Using Food Storage

This post is a response to a comment posted on storage of dressings. We mentioned that dressings can stay good 1-2 weeks at least in the fridge. I’ve personally stored dressings this way using olive oil. I make sure I mix up the dressings really well before use, of course. Perhaps taking the dressings out a while before they are needed will also help with this solidifying.

One idea to keep dressings is to just keep making them fresh. The individual bottles and ingredients have a longer shelf life than fresh dressings, as I’m sure you can imagine. If you want to keep some on hand at almost all times. Consider using one container specifically for dressings and put markings on proportions so it is more streamline to put together. Please let me know if this was any help at all and if you have any other questions!

This burrito recipe is great for utilizing beans in your food storage and wheat or corn if you are a handy tortilla maker!  The first thing you are going to want to do is soak beans overnight in a crock-pot - preferably pinto or black.  The next morning, start the pot and cook for 8-10 hours.

When it comes to the actual meal assembly, make sure you have hot beans.  In a pan (the best ones are cast iron) put enough butter in there to cover the bottom.  Put 1 tortilla in the pan and down the center put about 1/4 cup of shredded cheese (more or less depending on your taste).  Then sprinkle season all and taco seasoning over the cheese.  Make sure you are generous so the flavor really carries.  Then put beans down the middle  - amount according to taste and preference.  Put a lid on the pan so the cheese melts, the tortilla will get nice and crunchy too.  Once you are able to use a spatula to take the tortilla out of the pan without the sides sagging, take it out.  Place on a plate.  Use two utensils to fold twice.  Flip burrito over and sprinkle anything you want on top.  You might not want to put anything, but a salsa, enchilada, and taco sauces are great additions!  You can also sprinkle a little more cheese, fresh tomatoes, jalapenos, etc.

This recipe can also do well if you do not cook everything together, instead freeze the burritos.  Put all ingredients into the tortilla and fold all sides into each other to seal the raw ingredients in.  Lay burritos on parchment paper and freeze.  Once frozen, wrap each burrito individually in parchment paper or freezer paper.  If you use freezer paper you can write on the packaging what is in the burrito (if you decide to make different kinds).  When you want to eat them, simply bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees.  Add your favorite toppings and enjoy!

This week, we will explore homemade dressings. Today, the topic of Italian dressings. Please send in your comments on your Italian Dressings. In my opinion, the best way to make an Italian dressing is to simply explore flavor with taste. The two main ingredients:

Oil (preferablly extra virgin olive oil, next canola oil if needed)

Vinegar (balsamic and apple cidar work great!)

Aside of these, you will need seasonings and spices to fit your desired taste. Great starters are salt, pepper, sugar, garlic powder and onion powder. These alone will make an excellent flavor. You can also throw in garlic and onion raw, but you might want to consider mixing it in the blender in order to chop up all of the pieces.

Other great additions to this dressing are mustard powder, basil, a small amount of ketchup, lemon or lime juice…these are just examples. Play around with it! This will keep for a long time, but I would recommend only make enough to last no more than 1-2 weeks to maintain optimum freshness.

Today I’m going to discuss the topic of making your own salad dressing.  The following are all reasons to make your own salad dressings:

Excellent Taste.  Homemade salad dressings beat store-bought dressings any day of the week.

You can make them to fit your taste.  You can not only get creative with different tastes but you can leave out nasty ingredients.

High Quality.  If you use high quality raw ingredients, you know your end product will be high quality.  By making your own dressings, you also do not have to add any type of preservative, which in itself makes your food higher quality.

Save Money.  Making your own dressings saves money - no question about it.

Longer lasting.  While store bought dressings have preservatives to make them have a relatively long shelf life - that preservative is not particularly healthy - like we mentioned.  The raw ingredents needed to make your own dressings are usually very long lasting (in particular dressings such as Italian, which consists mainly of an oil, a vinegar, and herbs).

Buying the raw ingredients in bulk is a great way to build up food storage for not only salad dressings, but for other food too, and you can have fresh dressings any time or you can can them too!

In general, the most popular form of food storage is dry food, canned food, things that do not require refrigeration or to be frozen.  I encourage you to buy meat and keep it in a freezer for several reasons.  First, find a local farm that you can purchase from.  Community supported agriculture is becoming more and more popular because it allows smaller farmers to maintain their way of life, allows the consumers to purchase and the farmers to provide, high quality food, and allows for less fuel to transport the food, thus is better for the environment.  On local farms you can find the highest quality food available.  These farms will often sell larger amounts of meat to consumers.  For example, you can pre-order 15 chickens or 1/2 a cow worth of beef.

If you have any questions about where to start looking for a high quality local farm to purchase larger amounts of meat, please send us a message and we will be more than happy to provide you with information.

Just a few tips when purchasing beef.  There are many different things you can do with this.  You have the ability to grind your own hamburger, or you can have a meat locker do it.  But you can also have many different roasts and steaks cut to your specifications for a flat rate - not matter what and how you want it done.

This vegetable curry dish is wonderful, sweet, but not too over powering, just enough to make you want some more! The assembly of this recipe is very easy. I recommend it for frozen food storage. You can change it and add any vegetable or meat you would like. The steps to prepare this food is roughly as follows:

For the first step, make a list of the vegetables you would like - Broccoli and Zucchini do a great job of absorbing flavor. I also use carrots, peppers, string beans, garlic and onion. The garlic and onion are great for flavor, so I highly recommend them. Other great ideas for veggies are potatoes, cauliflower, eggplant, cabbage etc. Collect and chop (if fresh) all desired veggies. I do recommend cooking hard veggies before freezing or adding them with the rest because they will not have enough time to get thoroughly soft otherwise. Freeze bags of veggies according to your desired proportions and quantity for individual meals. When cooking them for dinner, put some oil in a pan, first add onions for a few minutes then throw in the rest of the veggies. Once they are almost done - add the sauce and simmer for about 10 minutes. Serve over cooked rice.

The second step is the sauce for the vegetables. For this you will need (per meal) 1 can of tomato sauce, ginger, curry, salt, sugar, and soy sauce. You can add as much or little of each of the ingredients as you would like. I personally think the ginger and curry add wonderful taste - so the more the better! Also, be conservative with the salt keeping in mind the soy sauce sodium content. I would add about a tablespoon and a half of soy sauce and about a teaspoon or two of sugar. This sauce can be frozen once assembled. When you are preparing your dinner, you can pull the seasoning packet out first and put it in warm/hot water and it will thaw quickly.

I suggest simply preparing the rice when the rest of the meal is cooking. This meal should take no more than 30 minutes to prepare from the moment you walk into the kitchen, until you sit down to take your first bite. Enjoy!

When storing food, you want to ensure the food is in the most protected packaging possible. Glass is by far one off the best and safest storing methods, if properly sealed. Canning jars are great. They provide great seals and come in a great variety of sizes to accommodate a variety of foods.

For example, if you purchase boxes of macaroni and cheese, make sure the noodles are taken out of the boxes. Boxes are susceptible to moisture and bugs, two things that will be sure to ruin the food.

Some fresh foods require different types of storage and they will maintain for longer than expected periods of time. For example, if you create a crate in your potatoes in a cool place (i.e. cellar or canning basement) and protect them from the floor and walls, you will find you can keep potatoes fresh and tasty until you are able to harvest the next year!

If you are new to food storage, or if you are starting to gather food for storage, start small. Don’t feel overwhelmed like you need to store food for a long period of time all right away. Break up your end goal into smaller time periods. You will have more fun, work into a routine that works for you, and will have the endurance to work up to your goal.

Programs such as cooking for two weeks and cooking for a month are great ways to try out storing food. Take one or two days and plan out the meals you will need for a set period of time, we recommend incriments of two weeks. Cook, freeze, bake, assemble everything. Make two lasagnas, freeze a batch of cookie dough, assemble three soup stocks, cook a turkey and use the meat for sandwiches, noodle dishes, salads, and for snacking. These are just a few great ways to get started.

One great thing about starting small like this, is you can get into a routine for budgeting. You will know exactly how much you can allot to groceries every set period of time by properly alloting food for certain meals. We wish you a great start with food storage!

This recipe is not only very delicious, but it is a great food to make in a large quantity and freeze. When you are in need of a great home-cooked meal, but do not have the time, this will be in the freezer waiting for you!

The equipment you will need for this recipe is a very large kettle and a grinder (if you are going to use fresh potatoes). If you do not have a grinder, you can shred the ingredients by hand.

(1) Boil your choice of pork in a large kettle for 1 hour. You will need approximately 3 1/2 gallons of water for the dumplings - so boil the pork in this, taking into consideration the release of steam if uncovered. While this is boiling:

(2) 20 raw potatoes per 1 raw onion - grate both ingredients and drain starchy juice from the potatoes before you mix in the onion. You will need some liquid so don’t squeeze juice out, only pour any excess. You can use potato flakes for the potatoes, just be sure to proportion them correctly.
(3) Season Mixture of onions and potatoes. Season very well will salt and about 3 times more pepper, 3TBL season-all, and 1 TBSP and 1 TSP of baking powder.

(4) Add water until you can form dough into rough balls about golf ball size. If you wet your hands quickly between each ball, they form very nicely. The balls will seem to sag, but that is okay, when they hit the boiling water, they will, for the most part, hold form.

(5) Add dumplings to low boiling water. Ensure you stir every few minutes to make sure the dumplings are not sticking to the bottom of the kettle. Cook for about an hour.

(6) The dumplings will form their own gravy and it will thicken over the hour of cooking time. Add celery salt, season-all and salt and pepper to gravy to taste.

You can now enjoy a wonderful meal and/or freeze dumplings and gravy. Portion 3-5 dumplings per adult per meal.

Anyone can buy a bunch of food and put it away in some corner, room, or section of the house. Since you are going to be buying and, more importantly, using your food storage, make the space organized, fun, and effective. Space planning is the first place to start. Do you already have a space big enough for your storage? Do you need to modify a room in order to make it food storage usable? These are questions you need to start with.

Once you have your space, you need to start with a floor plan and draw out the space plan, organization, and how you want the space to flow. A suggestion for this is to draw not only a floor plan, but elevations of the shelves so you know exactly where you want to place each food category.

A key in effectively using your food storage space is to plan with containers and shelving. Custom make your shelving to fit containers you have, purchase containers to fit current shelving, or a combination of the two. Each amount of space that is under utilize in your storage, is wasted space that can be used for a larger container or a different organizational layout.

Before you start organizing your food storage, ensure you have established a plan of action. This preparation will not only make your organization much less stressful, but you can make the retrieval of food much easier as well.