Tuesday, September 13, 2016

For My Records...

Three slightly heaping cups of chopped onions will fill one dehydrator tray.  10 lbs. of onions will fill 10 trays.  The trays have the plastic mesh liners to keep the onions from falling through as they dry and shrink.  The onions are not blanched and are dried at 135 degrees.  Drying time depends on several things - the kind of onion - the outdoor temperature and humidity - whether I am running the air conditioning or the heat in the apartment.  And if I use one dehydrator or divide the trays between two.  I keep a window open in the room where the dehydrators are in order to try to let the odors escape and that makes a difference as well.  The onions in this batch were huge - 11 onions made up the 10 lbs., so the dices are a bit thicker than if the onions had been smaller.  I use my Vidalia Food Chopper to dice the onions.  One of the best investments in kitchen gadgets ever.

My grocery order was phoned in today.  The store had frozen vegetables on sale.  I am pretty well set with most, but am needing broccoli, so I ordered a dozen 1 lb. bags.  I will keep one or two bags in the freezer for eating and dehydrate the rest.

Oldest Son's friend got a membership for Sam's Club.  They went there yesterday to look around and picked up a couple of items for me in the process.  When they got home, they brought over my items and we sat and talked for a while.  We had talked earlier about ordering half a beef this fall.  Son was telling me about what was available at Sam's.  As much as I like the idea of ordering beef, I am not enamoured with writing a large check.  Were I independently wealthy it would not bother me.  I'm not.  Plus the fact that included in an order would be several cuts of beef that I normally do not buy.  I can most of the meat I buy, saving out a little to eat fresh.  I checked out Sam's website and found Sam's carries everything I would normally buy.  And the prices are reasonable.  The more we discussed the pros and cons, the more it made sense to buy the beef we want , a little at a time, at Sam's.  That way I can get just what I want in the amounts I want.  And I can stay on budget.

So I spent part of today going through Sam's website and making out a list of what I need to get my food storage where I want it to be.  The list includes items other than meat, like sugar and flour and oatmeal and rice as well as things like aluminum foil and freezer bags and toilet paper.  And possibly a box or two of Little Debbie Nutty Bars.   Or maybe a big bag of M & M's.

Life is always better if there is chocolate involved.

19 comments:

  1. Life is GREAT, with chocolate and Carmel...We have talked about Sam's as we had a membership some years ago, but the nearest is St. Cloud, Maple Grove or St. Louis Park. We try and only do major shopping once a month. If and when I get motivated again I should do a price compare between several stores. We are getting an Adi in Hutch. Shopped there once not impressed.

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  2. P.S. how are you feeling, legs wise??

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  3. Rob...It sort of defeats the purpose when you have to burn quite a bit of gas to get there. The Sam's here is just a very few miles away, so it makes sense for us to make use of it. The nearest Aldis is too far away to make it pay unless we were in the area for something else.

    Slowly but surely the legs are improving. It just seems to take time. Patience is not my long suit, but I have found that I can be as impatient as I want and it will make no difference. So as long as there is improvement, I am happy. :)

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  4. I really miss having our own beef. the stuff we get at the store is mostly salt water and chemicals. And you're right about the chocolate!

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  5. Gorges...I miss home grown beef too, but these days I do the best I can with what I have to work with. I would much rather have chemical free, all organic...but when the world around us goes sliding off into oblivion, I'm thinking nobody is going to much care about anything except having something to put into the stomach. I decided to store some sweet treats as well as the rice and beans. I just think that maybe a treat now and then might make life more bearable. :)

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  6. Our store is now selling grass feed ground beef $9.99 a lb, in a one pound package....Way too pricey.

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  7. Rob...Good Lord! I can't afford that. I have noticed that Cub has a line of organic fruits and vegetables and they are at least double the regular price. Sam's ground chuck comes in a chub weighing between 7 and 13 lbs. (depending on the store) and is $2.68 per pound. Cub ground beef runs closer to $5 per pound. That's why we are going to go with Sam's.

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  8. Local apples will be ready soon - the ole dehydrator is a gonna be busy! Glad you leg is healing! Patience is not on of my virtues, either. :o)

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  9. Chickenmom...Apples should be ready here in a couple of weeks. I think I will just dehydrate them this year and then rehydrate as needed for applesauce, pies, etc. I'm running out of jars.

    Thanks for the good thoughts. The legs are getting better every day. About that patience thing...My Dad once gave me a little sign to hang in my room. It said, "God grant me patience.....NOW." Pretty much sums it up. :)

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  10. We used to belong to Sams Club and it was worth the 45 mile drive one way to get there. But it was in the town that the Mexicans have taken over, and it was right in the heart of their "area." People started getting harassed or worse trying to get there, and the customer base just dried up. Sam's closed it down and now the building is sitting out there falling apart with everything else in the area. We didn't renew our membership as the next closest one was all the way down at the beltway around Atlanta.

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  11. Harry...We are lucky here in that Sam's is within just a very few miles of home and it is in (so far) a decent neighborhood. If we were closer to the city, that would not be so. The membership is worth it to me, especially when it comes to stocking up. Their prices are still reasonable. The local grocery stores prices keep going up, especially for meat. Once I get back to canning meat to fill in low spots in my preps, it will pay for itself in no time.

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  12. Put the M&M's at the top of the list.

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  13. Chocolate is definitely important! I just recently bought a NatureValley granola bar that is dark chocolate and cashews. More like a candy bar then granola bar!
    Have you ever done a post about your goals for your preps? I'm always trying to figure out what is 'enough'. My limitations are like yours probably - space and money. I'm just curious. Six years into living on my own, I think I've figured out how much to buy in between sales. But to really stock up for the long haul...I'm just now trying to get a handle on that.
    Glad to hear you're on the mend for your legs. You had me laughing about your view on being patient. I'm right there with you and often get frustrated with my limitations. Oh, well, so it goes. But today was a good day. I spent an hour in the garden putting it to bed for the winter and discovered a bucket's worth of carrots waiting to be harvested. Tomorrow I'll try canning them up as dilled carrots. Yum
    Cheers, SJ in Vancouver BC Canada

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  14. BW...I'm in total agreement. There are priorities, after all. :)

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  15. SJ...I'm in the "Just give me the chocolate and nobody gets hurt" camp. Same for coffee. :)

    I haven't done a post on long term prep goals, mainly because my limitations are the same as yours. I don't live in a place where I can plant a huge garden or keep livestock to replace what I would use in a crisis situation. And much of the food I store depends on what is on sale in any given week. And as you know, buying a truckload of supplies like some do is not an option. I would like to have one years worth of food put back. I figure that would at least give me breathing room should food become scarce, to figure out what to do next.

    I don't know how much I need of any given food. I buy very little prepared food, but concentrate on ingredients like flour, sugar, yeast, baking powder, vegetable oil, etc. When I am canning, I usually do the same. A jar of plain tomatoes can be used for many different dishes. A jar of chicken can be added to many recipes. I like to leave my options open and have one food that can be used many ways. Rather than can beef stew, I can beef, potatoes, carrots, etc. separately. Then I can make stew or use the beef in other dishes, etc. Make sense?

    Some folks store buckets full of beans. But beans need to be cooked, using fuel and water. Water could become a problem. Having enough fuel to cook a pot of beans could become a problem. Lately I have been canning dry beans in quart jars. When I go to use them, they are already fully cooked and if need be, they can be eaten right out of the jar. Not very appetizing, but if you are really hungry, it probably wouldn't matter.

    Good grief. I seem to have written about half a blog post here. Maybe I should think about posting some of that. :)

    Glad to hear you had a good day. Here, each day is a little better than the last. I have never had dilled carrots. Sounds good. Let me know how they turn out. We need to have foods like that to go with the staples.

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  16. I always get my flour and sugar from Sams - it's a huge savings.

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  17. Lisa...I think a person needs to watch prices, but for the most part, Sam's is cheaper than the regular grocery stores. I buy all my flour and sugar there, too. Butter is another one - about $2.60 a pound at Sams compared to nearly $4 a pound at the stores. I have used their hamburger before and found no difference in quality, but Sam's has it for about half the price of the grocery stores. I'm just tickled that it will now be easier for me to get what I need there. Bless adult kids and their friends! :)

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  18. Appreciated your reply to my question - so now you have half the blog post written...smile.
    I, too, store most things as a staple ingredient - ie. a lot of diced tomatoes and only some pre-made speghetti sauce. Lots of sugar and a little molasses but very little brown sugar, etc.
    Funny, I do go in for the case lot sales of beans rather then store dry beans. In caselot, I can get a can for $0.50 or $1 depending on the can size and that is 2-4 servings for me.
    I hear you about the fuel storage - I have virtually none since I live in an apt also. Funny enough, I do have the raw materials to make an outdoor stove should that be necessary. Water is also a limitation for me - although I am in better shape then my neighbors I'd guess.
    Anyway, I asked the question mostly because it's only my web friends that I talk to about this. People in my real-life world aren't interested.Too bad really. Hope you're having a good day. SJ in Vancouver BC

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  19. SJ...Thanks for getting me thinking about prep goals. I may expand on the idea in that there have to be others besides you and me who live alone in apartments. Not that I have all the answers - far from it. But there might be something to help those who feel they should be doing something but just need a little encouragement.

    I don't keep a lot of dried beans on hand, either. My limited storage space needs to be used for things that don't require so much water or fuel to cook. I am really looking forward to buying case lots now that I have access to Sam's. Sometimes it just makes sense to buy in bulk rather than can some foods myself.

    I wonder why it is that those in our real lives have no interest in preparing for anything. I think sometimes that our parents and grandparents had a better grasp on reality than those a generation or two younger do today. Maybe we have become spoiled. We assume that just because the nearest grocery store always has full shelves that it will always be so. My parents knew that if we didn't process as much food as we could in the summer and fall, it would be pretty slim pickings over winter. My grandparents rarely went to town for that involved a 10 mile ride behind a team of horses. They bought only what they could not produce on their small farm. And I guess there are many who believe if they don't talk about bad times, those times will just go away. Who knows!!

    Me...I'm not taking any chances. I'm off to fill the dehydrators with broccoli. My day is going well. Hope yours is the same. :)

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