Living Providently

[caption id="attachment_449" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Provident living makes me Happy!"][/caption]

DMP and I are trying to follow the Prophet's counsel to be more prepared and live more providently. In addition to having aspirations on working on our 72 hr. kits (we have extra clothes and one of those ready-made things that has food, emergency blankets and etc). 

Our latest goal that we are actively working on is getting our 3 month supply squared away.  We live in a small townhome, so a year's supply is just a pipe dream (but thanks to Dad, we have a lot of good staples).  However, we think that we can totally build up a 3 month supply of food we'd eat in the event of a lost job, flu epidemic, being lazy and unwilling to go to the grocery store- you get the idea.

The problem is that food storage totally mystifies me- particularly the "rotating" part. I'm just not talented enough to remeber and think up uses for powdered milk and wheat. We typically eat a LOT of fresh fruit and veggies with our meals, so stockpiling stuff we "typically" eat is really hard for me to wrap my head around.

I said a special prayer of thanks when I discovered a new blog- Just Organize Yourself.  Joy is seriously my new Mom-Hero.  You who know me well know I love to be organized and she is awesome and full of fantastic ideas.  Anyway- back to our three month supply... She recently posted about how she organizes her three-month supply and it was a total revelation to me. 

She has 15 meals that can be made entirely from "pantry foods" - i.e. canned and packaged stuff with a long-ish shelf life.  She then buys ingredients in multiples of six and viola! you have a 3 month supply of dinners. This way, if you are a total "rotation" dork like me, you can rotate by meal, instead of by individual ingredients (but you could rotate ingredients, too).  Also, if you click through to the post above- you will see exactly why she is my mom-hero- look at the beautiful baskets in her storage room- all neat and in a row. It makes my heart happy :)

Joy was kind enough to share her recipies on her blog, and I've searched the internets for recipies that fit our family.  One fantastic resource I've found for recipies and all things "provident" is the Safely Gathered In blog- there are tons of recipies, food storage and emergency kit ideas and inspiration.

So now we are in the process of "auditioning" the recipes I've gathered. I figure if we are going to rotate (and possibly live off of) these things, we should at least like them enough to eat them 6 times in 3 months (!!! we hardly ever make the same recipe more than once in 6 months so that would be strange).  So expect a blog soon featuring the first two auditions- Coconut Curry Chicken and Rice and Pasta and Garbanzo Bean Soup!