already froze up one batch of basil/oregano/garlic seasoning cubes and there is enough basil to do another one of those. I think I may package them up and give them as gifts this Christmas. With our new lower budget I need to get creative for gift giving! It has been a short but productive summer and I feel like I am moving forward for the first time in years.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Latest News
So, been a while since I blogged, things have been crazy here with health issues, financial changes and in general being busy with the kids and summer.
We have our 3 containers of water filled now. I am slowly stocking up on other necessities, we have sugar, Sugar leaf that I got for a good deal in bulk, some fruit dried, nuts, coconut flour, raisins and other shelf stable stuff that I come across in my shopping journey. We discovered that blueberries make really good fruit leather that needs almost no sugar, we bought 20 lbs and froze about 15 lbs and made the rest into fruit leather. Five lbs of berries makes very little leather! We will need to remember to eat it sparingly.
We are still dealing with the special diet issues and finding ways to store food to eat with no wheat, corn, oats or other grains. I did buy some dried buttermilk and am looking into butter powder although I know that has to be used within 6 months or so. I think the easiest way to use that will be to start cooking with it. Will still rely primarily on frozen food storage, which is good for a few day or until it all starts thawing. I figure if that happens we will have a great big BBQ and cook all the meat we can. we would like to get some kind of portable generator as well, and with that we could actually take a few days to dry everything we have frozen for a bit longer storage.
Our biggest problem right now is that our storage room turned into a complete disaster very quickly and we need to reorganize it again so that I can get in there and keep the food rotated and organized. the nice shelving unit we bought it already full. I think we are a bit of pack rats around here. I am trying to shift that to a prepping type pack rate and get rid of useless stuff we do not need or use. I revamped our plastic storage container cupboard today and actually store all the container with their lids on them, what a difference that makes when we go to grab a bowl or box to put things in! I plan on bullying my husband into tackling the storage room together this week or next weekend.
We are continuing to make survival bracelets, let me know if you want to purchase any we do special orders and have almost every color there is. I prefer them as ankle bracelets so we make those as well.
We have our 3 containers of water filled now. I am slowly stocking up on other necessities, we have sugar, Sugar leaf that I got for a good deal in bulk, some fruit dried, nuts, coconut flour, raisins and other shelf stable stuff that I come across in my shopping journey. We discovered that blueberries make really good fruit leather that needs almost no sugar, we bought 20 lbs and froze about 15 lbs and made the rest into fruit leather. Five lbs of berries makes very little leather! We will need to remember to eat it sparingly.
We are still dealing with the special diet issues and finding ways to store food to eat with no wheat, corn, oats or other grains. I did buy some dried buttermilk and am looking into butter powder although I know that has to be used within 6 months or so. I think the easiest way to use that will be to start cooking with it. Will still rely primarily on frozen food storage, which is good for a few day or until it all starts thawing. I figure if that happens we will have a great big BBQ and cook all the meat we can. we would like to get some kind of portable generator as well, and with that we could actually take a few days to dry everything we have frozen for a bit longer storage.
Our biggest problem right now is that our storage room turned into a complete disaster very quickly and we need to reorganize it again so that I can get in there and keep the food rotated and organized. the nice shelving unit we bought it already full. I think we are a bit of pack rats around here. I am trying to shift that to a prepping type pack rate and get rid of useless stuff we do not need or use. I revamped our plastic storage container cupboard today and actually store all the container with their lids on them, what a difference that makes when we go to grab a bowl or box to put things in! I plan on bullying my husband into tackling the storage room together this week or next weekend.
We are continuing to make survival bracelets, let me know if you want to purchase any we do special orders and have almost every color there is. I prefer them as ankle bracelets so we make those as well.
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