Monday, May 26, 2014

Progress on one year of meals for 12 people...*

Meals for 12 in a Box” Storage
This is a slow process, because it is a daunting task. Wow! But, I am taking it one meal at a time. Here goes... 
I tend to store things separately so I will have some flexibility when it comes to making meals later down the road. I don't want to be “boxed in”. 
But, when it is a meal I know we like I “box it in”. I will then store it “12 meals at a time”. After I hit the goal of one years food supplies stored for DH and me; this year I am now working on storing meals for 12 people for one year. That's 4464 meals just for dinner. (13,392 for three meals a day)
Basically when you have a specific meal you like, work towards buying enough for 12 meals (one meal, once a month for 12 months). Do that 30 times & you have one year of stored food. Simple, huh? 

I have been really working hard toward this lofty goal. With some adaptions, I have started a list on a calendar page, as I figure out what I already have on hand and what I need to add to bump up the # of meals, then I add it to the calendar. This taking me awhile, particularly since I have started packing things away for when we move. I certainly have more food stored, I just haven't converted it to my calendar yet.
BREAKFAST: I started with breakfast. Since I already had plenty of bulk items that I would need stored.
For example we have 24 ½ gallon jars of cold cereal. Being generous, I estimated that would be about “8 breakfasts x 12” for the year.
Plus, I have TONS of oatmeal stored. Enough for to round off the remaining breakfasts; to include dehydrated fruits, canned fruit and powdered milk.



DESSERTS:
With that ton of oats I have enough oats left to add at least six cookie “days x 12” for my calendar, to include: sugar, butter, p.b. and cocoa, for our favorite no bake cookies.
I have 52 cake mixes (yes, I am working on having on hand the stuff stored to make cakes from scratch), which added about 4 “days x 12” to my list.


Here is one new example for dinner that I finally completed:

STRONGANOFF:
So, if this is one meal, I need to have 24 pints of beef (the other half will be meatless made with mushrooms), 48 pints of pressure canned milk & 48 packs of the packaged mix, plus noodles.= one meal for 12 people, 12 times in a year. To expand that: This is what it looks like on paper:12 (people preparing for) x 12 (once a month for 12 months) x 31 (one month) x 3 (meals a day) = one year of storage.



I was sort of beating myself up for not being any further along on my goal, but that meal alone is 144 meal portions. NOT beating myself up anymore.
Edited: Dehydrating milk, canning milk and canning butter are popular posts. The "how to" links are embedded within those words (above). I need to transfer the butter from Facebook to the blog. I tend to respond a lot faster to comments left on the facebook page, with THIS post if you have questions or comments.

Note: Currently of the 12 people I am preparing for, 6 are children. When I am storing for the children, I am storing an adult portion for them. While they are young now, if something happens say in five years, they will be teenagers. I want to insure that I have enough to feed them at what ever age.


I often store these meals in these banana boxes, good movable size for this gramma. I label and date the boxes. I also add the amounts needed of other items on the box itself.


You may modify it, based on your goals. For example, when I got started I modified it to “6 meals” so I could attain my first goal of 6 months storage goal. Don't forget to add water to your storage as needed.
I will be slowly working on these boxes and will share more as I go along. 


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Things I have used or read this week:

    

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8 comments:

  1. I didn't know you could can butter and milk...

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    1. Yes, there are directions here on the blog. :D ~Perky~

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  2. Well I'm going to search for your stroganoff recipe - unless it is just hamburger helper?
    I'm going to try canning milk, as well as making butter this weekend. Sour cream, though, is a slight question.

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    1. lupa,
      It is just Hamburger Helper Stroganoff Mix. While I do make stroganoff from scratch, I have yet to try making sour cream myself. Maybe after I move.

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  3. I think your prepping is great. I wish I was further along, but I don't have the room right now until we move where I can actually set a room aside to prep in. We are in the process of getting our house ready to sell.

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    1. Moving just adds such a kick in the behind for preps.

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  4. I would think you would need a barn to store everything once you are complete. My problem is that I live in an earthquake zone and try to avoid as much glass as possible.

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    1. That's why I really rely on cutting down on other things that aren't as important.

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