Continue reading]]> I have these lovely local heirloom beans in my garden.  They start of green and then turn a pretty yellow color when they are ready to pick.  My family loves to eat them (I even eat them raw, without cooking them).  However, one bush creates a lot more than we can eat in a reasonable amount of time.  So, I sought out how to freeze them with the least amount of work possible while still maintaining their color, texture, and taste.  I don’t see any reason to blanch them if you use this method, as long as you reheat them with water, they should taste great.  Here’s the steps for how to freeze green beans without blanching:

Step #1: Pick and Wash

Dry as well as possible before bagging up.

Step #2 Chop

Chop of the top and bottom of the bean and then cut beans in half for bite sized pieces.

Step #3: Freeze

Simply put in a freezer bag and freeze for up to 6 months.  You can keep adding beans later as you pick them!

Please post a comment if you have any questions and I would be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.  Thanks for looking and good luck with your gardening this year!  Sorry about the somewhat blurry photos.  My camera’s memory card broke and i had to use my cell phone which at least is consistent about one thing – blurry photos.

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I’ve always wanted a food dehydrator, but I don’t really have anywhere to store it and would only use it a few times a year, so I don’t really think it’s a necessity.  I have made dried fruit and fruit leather successfully in the oven with cookie sheets and I think it’s a delicious and easy way to dry fruits and veges.

HOW TO MAKE DRIED APPLES IN THE OVEN

The first thing I did was core 5 red apples, then I thinly sliced the apples with a mandolin into a big bowl filled with 2 cups water and 2 T. citric acid. I chose not to peel the apples as it takes too long and I like the skins anyway.

Next I put the apples close together on a cookie sheet with holes in it.  I can only find these locally at the Bosch Kitchen Center, so hopefully you have one of those near you.

Next just sprinkle a very light coat of cinnamon and sugar on the top. Then I stack cookie racks on top of the cookie sheet.  You can use both racks of the oven.

Bake at make at 200 degrees for 60 minutes to 2 hours or until all liquid is gone from the apples but they are not completely brittle.

If you can’t find the cookie sheets with holes, you can just use cookie racks on a regular cookie sheet (don’t put apples on the cookie sheet)  just as successfully and you can stack them too, so that’s a plus!  Just make sure you can stack them before you start this process.

Cool apples for a couple hours on the counter or just turn the oven off and leave them in there for 3+ hours.  Next, simply bag them in a ziploc bag for later use.  These are so delicious!

You could use any type of fruit or vegetable with this method.  I think bananas and mangoes would taste really great!

Please post a comment if you have any questions, and I will try to answer them as soon as I can.

Continue reading]]> Last week, I had a neighbor friend whose family was sick and they are also gluten and dairy free.  I decided it was high time to bring some comfort food over and nothing sounds more comforting than creamy soup on a cold night!  Or, really any time for that matter!   So I went on a hunt for a gluten free chicken soup recipe since this had to be very family friendly. Our family really liked it and so did theirs.  I also served it with some ham and cheese open faced sandwiches. These gluten free ciabata rolls were used. They are soft and really good!  I keep some on hand at all times in the freezer for when I have a soft bread emergency, which happens at least once a month.

The recipe was altered from here to make it GFDF. If you are not allergic to gluten, by all means, make the linked recipe.  I took out and added some things from the original recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

1 stick Earth Balance butter substitute
1 onion chopped (I used a handful of dried onions from LDS Cannery)
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped carrots (I also used dried from the LDS Cannery)
3/4 cup gluten free featherlite flour
6-8 cups chicken stock
2 cups cooked wild rice
1/4 cup diced bacon (I used the food storage again!)
1 pound chicken breast, cooked and shredded (I also used LDS Cannery chicken)
1 T.minced garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp curry powder (yum!)
1/2 tsp parsley flakes
black pepper to taste
2 cups unsweetened almond milk

DIRECTIONS:

1. Melt butter in a large pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Stir in the onion, celery and carrots and saute for 5 minutes. Add the flour and stir well. Gradually pour in the chicken broth, stirring constantly, until all has been added. Bring just to a boil, reduce heat to low and let simmer.
2. Next, add the rice, chicken, salt, curry powder, mustard powder, parsley, garlic, and ground black pepper. Allow to heat through, then pour in the almond milk. Let simmer for 1 hour. (Note: Do not boil or your roux will break.)

Continue reading]]> I love the silky smooth consistency of a good split pea soup recipe and as an added bonus, my kids really like split pea soup despite the bright green color!

It’s a healthy, hearty, and satisfying soup and a go to meal for me when I’m preparing recipes from my food storage.  I canned my own split peas a few years ago (I borrowed the sealer from the cannery).  I used a ham bone purchased from my local Sprouts Market, but maybe you have some dried ham in your food storage that you could use… or even bacon… yum!  I personally think already cooked bacon should be in every family’s food storage because it adds so much flavor and texture to recipes.

The inspiration for this recipe, came from here at Southern Food. It was adapted to fit my own personal food storage, but I think anyone can adapt this recipe easily to their own family’s tastes and preferences.  It was very easy to make.  I would say it took less than 30 minutes of my time and the slow cooker did the rest!

The split pea soup recipe can be found below.  As you can see, I garnished my soup with a dollup of dairy free sour cream and soy cheese.  It was tasty…  mmm….

Please post a comment if you have any questions.  Here’s a good immersion blender and here’s post about how to freeze celery. I use the freezer to preserve celery and use for food storage. It’s very handy!

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My local Smith’s grocery store was having an awesome awesome awesome sale a few weeks ago that I heard about on Facebook from one of my friends.  It was $5 (select) items for $5 or some others for $5.25.  When you check out, you get a $5 coupon to spend later.  So, what did I do?  I got up at 6 am when Smith’s restocks and I cleaned out all the Smith’s stores in my area, of course!  I got 200 items for less than $5 (plus I got $4 off my gas purchase) so it was basically free!  I didn’t use ANY coupons.  What a great food storage run.  Here’s a picture of what I got (not everything was pictured…  there’s also fruit snacks and totinos pizza and some random other things).  Now where do I put it all?

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I am a Mormon.  We have been counseled by our Church leaders for years to keep a year’s supply of food to help our families in case of an emergency or job loss.  We haven’t had an emergency or a job loss, we just have all this food storage and I don’t ever use it.  It’s cheap, it’s healthy, and it’s just sitting in our cellar in the basement collecting dust, so I figured I’d give eating food storage a whirl.  The extra money doesn’t hurt this time of year during the holidays.  I think we’ve saved about $400 so far in one month by eating our food storage.

I must say, I have really enjoyed eating it!  I didn’t think I would.  I haven’t heard one complaint from my kids.  They are eating healthy and they love it.  I might want to keep this up!  I like to collect good food storage recipes and this is one of them.

Granola is very healthy and hearty and will keep you full until lunch time.  It’s so much healthier than boxed cereal!  It’s gluten free (as long as you use GF oats).  It’s also a nice thing to eat with yogurt or on top of ice cream.

We have really enjoyed this recipe.  We used the cannery apple slices for the dried fruit for one batch and then made another batch with dried blueberries from Costco.  We served it with a banana and the grape juice we canned last month.

Make sure to store it in an airtight container.  I like  It will last for a couple months if you don’t eat it all by then!  This amount lasts about a week in our family of 5.  I like this one. We try to reduce cancer causing plastics in our life, so we use more glass.  It is heavier though, so keep that in mind.  This granola weighs about 10 pounds!

Continue reading]]> This month our family is living off of food storage (we have a one year supply).  Why you ask?  Well, there’s a few reasons.  First, we need to save money.  Second, because we need to rotate the storage we have and badly need to clean out the freezer and pantry.  Third, it’s good to know how to use food storage in case of an emergency or job loss.

Now, my personal experience of living off of food storage for 2 weeks has been a lot easier and better than I thought it would be.  We reserved a very small amount to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and I have been able to get $3 15 pound cases of fruit at a local fruit stand which I have been making jam out of and canning applesauce and what not.  It has been a blast and I love learning these new skills and giving away the canned items to friends!

I didn’t run out of anything this week, wow!  I’m getting into a routine with it and it’s not that bad to live off of food storage, in fact, it’s fun!

So, the next living off of food storage recipe I’m posing is stuffed green peppers.  I had a large bag of qunioa in my pantry that I bought at Costco a long time ago because Dr. Oz told me it would change my life.  It’s not changing my life just sitting in the pantry so I made something with it.  It was totally yummy and different from what we usually eat.  My husband and I loved the recipe.  One kid loved it and the other 2 sat at the table for an hour trying to choke it down.  Yes, we’re THOSE kind of parents that make their kids eat the food that was prepared even if they don’t like it.

So quinoa is a grain that is very high in protein and very healthy for you.  It’s round and has a consistency of millet kindof sortof.  I like it a lot.  It’s very dense and filling.  It’s round like a little ball and has a hull on the outside that comes off when cooked.  It’s tasty, you should try it.   Not only because Dr. Oz said so, but because it’s fun to try new things!

Here’s what the filling looks like when it’s all made up.  We used green peppers from our garden as well as a few from the fruit stand for .25 cents each.  Now, let me tell you, this recipe is really really filling.  One green pepper will easily feed 2-3 people, so keep that in mind.  I used the cannery ground beef (which is absolutely fabulous, you need some) and dried onions as well as tomatoes from the gardens and some of the canned variety from our storage.  You can use fresh ingredients if you wish.

Now, just so you know, this recipe is naturally gluten free, yay!  It is not dairy free and my husband hates “fake” cheese, so I made one with vegan cheese for me and one with “regular” cheese for him as you can see in the photo above.  So, this can easily be made gluten free and dairy free without much thought.  I like not thinking, I’m good at it.

This would be an easy and delicious recipe to make for company.  It also makes yummy leftovers.  If you don’t like green peppers, the meat and quinoa sauce would be fabulous on a baked or mashed potato!

If you need a good boxed gluten free breadcrumbs, these are great for a variety of things.

**Positively Mommy occasionally provides recipes and other information about food preparation. Please keep in mind that it is the reader’s responsibility to determine the value of these recipes, nutritional and otherwise. It is also the reader’s responsibility to determine the safety of the preparation instructions. Recipes are prepared “at your own risk.” We assume no liability, obligation, or warranty with respect to these recipes. Positively Mommy is not responsible for any damage, medically or otherwise, that could result from preparation of these recipes. Visitors must take care to check the instructions provided and determine their value and any possible medical condition that may arise from the preparation instructions and consumption of the ingredients listed in this site’s recipes.

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This month our family is living off of food storage to save money for a trip to Disneyland.  We also wanted to get an idea of what it was really like to only eat food storage and to see where we were strong and where we were weak in terms of what we store.  As part of our LDS (or Mormon) religion, we have been asked by our leaders to keep a year’s supply of food and other necessities to protect us against disasters or job loss.  We have tried to follow this counsel and now we’re trying to see how we can improve!

This week has been interesting.  While I thought we had a generous one year supply, I’m quickly learning that we are running out of a lot of things on THE FIRST WEEK!!!

Here’s what we ran out of:

Laundry Detergent

Bananas

Vanilla extract

Dishwasher soap

Tissues

Cooking spray

This has opened my eyes a lot to what we really need and what will get old really fast.  For example, the beans I used in the taco soup did not soften because they were too old.  My friend told me in this case you can only soften them in a pressure cooker.  You can cook them for days regularly and they will never soften.  So, good to know I should have a pressure cooker!  I will be getting this one after we go to Disneyland.

We had guests who stayed over for a couple nights.  I was a little embarrassed to tell them of our plan to eat from our food storage while they were here.  I don’t know why I was embarrassed because they didn’t care, but I guess I thought the food I would be serving them wouldn’t be very good.  They were very gracious however!  We had taco soup one night (they didn’t make it for dinner that night, but our family ate it), chicken and rice the next, and rice pudding for breakfast.

I have enjoyed cleaning out the pantry of things I’ve meant to cook for a long time, but haven’t.  It’s great to rotate the older items in our food storage as well as learning how to cook and prepare dried and canned foods.

I will try to post the recipes for the other things we’ve made, especially the overnight rice pudding because it’s a great cereal substitute.

As I mentioned before, the beans didn’t soften all the way.  The kids loved it though, there were no complaints and we served it with fresh peaches that we got at a local farm (we budgeted a small amount to buy fresh fruit and dairy items).

**Positively Mommy occasionally provides recipes and other information about food preparation. Please keep in mind that it is the reader’s responsibility to determine the value of these recipes, nutritional and otherwise. It is also the reader’s responsibility to determine the safety of the preparation instructions. Recipes are prepared “at your own risk.” We assume no liability, obligation, or warranty with respect to these recipes. Positively Mommy is not responsible for any damage, medically or otherwise, that could result from preparation of these recipes. Visitors must take care to check the instructions provided and determine their value and any possible medical condition that may arise from the preparation instructions and consumption of the ingredients listed in this site’s recipes.

Continue reading]]> Living off of food storage is a challenge for me.  Our family is LDS (Mormon).  Our leaders have asked us to keep garden as well as a year’s supply of food in case of an emergency or job loss.  It feels good to be prepared!  We have a serious garden and we have had our food storage and our year’s supply for many years, but I hardly ever think to use it because it’s way down in the basement on the other side of the house in a cold storage room.  There are many things in our food storage that need to get rotated and many things I’d like to try making from them but haven’t had the time.  Now is the time!

Our kids have been bugging us to go to Disneyland.  We told them they could go if they didn’t complain and ate food storage for the next 45 days so we could save money and so we could learn how interesting living off of food storage can be.  We will get to try different kinds of foods and most of them will be really healthy!  They eagerly agreed.  We go to Disneyland in 45 days, just enough time for us to complete this challenge.  I’m really excited about it to see if what we have is sufficient.  Most of my food storage is from the Cannery and I have borrowed the canner/sealer from the cannery and canned some of my own things (like beans).  We have set aside $25 a week for fresh fruit and milk.  And because my daughter and I are gluten free, we don’t have any regular flour, so we will be buying glutenous bread as well with that $25.

Our first recipe was taco soup from our storage.  It was a huge hit and our 8 year old who hardly eats a thing said “it was so good!”.  Whew.  Day 1 success.  I will post the recipe soon.

Disclaimer: **Positively Mommy occasionally provides recipes and other information about food preparation. Please keep in mind that it is the reader’s responsibility to determine the value of these recipes, nutritional and otherwise. It is also the reader’s responsibility to determine the safety of the preparation instructions. Recipes are prepared “at your own risk.” We assume no liability, obligation, or warranty with respect to these recipes. Positively Mommy is not responsible for any damage, medically or otherwise, that could result from preparation of these recipes. Visitors must take care to check the instructions provided and determine their value and any possible medical condition that may arise from the preparation instructions and consumption of the ingredients listed in this site’s recipes.