Amazing! They ate the minestrone.

This week marks a milestone in our family.  Or maybe it's a speedbump perhaps. I'll be working full time for a week, in training really, for the US Census. Grandmother is watching the toddler while I'm at work except for one day when Grandma is off volunteering.  At which point Emma will be playing at our Old Order Mennonite friend's farm. The children will be at the grandparents for a couple of hours until Dad gets off work, and then they'll follow my simplified instructions for making dinner, which I will have started earlier in the morning before leaving for work at 8:15.  My 13 year old son looks at me like it's the last supper, cooked by mom.

Working a four day shift compresses all the rest of my real work, as many working mothers nod sagely.  I prefer the more relaxed day I usually have.  I like time to shop for bargains, and to hang the laundry to dry on the line. Today I went shopping to several Mennonite markets with my friends Bertha and Jill and three children.  We sampled some delicious and varied bulk foods (sweet potato chips, bacon dip, sesame crackers, some yummy corn relish, and tortilla chips). I love to purchase the horseradish pickles they sell there - a national brand I'm sure. Nathan's horseradish pickles, delicious! In times of $4.00 gallon gasoline, I even sliced cucumbers and kept refilling the jar to make it stretch further.

But today, my favorite find and dinner inspiration, was the cheese at Zimmerman's Meat Market on Lovejoy Road near Penn Yan, NY.  It's just a wee little butchershop that now carries a few bulk foods as well. I didn't even see meat, but it was in the back and some pretty kapp wearing Mennonite teen girls wrapped and labeled my order for me with smiling efficiency.

I bought 4 lbs. of Farmer's cheese, some of which we used for dinner. But my favorite find was Extra Sharp, New York Cheddar cheese. The label says Cuba cheese, from Cuba, NY. I paid no more than $2.40/lb for the 10 lbs I had cut into manageable size pieces for our family of 7. I think it comes in 10 lbs. blocks, but that's too hefty for our bunch. They vacuum sealed it and labeled it for me, and gave me an order sheet for their fresh and frozen meat and fish, as well as the multitude of cheeses they sell.  I bought 6 lbs. of whiting fillets too, so that will be dinner another week.

Tonight - I wanted to do something substantial with Farmer's cheese. Now it tastes like Mozzarella to my tongue, but it's not as squeaky, and it doesn't melt smoothly like cheddar. 

For my wedding anniversary on Friday night we had dinner at a favorite steakhouse - and I started dinner with a lovely bowl of French Onion Soup. It was divine, and I savored every last drop of that rich brown broth, and the gruyere cheese I had to cut with a knife. That was my inspiration for this combination.

KelliSue Minestrone Soup - that they'll eat
1.5 lbs. of sweet Italian sausage (I used venison sausage)
1 diced sweet onion
1 can of mixed vegetables (like veg-all) including liquid
1 quart of home bottled tomatoes or a large can of diced tomatoes including liquid
1 quart of spaghetti sauce (I used Hunts' chunky vegetable which contained zucchini slices)
1 quart of water
1 can of garbanzo beans with liquid
1 cup of macaroni
Salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoons of sweet basil
or mixed Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon of minced garlic (I used jarred)

Saute' the Italian sausage until no pink remains. You may need to add a little olive oil if it's as lean as ours is.  Set aside.

In a dutch oven sized pot, drizzle a little olive oil or use butter, and sautee the diced sweet onion until softened. Then add the can of mixed vegetables, liquid and all, and the quart of canned tomatoes.  Cook for 5 minutes and then using a stick blender, puree until mostly liquid with few solid bits remaining.  Add the spaghetti sauce, the quart of water, the can of beans with liquid, the precooked sausage, and bring to a rolling boil. Add the cup of macaroni, and simmer until tender, about 7 minutes. If it's too thick, thin with some water or broth. The sausage adds quite a bit of salt and flavor, so be cautious in using broth if it's salted.

Now add the spices and seasonings to taste, beginning with the amounts suggested.  Taste again for salt and pepper, and then ladle into large bowls.

We added a large handful of shredded farmer's cheese to each bowl, and topped it with a few oyster crackers, but saltines will go nicely too. The cheese melts to a stringy delight, and made the soup disappear like magic.

If you don't have available farmer's cheese, I'm told the classic is to use parmesan, shredded into the pot of soup, or you can add chopped parmesan cheese rinds to the pot early on in the cooking.  But we had great fun with our Farmer's cheese today.  Hat's off to farmer's and their cheesey goodness.

If you try this recipe, I hope you enjoy it like we did. Even the toddler ate it right up. If you prefer Vegetarian cooking, you can leave out the Italian sausage, and use a vegetable broth instead of the quart of water.

Chicken Teriyaki Rice Bowls

Yesterday was a grey, rainy winter day, suitable for melting the snowpiles we saw as we drove to church, but not for much else. I had some boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces that were thawed waiting for me to decide how to use them, waiting in the refrigerator when we returned. Here's what we came up with. Just to give you an idea of the response to this meal from my family - here's how it went.

Emma, 3, cleaned her bowl completely. Merina - asked for seconds on the rice and green beans and gleefully drizzled teriyaki sauce over her second bowl. The big kids (9, almost 12, and 12) all had seconds, and my husband said WOW! High praise from half my family who were raised on pizza and wings and canned ravioli before I married in.

So here's my new favorite, somewhat reduced sugar Teriyaki sauce. And following you'll find how we used it last night and ideas I have for the future. Because I ate the leftovers for breakfast at 5:30 this morning. I named it because in the cities where I lived in Washington there were teriyaki places in every strip mall. Nearly every place served their meals similarly, a scoop or two of rice, stir fried veggies including cabbage, garlic and broccoli, and a portion of grilled chicken thigh or breast with a nice glaze of teriyaki sauce.

I Miss Seattle Teriyaki Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup splenda (or substitute other low sugar sweetener)
1 cup of sugar free soft drink

*I used a generic of Crystal Light in peach, but have used Orange Early Rise previously too. You may also use Sugar Free Sprite, 7UP or other sugar free drink. You can substitute Pineapple juice, but then it's not suitable for diabetics, at all.

1 teaspoon grated ginger, very fine or use 1 hunk of candied or crystallized sugar ginger, like I did, minced
1 large garlic clove, minced or 1 tsp. jarred garlic
3 scallions, chopped fine - I skipped that, the refrigerator was out and we don't shop on Sunday

Bring the soy sauce and sugar free soft drink to a simmer in a sauce pan, add the ginger and garlic and add sweeteners and stir until it's dissolved. Add the scallions just before serving. Makes about 2 cups of teriyaki sauce.

Now where do you use this teriyaki sauce? Everywhere. Here is what we had for dinner last night:

Chicken Teriyaki Rice Bowl

1/2 cup of steamed white rice per person
1/4 lb. of sautee'd chicken breast or thigh (do not salt)
1/2 cup of steamed veggies of your choice - piping hot

In a bowl, mound 1/2 cup of steamed rice like an icecream scoop, arrange 1/2 cup or more of steamed veggies around this. We like broccoli, or a stir fry mix, but even canned green beans from last year's garden are really good this way.

Then drizzle Teriyaki sauce, to taste, over the top of each rice bowl. Reduce in size appropriate to the age of the eater.

How else can you use this delicious sauce? How about baking some chicken wings, sectioned, until crisp. Toss them in a bowl, drizzle with sauce and stir until well-glazed. Or, when your hamburger or turkey or venison burger is almost done to your liking, brush this teriyaki glaze on it for the last two minutes of cooking.

Teriyaki Beef from Leftovers:

In a large skillet, heat a tsp. or so of heart healthy oil on high heat. Add one or more sliced sweet onions and sautee' until just turning golden. Slice leftover steak or roast into bite sized portions, sautee' with the onions until warmed through. Now drizzle some teriyaki sauce over the meat, and turn the meat down a little so the sauce won't burn, and glaze the meat. Serve this teriyaki over a scoop of steamed rice with salad or a steamed or stir fried vegetable along side. And that will be the end of your leftovers, quickly.

If you're eating lower carbohydrate, you might consider serving the teriyaki over stir fried cabbage and zucchini and broccoli cut into thin slivers instead of rice. Vegetarians will find this is really good to use for a marinade for pressed tofu, and in fact makes a delightful sandwich with diced fried tofu, shredded veggies and lettuce stuffed into a pita.

It's bliss. What's your local food favorite? What do you find on nearly every corner, and at every strip mall in your community? It's one thing I just don't see any more... teriyaki restaurants. In rural upstate New York, it's pizza places, sub shops, and the occasional overcooked Chinese fast food.

Enjoy Mouthwater Mondays' Chicken Teriyaki Rice Bowl, in whatever version you try.

A Tale of Two Cookies

Two recipes for butterscotch no bake cookies. It's an experiment... two very delicious butterscotchy cookies, not to be confused with the candy-like haystacks, that obtain their butterscotch flavor from two different sources. The first is

Butterscotch No Bake Cookies
Using Butterscotch Morsels

Ingredients:
3 Cups Butterscotch Morsels (that's 2 full 11 oz. packages Nestle butterscotch morsels, with 1/3 cup leftovers to feed your assistant.)
1 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Milk (we've used both soy and goat's milk with success)
3/4 Cup Butter
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 Cups Chunky Peanut Butter
3 1/2 Cups Of Quaker Rolled Oats
Cooks note: I have used both old fashioned and quick cooking oats.

Information:
Serving Size 15-30
125 Calories Per Serving
5 Grams Of Fat
Preparation Instructions:

In a large bowl, barely combine the peanut butter and rolled oats. Just mix a few times, you'll set them aside for later. In a medium sauce pan combine the sugar, milk and butter and bring to a boil. Boil for exactly 1 minute. Turn off the heat, then stir in the 3 cups of butterscotch morsels and add the vanilla extract. When they're melted and well incorporated, pour over the rolled oats and peanut butter. Mix well, and drop by tablespoon onto a well-greased cookie sheet or on a counter that is lined with was paper. Let the cookies sit at room temperature until hardened, or to expedite the process you can slide them into the refrigerator to chill. Excellent with a glass of cold goat's milk.
Cook's note: That's $5.00 for butterscotch chips alone, and I'm not feeling the love of my family budget in this recipe. They taste good, the peanut butter is a nice addition, but really, $5.00 for just one ingredient? These go fast, so the children aren't getting very many cookies for their budget dollar in my opinion. They're cute on an all no-bake cookie tray, alongside the vanilla and chocolate varieties.

Pantry Lover's Butterscotch No-Bakes
Ingredients
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup margarine
1/2 cup milk
1 (3 1/2 ounce) package instant butterscotch pudding mix (I have used both instant and the cook and serve variety - they both work here.
3 1/2 cups quick oats

Directions
1On stovetop in a 3 qt pan on medium heat: Combine first 3 ingredients and bring to boil, stirring frequently. If using cook and serve pudding mix, add here, mixing well. Boil hard exactly 2 minutes.
2Remove from heat and add oats and instant pudding mix here, if using.
3Mix thoroughly.
4.Drop spoonfuls onto waxed paper.
5. Let cool 15 minutes

These are called pantry lovers, because we can store all the ingredients in the pantry and at the last minute when we want a quick cookie treat, voila'. They're quite good, and pretty inexpensive. The butterscotch pudding was less than $1.00 which makes it a viable choice for sitting in the pantry as a last minute cookie go-to item. They're also simple enough that many children can manage the recipe on their own, with a little supervision at the stove top.

This one is a keeper.

Save the goats! Save my Children!

A concerned neighbor approached my husband tonight. He brought with him a law numbered 5-2009. Our village, upon discovering we have no livestock laws, has issued a moratorium on permits for livestock. I wondered why. The neighbor wants to help. He gave me all the paperwork from the last, closed door, village trustee meeting.

I have a herd of 2 dairy goats, which provide milk for my family, my parents, and an additional 5 gallons of milk that is distributed to needy families by the food pantry that operates around the corner from us. This is a small village - 600.

I called my favorite village board trustee who informed me that a complaint has been lodged by a 'neighbor' about my goats. I'm quite surprised. I have really great neighbors, and the goats stay in the barn. They're quite happy with their feed of goat chow and hay and all the snacks (weeds and produce) the neighbors pick out of their garden for them. It's the neighbors I have to keep out of the goats, ha ha, not the goats out of the neighbors space. The barn is a magnet- but that's okay.

Goats aren't particularly smelly. We only have females, so there's no stinky rut cycle from a buck. They're not particularly noisy - they will call to the people who are out in their gardens and beg through the window of the barn for treats. And they do have their favorite people - like the adult neighbor ladies who live next door. These are my neighbors who put in a row of burdock because the goats really like it. Burdock is a weed, by the way. So clearly, it is not them.
I called several village trustees I'm acquainted with and urged them to consider compassion and wisdom as they discussed and voted. These economic times are challenging in the Northeast, and more gardens than ever are being dug and planted. More people are relying on their own industry and thrift, than ever.

Now is not the time in a small NY farm village, to limit the contents of one's barn and one's ability to feed their own family. Not to mention.. who is going to buy the large amount of specialty milk my family would require with our caseine and lactose intolerance problem? Should the village be able to limit, for no good reason, my children's access to safe food and drink?

They may be messing with the wrong mama. I will go door to door and campaign for my goats, the people's right to raise food for their own family without interference, and maybe it may help that my own mother is on the village planning board.  I doubt it, frankly, because she hadn't heard of the law when I approached Mom. I'm not sure who has juridstiction here.

It's not like the neighbor two doors down and their friendly labrador/poodle mix who they cannot keep on a leash. It's not like my goats go in their barn and bother them. And yet I have sweetly returned their pooprador home from my barn at least a dozen times without complaint, instead of calling the dog catcher (if we have one). Because Curly is a nice dog, and it's not his fault his parents just open the door and let him out to turn over people's trash cans and poke his head in my barn.

The next village board meeting is July 18. I'll have to skip soccer practice to rally the board in support of my goats. In the meantime, I am mentioning this to every family who drinks my goats milk, and to every friend of my goats, and every parent who loves their children and would do anything to help them grow up safely without diarrheal disease and other misery from drinking something harmful for them. Please consider calling my village hall in support of our goats.

As I asked the village board member tonight. What would you have me give my children for breakfast tomorrow if the village votes my goats out of the barn? Do you know of any place in the three county area which sells goat milk by the gallon? I cannot buy 1/2 pint cans of goats milk for $2.99. I urged the board members to act with compassion and wisdom, because my goats are no threat to the natural resources or happiness of my neighbors. But they are necessary for the welfare of my children.

If you read this, I encourage you to call, between the hours of 9a.m to 4p.m. Monday through Friday, and leave a message with the village clerk or leave a note for the village mayor of Rushville. The phone number is (585) 554-3415. Please call in support of Mrs. Kolz' dairy goats for her children. The goats live in a barn, and provide milk for the children, manure for the neighborhood gardens which supply families and the food pantry, and also provide free milk for needy families. And please be polite, this is a small, country village and we're polite. Thank you.

The Little Children that Could

I blogged yesterday about the Little Bake Sale that Could. The Big Sister in need of adoption is now fully funded, her mother tells me before we had the chance to mail our check out. The Candy Cane Club children are looking at sending their $75 to SWAN - Serving Women Across Nations http://www.swanforhumanity.org/about.html The children will send their check earmarked to buy school children shoes to protect their feet from parasites, so they can attend school. http://www.swanforhumanity.org/AdoptaSchool.html

According to their website: "2009 finds Bolivia's political and economical status precarious. The poorest country in South America is seeing inflation gobble up the already meager household incomes resulting in families going hungry. 'The older children understand,' says one mother, but is is hard to see the little ones cry for want of food."

Take a look, it was founded by one of my favorite authors Liz Adair, and my friend Terry Adair Gifford, a girl I grew up with near Ferndale, Washington and her sister Ruth. When I knew Tudy Adair (aka Liz Adair) she was the mom who let us use their barn for barn dances, baked seriously yummy cinnamon rolls, and had this funny to me rule that her children had to eat breakfast before school, or they didn't go that day. Odd what one remembers 20something years later. Terry served a full time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Bolivia, a couple of years before I served mine here in Upstate New York. I'm delighted with what she has been impressed to do for the people of Bolivia that she loves dearly. They provide microcredit (small loans) for mothers to be able to begin or grow tiny businesses to feed their families, and other inspirational projects. Well worth our time and money. May God bless them all.

How to Endure Economic Downturn and still Eat

My husband has worked for his benevolent employer*, Maco Bag, for a good sixteen plus years. Their boom and bust cycle hasn't been hard to adjust to. Periodically over the last few summers (we've been married 4 years soon), we've taken a day off, unpaid a few times a summer, which really FarmBoy just used a day of vacation to cover. Maco Bag Group packages and assemble items, as I understand it, and FarmBoy works in their warehouse, keeping it organized and correct in the inventory system. His favorite part is driving a forklift as necessary, and doing inventory at the end of the month. Or that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. You know, over-sized Tonka toys, and over-sized cute boy driving one. Yes, I see you do understand.

This winter the employees were called in and informed that sales and orders were down a bit and most employees were given one day a week furlough. I think this is benevolent, as opposed to laying off a bunch of workers, then retraining a new crew in a few months when orders pick up again. They will pick up again, won't they President Obama?

How does a family of seven get through the inevitable ebb and flow of orders in a factory job? We'll discuss some tactics we use over the next few days. I've compiled some resources and websites that may be of use to you in your quest to endure the downturn in the economy too. My thanks to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for making so much information available to everyone.

My first principle was to pare down our needs, from our wants. We have resources for some wants, but the key is separating which is necessary from which becomes expendable. Your choices may vary from mine, so adjust as necessary. Our priority is paying our mortgage, fuel bill for heat and two automobiles, and providing food and clothing to our children, maintaining our goat herd, and providing adequate clothing and food for ourselves. We have good dental, and RX, and health insurance through FarmBoy's employer, a flexible savings account for vision and eyeglass and hearing aid expenses, and a 401k we invest in weekly. That said, we feel very blessed, recognizing how quickly most of this could disappear.

To that end, we have heeded the counsel of a living prophet (see Amos 3:7, Holy Bible).  It's important, much like Noah's warning to get in the ark, and our family began a 1 month, then 3 month, then one year supply of basics for our family. Why should you do this? You might consider that it will absorb the impact of reduction in force at your employer, it will help insure your family's survival in case of death of a parent (and income loss), it will provide your family with comforting and familiar foods in times of stress and economic trial (like an ARM housepayment going through the roof because unemployment didn't pay enough to make the full payment). If you didn't have to buy food for a month, or three, how much cash would you then have? $500, $1500 maybe. Things to ponder. What could you pay off, if you freed that cash up for a payment? What debt could you reduce and free yourself from if you or your spouse lost your job, and you could still go to the pantry and prepare meals without a trip to the grocery store.

I don't have all the answers, but I have some good questions. Let's explore some of the options together. One thing I do is store whole grain. It doesn't go rancid like flour will, eventually. I retrieve a 5 gallon bucket from the closet, spin it open, and scoop out a #10 can of wheat berries and pop it into my electric grinder (with emergency hand crank available). That's fresh, fiber and vitamin filled whole grain flour, in 10 minutes or less. I don't make bread - but I do make muffins, biscuits, pancakes, cookies, brownies, and apple and other fruit crisps. You could make bread too, if you like. Save me the heel, with lots of butter, please.

I started with the information found at http://www.providentliving.org/. May I suggest a 1 month surplus of the things that your family eats each week? For example, make a list of two weeks worth of meals. What are your common breakfasts, lunches, and dinners? Real ones, that you eat now.

My children like Oatmeal for breakfast in the winter. I have #10 cans of rolled oats stored, which I can also use for apple crisp, oatmeal for breakfast, and oatmeal cookies. We also have boxes of instant oatmeal, just add water type, in cardboard boxes, with individual paper bags inside. For long term storage, these would have to be kept in something secure, like a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, because they'd be susceptible to moisture, or rodents, or a teething Jack Russell Terrier Puppy on a quest. If you have one like this. On alternating days we might have some high fiber cold cereal, like GoLean Crunch, and a small handful of raisins or other dried fruit. So I store some boxes of cereal (calculate how many servings your box actually feeds, and how many people are eating this.) Of course you'll need milk on your cereal, so I suggest storing either vacuum packed milk like Parmalat, or shelf-stable soy milk that you rotate, or powdered milk. Occasionally we have sweet rolls and bacon strips, so you could try canning pumpkin bread in a jar, and storing some ready to eat fully cooked bacon, that you can find in the produce section in some stores. I presume so you put it on a Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato sandwich. Granted, the shelf life

is only about 150 days, so that's less than six months storage time. I'm a bacon lover, so I'd be willing to take one for the team and heat up a package and make bacon tomato spinach sandwiches. Just to keep the food storage rotated and everything fresh, of course. I'm good like that.  For this purpose I followed the advice of Wendy Wittt and began a food storage inventory notebook.  Now I know that in 4 months, the height of tomato season here, we will eat and replace into our food storage, 2 lbs. of ready to eat bacon.

You can store bottles of juice for a year, without any loss of quality, and rotate them and work them into regular use before they go past expiration date. So there are four breakfast possibilities: instant oatmeal, boiled oatmeal, cold cereal with milk, fruit juice, banana bread slices and bacon. Considering you could also store pancake mix for a year,a few bottles of maple flavored syrup, (just the dry ingredients for a thriftier approach,) you could have better breakfasts in a downturn than you enjoy now.  That will be a good start for a day of job hunting and resume polishing, no?

Tomorrow - What's for lunch anyway?

*Any time they'd like to return his hours to a full 40 per week, I'd write a lovely, glowing blogpost about how they were voted into Rochester's Top 100.  Truly. With their logo and hyperlinks to their website. Nope, not a link yet. Alrighty then, pancakes and bacon and eggs it is for breakfast!

I'm not Giving Up the Chocolate

It's not necessary. Really. What lunch is complete without a little taste of chocolate? Ok, most of them. But a day is made brighter by a little bite of brownie, c'mon, unless you're like my dear friend who shall remain nameless that thinks chocolate tastes like soap.

I have the coolest Aunt in the world, Fay DeBoer.  It's her birthday, 29 AGAIN! If you knew her, you'd be nodding your head up and down with me, ayep. Some of her cool things she does is make dresses for little orphan girls.  Cute, cute dresses for cute little orphan girls. In fact, I coveted a couple of her dresses when she brought them to my parent's home when we lived in Washington state.  She told us that these two dresses needed to be worn by a little country girl. And gave them to my only daughter. Nifty thing is, that those two dresses were so well made, and so beautifully done, that they are now beloved by my third daughter. Still loving the dresses! Still loving the Aunt Fay! Happy Birthday sweetie.

Aunt Fay likes chocolate brownies now and then. In fact, I imagine she probably has a little cocoa in her food storage too. My favorite brownies had to be tweaked a little for my emergency preparedness recipe. Here's the original recipe, and the notes for how to eat out of your food storage, follow.

Chewy Gooey Cocoa Brownies

1-2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted (or other fat)
2 T water
2 Large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla flavoring
1-1/3 cups flour (I have used 100% whole wheat, 1/2 all purpose flour, and other variations)
3/4 cup Baking cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt (optional if you use salted butter)
3/4 cup chopped nuts (completely optional)
Preheat oven to 350*. Grease 13x9 baking pan. Combine sugar, butter and water in large bowl. Stir in eggs and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients in medium bowl; stir into sugar mixture. Add nuts if desired. Spread into prepared baking pan. Bake for 18-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out slightly sticky. Cool completely, then cut into bars. Makes 2 dozen brownies, depending on how you divide the pan. Needs no frosting.
Food storage substitutes:
How to substitute for 1 egg :

1 teaspoon dry unflavored gelatin
3 tablespoons cold water
7 teaspoons of hot water
Combine gelatin with cold water. Let sit for a moment to hydrate the granules.
Add hot water, stir well. Use in place of 1 egg.
***For baking*** reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup per egg replacement used. Experiment with this to see how to adjust your favorite recipe. In my case, I used one real egg in the brownies, and one egg substitute and the recipe is perfect! Another day... I'll use two egg substitute measures. Just for you gentle reader, because we have 30 dozen eggs in the cool cellar.

I use whole wheat flour, ground from the whole wheat kernels I store in some #10 cans, and some 5 gallon buckets. I have vegetable oil stored, and usually have 20 dozen eggs at any given point in a very cool cellar. It wouldn't be fun if I didn't have bulk baking cocoa stored. Baking powder is stored in very small cans, because it begins to go flat once they're opened. Do not store baking powder in #10 cans unless you have some wicked large group of people to bake biscuits for, within the next six months. I have a few #10 cans and some large canisters of Hershey's baking cocoa, and a few jars of vacuum sealed chocolate chips. They'll keep quite a while, not that we'd ever let them get old.

Back to lunch. Write down 2 weeks of lunches you'd be willing to eat, and then tally up the ingredients you can use to make them. Double it, and you have a month supply of lunches. Here are some ideas. Biscuits and creamed chicken cream of chicken soup, canned chicken, a can of peas, a bottle of peaches, and a brownie for dessert. You can store homemade biscuit mix for a year. With it you can make strawberry shortcake, chicken and dumplings, chicken ala king over a biscuit, sausage gravy over biscuits, Sausage cheddar balls, a quick biscuit pizza crust, chicken pot pie, and more.
Here's just one variation to get you started thinking.

Easy Biscuit Mix
Ingredients:
6 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 1/4 cups butter flavored shortening
Directions:Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Cut in shortening with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse corn meal. Store in a container with tight-fitting lid. For a healthier mix, make with 3 cups white flour and 3 cups whole wheat flour. For Buttermilk Mix, add 9 tablespoons dry buttermilk powder to the basic mix.

To use this mix, take 3 cups of Easy Biscuit mix, add 3/4 cup of milk, or yogurt, or buttermilk etc., and mix gently. After adding your liquid mix only until a soft dough forms. Dough may be slightly sticky but that is normal.
Generously flour counter or board and transfer dough on top dusting with a small amount of flour if dough is sticky. Pat dough out with hands till about 1 inch thick and cut with biscuit cutter or large glass dipped in flour. Place on baking sheet about 1 1/2 inch apart. Bake 425 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter if you like.

You could roll with rolling pin but that will make for tougher biscuits. Not good, no no no.

To make dumpings, you stir as above, then drop into gently boiling stew. Turn down to a simmering boil, cook for 10 minutes uncovered, and then cover tightly for 10 more minutes. This would perk up your every day chicken soup considerably, wouldn't it? You can store canned carrots, canned peas, bottled chicken you canned yourself when chicken legs & thighs were on sale for .49 cents a pound, and voila' gourmet goodness in a pinch. Living frugally doesn't have to be living on top ramen noodles and generic box brand of macaroni and cheese powder.