White Sauce Mix

This is one of my very favorite time-saving mixes using powdered milk! I use this in so many recipes, especially for cream soups through the winter months. The original recipe that I found had butter in the mix which required that it be refrigerated. I decided to make the recipe without the butter and then just add the little bit of butter each time. I was making a large batch of Broccoli Cheese Soup one day because we were having company and I just didn't feel right adding 1 1/2 cubes of butter to the top of my soup and then watching it melt in! I decided I would taste the soup first and then add just enough butter to make it taste good. It turns out that we loved the soup without any butter. Now we use this fat free mix all the time.

You can see that I taped the recipe right to the side of my container to make it quick to mix up another batch when I am running low. I also included the recipe for making Country Gravy using the mix. Originally that was what I was using the mix for most often, now I have adapted many other recipes to use the mix and I don't have room on the side of the container for all the recipes. 

I will share White Sauce Mix recipes a little at a time here on the blog. I'm sure you will come to love this mix as much as I do.

White Sauce Mix
Mix up a large batch—believe me, you'll find a million uses for it. It will become a great time saver.
3 cups non-instant dry milk powder	2 tsp salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
Mix together and store in an airtight container. Use in any recipe that calls for making a white sauce using milk, butter and flour. It is a completely fat free alternative and tastes great! It will store for up to 5 years on the pantry shelf.

Basic White Sauce
Many recipes ask for 1 cup of milk, some flour and a little butter. You can use this white sauce in any of those recipes.
5 Tbsp white sauce mix	1 cup hot water
Whisk white sauce mix with hot tap water in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick. Use in any recipe calling for 1 cup white sauce. Don't add any butter - it is not necessary.

Use Your Food Storage Daily

There are some who are of the opinion that once they have purchased food storage, they want to keep it perfectly hidden away until a major crisis hits. I have a different opinion. After living through some challenging times and needing to pull from my food storage, I have learned that in order for me to know how to cook with what I have at the house and for my kids to be ready to eat what I can cook I really need to be cooking with storable items on a regular basis.

I really appreciate the recent counsel we have received from the First Presidency. They have asked us to store 3 month's worth of what we eat on a normal basis. The key word is normal. If your family normally eats frozen lasagna, canned soups, macaroni and cheese, etc. these are the items you need to be storing at your house.

Your food storage does not need to look like anyone else's. We all eat and cook differently and we need to realize that this means we need to store different items.

If a true crisis hit, you would find comfort in being able to serve what your family normally expects for meals. If you have never served oatmeal for breakfast and all of a sudden that is all you have, you will hear lots of complaining from everyone which won't help the stress levels any.

This is the motivation behind putting together a food storage meal plan that fits your family's tastes and your cooking abilities. Hopefully, you feel like you are getting a great start on your breakfast ideas with the posts I have done this month. I also hope you are beginning to think more about what you could serve for lunch and dinner. Remember that all you need to do is come up with 14 day's of meals and then store enough ingredients to make these meals 6 times to have enough for 3 months.

You can do it -

Gardening Teaches Great Lessons

President Spencer W. Kimball counseled: “I hope that we understand that, while having a garden, for instance, is often useful in reducing food costs and making available delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, it does much more than this. Who can gauge the value of that special chat between daughter and Dad as they weed or water the garden? How do we evaluate the good that comes from the obvious lessons of planting, cultivating, and the eternal law of the harvest? And how do we measure the family togetherness and cooperating that must accompany successful canning? Yes, we are laying up resources in store, but perhaps the greater good is contained in the lessons of life we learn as we live providently and extend to our children their pioneer heritage.” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1977, p. 125; or Ensign, Nov. 1977, p. 78.) This heritage includes teaching our children how to work.

You don't have to have a lot of space to grow a garden. You can plant many vegetables right in your flower beds. My sister even planted tomatoes in 5-gallon buckets on her small patio when she was in college. Stop dragging your feet, if you have been, and plan a garden this week as a family. Get everyone involved - it's much more fun that way!

Source: James E. Faust, “The Responsibility for Welfare Rests with Me and My Family,” Ensign, May 1986, 20

Flavored Applesauce

Applesauce is a favorite around here.  The kids really love the flavored varieties you can get in the little cups at the store.  A few years ago I had a good friend share this fun idea with me.  She said they used Kool-aid packets to flavor the applesauce they made during canning season.  I knew we had to try it!  My kids love it. (My three boys opened this quart for an after school snack the other day and gobbled it all up.  They didn't even leave any for the baby and I barely had a chance to get a picture.) I add one packet of Kool-aid for about 9-10 quarts of applesauce and then add sugar to taste.  Process like you do regular applesauce. 

You don't have to be a canner to use this fun tip.  You can flavor store bought applesauce too.  Use Kool-aid or Crystal Light packets to add a little color and fun flavor.  It is much less expensive per ounce to purchase a large container of regular applesauce and flavor it on your own than to pick up the tiny little cups.  We package some in small containers and store it in the fridge so it's ready for kids to throw in their lunches. It's also a quick addition to breakfast many mornings.

Pick a flavor and experiment today!

Storable Breakfast - Hearty Whole Grain Pancake Mix

Who can resist a nice hot pancake for breakfast? Mixes make it simple to have a hot breakfast even on busy mornings.  We keep a bag of this recipe in our pantry. This is a from-scratch mix that gives us the whole grains we need and can be done is a flash even on  a day I am racing to get the kids out the door to catch the bus. Drop in a handful of frozen or dehydrated berries to add some fun flavor to these pancakes or just serve with fruit syrup.  My kids love blueberry syrup!

Hearty Whole Grain Pancake Mix
9 cups whole wheat flour	1 tsp salt
4 cups corn meal	1 ½ cups dry milk powder
1 cup sugar
3 Tbsp baking powder	Add:
4 tsp baking soda	water
Mix all of the dry ingredients together and store in an airtight container. To make: Place the amount of mix you want in a bowl and add enough water to make it the right consistency. Stir until combined. Allow to sit for 5–10 minutes and then cook on a hot griddle.

Lessons from Japan

Watching all the news reports about Japan this week, I couldn't help but ask myself, "Would we be ready?"

I don't think there is any amount of preparation that would make you feel ready for the huge tsunami that wiped out entire cities. Any food storage or preparations would be washed away for sure. If something like that were to happen and we were to survive, we would be relying on others for help. I can't help but think we would see miracles as people stepped up to help us. Heavenly Father always blesses those who are obedient to counsel.

All the other families in Japan who still have their homes are facing other dilemmas at this point. They are facing shortages in gas, food, electricity, etc. It is for these families that advance preparation would have been very helpful. The families that took steps to have a 72-hour kit are ready to quickly evacuate if radiation levels require it. The families with food and fuel storage who live far from the nuclear plant can wait out the disaster in the safety of their own homes. The families who had talked through an emergency plan are able to peacefully act and carry out their plan.

I'm sure more lessons will come out of Japan in the next few weeks and months. As for me, I  am taking this as a reminder to go through my 72-hour kit and get it updated. I also want to inventory the food and fuel we have on hand and make sure we have the amounts we will need.

I may never be in a situation like those in Japan, but if I ever am, I want to be one of the families with a plan. Most importantly, I want to be one of the families that can pray to Heavenly Father knowing we have kept his counsel so I can in all confidence ask for His help to pull us through.

I hope these thoughts can motivate you to create a plan for your own family.

Rainbow Cookies

Rainbow Cookies and gold Coins are the perfect treat for St. Patrick's Day!

They take a bit of work, but it is worth the smiles from the kids.

First, mix the dough according to the directions in the recipe that follows.

Next, divide the dough into 6 almost equal portions. You need just a little more red and orange than the other colors. Use gel food coloring to make the colors of the rainbow. I didn't do indigo, but you can try it if you want to - you'll just need 7 portions of dough. Allow the dough to chill an hour or more.

Begin by rolling the violet into a log about 10 inches long. Then roll out the blue into a flat rectangle so that it can roll around the violet log.

Notice my little helper - the kids were really excited to help. I had a pretty sleepless night last night so with my foggy brain I switched the order of my colors. Green should really be next, but our cookies have yellow. Continue doing this with all the colors. Finishing with the red. Red and orange need a little more dough in the beginning because your rectangles need to be a little wider for them to fit all the way around the log.

I carefully pinched the dough so it would fit. I also stole some off the end that was hanging over to fill in the gap you see here. When you have all your colors rolled into a layered log, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill until firm. Slice into thin circles - about 1/4 of an inch and place on a cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 5-6 minutes - you don't want them to brown on top at all.

Cut in half immediately after removing from the oven and then cool on a wire rack.

Fun for St. Patrick's Day or any spring day. They would be great for a letter R preschool day also.

This dough can be made a few days ahead and stored in the refrigerator or you can also freeze it and make it a few weeks ahead. The cookies can also be frozen after cooking.

Cookie Dough

• 1-1/4 cups butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2  teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• gel food coloring

Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix well.

I was tempted to try substituting white bean puree for half of the butter, but I was baking them for someone who cannot have beans so that experiment will wait for another day.

Since you can freeze the butter and the eggs these can be part of your 3 month supply. To freeze eggs, crack them out of their shells and put each egg in a small freezer container. Thaw by placing the container in a sink of warm water. Frozen eggs work great in baking.  You can also fry or scramble them without being able to tell they were frozen first.

Cooking in an Emergency

This newsletter was put together by Michelle Dorrough of the River Heights Ward.

Alternative Cooking Methods to Use During a Power Outage

Because we are never sure how long a power outage may last and when it will occur, it is important to plan how you will store and cook your food if the power goes out.  Most of us are resourceful enough to think of some plausible way to warm our food in an emergency, but we are less likely to have the proper fuel and equipment to do it. 

Here are some recommendations on what things we need to be sure to obtain in order to be able to properly cook your food in the case of an emergency.

PICK YOUR METHOD(S) OF CHOICE:

1.    Outdoor fire pit (outdoor)

2.    Outdoor BBQ (outdoor)

3.    Solar oven (outdoor)*

4.    Fireplace (indoor)

5.    Generator (to power indoor cooking apparatus – indoor or outdoor)

6.    Camp Stove (outdoor)

7.    Gas Stove

8.    Candles / Fondue Pots

9.    Sterno Stove

10.  Indoor butane stove

11.  Electric hot plate plugged into a generator

* For instructions on making a solar oven, search online. There are multiple sites that share simple instructions.

OBTAIN YOUR SUPPLIES (Depends on your cooking method):

Fuel

1.    Firewood

2.    Charcoal (for outdoor use only)

3.    Propane (for use with a propane stove - outdoor use only)

4.    Gasoline (for a generator)

5.    Sterno (for sterno stove)

6.    Other fuel for other cooking methods

Ignition

1.    Matches (kept in a safe water-proof place)

2.    Lighter fluid

3.    Kindling such as a pile of twigs, newspaper, etc.

Other Cooking Apparatus

1.    Foil to wrap food in for tinfoil dinner over a fire

2.    BBQ skewers (commercial, hangers, twigs) for cooking over a fire

3.    Pots or pans compatible with your chosen cooking method

4.    Dutch oven for cooking over a fire

5.    Portable camping grill for cooking over a fire

6.    Hot Pads to remove food from heat source

7.    Tongs to remove the food from heat source

ASSESS YOUR PLAN:

1.    How will weather and seasons (winter, rain, cloudiness) affect my emergency cooking plan?

2.    Can I cook the food we normally have available with my chosen cooking plan?

3.    What is my back-up method if my preferred method of cooking is unavailable for some reason?

4.    What foods do I have that do not need to be cooked in case I cannot use my chosen method(s) for some reason?

Please note that you should NEVER use charcoal or propane burners inside, not even in the fireplace, as the fumes are toxic.  If you plan to use a generator, make sure you test it out to make sure it generates enough power to operate your cooking appliances as well as refrigerators, etc. and calculate how long it will be available.

REMEMBER TO INCLUDE NON-PERISHABLES IN YOUR FOOD STORAGE IN CASE OF A LONGER-TERM EMERGENCY

These suggestions will be most useful in the event of a longer term emergency, as you would probably be better off eating non-perishable snacks or going out to eat if the power outage is not wide spread and lasts only a few hours.  Even in the case of a longer term emergency it is really good to include ready to eat foods in your food storage as part of your emergency cooking plan when the power is out for an extended period of time.  Some examples could include:

Granola Bars, Dry Cereal, Chips, Dried Fruit, Beef Jerky, Fruit Snacks, peanut butter, and most commercially or properly home canned foods*.

(*Discard canned food that looks spoiled, foams or that has an off-odor during heating.)

A simple online search  for "alternative cooking methods" will give you some additional ideas as you put your plan together.

Storable Breakfast - Yogurt Smoothie

Drinkable yogurt or yogurt smoothies are delicious but they can be spendy. This homemade yogurt version costs me less than 40 cents a quart! (You can make this with store bought plain yogurt but it will cost you a lot more.) My boys come racing into the kitchen when I call out that we are having a smoothie for breakfast.

Pour homemade yogurt in the blender. Add frozen fruit. We used a banana and some raspberries this time.

Sweeten with powdered sugar and a little vanilla to taste.

Blend until smooth. Enjoy with muffins for a quick and tasty breakfast!

Making Yogurt with Powdered Milk

Making yogurt with powdered milk is easy to do and very inexpensive.  It costs me less than $.35 to make a quart of plain yogurt and it costs me over $2.00 a quart to buy it at the store.  This is one way that I rotate through our powdered milk storage.  It is completely fat-free and I can use it as a sour cream and cream cheese substitute in my baking.  Many, many people have tried the smoothies I make with it and they can never tell it is 100% powdered milk!

Begin by mixing your powdered milk according to directions in hot tap water. I actually only add 3 cups of water to my blender so I don't make a mess and then I add the final cup of water to my bowl later. I have always used the non-instant powdered milk you can get at the LDS cannery.  (Morning Moo variety of milk will not turn into yogurt.  It is not true milk so will not culture correctly.)

Allow the milk to sit in the blender a few minutes so the foam can rise to the top.  If you look closely, you can see a line where the milk stops and foam begins.

Slowly pour the milk out of the blender into a glass bowl.  The milk will pour out and the foam will stay behind. Add any extra water at this time.

You'll need an instant read thermometer.  Be sure to test your thermometer before using to make sure it registers 212° F in boiling water.  If it is off, you will need to adjust accordingly.

Microwave the milk until it reaches 180° F.  It takes about 7 minutes in my microwave depending on how hot my tap water was.

Allow to sit on the counter and cool back down to about 125° F.  This takes about 20-25 minutes so I set a timer to help me not forget about it.

Once it reaches 125° F, stir in a little plain yogurt with live cultures to use as a start.  You can use store bought yogurt or some of your own homemade yogurt once you have some.

I used homemade yogurt for my start.

Whisk it in well.

Pour into a thermos and close the lid.  Allow to sit on your counter for 4-12 hours.  The longer it sits, the tangier it is.  We prefer our yogurt not as sour tasting so I open it up in 4-5 hours.  You should have what appears to be thick milk.  Sometimes you see a little clear, yellowish whey on top.  Pour into containers and refrigerate when it is done.

You now have plain yogurt all ready to go. Stir in freezer jam for a "fruit on the bottom" flavor. Add frozen fruit, powdered sugar and little vanilla to make a smoothie in the blender. Use as a sour cream or cream cheese substitute in your baking. It really opens up the possibilities for what you can make with your food storage. I'll post more another time about all you can do with homemade yogurt.

Here are the instructions one more time.  I list some troubleshooting ideas at the bottom.

Homemade Yogurt

Reconstitute powdered milk to make 1 quart. (Do not use the "Morning Moo" brand. It will not turn into yogurt.) Heat milk to 180° F stirring constantly, if heating on the stove. You can also heat the milk in the microwave. It takes me about 7 minutes in my microwave. Remove from heat and let cool until milk reaches 120–125° F. Set a timer for about 20 minutes so you don't forget about it. Use an instant read food thermometer to measure the temperature. Mix in ¼–½ cup of plain yogurt with active cultures. Stir with a wire whisk. Pour into a thermos and screw on the lid. Allow to incubate for 2 ½–12 hours on your counter. I've found that when I use plain yogurt from the store it takes 4+ hours to set up. If I use my homemade yogurt as a start, it is often done in 2 ½–3 hours. The longer you incubate the yogurt, the tangier it will be. You know it is done when you open your thermos and you see a small amount of clear, yellowish liquid (whey) on the top and thick white yogurt below. If you still see milk, it needs to incubate longer. Quickly close the thermos so you don't lose much heat and let it sit another hour or more before checking again. Refrigerate after incubating. It will thicken a little more as it cools.

If you have problems having success, it is one of two things. Either your thermometer is off or your thermos does not hold the temperature at 120° F. You can test your thermometer by putting it in boiling water. It should register 212° F. If your thermometer is on, then you can assume it is your thermos and you'll have to try with another one. There are other methods for incubating yogurt. A quick search online will lead you to some articles describing the other methods. The thermos method has always worked for me, it is the least costly, and it requires less steps so it is my method of choice. 

Sunday Postings

Sunday is an opportunity for me to share thoughts from Church leaders that can help motivate us to do our part. The biggest hurdle to gathering food storage is gaining a testimony of the great need there is to follow the counsel we have received. Once we have a testimony, we figure out a way to get it all done.

One of the major responsibilities of the Holy Ghost is to testify of truth. My hope is that as I share truths spoken by our Church leaders over the years the Holy Ghost will be able to testify to you of the importance of this great counsel. As He testifies, I hope you listen and feel encouraged and energized in this great work.

Collecting food storage is doable and can actually be fun. This blog is meant to share that side of it. Check back each Sunday for some inspiration and motivation.

Storable Breakfast - Cornbread

Our family loves cornbread for breakfast!  It is something my husband's family did as he was growing up.  Split pieces in half horizontally, butter and then pour peach nectar over for a great breakfast.  We make our own nectar by blending peaches until smooth.

Cornbread is great for breakfast or served as a side with chili

You can leave your peaches right in the jar to puree them

Split the cornbread in half

Spread with butter and then pour peaches over the top

Enjoy!

You'll want to make a few of these mixes to keep in the pantry.  My 8-year-old can even make breakfast when I have a mix on hand.  Just write on the ziplock bag with a sharpie marker the items you need to add.  I just refill my bags when I make a new mix.

Corn Bread Mix
1 cup all-purpose flour	Add:
1 cup yellow corn meal	1 egg
3 ½ tsp baking powder	1 cup water
1 tsp salt	¼ cup oil
3 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp dry milk powder
Mix dry ingredients together in a ziplock bag.  To make:  Pour mix into a bowl and add wet ingredients.  Mix or stir together.  Pour into greased 8x8 pan.  Bake at 425° F 20–25 minutes.  No egg version: Add ½ tsp baking soda, 1 Tbsp white vinegar and ¼ cup cooked, mashed navy or pinto beans in place of the egg.  Reduce the oil to 2 Tbsp.  If you double the no egg version, cook in two 8x8 pans instead of one 9x13-inch.

Storable Breakfast - Hot Cereal

Hot cereal is inexpensive and easy to store. You can often buy it in bulk and then you can dry pack it in cans from the LDS cannery with the oxygen packs if you want to. We actually store oatmeal that way, but these other varieties I have just picked up at the grocery store. They store for 3+ years in their original packaging so I haven't worried about dry packing them. It also helps me feel I can have a variety of different kinds.

My kids actually request hot cereal on cold mornings. Some like to add brown sugar and others add white sugar once I put some in their bowls. Then we pour a little milk on it to make it creamy. Breakfast is done in about the time it takes to boil water.

As you think about breakfasts for your food storage meal plan, hot cereal is a great option! It does not cost very much per serving and it doesn't take much space to store. Try a few kinds and figure out which ones your family likes before stocking up on them. Also store some sugar and powdered milk to serve with it.

If you are trying to find money in your budget to purchase food storage, shift to eating hot cereal for a few weeks and spend the money you save on other food storage items.

Storable Breakfast - Pancakes

Creating a food storage meal plan can feel a little overwhelming. Let's begin with breakfast since it is the easiest meal of the day.

Who can resist hot pancakes for breakfast? A very easy breakfast to have in your food storage meal plan is pancakes. There are store bought mixes available or you can mix one up of your own using your favorite recipe. Replace the eggs that are called for with dehydrated eggs to make it a "just add water" mix.

Don't forget to also store syrup or jam so you'll have something tasty to serve with your pancakes.

We use about 3 cups of mix for our family so it would take 18 cups (3x6 - remember that you need to have enough of each recipe in your plan to make it 6 times) to be able to serve pancakes once every 2 weeks for 3 months. We like pancakes enough that I store enough to be able to make them once a week. This means we keep 36 cups of mix at our house all the time.

If pancakes are one of your family's favorite breakfasts, you can add it to your plan and then stock up on pancake mix. Easy enough - 

Food Storage Meal Plan

Many people may have been collecting food storage or stocking up on items when they were on sale for quite some time.  Others of you may be new to the whole idea.  I am a HUGE believer in having food storage.  The other thing I really feel passionate about is knowing what I can actually make with the food I have here at the house.

This desire motivated me to search out recipes that could be fully storable - this means that I would have to be able to store all the ingredients at my house.  Some feel that your ingredients need to be shelf-stable.  I have come to realize that 99.9% of the time that you need to be using your food storage the electricity is fully functioning.  For this reason, I count my freezer as an essential food storage tool.  I do keep some meals that are fully shelf-stable, but plenty of other meals require that I use my freezer.  You need to decide for yourself.

The most recent counsel from the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to store 3 months' worth of what your family eats on a normal basis and then a year supply of basics such as wheat, beans, and rice.  We are going to focus on the 3-month supply.

To come up with what you should be storing to cover 3 month's worth of meals, first determine 2 weeks' worth of meals, snacks, and desserts that you could store and then just store enough ingredients to be able to make these meals 6 times each.  This will give you 12 weeks of meals which is about 3 months.  I will be sharing plenty of recipes on this blog that you can use, but you can also think about some of your family's favorite recipes.  Many of these can be stored - you may just need to make a few slight changes.

Most of you probably already have some meals that fit in this category.  Think about what your go-to meals are. You know, the ones that you always know you can make because you always have the ingredients on hand.  Spaghetti is one that is easy.  All you need is a can of sauce and a package of noodles.  You can also store some meat and shredded cheese in the freezer to make it a little more fancy.  Pizza is one of our meals.  I always have what we need to make some kind of pizza.  Pancakes is another option.  Once, you begin thinking about it, you'll surprise yourself with what you can do.

When you have a meal plan, you have the peace of knowing just how to ration that food you have to last as long as you need it to.  You also know there are recipes that you know how to cook and your family actually loves.  In this uncertain world that we live in, you never know when you will need to pull from your stores.

I cook these food storage meals on a regular basis so I am constantly rotating through my supply and nothing is getting too old.  I also use the ingredients in other meals that I make so I just do an inventory every 6 months or so and re-stock up on what I need when I see it hit a good price.

If any of you have any ideas of good recipes that would work, please be kind enough to share -