Ideas for Storing Grains

Grains are the foundation of a wide variety of menus and recipes that you feed your family on a daily basis and should be a staple in your long term food storage plan.

Whole wheat is usually the primary grain most associated with food storage supplies.

But to prevent your family from getting bored eating wheat in every possible recipe, try storing grains of other varieties such as oats, brown and white rice, pearled barley, amaranth (an herb often used as a grain), flaxseed, corn, popcorn, buckwheat, millet, quinoa, rye, sorghum, spelt, and triticale.

Grains are an excellent food storage product for several reasons:

They have high nutritional value and protein levels.

Most varieties can be stored for 25+ years if packaged properly and kept in a cool environment.

Why rotate grains?

The best reason is to accustom your family to eating them. A sudden change in diet which includes mostly grains will upset their digestive systems. Gather recipes that include grains such as breads, cereals, and muffins.

If you do plan on storing grains to use in your daily or weekly menus, it's best to purchase them in #10 sealed cans. But if you choose to store them in 5-6 gallon buckets, an opened bucket will not store long term. Plan to use it within 6 months to a year and keep it closed tightly in a cool dark place, such as the pantry or the basement.

Uses, Types and Storage Length of Some Common Grains

Rolled Oats:

Uses - Breakfast cereal, granola, cookies, filler in meat loafs or casseroles, thickener for soups/stews.

Types - Quick rolled oats or regular rolled oats. Quick oats cook faster but regular oats or steel cut retain flavor and nutrition better.

Storage - If unopened, optimum shelf life is up to 30 years. If opened should be used within 1 year.

Wheat:

Uses - Wheat grass (sprouting), appetizers, desserts, breakfast cereals, crackers, brownies, tortillas, breads, pancakes, muffins, cakes, snacks, in salads, to make vegetarian meat/protein, and any other baking item you would use flour for.

Types - Spring or winter, hard or soft, red or white. Hard varieties have higher gluten (protein) and are better for making breads. Soft varieties have lower protein and nutrients but are better for pastries, pastas, and breakfast cereals. Experiment with different varieties in your recipes to find out what works best for you.

Storage - If unopened, optimum shelf life is 30 years or more. If opened will last about 3 years.  You can add oxygen absorbers, bay leaves, or dry ice to help keep critters out of your wheat.

Cornmeal or corn:

Uses - Grits, cornbread/muffins, mush, johnnycake, hush puppies, breading on fried items.

Types - Steel ground or stone ground. Most common is steel ground which  has husk and germ almost all removed. It loses flavor and nutrients but has a long shelf life. This is what you will find at the grocery store. Stone ground retains more of the husk and germ but is more perishable. Cornmeal can be found in white, yellow, red, and blue varieties. Yellow and white are the most common.

Storage - If unopened, optimum shelf life is 5 years. If opened cornmeal will last about 1 year. Whole corn, either freeze-dried or dehydrated, will last as long as wheat - about 25 years.

Enriched White Rice:

Uses - Rice pudding, cereal, casseroles, side dishes.

Types - Bleached or unbleached. Both have had their bran and germ portions removed and are “enriched” by adding back some of the lost nutrients. Bleached has been chemically bleached while unbleached goes through a natural bleaching process.

Storage - If unopened, optimum shelf life is 30 years. If opened, about the same.

Brown Rice:

Uses - Brown rice can be used for any dish in which you would use white rice. The advantage to brown rice is that it has more flavor (even without adding anything to it), and it's definitely more nutritious.

The bran layer contains a small amount of oil, so brown rice has a shorter shelf-life than

white rice.

Storage - Store uncooked brown rice at room temperature up to 6 months, or refrigerate or freeze for

longer shelf life.

Pearled Barley:

Uses - Thickener in soups and stews, in sides or casseroles similar to how you would use rice.

Types - You can buy pot barley which retains more of the nutritious germ and bran, but it has a shorter shelf life. Pearled barley is recommended for long-term food storage.

Storage - If unopened, optimum shelf life is about 10-15 years. If opened, it's good for about 18 months.

Sources:  www.family-survival-planning.com and www.usarice.com

Southwest Black Bean Pasta Salad

Spring is here and summer is just around the corner! That means gardens will be growing soon. I love salads - potlucks through the summer are my favorite since there are usually so many salads to choose from. It is no surprise to my family to have a salad of some kind on the menu most nights during the summer. Many times, I let it be the main dish. 

Since we eat lots of salads, I like to have a lot of recipes to rotate through. Here is a new favorite! It will make great use of your salsa garden ingredients. I took some of our favorite homemade salsa ingredients and stirred them together with pasta then I created a dressing to compliment all the flavors. I took it to the first potluck of the season and had many requests for the recipe. I hope your family and friends enjoy it as much as mine do.

Southwest Black Bean Pasta Salad

Ingredients:
8 oz salad pasta of your choice, cooked

2–3 large tomatoes, chopped

½ cup chopped green onion

½ cup chopped green pepper

3 cups cooked black beans

1 ½ cups frozen corn, thawed

Dressing:

¼ cup lemon or lime juice

¼ cup vegetable oil

4–5 Tbsp chopped cilantro

1–2 tsp minced garlic

⅛ tsp cayenne pepper

⅛ tsp cumin

Salt to taste

Combine pasta, tomatoes, green onions, green pepper, and black beans in a large bowl.  In a small bowl, combine the dressing ingredients. Drizzle over salad and toss to combine before serving.

FAMILY HOME EVENING IDEAS FOR PROVIDENT LIVING

Preparedness, when properly pursued, is a way of life, not a sudden, spectacular program.  We should refer to all the components of personal and family preparedness, not in relation to a disaster, but in cultivating a life-style that is on a day-to-day basis its own reward.  (Spencer W. Kimball)

Family Home Evening is an ideal time to introduce and carry out provident living activities that will become life styles in your family.  Following are a few ideas for this.

Food Storage

Food storage, in addition to basic survival necessities must include things that your family likes and will eat. 

Make a couple of weeks of menus together and note what your family likes.  Be sure to include breakfast and lunch as well as dinner.  If nobody will eat oatmeal for breakfast why would you store it? (Except to make cookies). After you have looked the menus over, make a list of foods to include in your storage.  Teach your children that it wouldn’t be provident to go out and buy everything on the list all at once in the quantities that you would need for storage.  Decide on one item to purchase by the case each week to slowly build up your supply.  That evening you could go as a family to the store to buy your first case of food for your storage.  If you already have some food storage you could make the treat for that evening using items from your food storage.

Meals from Food Storage

As a family look over what you have in your food storage.  This would need to be done the night before the meal preparation.  Decide on a meal that could be made from the items on hand and then have your children help to make that meal for dinner.  Be sure that you don’t forget dessert.   You might want to discuss additions to your food storage after this activity.

Snack Mixes

Snack mixes can be expensive and often contain something in them that one (or more) of your children won’t eat.  The solution to this is to make your own snack mixes.  First look in your pantry and see what you might have on hand.  Then take the family and go to a store that has a good selection of bulk food and choose a few things that go together and that everyone likes.  Things that you might include are pretzels, goldfish crackers, m&ms, cut up dried fruit, nuts, popcorn and cereal.  Get snack sized Baggies and then divide your snack items up into different combinations and bag them.  You are set for individual treats in the car, school lunches and after-school snacks – all at a fraction of the cost of purchased mixes. (Thanks to Tammy Price for this idea.)

Alternate Cooking

Cook your meal in a Dutch Oven for Family Home Evening.  There are many recipes on the Internet for main dishes, breads and desserts.  Your children can help put the food into the Dutch Ovens but an adult will need to take care of lighting the coals and attending the food as it cooks.