I’ve been asked why my site has taken on more of a food and preparedness feel.

Well, my site never really was about just one thing. I’m not about just one thing, I have many interests and I think I have always shared that through my posts. As for photography, I still do that, it is just my main subjects have changed, a little. I still love to go out and take nature images, I just have been keeping them to myself. :o) I don’t think though that being prepared is automatically separate from other things, like weather. To me, when thinking weather, or bad weather actually, the first thing that goes through my mind is, are we prepared? But it is more than that, I want to not only be prepared as best that I can, but to be more self-reliant.

I know, that phrase is bantered around a lot, but think about it… our forefathers (and mothers too!) were mostly self-reliant, at least mine were. They actually lived off the land, so to speak. They canned food, smoked food, dehydrated food, and of course grew food! With all the technology that has been shoved at us to make things ‘easier and faster’, why aren’t we more self-reliant?

The LDS church teaches their members to have at least one year worth of food and supplies ready, in case. I don’t belong to their church, but I have got to tell you, I think that has to be one of the smartest things I have ever heard. Not only do they teach it, but, they teach how to do it, and they help their members be able to do it through distribution centers. Exactly why don’t other churches do that for their members? Sure, it is all well and good to say, you need to do this and then not teach how to do it.

With all the natural disasters (tornadoes, floods, blizzards, hurricanes, etc.) isn’t the smart thing to do is be prepared to the best of our ability? I honestly do not know a whole lot of people who could go out and purchase a years worth of food and supplies in one shot, let alone finding a place to store it, but, what about starting small and trying for 1 month. Then pushing it further, try for 2 months or maybe 3 months at a time. Break it down into a feasible and reasonable size and I bet you can!

But, I don’t have a big yard or even little yard to grow food on! I know that is what you are saying, I can hear you, even from here. Or you happen to live in a place where there are deed restrictions and you aren’t allowed, or you have physical limitations. Whatever. You can still do what you can reasonably do. So, you don’t have an acre to grow on, corn can be grown in containers, so can tomatoes, beans, onions, potatoes and so much more. Well it goes bad and I have no where to store it. Then try canning it and dehydrating it! I kid you not, I fit a 5 pound bag of carrots into a quart sized jar, after I dehydrated them. I was amazed, flabbergasted, in awe! Think about it… by dehydrating, just imagine how much you could store. And canning, whether it is water bath canning or pressure canning, there is just something magical about going to the shelves, pulling off a jar of chili, tomato sauce, stew or soup (or whatever) that you canned, a year ago, and it being absolutely delicious, nutritious, and super fast when you are hungry. Now.

So, you would rather not have to can, dehydrate or wring a chicken neck (and no, I have not done this!), but just want to go to the store and purchase it, well you can still do that. Instead of buying just 1 or 2 cans of whatever, grab three or more, if you can. When you get home, put the 1 or 2 cans into your working pantry and put the other(s) in your storage pantry. Then, the next time you go, again grab 3 (or more) and do the same. Now look in your storage pantry, you now have 2 extras stored (or more). Keep doing this and slowly build up your storage. When your store has sales, stock up, and if you have coupons to use during those sales, well, that is even better!

Growing up I lived down in southern Miami area, and in our utility/laundry room we had one wall that was full of built-in shelves that we used for our pantry. I have to be honest, I never really thought much about it until I didn’t have that space anymore. I look back now and think, wow, we were absolutely lucky to have that, especially when I look at our small cupboard that is our pantry now. Of course, living in Florida, we do not have the option of having a basement, I wish, so I’ve had to get creative.

Closets have extra shelves tucked in, a stand-alone ‘pantry’ with doors was purchased and that sits next to the table just outside of the kitchen. Not only do we not have a nice large kitchen with pantry/storage area, but we also do not have a lot of counter space, nor kitchen cabinets. So, on the side of that stand-alone ‘pantry’ you’ll find hanging my wire canning rack, flour sifter, mesh strainer, thermometer for cooking and more. The top holds a couple of cases of canning jars for when I want to do a quick batch. On the opposite wall on the other side of the table is a stand-alone book shelf, it holds our working pantry of pasta, rice, sugar, mixing bowls, oven sheets, food processor, food storage bags, measuring cups and more. On the side of course we have more items hanging up like different sized bread pans, apple peeler/corer and more. Sure I would love to have everything I use in one area, the kitchen, but I can’t, so I figured out a way to have it work for us.

In our family room, next to the sofa is where the old sub-woofer is, you know the kind, it is as big as a side table. We don’t use it anymore, but sitting on top of it is a case of freeze-dried and dehydrated foods in #10 cans. There is a board on top of that, along with a fabric tablecloth. We use it as a side table. It works!

So, even if you don’t have a basement, or a large pantry, there are places to still store extras, you just need to get creative, as well as remember to rotate out the oldest first. Whenever we bring something in, food-wise, it gets dated. I can’t wait though to get a couple of can organizers, so that I don’t have to manually rotate out the old. If you look over in the sidebar, scroll down to F.Y.I. you will find the organizers. Not expensive and they work, how cool is that!

With all your preparing though, don’t forget non-food items. I know there are a few things that I stock up on, okay, I go overboard on. For instance, toilet paper. That is one item, I never want to be without! Don’t forget the charcoal and/or the gas for your grill, trust me, that grill, when you can’t cook inside because you have no power (and no gas or wood stove) is a lifesaver. You can grill on it, you can take your pots and pans and use it to cook and bake even.

There are a lot of websites, magazines, and books out there about preparedness, so I won’t go into the different items, but start today, even if it is just 1 item.

I am still working toward having my year (and more) storage, I know that I have at least 5 months on hand. Come to think of it, if I had not experimented for 6 months, I would have about 11 months already. However, I did experiment. I did not go grocery shopping for 6 months and used what we had on hand. It was very liberating and taught me more about what we need more of and even about what we can do without so much of.

I know this post is long, and there really is a whole lot more that I could talk about, to be honest, I haven’t even made a small indentation into being prepared, let alone, self-reliant. For now though, I’ll leave you with this thought and question…

Being prepared isn’t just for natural emergencies. What would happen if the business you worked for, closed. Would you have enough extra in storage to feed yourself and your family, until you found a new job?

Okay, I admit it, I am one of those that swore I would never freeze cooked rice. Well, freezing it maybe, but certainly not eating it after it was frozen. Nasty.

I was wrong.

Whew. There, I said it. Take a note, jot down the date, whatever. -grins-

What made me change my mind? A blog post that I found: http://www.freezerdinner.com/recipes/freezing-rice/. I had first heard of Jenny Stanger, the author of the blog, as well as author of Fabulous Freezer Meals, by way of another author and blog site that I visit, http://everydayfoodstorage.net/ by Crystal Godfrey, they were making pizza!

I figured, why not try the rice again after all these years, maybe, just maybe it might not be as bad as I remembered.

It wasn’t.

When I make rice, I usually make about 4 cups at a time, depending on what we will be using it for that week, and how many people there are. I try not to make more than will be used in that particular week, because I hate the thought of wasting it, if it goes bad. Well, not anymore!

I love the thought of being able to just grab some rice from the freezer, already cooked, and just reheating it. So simple and so good. Sure, the garlic powder that I always add to it may have something to do with it being so good, but you get the gist of it. ;o) My only problem is that I do not heat or reheat in plastic. I don’t care whether plastic bowl or plastic bag, I just can’t do it. So, not a problem, I reheat it in a covered ceramic dish, which keeps all the steam in and makes it just right.

Yup, I have completely turned around my thoughts on it. I have tried to think of what on earth I could have done all those years ago to make the rice, well, yucky. I have no clue. I just remember not liking the texture of the rice. Who knows. All I can say is, thank you Jenny for putting up the post about the rice, because the next day I made 10 cups of cooked rice, and froze it. Figured worse came to worse, dogs would have a great treat to be added to their food if it didn’t turn out. But it did. Fabulously!

I started off putting some into freezer bags, and for larger portions (more people) those work great. But then I got to thinking, which is always dangerous, what about some smaller portions. But what could I put it in? I didn’t want to waste a quart sized bag for a little portion. As I was just kind of staring ‘out’ from the kitchen, my eyes caught onto my mini loaf pan hanging up on the shelves. Hmmm.

That might work. Hmmm. So, off to the shelves I went and grabbed it, as well as grabbing plastic wrap. Laid some wrap into one section of the loaf pan, put some rice in, and then put more, packing it down, wrapped it up and pulled it out, popping it into the deep freezer to test.

Perfect! So, I made quick work of the rest of the rice and now have not only family sized bags of it, but individual portions. Okay, really enough for 2 people, but still a lot smaller than a whole quart bag!

I put all the ‘blocks’ onto a jelly-roll pan, freeze them, and then throw them into a large container in the freezer. Pulled one out yesterday and it was delicious. Maybe there is something to be said for trying things more than once if you don’t like… like cooked spinach. Then again, some things are just better left like nature intended, raw.

Make your life a little easier, why not try to freeze some rice!

Here is a quick tip: when making homemade butter, let your freezer do most of the work for you!

I’ve taught you how to make butter from heavy whipping cream, in a simple jar. Now I going to tell you how much easier it can be.

When I buy the whipping cream, I usually purchase 7 or 8 cartons at a time, and freeze them. When I need to make butter, I will take out a carton the evening before, say around dinner time, let it start to thaw in sink, and then I’ll put it in the fridge before I head to bed to finish thawing. Come morning, I give a quick shake, pour some into my butter making jar (halfway) and then quickly make butter. On the other hand, I’ve also had the cream thaw before I headed to bed and was able to quickly make it that night, which is great.

By letting the freezer and thawing action do their parts, I can make a pound of butter in a half-hour. The jar I use, I can do 1/2 pound at a time, if I had larger jar I’d be able to do more. Remember though… to let the cream set out first so it is not so cold. The colder it is the longer it takes to make butter. I let mine come up to about 60° F, or until I walk back in the kitchen and go, dang, I knew I forgot something! :o) It really won’t hurt it, just give it better flavor, and less work for you.

Everything else is the same from the other article (just remember that it takes a lot less time shaking!), so, grab some cream out of the freezer, thaw it, and make some butter!