Creative Food Storage

The wheat berries we purchase come in food grade plastic buckets, so we save them up. Each bucket holds a different item beans in one, rice in another and lentils in a third, and so on. This works well for us. We’ve also stored them inside those big plastic storage tubs. While not food grade, they do work, especially for food that is already wrapped in plastic (like beans and rice). These things are all easy to store and you can hide them out just about anywhere. Closets, under the beds, and placed like that. Don’t be afraid to use these areas of extra space as temporary pantries.

I have a bunch of gallon sized glass jars that I use to store enough of the items right in the kitchen. When empty, I just refill them. I store them in the pantry. They work fine there and I can just pull them down and use as needed. I got the gallon jars from Freecycle, but since my kids LOVE pickles, I’ll probably start buying 1 of the big gallon jars of pickles every couple of weeks so I can get more. When they get empty, they get filled back up from the more long-term storage.

There are so many ways that you can store your food in your home. Just get creative! Hide food storage under beds and other big furniture. Inside closets, your garage, barns and out buildings. The important thing is to make sure they are rodent and bug proof. There’s nothing more frustrating than to be in a situation where you need the food only to find it’s been infested by bugs or eaten by rodents.

Root Cellars

Root cellars can come in many forms. You can dig a formal root cellar to store your foods in, this is a pretty simple way to do it, but it does require a lot of work. There are lots of videos online that you can find out how to build a root cellar. Here are a few examples:

To read more about root cellaring, I can highly recommend the book, “Root Cellaring” by Mike and Nancy Bubel. It is available in most bookstores and at Amazon.

Other Underground Storage

You can also bury a big plastic or metal trash or barrel can to use as a “root cellar”. You could have several of these located around your property with each one storing a different vegetable. These are really simple to build and maintain and are a quick and easy solution to storing garden produce for the winter. Below is a video on how to make one out of a 55 gallon plastic barrel.

Another way to create underground storage is to bury old refrigerators and or freezers. These make good underground food storage containers. Below is a video for making one out of an old refrigerator.

You could easily do the same sort of thing with an old freezer. If you don’t have any of these laying around, you could probably find a few by using Freecycle or simply asking around. You can usually get these for free or very inexpensively.

I have also seen people bury shipping containers, the refrigerator units off of ice cream trucks and things like that. Another popular way to create underground storage is with old military “bury” boxes. These come in a variety of sizes and are great for storing food and supplies underground. There are so many ways to create underground storage cheaply and easily, so this is a great option for storing your food and supplies.

Above Ground Storage

Above ground storage of food can be anything from barns and outbuildings, which are simple ways to do it, to more elaborate or unusual storage containers. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box. Shipping containers can make fantastic above ground storage and can be had relatively cheaply.

Whatever you do for above ground storage, you will want to make sure it is insulated to help keep the food from getting too hot or too cold. It should also be vented in such a way that hot air can escape. You will also probably want to build shelves to help store the items efficiently.

Recommended Storage Times

The recommendations at the link below are helpful to keep in mind when storing food and to help you know how long you can store for and when you need to use the item up by.

https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/information_center/storage_life_of_foods.htm

Dehydrating the Harvest

Several summer ago we began dehydrating food for future use. We’re doing not only for our stock up supplies, but it’s also a great way to preserve food when you can get it at an abundance inexpensively. It lasts forever nearly (lol!). We dried blueberries, bananas, celery, apples and even made some apple leather with applesauce. This year we even made BBQ flavored squash chips! We lay the food out on the dehydrator and it does the rest. We have 3 dehydrators, 2 are Excalibur dehydrators and the other one is made my Mr. Coffee. They all work well, although I like the Excalibur dehydrators best. We bought one at a garage sale for $0.25 and the other one we bought from Marty’s boss for $50. They work like a dream! The Mr. Coffee one, we bought years ago to make venison jerky with. The reason I like the Excalabur best is because of the square trays and each tray is lined with a small weave plastic mesh, so food doesn’t fall through as it gets smaller from the drying. The Mr. Coffee one, has that problem. Most of the celery we dried this time fell through and so I had celery on nearly every tray. Not that big of a deal, but it creates more work.

After the foods are dry, we put them into canning jars and the jars using our Food Saver. We have a Wide-Mouth Jar Sealer and a Small-Mouth Jar Sealer that we use. You simply put this on over the jar ring and lid and attach the plastic tubing to the Food Saver. They you push a button and all the air is sucked out of the jar. Works great and helps to further preserve the food. Then all you have to do it just open the jar when you need the items and you can vacuum seal it again and again. This works great on things that you don’t use often…keeps them nice and fresh. If you have a vacuum sealer that will use the jar sealers, I can highly recommend them! They are easy to use and there are SO many uses. We use them for storage of course, but we also use them to marinate meats (works GREAT for marinating meat to make into jerky!), storing other items like sewing trims, etc. Here’s a fun thing to do with the kids. Put a large marshmallow in the jar and suck out all the air…see what happens!

After I seal the jars, I just put them on shelves out direct light (a pantry or cabinet). We use them by adding them to food we’re cooking. For example, the kids love the apples in their oatmeal. So, I just throw a handful in while the oatmeal’s cooking and they reconstitute in the oatmeal. We just add a bit of cinnamon and stevia or agave and we have a healthy breakfast! Or we just eat them as is. My boys love the banana slices and squash chips as snacks! Another great use is to dry peppers of all kinds and then grind them up in a coffee grinder. We then can use it easily for seasoning food. My husband loves to mix ground jalapeno with finely ground real salt to put on his steaks. YUM! Oh and dried watermelon is absolutely fantastic! It come out tasting kind of like cotton candy….lol! Dehydrating food is a great way to preserve food and a has so many uses. Give it a try!

Stocking Up for Emergencies

Stocking up for emergencies is not just something that end of the world preppers do.  I remember how crazy it got during Y2K and all the stuff going on with that. We need to think calmly and make a plan.  Stocking up for emergencies is wise,  especially on staple items. You never know when you may have to face a job loss, illness, or an unexpected expense where money gets really tight.  Just recently, many Americans faced just such an unexpected emergency–hurricane Sandy.

Stocking up for emergencies can be as simple as keeping a 2 week stock of food on hand just for those purpose. I stock up on foods that can be kept for a long time. Beans and rice are good ones, but also things like canned tuna, chicken or other meats. When I see staples like onions, peppers, tomatoes or potatoes (and the like) on sale, I stock up and dry them or freeze them. I’ve got canning jars filled with all sorts of dried veggies, all ready to use at a moment’s notice.

Another thing I do is keep 2 weeks worth of menus that just use dried and/or staple items. That way if I need to use those staples because I can’t afford to buy food that week, I have recipes all ready that I can use. This makes it much easier for me. Whenever I see things on sale that are included in those recipes, I pick them up and stock up.

Nearly everyone can plant some veggies, even if you live in a small apartment. We’ve lived in a tiny apartment, but we were still able to grow at least a few things. Every little bit helps! We’ve lived in everything from a tiny apartment to a tiny trailer, to our 3 bedroom home with 37 acres. No matter where we lived, we managed to grow some of what we eat. I also think it’s really important to stock up on seeds to grow. We save seeds from what we grow, and so we hardly ever have to purchase seeds. We know that our seeds are organic/heirloom and GMO free. So, we can insure that the food we grow is not genetically modified in anyway…just the good stuff that God planned for us to eat.

I really think stocking up for emergencies is a good thing, no matter what the economy is doing. It’s a wise thing to do.  I’ve written a short e-book on the subject.  It’s called Food Storage Basics and it’s available in Kindle, Nook and PDF formats, best of all, it’s only $0.99!!

I think this is an excellent topic for discussion. Food and gas prices are rising at an alarming pace, and I know that there are people out there that are hurting because of it. Tell me what you think! Are you stocking up for emergencies? If so, why and how?

Lime-Cumin Pickled Jalapeno Slices

My husband has a thing for pickled jalapeno slices.  He uses them on everything.  While Lime-Cumin Pickled Jalapeno Slices isn’t his favorite recipe, it comes in a close second.  These are really good and they have a nice southwestern flavor with the mixture of lime and cumin.  While these aren’t lacto-fermented/pickled they are still healthy and made from scratch!  They’re good enough to eat straight from the jar and are delicious on top of nachos and other Mexican foods.  I love canning/pickling with my water-bath canner.  I often can up a mixture of item through out the growing season.  We enjoy a wide variety of pickled vegetables and pickling is a great way to preserve the harvest for months to come.  Canning your own is also a lot less expensive than buying the fancy pickles from the store or specialty shop.  They also  make really great gifts for Christmas.

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Linking With: Fresh Bites Friday, Friday Homemaking Link-Up, Finer Things Friday