Week 16 - Provident Pantry

Morning,

This week we are still making bread - or more accurately, we are storing the ingredients for the bread we will be needing/making in our 3 month supply. 

I see on your ingredients' lists that some of you have tortillas or frozen roll dough.  If these are ready made and you have freezer space, simply purchase, store, and you are done.  For those of us who have limited freezer space and will need to make bread from scratch, let's make sure we have the ingredients to do so.

So this week let's focus on yeast and sugar and shortening and salt.  

Yeast is probably just for your bread, but the other ingredients may be used in other of your menu items. 

If you have or are also working on your long term storage with us, you already have your sugar and salt, so this week's task is even easier - it is just the yeast and shortening.

Of course, I have not seen your bread recipes, so if you have other items in those recipes, please include those as well this week.

The goal this week is:  We now have our bread requirement for 3 months stored away. 

This is big sisters.  When you complete this, give yourselves a pat on the back.  And you can even serve PB&Js to celebrate with the family:-)!

Blessings,
Marie

Week 9 - The Long Haul

Morning Sisters,

I did not hear from many of you, but the ones I did hear from seemed to indicate they had either finished gathering in their 1 year supply of sugar/honey or had gathered about all they were going to gather at this time. So this will be the last week, for now at least, that we will work on sugar/honey. (If I hear that any of you still want to work on it, we will come back to it in December.) 

So, gather in that last 8+ pounds of honey or sugar this week. And next week we will move on to another item.

Have a good day, sweet sisters,

Marie

Week 8 - Long Haul

How sweet it is!

Keeping adding that sugar. How close are you to your goal? Please drop me a quick response to this email this week and let me know. Also, this Saturday I will be reserving the canner. So far only 3 of us seem to need the canner right now, so I will probably set it up to use in one of our homes on a Tuesday evening or Saturday afternoon. So in the email, also include if you want to be part of this canning party and your availibility.

So, if I were you responding to this email, it would probably look like this:

Hi Marie,

I am not going to be completing the total year's compliment of sugar this year as my storage is limited, but in a couple of weeks I will have purchased all I feel I will have room for right now, so whenever you are ready to move on to the next phase of this is good for me. I will have 50 lbs of sugar that I need to get into #10 sealed cans, so please count me in on the canning party. And I can do this either on a Tuesday night or a Saturday afternoon after 3 p.m.

Thanks,

Marie

I am looking forward to your email responses, and to the canning party (details to follow).

Sweetly yours,

Marie

Week 7 - The Long Haul

"Sweet is the Work..." I was trying to think of hymns or songs that had the words sugar, honey, or sweet in them this morning. Do any of you have any suggestions?

Well, we should be at least halfway there toward our goal of getting 100 pounds of sugar/honey per person into our long term storage. As I have not heard that anyone has made their goal (it may have been adjusted for your particular family usuage), we will continue on.

I have had one request for the canner. Anyone else? I will be looking at checking it out from the Home Storage Center later this month.

To recap, the task again for this week:

1. to either purchase at least 8.3 pounds of sugar/honey for every two people in your family

OR

to take an envelope, and put in $5 for every 2 people in your family so you can save up to buy it in greater bulk.

2. If you purchase this week, be sure to label it with the date of purchase. (Properly canned sugar and honey last for many years, but you will still want to be rotating it after you get your full amount in storage, and you will want first in/first out.) Then put the sugar in the place you have designated for your year's supply.

For those of you that would like to save up for a few weeks and then go out to the Home Storage Center in a few weeks to purchase, I would be glad to set up a time when we could go together. Just let me know if you are interested.

Sweetly,

Marie

Week 6 - The Long Haul

How sweet it is!

Once again, we continue to get that sugar and or honey into our long term storage.  I haven't heard from any of you yet, so I am making the assumption that we are all still plugging away, either by purchasing sugar/honey this week or by putting the $5 per every 2 people in your family into an envelope for when you purchase it in bulk. 

Please start letting me know now if you are going to be wanting to package your sugar in #10 cans.  The canning equipment from the home storage center is pretty popular and I will want to be securing a date for us to check out the equipment  fairly soon.  I am thinking of doing the canning on a Tuesday evening or a Saturday late afternoon at the church.  If you have a preference, also please let me know, as I need to be scheduling use of the meetinghouse fairly soon as well.

Until we meet again,
Marie

Week 5 - Long Haul

You guessed it. 

 

This week we are still working on getting the sugar/honey into our long term storage.

 

So, once again, the task is:

1. to either purchase at least 8.3 pounds of sugar/honey for every two people in your family

OR

to take an envelope, and put in $5 for every 2 people in your family so you can save up to buy it in greater bulk.

2. If you purchase this week, be sure to label it with the date of purchase. (Properly canned sugar and honey last for many years, but you will still want to be rotating it after you get your full amount in storage, and you will want first in/first out.) Then put the sugar in the place you have designated for your year's supply.

So far I have not heard from any of you that you have completed your sugar storage. Please let me know when you do. I have this scheduled for a number of weeks, but if we are all done, I'd be glad to move on sooner to other things.

Have a sweet week,

Marie

Week 3 - The Long Haul

Morning,   As I have been thinking about you guys this week, I have often been finding myself singing, "Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, sugar at suppertime". Wonderful old song!!! Brings back sweet memories!   Anyway, so again the task this week is:     1. to either purchase at least 8.3 pounds of sugar/honey for every two people in your family   OR   to take an envelope, and put in $5 for every 2 people in your family so you can save up to buy it in greater bulk.     2. If you purchase this week, be sure to label it with the date of purchase. (Properly canned sugar and honey last for many years, but you will still want to be rotating it after you get your full amount in storage, and you will want first in/first out.) Then put the sugar in the place you have designated for your year's supply.   Sweet storing, Marie

Week 2 - The Long Haul

Hey, hey, hey sisters,

 

So did you get your salt all salted away?

OK...so now we are going to work on sugar/honey/alternatives for actually a few weeks. The church no longer gives recommendations as to how much per person to store for a year. Sugar and honey have very long shelf lives. I have no idea as to the shelf live of stevia (we keep a certain amount of stevia in our storage because I have a son who has diabetes, and I like it in my herbal teas) and other alternatives. Having gone to a number of other websites, it looks like a common goal is 100 pounds per person per year. So that will be our goal. However, you know your families best (perhaps you are very frugal with sugar, perhaps you have a sweet tooth), so feel free to make adjustments to that.

 

We are going to spend the next 12 weeks on sugar/honey/alternatives. Right now, if you buy sugar at the Home Storage Center, it is $15 for a 25 lb sack. If you find a better deal, let us know by replying to all.

 

So the task this week is:

 

1. to either purchase at least 8.3 pounds of sugar/honey for every two people in your family

OR

to take an envelope, and put in $5 for every 2 people in your family so you can save up to buy it in greater bulk.

 

2. If you purchase this week, be sure to label it with the date of purchase. (Properly canned sugar and honey last for many years, but you will still want to be rotating it after you get your full amount in storage, and you will want first in/first out.) Then put the sugar in the place you have designated for your year's supply.

For those of you that would like to save up for a few weeks and then go out to the Home Storage Center in a few weeks to purchase, I would be glad to set up a time when we could go together. Just let me know if you are interested.

 

In six weeks I am also going to check out the canner to be able to put the sugar in #10 cans. We can do that at the church. We also will be trying to get the canner to the church for the January 21st activity, although that has not been confirmed yet. If you have canned before and want to bring some of your product to can that day, that is also a possibility. Remember you will have had to purchase your cans, lids, and oxygen absorbers before then and bring them with you to the church that day.

 

Take care...and have a "sweet" week,

Marie