I don't have any pictures to post, but I wanted to share what we will be doing later to color eggs. Yesterday I was walking around in my favorite store, (Whole Foods) and they had a cute Easter table with printed sheets of paper with information on how to dye your easter eggs with all natural food dyes. I knew that there were certain ways, but didn't know all of these.
First, there are two dipping methods. Hot or Cold.
For the "Cold Dipping" method:
1. Boil the eggs and coloring ingredients in two different pots.
2. Let the dye pot cool and then strain it. Dip the eggs in the dye for 10-15 minutes.
3. Dry eggs in carton or on paper towels.
For the "Hot Dipping" method:
1. Add both eggs and natural dye ingredients to a pot and cover with water.
2. Add 2 Tablespoons of white vinegar.
4. Bring to a rolling boil, and reduce to simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.
5. Run eggs under cool water.
Now, the fun part. I understand that this isn't as cut and dry as opening a package of those candy-looking mystery pills, but if you're wanted to do something different, this is an option. We are doing a little variation of the "Cold Dipping" option above.
Colors:
Yellow/gold - turmeric
Light pink or dark pink - beets or cranberries
Baby blue or royal blue - coarsely chopped red cabbage (they have a note saying the cabbage dye won't work until it cools.)
Chartreuse green - dye yellow, then dye blue
Dark lavender - blueberries
To have deeper colors, we plan to boil the eggs first, then the kids can draw cute pictures on them with white crayon, and then we will let them soak in the dye overnight.
*One thing that is noted is that since these are food dyes, they may affect the flavor of the eggs, so we plan to just use blueberries and beets to make pink and purple eggs that won't be ruined by those two flavors.
We'll post pictures tomorrow!
HAPPY EASTER!
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Long-Term Food Storage
After finishing updating our 72-Hour Kits last weekend, it was time to finally update our food storage. Our first step was to calculate how much was recommended for 1 full year of food storage for our family of 4. Here is a GREAT calculator to help you do so. Just put in the numbers and you’ll have a personalized page. Clearly, there are a lot of suggestions on that list that we shy away from eating, so I swapped and replaced where I felt necessary. Along those same lines, I personally feel that a HUGE mistake made when preparing for food storage is buying things that “you’ll only eat in case of emergency” or saying to yourself “well, this would keep us alive in an emergency situation…” BUY THINGS THAT YOU EAT NOW. Just build up an abundance of the things that your family eats on a regular basis (healthy things of course) and then you are continually rotating things through. It shouldn’t be a waste of money because when you do your shopping, what you buy goes to the back of the rotation and you still always have a year’s supply. Make sense?
I chose to focus on our dry storage first. I ordered nearly 500 lbs of food yesterday! But with food prices guaranteed to rise over the next few months, I felt GREAT with the accomplishment. There are many possibilities when it comes to purchasing food to store, but of course we wanted to store organic foods, as that is what our family eats, and so why would I spend money on food that I wouldn’t want to cycle through? I found some great resources and websites and I’ll share them below.
From www.bobsredmill.com I ordered:
-Organic Quinoa (50 lbs) –This is what we use in place of rice most of our meals. (expect a post dedicated to this in the near future 
-Organic Wheat (125 lbs) –This was less than the recommended amount for a family of 4, but we rarely use flour. The reason I did get it was so that I could start making our own sprouted wheat bread. You can also soak the berries and make delicious oatmeal as well.
-Baking Powder (approx 4 lbs) –For the occasion what I do use this, they carry a “non-aluminum” baking powder.
-Organic Regular Rolled Oats (75 lbs) YUM!
-Organic Flax Seeds (25 lbs) For some of these things with a shorter shelf life, try and judge how quickly you will be able to use them and plan accordingly.
-Organic Coconut Flour (8 lbs) What is this, you ask? You just wait…I am really excited to post about it!
From www.bulkwholefoods.com I ordered:
-Organic garbanzo beans (25 lbs) Hummus, soups, etc.
-Organic black beans (50 lbs) We LOVE black beans!
-Organic yellow popcorn (25 lbs) We love air popped popcorn.
A few sites that will be helpful in educating you on long term storage of food, shelf life, etc. are below:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2220971_store-food-long-term-survival.html
http://www.cherubimfood.com/en/product-shelf-life.html
http://survivalacres.com/information/shelflife.html
https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/information_center/storage_life_of_foods.htm
If you don’t see a specific item just Google “What is the shelf life of _____?”
There are different options when it comes to what to store these items in once you receive them, and we are opting to use #10 cans. They are supposed to keep food fresh longer because you’re only opening a small, usable amount at a time; rather than opening a big 5 gallon bucket and exposing everything to the air frequently. To determine how many cans or buckets you will need, I found these great sites: (We need almost 100 cans!)
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2011/03/10/10-cans-and-5-gallon-buckets-how-much-can-they-hold/
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_a_10_can_hold
I hope this information helps you get organized and started in preparing to store food for your family. Storing ahead of time with create a cushion in times of need, and will also help to supplement the rising food prices over the next year. It feels good to be prepared!
Other valuable sites available:
http://www.providentliving.org/content/list/0,11664,8034-1,00.html
Friday, April 1, 2011
72-Hour Kits
I know that I touched on these the other day and so I wanted to go into a little bit more detail as to why we feel the need to have 72-Hour Kits and what we are putting in them. Just to reiterate what I said in the last post, there are interesting things happening all around us. Sometimes it’s difficult to comprehend the intensity or magnitude of some of these events because they don’t occur close enough to us. Truth be told, none of us are immune to disasters. Depending on where we live, it could be anything from snow, rain, flooding, tornados, hurricanes, ice storms, fire, extended power outages, wind, etc. Scott reminded me yesterday of the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared”. It applies to all of us!
We feel that it is important to have 72-Hour Emergency Kits in case for some reason we need to leave our home quickly without much time for preparation. We each have a backpack full of things we could potentially need for 72 hours. Each of our children also have their own backpack. (Obviously Mom and Dad expect to be the ones carrying those backpacks, because they are not light enough for our little kiddos.) Some of you may be thinking that there is no way to put healthy food in a kit that will last. We plan to change the food out every 6 months, so it really only needs to last for 6 months. I am really excited to say that I found some GREAT food to add to our kits that we wouldn’t mind eating in 6 months either. Just to give you a couple of ideas, I found things like:
-Organic apple juice, juice boxes
-Freeze-dried fruits and vegetables (make sure to check labels so that you don’t buy some with any preservatives or added coloring/flavor).
-Dehydrated fruits and vegetables (many of the packaged ones are full of artificial additives, so read the labels. Also…look for Organic because since a great deal of the moisture has left these fruits and vegetables, it causes any pesticides that were on the surface to concentrate so you end up eating a chunk of pesticides. –One inexpensive way to remedy this issue would be to dehydrate your own Organic produce and put it in vacuum sealed bags. One last note: since the water content is low it also causes the sugars to concentrate as well, but in an emergency they would be a blessing to have.)
-Kashi granola bars (full of the good stuff, without the extra yucky stuff)
-Instant Oatmeal –Believe it or not, instant oatmeal is usually full of artificial colors and flavors, BUT I found some that wasn’t. Read the boxes and make sure you find some that only has real stuff in it.
-Tuna –In a package, not a can. For an extra bit of protein in case of emergency, these packages of tuna would be easily accessible and you’d just need to rip open the package without the need for a can opener. Read the packages, some are better than others.
-Peanut Butter Crackers –There is a company called “Lance” that makes these crackers without any preservatives, hydrogenated oils, etc. They would be good to keep energy up and tummies full.
-Mini water bottles (at least 1 gal worth per person)–Easy to fit a handful of them in the packs.
-Mixed nuts and seeds –Although it would be nice to sprout these, they’d at least give you energy when you needed it.
-Vitamin packets –We like to drink Emer gen-C in our house, and they just so happen to be PERFECT for emergency kits. Each little packet has 1,000 mg of Vitamin C and so you could add them to a bottle of water for an added punch of vitamins, minerals, and energy.
These are just a few ideas. Be creative, but scrutinize the product labels as you shop. They need to be able to pack easily and ideally be beneficial to your health, because I can’t think of a more important time to have high energy and an alert mind than in an emergency.
Just for your information, I’ll also post a few of the other items that we won’t have to update every 6 months that are present in our backpacks always. Most of these things are packaged small and are therefore easy to fit into these backpacks. Obviously packs for parents will hold things slightly different than packs for kids. (TS means travel size)
Parent Child
-Small Flashlight ”
-Batteries for flashlight (separate) “
-Small fleece blanket (rolled up) “
-Emergency blanket (little silver one found in camping department in a tiny package) “
-Rain Poncho (also small package in camping department
“
-Whistle “
-Compass “
-Current map of your area
-Cash and coin
-Important documents (here’s a great link on these and others)
-Small radio (with separate batteries)
-Roll of strong tape
-Water purifying tablets
-Lightweight rope
-Hand and feet warmer packets “
-Waterproof matches (strike anywhere)
-Small camping cup (for food or drink) “
-Pocket Knife *depends on age
-Small hand towel “
-First aid kits (TS) “
-Sunscreen (TS)
-Hat to shield from sun
-Small fork and spoon (TS) “
-Roll of toilet paper (cardboard taken out) “
-Deodorant (TS) *depends on age
-Feminine Hygiene products (good for more than their intended use)
-Shampoo/Conditioner (TS) “
-Biodegradable body soap
-Contact Solution/case (TS)
-Toothbrush/paste (TS) “
-Hand Sanitizer (TS) “
-Important medicine *We have what are called “Kid’s Kits” A kit with homeopathy remedies for a broad range of needs.
Small Toys/games
Diapers –if applicable
-Change of clothing (add sweatshirt in fall) “
I may have missed a few things, but that’s what comes to my head. We’re updating our kits tomorrow! I CAN’T WAIT!
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