New Series: FAQ's

I've been trying to come up with a series to replace the Top 5 Food Storage Tips for Newbies series I was doing on Mondays.

At the same time, I've been getting regular questions (usually by email) about me, Shelf Reliance, Thrive food, 72 hr kits, water storage, the Q, becoming a consultant etc.

So I've decided to make Monday's my FAQ day.  I will respond to emails I get directly, but I will also post the answers here each Monday evening.

I thought I'd start with a roundup of some popular FAQs I've already answered on this blog:
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Shelf Reliance Harvest Food Rotation System

Shelf Reliance's Harvest Food Rotation System is one of their most popular products.  In fact, the success of the Harvest is what has allowed the company to grow and expand so quickly.  

One of the early prototypes looked like this:

 and was built here:

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Tomorrow...

I have about 6 posts that are all half way done, but would take me an hour or more to finish.  I've finally got all my kids asleep (2 are now sick...AGAIN!), and I didn't get much sleep last night and don't expect much tonight.

SO, I'm going to wait until tomorrow to get the posts up.  Thank you for understanding!

Misty

While you are waiting, here is a sneak peek and some new products coming from Shelf Reliance soon!

Survival Kit Series Week #5: Food Part II

If you are just joining us, I recommend starting with week #1.  You can find it here:

 Survival Kit Series Week #1

Once you've completed that, just jump in on this week's focus.  I will cycle through each week again once we are done.  You can do the earlier weeks last instead of first!  You can also read the intro to this series here: Survival Kit Ideas: a week by week approach.

I hope all of you were able to add breakfast and lunch items to your kit  last week.  I added fruit leather, rice cakes, and I ordered granola and a chicken salad pouch, but I'm still waiting for them to arrive.
 

This week's focus:  

Add food for snacks & 3 dinners (per person) to your survival / 72 hr kit. 

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Food Storage Recipes Roundup

I love all the great ideas I get from other wonderful food storage bloggers out there.  Here are a few great recipes from the last few weeks made with items you should have in Your Own Home Store (your pantry):

Photo Credit: Good Cheap Eats

Malted Hot Cocoa Mix from Good Cheap Eats
I'm loving all this cooler weather.  Fall is my favorite season.  One of my favorite treats is Hot Cocoa and I love to spend a little less on it using this homemade recipe.






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Copycat recipe: PF Changs Lettuce Wraps

Anybody else a PF Changs fan?  My husband and I sure are. We are addicted to their "great wall of chocolate."  Never had it?  YOU MUST.  It is a bit of heaven wrapped into a double chocolate cake with berries and raspberry sauce.  We just ordered two (take out) for my husband's birthday last week.  Anyone else?  C'mon, just leave a comment!  What is you favorite PF Chang's menu item?

Another of our favorites are the lettuce wraps.  We enjoyed them often during the first two years of our marriage.  And then, we quit our jobs, moved from Utah to California (and doubled our cost of living), started law school, and had twins.  PF Changs was no longer in the budget.
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Free Thrive Food Sample Request Form:

If you are interested in receiving a free sample  of  Thrive food, I'd be happy to provide one for you.  Please use the form below to request one!

*Notes*

I can currently only afford to fulfill the first 30 sample requests each month.  Once 30 requests have been made, this form will be removed until the beginning of the following month.  Please be considerate of others and only request a sample if you have sincere interest in Thrive foods.

Samples are limited to one per family.

Winners of Thrive food giveaways sponsored by me are not eligible.

Please do not request a sample if you are also a Shelf Reliance consultant.

Currently, I can only ship these samples to US addresses.

Astronaut Space Food: Freeze Dried Ice Cream: Thrive Product Highlight

Photo Credit: San Diego Shooter's

Many people hear "freeze dried ice cream" and automatically think "astronaut space food."  Yes, astronauts eat freeze dried foods: including ice cream.  Freeze dried ice cream = astronaut ice cream.

But a big misconception about "astronaut space food" is that it is sub-par or not so tasty.  This isn't true: it is simply different.  Tasty in a different way.




When Shelf Reliance announced back in Feb 2011 that they would be carrying freeze dried ice cream, I had so many questions:
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Survival Kit Series week #4: Food Part I

If you are just joining us, I recommend starting with week #1.  You can find it here:

 Survival Kit Series Week #1

Once you've completed that, just jump in on this week's focus.  I will cycle through each week again once we are done.  You can do the earlier weeks last instead of first!  You can also read the intro to this series here: Survival Kit Ideas: a week by week approach.

I hope all of you were able to add something to help you purify water to your kit last week.  Water is absolutely essential to life.  You will not survive 3 days without water.

Photo Credit: o5com

You will survive without food for 3 days, but it wouldn't be fun.  It can actually be very dangerous.  You will have headaches, and experience serious fatigue and dizziness as your blood sugar levels are depleted. You might begin to lose muscle mass if your body needs to use it as an additional source of energy. You will likely be irritable and mentally fatigued.  That is not the condition I would want to be in following some sort of disaster.  I'm sure I will need all the physical and mental resources I can muster.  I want plenty of food in my 72 hr / survival kit.

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6 mo food AND water storage: 1 person

NEW SALE!!

This package is designed to provide a complete supply of both food and water. It provides two people with over 2000 calories per person/day for up to 3 months or 1 person for 6 months.  It also includes a 55 gallon water storage system (a $110 value) and a wheat grinder ($80 value).  You can find details of this package below.


You can purchase it for $1661.03, $1326.99, $945.19 plus 5% shipping thru November 14th, 2011 which is a discount of $715 off the retail price!   Contact me in one of the following ways to order:
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Top Food Storage Tips: Move Beyond Grains and Beans

If you missed the other posts in this series, you can find them here:

Food Storage Tip #1: Food Storage isn't just for natural disasters.

Food Storage Tip #2: Food Storage will allow you to give

Food Storage Tip #3: Try White Wheat 

Food Storage Tip #4: Move Beyond Wheat

Today's food storage tip is: 

Newbie Food Storage Tip #5: Move Beyond Grains and Beans

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Food Storage Recipes Roundup

It has been a while since I've posted a round-up of my favorite pantry recipes from all the great food storage blogs that I follow.  Some of these are from a few weeks back.  If you haven't seen them yet, I recommend you check them out!

Photo Credit: Thriving Food Storage

From Jamie at Thriving Food Storage:

Peanut Butter Balls Food Storage Style

Make these delicious "cookies" in just 5 minutes!

Photo Credit: Prepared LDS Family

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Baked Donuts

This baked donut recipe is one I've had for a long time, but never actually tried. I can't even remember where I got it. I didn't really ever want to try it b/c I make simple fried donuts out of refrigerated biscuits that I love. I know, kind of disgusting, right?....tons of preservatives, fat and yuckiness, but oh, they taste so darn good! I've been making them since college and they really are good.

Anyhoo...I decided that it was time to try these baked donuts. I have kids, and I'm more careful about what goes into their bodies than what goes into mine. Not exactly sure why, but I'm just more motivated when I look at them to come up with fun healthier treats.
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Survival Kit Series Week 3: More Water

If you are just joining us, I recommend starting with week #1.  You can find it here:

 Survival Kit Series Week #1

Once you've completed that, just jump in on this week's focus.  I will cycle through each week again once we are done.  You can do the earlier weeks last instead of first!  You can also read the intro to this series here: Survival Kit Ideas: a week by week approach.

I hope all of you were able to gather some water to add to your survival / 72 hr kit last week.  Water is absolutely essential to life.  You could survive (though not comfortably) without food for 3 days, but you will not survive without water.

As you gathered water, you probably realized (if you didn't already), that it is heavy!  If you were forced to evacuate your home and could take your car, then it is very realistic to take 3+ gallons per person in your family.  You should have at least this much water ready to throw into your car at a moments notice.

But what if you were forced to evacuate on foot?  It simply is not realistic to carry that much water for any real distance.  Maybe this guy could:

 
but not me!  This is especially so if you have a large family.  I would need to carry at least 18 gallons for my family!  Yet, water is still essential to life.  So, what to do?
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Freeze Dried Cheese: How to Hydrate it part II

Freeze Dried Cheese has been a challange for me.  The first time I hydrated it, I used warm water...

It Melted.    Duh.   Should have know that.

I've continued to have challenges:

A few weeks ago, I was with a group of Shelf Reliance consultants in Hawaii.  We were preparing for a very large show where we planned to demonstrate how to cook with THRIVE food.   We were expecting 75-150 people and had four different "taste testing" stations planned: Pizza, Tacos, Breakfast and Smoothies.  I was in charge of the pizza station.  So I went to work hydrating my mozzarella freeze dried cheese using the method I outlined earlier.  I found out that my earlier tips really only work well for a small batch of cheese: not 10+ cups!
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Top Food Storage Tips: Move Beyond Wheat

If you missed the other posts in this series, you can find them here:

Food Storage Tip #1: Food Storage isn't just for natural disasters.

Food Storage Tip #2: Food Storage will allow you to give

Food Storage Tip #3: Try White Wheat

Today's food storage tip is: 

Newbie Food Storage Tip #3:  Move Beyond Wheat

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Freeze Dried Banana Cake

I am not much of a cake person.  I have cheesecake for my birthday every year.  Cake just isn't really my thing.  But there is one cake I've never actually been able to forget; it was that good.   A good friend's mom made it often when I was in high school, but I haven't had it since.

Photo Credit: 400 Calories or less

I decided to try to re-create it using freeze dried bananas b/c believe me, this cake is good enough to make any situation better.  This recipe is made with 100% shelf stable ingredients.  I have all of these items in my food storage (or my "own home store"):
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Product Hightlight: Drink Mixes; a Guest Post

Photo Credit: robstephaustraila

Tonight's post is from one of my very favorite people in this food storage / preparedness / prepping world.  Her name is Rachel Mano from Ready Home Store and she is the person that introduced me to Shelf Reliance and Thrive foods.  She also happens to live next door to my parents. She raises chickens, and one of my first (and favorite) memories of her is when I was walking on the path behind her house and she started waving and yelling at me to come over.  She kept saying "Come see our chickens!"   I think I'd met her once or twice, so at first I wasn't even sure she was talking to me, but there was no one else around.  So, the kids and I headed over.  She was so kind and so friendly.  Now that I know how incredibly busy she is, I am even more impressed that she was so open and kind and generous.  We spent a good 30 minutes there playing with the chickens and the kids each got to take one home in their front shirt pocket.  Micah promptly smashed his and got egg goo everywhere.  Funny.  My kids still remember this as well and every once in a while will ask if we can get chickens.  Most kids ask for a dog or something, mine as for chickens.  Thanks Rachel!

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Survival Kit Series: Week 2: Water

I'm so thrilled to announce the winner of last week's drawing:  Stormy said:

Since we are somewhat tight on money for the next couple weeks due to me having a baby, I plan to use the suitcases we have on hand to pack our kits in. Once we have extra income again, I plan to buy backpacks since those are easier to carry. 

How fun is that?  I'm so glad she won!  There were only 3 comments (one on facebook), so I just had my 4 yr old son pick a number from 1-3.  Unfortunately, I don't have an email address for Stormy.  So, Stormy, when you read this, please contact me.  I'd love to get your prize shipped out soon!

Want to win next week?
Remember, all you have to do to enter the drawing each week is LEAVE A COMMENT on this post before 11:59 pm on Tuesday.  Simple.  This is open to anyone and everyone: my family members, friends, those I've never met, other Shelf Reliance consultants: anyone!

If you are just joining us, you can read more about this series (and find the other week's challenges) here:

Survival Kit Ideas: A week by week approach

I hope all of you rotated through your kits last week and / or got something ready to pack up with all the great stuff we will be discussing over the next few months.

On to this week's topic:
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Current Shelf Reliance Specials:

What are you interested in?

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Top Food Storage Tips: Try White Wheat

I was once a food storage newbie, and I still learn new stuff about food storage all the time.  I'd like to share with you 5 food storage tips that I wish I could go back and give myself about 8 years ago when I was first considering looking into food storage.

This idea actually isn't my own.  I was recently featured on my friend Heather's blog: Cooking with My Food Storage.  She asked me to list my 5 top food storage tips and to focus on those things I wish I'd know when I started my food storage.  I've simply decided to turn that list into a series and give the same tips here on my own site in a bit more detail.  You can view past posts here:

Food Storage Tip #1: Food Storage isn't just for natural disasters.

Food Storage Tip #2: Food Storage will allow you to give

Today's food storage tip is:  

Newbie Food Storage Tip #3: Try White Wheat

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