Peaches

We have access to a wonderful program called Bountiful Baskets in our area.  Every other week I get an opportunity to purchase a BIG basket of produce for a flat $15 fee.

They also offer great prices on boxes of peaches, pears, tomatoes, apples, etc. when they are in season.  This past order cycle they had peaches, and they were beautiful.  I ordered a 22 pound box, but then of course I needed to use or can them up quick.  This is what I was able to do with my box of peaches.

Canning peaches is really quite simple, although depending on how many peaches you have it can also be a bit time consuming.

Canning Peaches

Peaches (freestone so the pits come out easily)
Water
Sugar
Sterile canning jars
Canning lids
Water Bath Canner
Fruit Fresh

1.  First prepare your peaches by dipping them in a pot of boiling water for 30 seconds.  Remove with a slotted spoon and immediately place in a sink full of ice water.  This will loosen the skins for easy peeling.

Blanched peaches

To remove the skins just use a paring knife to lift a corner of skin, and the rest should peel off easily.

Skins removed

Next, cut around the pit to create 2 halves.  Remove the pit and scrape the red fibers off the flesh of the peach.  Slice to whatever size you desire and place in a bowl filled with 1 quart water and 1 T. fruit fresh to prevent darkening.

Fill your jars.  I like to use a jar funnel to make this part easier.

OH so pretty peaches

Pour a light sugar syrup over the peaches to within 1 inch of the top of the jar.  You make the syrup by bringing 9 cups water and 2 1/2 cups sugar to a boil until sugar dissolves.

Once your jars are filled, run a knife along the inside of the jar to let any air bubbles escape.  Fit canning lids to jars and tighten.  Place in a boiling water canner and process quarts for 30 minutes.

Remove jars from canner and let cool.  Make sure your jars sealed before storing. Any unsealed jars can be stored in the refrigerator and used within 2 weeks.

Here is a great link for advice on canning all kinds of fruits.

Get Crackin' - Wheat

So you've got loads of hard wheat berries - how can you make this into a delicious and hearty hot breakfast cereal?  It's really quite simple, and it takes only one tool - a food processor or a blender (they work equally well).

Place 1/4 - 1/2 cup of wheat berries into your very dry food processor and process on high (or "liquefy" in a blender) for 30 seconds to a minute until the berries are all cracked up :)  I like to use the pulse feature to make sure all of the wheat berries encounter the spinning blades.

That's it.  The cracked berries will cook much faster than regular wheat, and will cook up in the same way that you cook rice on the stove or in the microwave. You can use cracked wheat to make hot cereal, add it into bread, or cook it up and use as a meat filler.  I even have a jell-o recipe that calls for cracked wheat.  I'll share that recipe soon.

Not that you need it, but here is a short video of wheat getting cracked.

Dehydrated Bananas

I found bananas on sale this week for $0.33 pound.  So I purchased the above bananas for less than a dollar and decided to dehydrate them to make a great snack.

This is my trusty Magic Chef food dehydrator that I purchased about 15 years ago on sale for around $20.  It works great for drying fruit and vegetables and making fruit leather, but it is a little noisy as it runs.

First I slice up the bananas about 1/8- 1/4 inch thick.  It's important the pieces are uniform in thickness so that they dry at the same rate.

Then soak the sliced bananas in a mixture of 2 cups water with 1/2 T. Fruit Fresh dissolved in it.  This will help keep your bananas from turning too brown (although they will be brownish when done drying).

Lay the bananas out on the trays. My machine has 5 trays, which I like to spray with cooking spray to make removing the fruit when it's dry easier.

Stack the trays onto the dehydrator base and start it up.  Depending on the thickness of your fruit and how dry you want it, it will take anywhere from 8-15 hours to dehydrate them.  I prefer my bananas to have a little chew and pliability to them when they are done.  This batch took just 8 hours to dry.

Enjoy your chewy, nutritious, and delicious snack!

So, How Much Food Storage Do I Have Under the Stairs?

Well, I've been wondering lately just how long our family of 6 could last using the food storage we have on hand.  Although I have a pretty good idea of how many cases of #10 cans I have stored, sometimes it's difficult to get a real good feel for just how long that could feed us. And what about all the pantry items I have - and all the frozen food (although I know this would not last long if we were without power for more than a day).  Then I ran across a really cool tool called the "Food Storage Analyzer" on the Preparedness Pantry Blog, so I gave it a try.

To start out you have to enter data about who will be using the food.  This is just everyone in the family's age and whether they are male or female. This sets how many calories the family will consume during a day.  For our family of 6 we consume 11,200 calories per day.  It then directs you to pages (via tabs at the top of the data entry table) where you can enter what foods you have stored.  There's even a page where you can input your own data if something's not listed.  Of course there is also a column for you to add in "Intended Purchases from Emergency Essentials" (they're even kind enough to put those items in your shopping cart for you) - hey, they've gotta pay for all the work that went into creating  that Food Storage Analyzer somehow, right?  When you're all done there is a printer friendly version that you can print out and voila you now have a beautifully organized inventory list that makes it super easy to see what you've got and what you might need to stash away next.

All in all it's a great tool, and I wish I would have had it back when I was starting out.  It would be much simpler to keep track of your supplies as you go rather than trying to move and shift boxes to get a good count later.  Oh, and in case you're wondering, we have enough food for our family for (drum roll please) 183.5 days.  Yay!  Here's the Food Storage Analyzer Button to click if you want to give it a try.

I Love My Emergency Food Storage!

OK, if you're like me you've got some cans of long term food storage stowed away somewhere in your house. My food storage is tucked away under the stairs in a perfect little alcove that my kids used to play in. I have what I think is quite a variety of foods that I have aquired mainly from our local LDS cannery, but also from some emergency preparedness sites online. I can hardly wait for the day I get to use that Almond Poppyseed Muffin Mix!  Well, actually, I didn't wait so now I only have 2 cans left.  And that Fudge Brownie Mix - please, please still be fresh when I need to use you. But I also have lots and lots of wheat and beans and dried milk powder - stuff that I really don't use a ton of in everyday cooking. That's not to say that I couldn't, or that we don't like the foods you can prepare from it. It is just more difficult to use, takes more time to prepare, and life is BUSY so I tend not to use it as much. It feels good to know we have it. I like to admire my stash of food, and sometimes I even open up a can and use it. . .seriously, I do. That's not to say that I don't find it intimidating to think that someday I may be required to survive on the stuff. What today seems like a fun experiment could certainly turn into an overwhelming task if I ever had to rely solely on my food storage to feed my family. In fact, there was a point when I realized that I really didn't know the best ways to use my food storage, and I was simply too busy to find out how. But what's the point of a good food supply if you aren't prepared to use it when the time comes? So I decided to start using some of my storage, learning as I go, and I feel like I've learned a lot (some of it the hard way). This blog is my way of sharing what I've learned, so that you don't have to make the same mistakes I have!

Heidi