Seven Years of Plenty

Aguas Frescas

2012-02-13T12:16:00.000-05:00

Blogging has changed my life in many ways. For instance, last week at my sons birthday party, I was about to take a picture of all the kids and the cupcakes and my son sees me with the camera and shouts, "Watch out! Everybody move back, my mom likes to take pictures of her food and doesn't like people being in the pictures!" The kids instantly react by all leaning backwards away from the cupcakes

Doomsday Preppers and Beyond!

2012-02-08T15:15:00.000-05:00

I spent last night watching National Geographic new "Doomsday Preppers" show. For a "prepper enthusiast," I watched in hope to learn something. I did learn a few things.... 1. People have extremely different reasons and approaches of preparing. What is your style? 2.Dipping cheese in hot wax will preserve it for years without the need of refrigeration. I have never tried that, pretty

Outdoor Sanitation

2012-02-06T20:48:00.000-05:00

Bill Gates is out to reinvent the toilet. He is hoping to help third world countries to eliminate disease and death due to poor sanitation. “Worldwide around 1.1 billion people lack access to improved water sources and 2.4 billion have no basic sanitation. Diarrhea due to infection is widespread throughout the developing world. In Southeast Asia and Africa, diarrhea is responsible for as much as

Food Ark

2012-02-02T16:57:00.001-05:00

National Geographic, Photograph by Jim Richardson of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault I read in the National Geographic about a fascinating effort to store seeds safely to preserve biodiversity. This effort started in 1926 by Russian botanist Nikolay Vavilov. The National Geographic reports, "Vavilov was obsessed from an early age with ending famine in both his native Russia and the world. In

Garden Planning 2012

2012-01-27T06:29:00.000-05:00

Start planning your garden today Ordering seed catalogs can be great for ordering seeds and a great resource of information. The Maine Potato LadyItalian Seed and Tool CompanyBurpeeJohn Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds Pinetree Garden Seeds

Sweet Potato Corn Bread with BBQ Beans

2012-01-25T11:28:00.002-05:00

Here is just one more way to eat Sweet Potato Corn Bread... BBQ Beans 1½ lb. hamburger, cooked 1 16 oz. can kidney beans 1 15 oz. can pork and beans 1 cup ketchup 1 cup brown sugar 3 T. vinegar 1 tsp. salt Combine ingredients in slow cooker. Cook for 4 to 6 hours. I just read something crazy in a magazine. For $35,000 dollars you can reserve a share in an Indiana "underground

Rotation Gone Wrong

2012-01-23T10:52:00.002-05:00

I recently realized my evaporated milk had been a bit neglected in my cupboard. Seeing that the expiration dates where drawing closer, I took action. I made a lot of soup. I also tried to substitute evaporation milk for regular milk in some of my baking recipes. Saturday I made Sweet Potato Corn Bread. It called for buttermilk, so I used evaporated milk, water{to dilute the thickness of the

Potato Bean Salad

2012-01-19T13:40:00.003-05:00

I know there are 1001 ways to put potatoes, corn, beans, and tomatoes together. That is the great thing about some of these basic foods, none of the flavors are to overpowering and they can be interchanged in different ways. The more knowledge we have about how to prepare food, is like the more tools in our kitchen. It will give us confidence on how to bring a delicious meal together. My husband

Living without Luxuries

2012-01-16T13:19:00.004-05:00

I am happy to send everyone a magnet that left a message below. If you are not local, please send me your address at lindadolsson{at}gmail{dot}com. Thanks! For today's inspiration, President Monson said, My brothers and sisters, avoid the philosophy that yesterday’s luxuries have become today’s necessities. They aren’t necessities unless we make them so. Many enter into long-term debt only to

Magnet Giveaway

2012-01-12T18:26:00.001-05:00

Some of you may have received a magnet of this picture in the mail over the holidays. I still have some magnets left. If you would like me to send you one, just leave a comment so I know you want one. I think I should have enough for the number of comments I usually get. If I need to, I will make it in to a drawing. I hope this will be a little reminder of preparing for times of need when the

Building on the Basics

2012-01-09T12:16:00.002-05:00

Building on the Basics: Adventures in Beans Edition 4 lbs dry pinto beans = 5 cans pinto beans + 5 cans refried beansI used the Brown Beans recipe and the Refried Beans in my cookbook. I started by soaking them overnight. They were thirsty little beans and I had to keep adding water to make sure they had enough to keep soaking. That is a lot of beans! I put half in a pot on the stove and kept

Life in 1911

2012-01-06T11:00:00.004-05:00

My favorite Christmas letter to get every year is my Grandma, who has now reached 101 years old! 1911 was a really long time ago! She shared what life was like for her family in her letter, "We had no indoor plumbing, we used outhouses. We had no toilet paper, we used the paper from catalogs (Sears, etc.). It was to our disadvantage when more colored and slippery pages were added to the

Blackberry Vanilla Cupcakes

2012-01-04T21:35:00.003-05:00

My friend in Colorado gave me this recipe and I adapted it to be a shelf stable recipe. She used this recipe as a diet recipe, with 2 egg whites instead of 2 T. whole egg powder. If you want to try that version, it is delicious too. There are endless combinations of flavors because you are choosing a soda flavor and a cake mix flavor. I choose blackberry vanilla, but I must warn you it is not

Win Pantry Staples for a Year

2012-01-02T19:40:00.001-05:00

Whole Foods is having the best giveaway! They are giving a years supply of pantry foods away. All you have to do is send an email to pantrycontest@wholefoods.com by January 31st telling us what healthy foods are “must haves” for your pantry. They will select random emails in February for our pantry-focused giveaway. You might win:$50 Pantry Staples Stock Up – They are giving away 31 stock ups.

Spreading the Joy

2011-12-19T19:02:00.004-05:00

We have lived away from our families for over eight years now, and I finally determined I need to do a better job at staying in touch. So this year my gifts were focused on making connections, remembering fun memories as well as not being expensive gifts. My sisters family and I are going to play... The License Plate Game The Rules:1. Don't Cheat, whoever finishes first, wins.2. You have one

Meals Ready to Escape

2011-12-15T15:12:00.000-05:00

MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat, are a popular item in preparedness stores. IT seems like a really safe way to have something to eat when you find yourself in a true emergency. My question to is has anyone tried these meals or are they sitting in your backpack waiting for that desperate emergency? The benefit of MREs is that they contain 1,200 calories and have a shelf life of three years. These

"All is Safely Gathered In"

2011-12-13T19:54:00.002-05:00

My serious pursuit of becoming self-reliant began about nine years ago when we moved to a new city, right out of school, that was very expensive. I began realizing that the I could not participate in the culture of processed foods and eating out because our budget would not allow it. We often went for weeks of living on what we had in our house, before being able to go grocery shopping again.

A Year in Review, Weather Edition

2011-12-10T20:22:00.002-05:00

Whether you live in Texas or Tulsa, chances are that you experienced severe weather this year. In Virginia, we started last year with a record breaking cold winter,then a record breaking heat, along with a hurricane and earthquake {within a week}. I know people across the country have similar {if not much worse} stories of weather and survival. NOAA also reports there have been more than 1,000

A Year in Review

2011-12-08T15:22:00.004-05:00

Last year at this time I set out to accomplish for 2011. These new years resolutions included,1. Cutting down on our food budget by buying less cold cereal. {Not that there is anything wrong with cold cereal, but you can save a lot of money by NOT buying it, that is for sure.} This plan included cooking more breakfast. I am going to cook several batches of waffles and pancakes and freeze them

Season of Holiday Pies

2011-12-07T03:16:00.001-05:00

When I was growing up, my Dad (who grew up on a farm) made sure we had lots of fruits and vegetables growing in our backyard. Some of the plants have come and gone over the years, but there are plenty that still provide a great harvest. These pictures are of my Dad enjoying the apples last year. My Mom would then take the apples and go to work. She made applesauce, fruit leather, dried apples,

Garden Guide

2011-12-05T02:49:00.003-05:00

I still consider myself a beginner gardener. I have been trying to grow things for three years now and have learned sooo much. I still have a long way to go. I put together this guide recently for a church activity. This is based on my own research and material I thought would be helpful to have on hand as a reference. I also got some great farmer's advice from my friend who has a Grandpa that

Printable Garden Guide

2011-12-02T19:54:00.005-05:00

Garden Guide “Study the best methods of providing your own foods. Make your garden … neat and attractive as well as productive. If there are children in your home, involve them in the process with assigned responsibilities.” Spencer W. Kimball, May 1976 Consider Cool Weather Crops

Sugar is Sugar

2011-11-30T15:02:00.001-05:00

With holiday baking right around the corner, many of us are buying large quantities of sugar to bake our holiday cookies. Sugar comes from the sugar beet, sugar cane, or corn. There has been a heated debate about the differences between sugars. Corn Syrup has gotten a really bad reputation because of a fabulous advertising campaign. Corn Syrup is also on a favorite food storage item because it

Feeding America

2011-11-28T15:27:00.000-05:00

Feeding America is an amazing orgainization that helps those in need of food. These are the statistics they provide:Hunger & Poverty StatisticsAlthough related, food insecurity and poverty are not the same. Unemployment rather than poverty is a stronger predictor of food insecurity.PovertyIn 2009, 43.6 million people (14.3 percent) were in poverty.In 2010, 46.2 million people were in poverty.In

Dinner Conversation and a Deal

2011-11-23T20:55:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! The video is to help with a Thanksgiving Day dinner conversation. {Then don't forget your food storage in your Black Friday Shopping Plans!} Black Friday Food Storage Deals The Ready StoreThrive I hope you have a safe and happy holiday!