Future Long Term Food Storage Plans In 2026

 

I think, after five full years of doing this now, I’ve got it dialed in as far as what I personally need and want to keep in my long term food storage (LTFS).  This past year I did not grow a garden  and I did not acquire and home can a bunch of food.  I used up a little more than I put back in as far as my home canned goods.  Over this past year I have emptied six flats of pint jars and two flats of half pint jars.  I added back five flats of pints and a flat and a half of half pints of newly home canned foods and that was A-OK.  I am good with that.

 

This year I expanded my LTFS by adding an emergency/camping foods shelf so I now have a nice selection of easy to prepare items to go with some of my pre-prepared home canned items to make complete meals with.  I have enjoyed having these options readily available for days when I am doing outdoor activities, camping or whenever we have a power outage which happens somewhat often here.  Our last outage was over four hours long, which isn't horrible, but it can sure put a damper on your supper plans.  In addition, I am adding items I find on sale for the sole purpose of donating to those in need.

 

I added more condiments, canned milk, tuna, green beans, pumpkin, diced tomatoes, mandarin oranges and jars of sliced peaches from the store to replace those I had used throughout the year.  My goal has been to pull the older dated items first and replace as I go.  This has been working rather successfully for me and I intend to continue on with this practice.  Likewise, I use this approach when it comes to my deep freezer.

 

In the deep freezer I made a point to use up everything that was in there with a date of 2023 and then move onto 2024 dated items.  In the process I was able to add back what I used with fresh meat and produce and I expanded the amount of frozen produce, doubling what I used to keep on hand.  Almost everything in the deep freezer right now is vacuum packaged and all dated either 2024 or 2025 so I don’t need to worry about waste due to items getting ruined by freezer burn.  My goal is not to have anything in the deep freezer older than two years.

 

In the freezer in my kitchen I was able to achieve my goal this year of having it set up mainly for holding only open packages of frozen items that I am currently using as well as a nice selection of homemade readymade meals and entrees.  It is so nice having meals I can quickly reheat and eat on a busy day or if I’m feeling a bit under the weather.  As a treat I also added a few frozen pizzas which I do enjoy from time to time.

 

Bread & Butter Pickles

Taco Soup

Homemade & canned cranberry sauce as well a bottle of pancake syrup

In November a second small freezer unexpectedly made its way into my LTFS.  Although I was initially hesitant about this it has opened up the expansion of my prepping immensely and surprisingly made things much nicer and easier for me. The small upright in the garage is perfect for one person, and not too bad for two, but the way I like to cook, eat and prepare it was a little tight.  The new freezer has allowed us to make the upright solely for storing frozen meat and fats while the little chest freezer holds all of the frozen produce, extra flour and yeast as well as our homemade breads and muffins.

Next year I plan to add more home canned goods to the shelves as well as to continue to pull and replace the other items I use on a regular basis.   I find I use my home canned soups and canned legumes, especially the black beans and the black and pinto bean combination, a lot so I’ll be adding more of those to the shelves.  I also plan to make more salsa next year and some pickles.  As I find good deals on meat I plan to also can some or make more pre-prepared meal options.  Sounds like a great plan to me! 😃

 

Are You Ready?

 

With Thanksgiving around the corner I am awash with gratefulness to have all of my needs met as well as a comfortable warm home with a snug bed to rest my body after a full and busy day.  I have enough clothing and a way to keep them clean, I have two older vehicles that are in good running order, paid for and get me from point A to point B and I am blessed with enough knowledge and skill to keep them that way.  I have savings and an emergency fund, a part time job that I love, pets to care for and provide me with endless amounts of love and laughter, a wonderful small circle of friends and family.  And yet…

 

In our current state of affairs I feel unsettled.  This past year has not been a good one for our country and it does not appear that it will be getting better any time soon.  In fact, I expect it will only continue to get worse.  Costs continue to climb, our way of life is challenged on a daily basis and the struggle for so many is real as they try to keep a roof over their heads and feed their families.  The future of affordable and available health care is tenuous at best.  And, I’m sorry if this offends you, but I’ve watched the president and his administration squander billions of taxpayer dollars while the Americans that have worked so hard for that money are struggling to meet their basic needs.

 

Sadly, I believe we are headed toward the very real possibility of an economic collapse and if so, if things do not change and soon, we will be experiencing a great depression.  When the stock market crashed in 1929 followed by the dust bowl that wiped out our agriculture from 1930 to 1936 it devastated our economy.  It was a slow road back and it left its mark on many Americans for generations to come.  My grandmother was raised during that time by her widowed mother and she never liked to talk about it because it was so incredibly hard, but I always knew by the amount of food she kept in her home and the things she kept and squirreled away for "just in case" that it affected her all her life.

 

The economic collapse or next great depression will be different.  We have the addition of technology, meant to improve our lives, but I fear that this technology will only make matters worse.  AI is moving fast and threatening to take over jobs.  Technology tracks our every move as if we all are criminals and need to be watched.  Why?  I do not know.  It has access to all of our personal information, our messages, photos and videos, our voting records, our assets and our money.  The list goes on and on.  It knows us better than we know ourselves.

While we cannot prepare for every eventuality we are preparing as best we can for the next phase in life and we are going into it expecting it to be hard.  We expect to face challenges we never thought we’d ever have to face in our lifetime.  We are battening down the hatches and heading into the future with caution and trepidation while remaining ever faithful that God will be with us every step of the way.  My gut and my intuition tell me to do things to protect and prepare for whatever is coming next.   I do believe democracy will stand tall and will not topple.  We will get through this, but it is quite possibly going to be a bit of a bumpy ride getting there.

 

Amazing Meals From The Pantry #11

 

This past month I was interested in making some healthy and nutritious bare bones meals to stretch what was already on hand in the pantry so I could concentrate more on the winter stockpile.  One of those meals was to prepare a recipe of baking powder biscuits and some creamed tuna to put over the biscuits to make SOS.  The BFF had never had SOS before, but he can never say that again.  Even better, he was pleasantly surprised and thought it was very good.  I added a handful of frozen peas and two chopped hard boiled eggs to extend the meal making it SOS Deluxe and it was beautiful.  I served it alongside some reheated leftover veggies from a previous meal.  A super thrifty and satisfying meal.

 

My next budget stretching meal was to slice up some mushrooms withering in the crisper drawer and sauté with some sliced onion and a clove of minced garlic in a bit of bacon fat from the jar I keep in the fridge.  I added a pint jar of home canned roast beef in broth and seasoned it with garlic powder, salt and pepper.  Once it was all cooked through I added a bit of cornstarch mixed with water to thicken and make gravy.  This was served over steamed rice with a simple salad on the side.

 

Next up was to take a pint jar of home canned chicken breast and place that in my smallest slow cooker with the remains of a block of cream cheese and about a half cup of salsa along with a spoonful of leftover corn.  I allowed that to come up to temp and simmer for a while then stirred it all together to make a delicious chicken and sauce to put over leftover reheated rice I had in the refrigerator.  Another simple salad made for a perfect side.  There was enough for two meals plus a little more.

 

The leftover chicken ended up reheated and wrapped in warm tortillas with some shredded lettuce, a bit of leftover grated cheese, half of a sliced avocado and a spoonful of salsa for a quick meal after a full day working at the senior center.  It was perfect!  In fact, it was so good I forgot to take a picture.

 

For another quick and easy meal on a busy work day I placed a couple small red potatoes and a carrot I had peeled and cut into pieces in the bottom of my smallest slow cooker and set a frozen stuffed bell pepper on top.  Set on low I headed out the door and when I came home my dinner was ready for me.  The kitchen smelled divine and my meal was delicious.

 

I took a jar of home canned marinara, a jar of home canned Italian sausage, a little bit of chopped pepperoni and some black olives I sliced up and combined that with a little bit of cooked pasta.  After placing this into a small casserole and sprinkling parmesan and a bit of cheese over the top I “baked” this in the microwave for five minutes and then served it with a nice green salad.  Leftovers were served up on another day making for another quick and easy meal.

 

Brunches or lunches consisted of reheated leftovers, simple eggs on toast or homemade freezer waffles and eggs as well as smoothies made with banana, frozen berries, spinach, homemade yogurt and some milk.  Beverages were simply coffee, tea and filtered tap water.  All of this was enough food to fill bellies with absolutely no food waste either.  Any kitchen scraps we had ended up going to the bunny and the chickens.  Win!

 

My Tireless Retirement - Week 189

 

Wow!  What a week I have had!  I worked all day Friday and most of Saturday.  Saturday I took a group of seniors two towns over for a holiday bazaar and chocolate event.  They had samples!  That very same day I also had a pollen allergy attack from hell!  Combined with all the various scents at the bazaar from all the different vendors and I was stuff up so tight I thought my head would explode.  And it wouldn’t have been pretty.

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the upstairs bathroom toilet was quietly leaking onto the bathroom floor.  By the time I discovered it at nearly 11:00 at night it had flooded the entire bathroom, the upstairs hallway and into my bedroom.  What a mess!

 

But wait!  There’s more.  Sunday morning I awoke with the relief of a clear head and nose only to come  downstairs and find part of my living room ceiling had puddled with some of the residual water along the seams of the sheetrock and was hanging like a bowl, about the size of a medium mixing bowl.  Fortunately I was able to grab the ladder and some rags as well as my trusty Pampered Chef pizza dough roller and work the water out of the seams and that bowl of water through a small hole and drain it all out.  Then I spent some more time rolling the layer of sheetrock paper, texture and layers of latex paint in hopes of reattaching everything back onto the ceiling.  Only thing to do next was allow everything to dry out and hope for the best.  Fortunately, it worked!

 

Could've been much worse!

Thank goodness that it worked out the way that it did.  Had that bulge given way sometime during the night I can only imagine the damage it would’ve caused to the ceiling not to mention the colossal mess I would’ve had on my living room floor.  And!  What if I had been out of town?!  I don’t even want to think about that.  Instead I focused on running a big load of laundry to clean up all the towels and rags I had to use.

 

I have no pictures to show you of the immediate disaster because I was in “OH $H!T!!!” mode and just trying to get this situation taken care of and quickly.  Taking pictures never even crossed my mind.  But suffice it to say it required a trip to Home Depot Sunday afternoon for supplies.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate plumbing?  Nonetheless, number one was to get new guts to re-plumb the inside of the toilet tank so that it won’t happen again.  Number two was a can of texture for some light ceiling repair once everything was all dried out.  Number three was to get a thermostat to replace the one downstairs that decided now might be a good time to crap out on me.  Plumbing and electrical all in one weekend?  OMG!  

 

I'm sure the calcium in our water caused this to fail

Once I was back home I addressed the toilet straight away and replaced the old fill valve with the new one.  Then I scrubbed the toilet and mopped the floor declaring all is well, except for frequent trips upstairs to check for leaks or drips the next couple of days.  I’m not paranoid or anything.  LOL

 

New fill valve installed

Next was to replace the downstairs thermostat so I had heat on again which was important to finish drying out the ceiling.  I also repositioned the box fans to make sure all of the upstairs carpet dried.  Overall, the damage was rather minimal and I am exceedingly grateful for that.

 

All better!

I worked all day on Monday and then again on Thursday afternoon.  Tuesday I did some meal prepping and was able to add some more delicious meals to the freezer as well as line out meals for the week ahead along with some other chores and tasks I needed to take care of.  I took Wednesday off completely to relax and recharge my batteries.

 

This guy literally saved the day!

Thursday morning I addressed the ceiling repair with some strategic application of texture and allowed that to dry.  I will address the touch up paint on the ceiling later as I do think I’ll be doing a bit more tweaking of the texture to make sure it all matches nicely and blends in before I paint.  It’s a process.

 

Meal prepping

While I wasn’t thrilled with the turn my week took I was ever so grateful and thankful to have the knowledge, ability and means to take care of the situation.  Because of that I can honestly tell you it was not a bad day at all.  I’m hopeful there will be no more house drama for a good long time, but if there is I’ll take care of it.  How was your week?  Anything exciting going on in your world?  I do hope not the kind of excitement I just had.  No BAD Days!

 

Another Low Key Holiday Season Is On The Horizon!

 

Since retiring we have all embraced the idea of what I like to refer to as our “low key” approach to the holiday season.  It used to be a huge source of stress for most of us to get ready for Christmas.  After having “the talk” we all agreed to ditch the gift giving and just concentrate on the actual day instead.

 

We still give gifts to each other but our criteria has changed dramatically.  Since prices continue to rise and everyone is on the move or about to be on the move or downsizing gifts need to be small, inexpensive and useful.  I personally love to give and receive gift cards and consumables.  Soaps, lotions, coffees or teas, wine or alcohol, chocolate, cookies, pumpkin bread, cheeses or fruit, those types of things are very much appreciated.

 

We definitely do not buy any clothing items for each other anymore.  None of us truly knows what the other likes and with sizing being unpredictable you often just end up giving someone and errand rather than a gift and no one enjoys returning stuff to the store.  And honestly, how many pairs of fuzzy socks does one person truly need.

 

The holidays are much easier and far less stressful now while saving all of us a ton of money.  No one is going into debt or feeling pressured to get just the right gifts.  Instead we focus on the yummy foods and desserts and create loads of fun new experiences, which is all we ever remember anyway.  With a quieter, less hurried and more relaxed pace we enjoy this time of year and now instead of dreading it, we look forward to it.  No way are we going back now!

 

Getting The Ladies Ready For Their First Winter

 

Last week I was able to get outside on a nice cool sunny day and get the coop ready for my new girls very first winter.  I use a deep litter method in my coop which means you keep a deep layer of pine shavings and their droppings in the coop and as long as you keep the inside of the coop nice and dry it will decompose and create its own heat.

 

There are a lot of good benefits to doing the coop this way, the biggest being that there is no odor and I don’t have to clean the coop as often.  I will remove some of the droppings under their roost, but not all of them and then I add another big pile of pine shavings which they will spread out for me just the way they want them.  In the spring once the weather is warmer I will clean out the coop entirely adding the contents to my compost bin.  They get another big pile of pine shavings to spread out and we repeat the process.  I personally do not find that this works as well with straw as I do with pine shavings.

 

In the pen area I give them a full 55 gallon trash can I fill up with mulched leaves when I do my annual Fall cleanup raking leaves.  They will spread them out and pick through them.  This creates a nice layer that will keep down the mud and help break down their droppings while it composts into a soil additive.  Each month during winter I will give them more mulched leaves I have saved for them.  It has the added benefit of entertaining them and keeps them busy.  During the spring and summer I will rake this up and it gets incorporated into the compost bin, my flowerbeds and the raised garden beds to fertilize and amend the soil.  Again keeping the pen area, like the coop, nice and dry is my key to healthy chickens and an odorless process.

 

During freezing temperatures I use ice cream buckets to give them water.  Since they don’t drink as much water in the winter as they do in the summer I find that by swapping out one bucket a day works well most of the time.  During really cold temperatures when it doesn’t get above freezing all day I will do it twice.  Each time I bring the frozen bucket inside at night and allow it to thaw and then it is ready to go back out in the morning to be swapped again.

 

I will give them their regular feed along with the addition of cracked corn or scratch grains that I toss on the ground.  They will need more protein to help them stay warm so I will also give them meal worms, which they love.  I also make them homemade suet cakes by melting beef or pork fat I have saved for them when I cook and I will freeze it for this purpose.  I use a plastic bowl as a mold and after placing a layer of  scratch grains, cracked corn and/or meal worms in the bowl about a half inch thick I pour in enough fat to cover that.  Once the fat has cooled and solidified I can pop it out of the bowl and give it to the girls.  Cool Whip containers are perfect for this.

 

Egg production slows down considerably in the winter and even stops sometimes because of the colder temperatures and fewer daylight hours.  Some people will add lights and heat to their coops, but I choose to allow them to naturally take a break and rejuvenate during this time as they are meant to do.  In the spring, once the temperatures rise again and the daylight hours are longer, they’ll get back to business.  In the meantime my job is to make sure they are healthy, happy and well cared for.  They are definitely loved.

 

 

Honey Mustard Salad Dressing

 

I always like to make my own salad dressing because I want to control what goes into my food as much as possible.  This honey mustard salad dressing is so tasty and delicious, not to mention super easy to make, that I just had to share it with you. 

Honey Mustard Dressing 

1/2 cup mayonnaise

3 Tbs. avocado oil

2 Tbs. yellow mustard

2 Tbs. honey

1 Tbs. lemon juice 

Combine all ingredients in a small blender jar and pulse blend until well combined and emulsified.  Keep refrigerated in an airtight container.

 

This dressing goes together quickly and tastes amazing.  If you need other homemade salad dressing recipes click here.  It always feels wonderful to make my own stuff over buying it pre-prepared.  Enjoy!

 

My Tireless Retirement - Week 188

 

I began this past week of my retired life feeling very humble and very grateful.  I have been blessed in so many ways and although I never take it for granted I do feel that it is important to pay it forward whenever we can, especially as we are heading into the holidays.  Friday morning before I started a full day at work I delivered two bags of groceries to a single mom in need.

 

I was blessed with the opportunity to take part as a volunteer last Saturday morning in the SNAP $40 voucher event at the Boise Farmers Market where we handed out tokens and tickets to people in need.  The tokens allowed people to shop vendors for fresh fruits and vegetables while the tickets allowed them to purchase other SNAP eligible items like eggs, bread, milk and cheese.  There is nothing like having someone literally burst into tears in front of you when you hand them these to realize how fortunate you truly are.  I am so grateful I was able to be there to help out and even more grateful that this even was even happening.

 

The BFF has taken over this month’s grocery shopping and it has freed me up to work on other things.  We have both felt compelled combine forces and not only beef up our own food stocks as we head into winter and 2026, but we have also felt the need to start a shelf in the LTFS to store food items for donating.  Since I have the space and more available time than he does to manage this it was decided that these food stocks as well as the donation items should be kept at my house.

 

Because of the sudden increase in food stocks the BFF convinced me that the purchase of an additional small freezer might be prudent so he didn’t take over mine adding that I’d be able to better organize things using the new one to store produce, flour and homemade breads while mine was used to store the fats and proteins.  It worked and I acquiesced to his sales pitch.  My payment for keeping the freezer at my house is that I can eat whatever I want out of it, organize it however I like and he’ll keep shopping for whatever I tell him he should buy.  It sounds like a pretty solid deal to me.

 

I picked up cranberries on sale at Fred Meyer and made my own cranberry sauce for the very first time.  I still had oranges I had brought home from the senior center and the rinds were starting to dry out so it just made sense to use my grandma’s juicer and get them all juiced and add that to my cranberry sauce as part of the liquid.  It is delicious!  And, needless to say, it is very easy to make your own cranberry sauce.  I canned it in small jelly jars so it will last for quite a while and I can give some away too.

 

While at Fred Meyer I picked up two five pound bags of good quality flour on sale or $3.49 each, a really good price as I normally pay well over five dollars a bag for this flour.  At home I vacuum sealed them and placed them in the new freezer.  I also picked up four pounds of butter on sale for $2.99 each and vacuum sealed those as well.  They were added to the freezer in the garage.

 

The BFF picked me up a bag of chocolate chips at Costco.  I cannot believe the price of baking chips this year.  I normally buy them on sale this time of year and I’m good to go, but this year they aren’t on sale as in years past.  This bag was the better deal and will last me for at least a year if not longer.  I am very much ready for some holiday baking and possibly making a pan of fudge.

 

It was very much a food focused week around here.  Not only with the new freezer purchase and some home food preservation, but also with the SNAP event and food donations and food drives currently going on around here.  It is kind of a crazy time right now.  My hope and prayer is that people will be able to have what they need as well as enough for Thanksgiving coming up soon.  I am so grateful to be able to share with others.