Your Own Home Store

Product Highlight: How do you like your potatoes?

2011-11-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

Potatoes are such a great food:. There are so many ways to use them! There are also many ways to add potatoes to your food storage, or home store. In fact, there are three ways. Today, I'm going to highlight these three types of potatoes so you know just what the differences are and can be sure to add what you really want to your home store.

The three different types are (1) Freeze Dried Potato Dices, (2) Dehydrated Potato Chunks, and (3) Potato Beads.

Freeze Dried Potato Dices:
Potato Dices are real 100% potatoes that have been pre-cooked and then freeze dried and have a 25 year shelf life. The only difference between these potatoes and fresh is that they don't have any water. If you hydrate them, they will work just like potato dices you froze and then defrosted. They have no additives or preservatives. Nothing but potatoes here! When dry, you can very easily crush them to a powder. That powder works wonders as a thickener in soups, stews and gravies. They hydrate very quickly and can be used in soups, breakfast casseroles or as hash browns. They also make very tasty mashed potatoes: not like instant mashed potatoes, these taste just like fresh! And they save time: no more washing and peeling and dicing. Don't you wish you had some for Thanksgiving? The only thing these potatoes can't really do is give you chunks in soup, potato salad etc. They hydrate very quickly, and if you cook them too long, they just become extremely soft. These are my favorite potatoes.

Dehydrated Potato Chunks

Potato Chunks are 100% real potatoes that have been dehydrated and have a 25 year shelf life. They are not as similar to fresh potatoes as the freeze dried dices b/c heat was applied to the chunks to remove the water and that changes their structure a bit (similar to how a grape is changed to a raisin). They are very hard and cannot be broken with with your hand or crushed to a powder. However, they are just potatoes: no additives or preservative here either! And still no washing or pealing or dicing! They take 20-25 minutes to hydrate in boiling water and even then, they are still a bit chewy. They work well in potato soups when you want a chunkier potato (like a chowder). They also work well in potato salads.

Potato Beads
Potato Beads are not 100% real potatoes. They have a 8 year shelf life. While the main ingredient is dehydrated potatoes, they also contain salt, oil, artificial colors and flavors and other preservatives. They can easily be crushed to a powder. They hydrate very quickly and are meant to be used as a thickener in soups & stews or as quick, flavorful mashed potatoes. You can make tasty mashed potatoes in just 2 minutes with these beads.

I was going to take pictures of the actual potatoes, but realized late last night that I'm out of the chunks. I thought I could still post the other two, but the point really is for you to see the differences between them all. So, if you'd like to see pictures of the actual potatoes (instead of just the cans), you can visit Shelf Reliance Sisters where she has great pictures of all three!

I am an independent consultant for Shelf Reliance; a company with a mission to empower others to become self reliant, prosperous and charitable. You can learn more about Shelf Reliance, becoming a Shelf Reliance consultant ,buying their products, or earning free products, on my Shelf Reliance Consultant website.

Serving size of freeze dried produce

2011-05-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

It is recommended that most adults get 1.5-2 cups of fruit every day and 2-3 cups of vegetables. This is also sometimes listed as 3-4 servings of fruit and 4-6 servings of vegetables b/c 1/2 cup is often listed as one serving.

So, what does that mean for dehydrated and freeze dried produce? Well, the United States Departement of Agriculture says this:

In general, 1 cup of fruit or 100% fruit juice, or ½ cup of dried fruit can be considered as 1 cup from the fruit group.

That is why Shelf Reliance lists their serving size for most fruits and vegetable as 1/4 cup. 1/4 cup freeze dried = 1/2 cup fresh = 1 serving.

If you were to meet the daily reccommeded amounts using freeze dried produce alone you should have:

3/4 - 1 cup of freeze dried fruit (or 3-4 servings) and
1 - 1.5 cups of freeze dried vegetables (or 4-6 servings)

A #10 can has approximately 12 cups or 48 servings (it varies a bit depending on the product). So just one can of freeze dried fruit would provide one person with about 14 days worth of servings. How incredible is that? 2 weeks of fruit on your shelf with a 25 year shelf life. Even better? It is as healthy as fresh, but tastes like candy!

Resources:

If you are interested in adding produce to your own home grocery store at a discount (5%-45% below retail), you may do so directly on my Shelf Reliance Website.

NO COUPON CODE NEEDED!

As an independent consultant, Shelf Reliance has authorized me to sell their products at the lowest available price: lower than through Shelf Reliance directly or any other retailer!

Using THRIVE Tomato Powder

2011-02-25T10:30:00.000-08:00

One of my very favorite THRIVE products is the Tomato Powder. It can be used to make SO many things:

Marinara / Spaghetti Sauce
Ketchup
Tomato Soup
BBQ Sauce
Minestrone
Enchilada Sauce
Pizza Sauce
Taco Soup
Shepard's Pie

With that type of versatility, this is a wonderful item to add to your long term storage or your "home store." It will give you many options for creating quick dinners that are fast and healthy on those crazy nights when you just don't seem to have time to cook. This is especially true when you combine it with freeze dried veggies: you can have a quick, healthy, easy soup ready in just minutes!

It is less expensive than tomato paste, tomato sauce, and tomato juice at the grocery store. In fact you should save $1.50-$2.00 per bottle of tomato juice, $0.50 - $0.60 per 6 oz can of tomato paste and $0.35-$0.45 on each 15 oz can of tomato sauce.* Those three products are staples at our house. I make lots of easy soup recipes and sauces with them. I am saving so much money by using the tomato powder instead.
*Based on the average prices of these items as tracked in Southern California.

Today, I wanted to post just a basic conversion chart for making tomato paste, sauce, and juice out of this incredible product. Then, over the next few weeks, I will post each of the above recipes to help you use this product even more often!

THRIVE Freeze Dried Onions Conversion Chart

2011-02-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

THRIVE freeze dried onions expand about four times their original size when hydrated. I'm not a huge fan of an overwhelming onion taste in my foods, so I've created the following conversion chart that I use for myself when cooking. I use these onions in many soups and casseroles with a lot of success.

You may click on the image to download it.

Total Cost for #10 can of freeze dried onions: $17.39

You will get: ninety-six 1/2 onion servings
Cost per serving: $0.18 using THRIVE ingredients
The average cost for an onion at the grocery store is around $0.70.
Savings by using THRIVE ingredients: around $0.17 per 1/2 onion serving

And remember, you can lower that cost per serving by 5% purchasing a case of six freeze dried onions.

If you are interested in purchasing these ingredients, please contact me first to set up a preferred customer account to get the quoted prices!