For years I have been trying to find an easy way to rotate our food. I have used a variety of food containers, and after much trial and error, have finally come up with the system that seems to work best.
I purchsed Restaurant Quality containers that stack and are see through at Sam’s Club. These containers will hold ten to fifteen pounds of food. Which translates into holding the wheat from two and a half number 10 cans. I love being able to put so much food into the containers, and being able to see how much is left, as it helps me to know which foods need to be replaced when I am lugging cans up from the basement.
Here is a photo of my kitchen Food Storage Shelves. (And I do have additional Foods in bins at various locations around the kitchen)
The bins contain a variety of foods:
White Wheat
Red Wheat
Black Beans
Brown Basmati Rice
Kamut
White Flour
Spelt
Whole Oat Groats
Brown Sugar
Quinoa
Flax Seed
Powdered Milk
White Sugar
Refried Bean mix
Yellow Corn
Pasta
Oatmeal
Pinto Beans etc..
Here are the shelves from a different perspective:
And the same picture blown up even bigger.
I know this may seem like a huge amount of food on these shelves, but I can easily use up all of the wheat from both the red and white wheat bins in one week! I am constantly refilling these bins, and this is the most user friendly system I have yet come up with.
Jenny Hatch
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Category Cooking Entries
Making Muffins
Whenever someone asks me what I feed my kids every day, I often reply, “Muffins”. These kid pleasers have been a staple in our family since I first purchased a wheat grinder back in 1989.
I thought I would use this post to outline the steps to making great muffins from scratch. I made up this Vegan Recipe this morning, and took pictures as I went along.
First I started with a simple recipe:
4 C Freshly gound Whole Wheat Flour
1 tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 C Brown Sugar
1 Can Pear Sauce (I used Pear sauce because I have several cases of it on hand, but applesauce will also work)
1/2 C Olive Oil
1/2 C Water
A Bin of Organic White Wheat next to my Whisper Mill Wheat Grinder
Grinding the Wheat
Adding more wheat to the mill
Measuring the flour
Adding in the Soda, Salt, and Powder
Measuring Baking Powder
Mixing Dry Ingredients
Adding in Pear Sauce
Adding in Olive Oil
Adding in water
Gently Mix the dough until it is all wet
I use an ice cream scoop to put the muffin dough in the pans
Finished muffins. Just after I pulled these out of the oven, my husband and kids were leaving for the day, and they snatched them up before I could get a picture of the whole pan of finished muffins. This recipe makes two full pans of muffins, and they need to be baked at 375 for twenty minutes.
Jenny Hatch
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Healthy Families Make A Healthy World!
Mixing Milk
We have a couple hundred pounds of Powdered Milk in our food storage, and I have been trying to find ways to use it more in our day to day life. Recently I have started mixing powdered milk with whole milk and the children report that it is indeed drinkable.
I used Reverse Osmosis water to fill half of a gallon pitcher.
Then added in 1 1/2 cups of Powdered milk, and mixed it up well with a whisk.
Then I poured a half gallon of Whole Milk into the pitcher and mixed it up, and after chilling, the milk is ready for drinking or for use in recipes.
Jenny Hatch
Healthy Families Make A Healthy World!
Lunches
Since my children started school this past week, I have made the goal to make most of their food from scratch. It’s healthier and saves lots of money. Since they don’t seem to like home made bread sandwiches because the sliced bread seems to crumble and is a random mess of thick and thin slices, I decided to make large rolls for them to slather with peanut butter or cheese or to just eat plain with a salad or some soup. I made a batch of these rolls last night, and thought I would share the recipe as well as some pictures.
Ben holding a roll:
Andrew likes Turkey and Lettuce on his roll”
The Ingredients for the Rolls:
I was blessed to have a mother who used a wheat grinder to freshly grind grains and make bread every week. This powerful example made it easy for me when I married 17 years ago to continue in this tradition with my own family. I blew out the motor on my first machine a couple years ago, but it was replaced by A Whisper Mill which I use now almost daily in my cooking.
Last night I fresh ground the organic red wheat in the Mill, with just the tiniest sprinkling of Flax seeds.
Then I put three cups of whole milk in my mixer and slowly started mixing it on low with one cup of hot water, 1 cup of Olive oil, 1/2 cup of honey, and two teaspoons of yeast. Then I began adding in the flour one cup at a time until it was thick but still wet dough, (about 6 cups of flour).
I let the dough rise for an hour, and then added in another cup of flour, and four teaspoons of salt with the dough hook attachment. After it was well mixed I let it rise for another hour (Every time you let dough rise it is easier to digest, and the B vitamins go up markedly).
Then I shaped the dough into the rolls you see in the picture and let them rise for another hour on the cookie sheets. Then I baked them at 350 degrees for thirty minutes. I store them in a plastic container and let the children make their own lunches with whatever sandwich fixing they like best.
Jenny Hatch
Healthy Families Make A Healthy World!
Anti-Depressant Protest at the White House!
Go Here
I won’t be able to attend, but will be with these great people in spirit! Praying it will help the truth to come out more fully!
Quote from article:
“The Prozac Survivors group points to Magdalena Lopez as an example of violence caused by SSRIs. The 30-year-old Indiana mother recently murdered her two young sons while on one of the drugs.
At least 80,000 women each year in this country are being prescribed these drugs during pregnancy, according to researchers estimates. SSRIs are still being prescribed to pregnant women even though a May 2005 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that pregnant women who take SSRIs late in pregnancy raise the risk that their babies will suffer jitteriness, irritability and serious respiratory problems during their first couple of weeks.
Leitsch finds it unacceptable that pregnant women and new mothers are still being prescribed drugs that have been known to induce violence and suicide for more than a decade. “In 1991, there was evidence of 500 deaths associated with antidepressants presented to an FDA Advisory Committee hearing investigating Prozac,” she said.”
Jenny Hatch
Additional Information about Depression:
Go Here
Quote:
“Doctors say they began prescribing books due to their concern that many patients were either being medicated too hastily or going untreated, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The program, called “bibliotherapy,” is also a cost-saving measure. The state-run health care system in the UK can’t afford one-to-one counseling for everyone, and patients can wait as long as 18 months for an appointment.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence, a British health agency, endorsed bibliotherapy in December, recommending that physicians try self-help books or other kinds of counseling before medication.
“Concerns about overuse of antidepressants – and about how to treat the growing depression burden in general – have been voiced in many countries, including the U.S., making the British experiment a test case for others to watch,” the Post reports.”
Reading self help books is great – I wrote one – A Mother’s Journey contains all of my tips for helping prevent depression.
But for me the most effective thing I do every day to prevent Depression is to eat Flax seeds. I put a half teaspoon of them into my oatmeal water every morning, and let them boil along with the oats, and then eat them along with the cereal. Flax oil contains ingredients which have helped alleviate my depression. I’m sitting here eating a big bowl of it even as I blog.
Here is the recipe:
Put one quart of water in a pot, add in:
1/2 tsp whole flax seeds
1 tsp sea salt
1 cinnamon stick
3 whole cloves
1/2 c dried cherries
1/8 tsp each of whole anise and fennel seeds
3 whole cardomon pods
Hard boil this for twenty minutes to saturate the water with the oils, herbs, and spices (which all contain powerful anti-oxidents and make the oats taste great). These spices aid digestion, especially the fennel, and really up the nutrition of your breakfast.
Then I fish the cardamon pods, cinnamon stick, and cloves out of the water (it’s no fun to chomp down on a whole clove!) And then I add 1 and 1/2 cups old fashioned oatmeal to the pot. Hard boil for a minute and then turn the heat down to a simmer (low) for about twenty minutes.
I let my kids put as much sugar, cream, and butter on as they want as this helps them chow it down. We polished off a whole pot of Oats this morning, as well as a dozen rye muffins, and a huge hunk of watermelon.
Cost to feed my family breakfast from scratch? About $4.00.
Cost for me to take one Prozac pill back in 1989? $3.00.
Do the math, I’ll keep eating my flax…
UPDATE August 12, 2005
Another great article.
Let’s get the truth out!
QUOTE:
“August 24 DC Protest Against the FDA- What’s Everybody Mad About?
Approving and marketing lethal drugs, while concealing the results of studies that reveal deadly side affects, should be a jailable offense.
by Evelyn Pringle”
Jenny Hatch
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