Tag Archives: prepper pantry

Wednesday things

Posted in bread, budgeting, budgets, cooking, decluttering, prepper pantry, Uncategorized, Walking by

A beautiful walk this morning under the Snow moon. Quite bright and no one showed up whilst we were there. Sunrise is definitely getting earlier now. Venus is very visible too.

I didn’t swim yesterday as the Santa Fe’s window is still not fixed. It should get sorted this afternoon though and I plan on swimming tomorrow. When we went to Costco on Monday, I went to the service counter to get a new card and the person asked where I had my purse stolen. So I said right down the road at the Mike Shellito pool and she said wow, I was the SECOND person in the last two weeks that had their car broken into there. WOW, is all I could say. Nothing new with the claims but it’s early yet.

Yesterday I made sourdough cinnamon/cran bread.

It was good. I think next time I’d use brown sugar and a little more. My favorite is still the jalapeno cheddar.

My pantry challenge is moving along and I figured out breaking down the Costco shop into categories( non -food, food) and then I separated all the food for just this week such as strawberries,half and half) and then all the longer term items like coffee, blocks of cheese, I calculated the cost per week and how many weeks would it take to use and then added those totals. So that was kind of a revelation. So if I broke down just this week’s food it came to $43. Then the breakdown of food for the month(like the coffee) was $20 a week. That’s things like tofu, coffee, cheese, ramen. Then B went to TJ’s and spent $25 on food.( Well,some how two TJ’s chocolate bars ended up in his cart, but that’s ok. So, that’s @$88 give or take a few dollars. I usually round up so, $90 with $10 left over. Our meals have been delicious with tamales one night, Tucson Stew another night, pasta with homemade alfredo sauce tonight.

I still think this $100 a week for 4 people would be very hard if you didn’t have some sort of pantry or freezer back up. I’m not planning on doing any major restocking for the prepper pantry. I think I’ll just keep getting some things that I like to keep extras of and call it good. For some people the idea of a year’s worth of food is comforting. For me, it seems slightly fear driven ( I totally did this too) but maybe the lesson out of it all was FOR WHAT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES ARE, keep some pantry in case of emergency and decide how much that is. For us, I think a reasonable balance is maybe a months worth of stuff. Now remember, I have always ( since 1975) bought in bulk my beans, rice, flour,etc. So that’s nothing new to me. But all the extras was somewhat recent with the pandemic. ( Think extra soup cans, condiments, etc). Well, life is a journey and we can only hope to learn from where we’ve been to where we are going.

Barclay had a good visit with his transplant doctor and the good news is he will go off Jakafi. That’s an anti-rejection drug that runs @ $7,000 a month(OOPS, Barclay said it’s$17,000 a month). Fortunately, he has the grant actually from the drug company and UCD charity.

This month is my renewal for LLS and there is no funding for myeloma so I’m trying to not panic too much. I just keep checking daily as the funding can come in and then be gone quite quickly. Hopefully by the end of February which is my renewal month.

Today I’m planning to drop off the last of my Fiesta ware that I know I’m not going to use at the Hospice Thrift. Then a few other errands like an Amazon return.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, cooking, Flylady, prepper pantry, simple foods, Uncategorized by

Happy Lammas Day, the pagan celebration of the first harvest.

A very nice Sunday morning walk. Temperature around 70 degrees so not too hot at all. Yesterday we even sat out under the umbrella for half an hour and it was not too too hot. Today and all week it stays pretty much the same : around 93 degrees as the high.

Our water bill came in almost $40 less so we clearly have been watering less. Still high but that’s MV water.

Yesterday I did a bunch of cooking. I made a yummy ww bread in the Zojirushi( well the dough) since I bake it in the oven. Then I made homemade pie crust and a goat cheese quiche.

OOPS, who took a bite of the crust to test it???

This was the leftover cream and goat cheese mixture so I added some homegrown serrano peppers and it was delicious.

Delicious. I also put in brown rice in the zojirushi rice maker because we are having a rice salad tonight for dinner. I’m almost done with August’s menu.

This morning I’m making the pickled refrigerator jalapenos. I may see what else I can prep for the week. Maybe some chicken and / or baked tofu.

I’ve been buying some more things for the prepper pantry. Yesterday I bought some extra cans of tomatoes, cannellini beans and some Herdez salsas that we like. I think the rising food costs are just going to keep rising and so I want to get some stuff now before the real increases start this fall. I don’t plan on going overboard and spending $1000 again but just the stuff I know we use.

We finished a good series on PBS mystery theatre, Tennison. We both liked her character of a young police woman in 1973? or 1972? Not sure the date but the music is great as well. Now we have to find something new. We only watch an hour or so of TV in the evening so a series lasts a while. Well, we stream it with Amazon Prime as we don’t have cable.

Flylady zone is the Entry Ways and dining room. I don’t add the dining room here as that is part of my living room zone. So I just do both doors to the house, sweep up, tidy plants, wash the windows if needed.

Projects done!

Posted in Blood test, California, Gardening, home improvement, prepper pantry, Uncategorized by

The closet looks bright and clean. We did move our space heaters to the barn and I have one box of “I don’t know what to do with” stuff. One item is my old Waring blender that I bought new in 1985. It still works fine but most I use my Vitamix. So I’m undecided and will wait on deciding to give away or not.  We still need to hang my mirror back up and then I can take a photo if I remember.

B finished repotting the bamboo in the new barrels. This is actually a pretty big job as the roots needed to be cut with a Sawzall.  That’s how thick they were.  We are going to get a 3rd barrel as it will fill the space out nicely.

We also took everything out of the chest freezer and defrosted it. I got a good count on what’s in there so that was helpful plus it’s more organized.

The weather is quite a bit cooler and we actually sat outside last night.  Today is also really nice with a high of only 85.

Yesterday I bagged up the Central Milling flour into 3 mylar bags. I could have used the food saver bags but  I wanted to test out how the flour would be. The other bag I will use the food saver bags and then compare the two.

Tuesday we did our Costco shop. It was just under $500. Some of that was alcohol. The Costco beer which is a variety of ales and other types is a great deal at $20. and this was the first time we’ve seen it in almost a year. So we bought 2. That should last a while. I don’t drink beer but B does( although not too much right now with his issues) and my son has the occasional beer. Then we bought champagne for our anniversary. Since we’re not going anywhere, we figured we’ll do some kind of celebration dinner with champagne. This shop wasn’t really a prepper shop but more stuff for the month, salad stuff, avocados, spinach, cheese, bread.  The only things I still need are milk, bananas, vegetable shortening, and burger rolls. I’ll probably do that later in the week.  I’m hoping this shopping will get us thru most of the month.  Oh, I did get organic pasta that was on sale. So that’s for the prepper pantry.  Later this month we’ll hit Winco and get 2 more of the buckets if they have them and the gamma lids. I’m tempted to go sooner than later as I’m guessing they will get sold out.

I’m still waiting on my labs, so maybe by tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my son’s 26th birthday. Such a wonderful young man. Funny, talented, smart, and has a full-time job with California State Sierra Nevada Conservancy.  He was a fun kid and outgoing.  He was homeschooled all the way thru high school. He then went to Community college, got 2 degrees, and then graduated from CSU Sacramento. No student debt and he did most of it on his own. We are so proud of him. So, I need to find out what kind of dinner he wants and dessert. Our family ritual is the birthday boy/girl gets to pick their favorite dinner and dessert.

I’m reading the new Todd Borg” Tahoe Hit”. It just came out if you’re interested. He’s one of my favorite authors and is local to Lake Tahoe.

685789B5-5871-4B18-ADA0-0533A910EDF3.jpegHere’s my new BLACK LIVES MATTER yard sign for the driveway.

 

 

Putting things up

Posted in cooking, plants, prepper pantry, Uncategorized by

I made a quick batch of pickled jalapenos this morning.

 

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We use these all winter. They are not canned but just refrigerator jalapenos. It says they are good for 2 months in the fridge but we are just finishing ajar from last fall so I’m guessing they last a lot longer than what the recipe says because it’s just vinegar and water and some sugar.

Also, at Winco we SCORED gamma lids and some buckets. These are seriously expensive on Amazon. They’re probably not quite as good as the Amazon ones but they’ll do the job of sealing the buckets. AF23071C-19BD-4C6C-9865-F0B4CA78E2BE

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I have the black beans and points to put in the 5 gallon buckets but I’m waiting on the mylar bags to separate the beans. I could vacuum seal them so I might do that but the mylar I guess are  better for longer term storage.  The mylar bags are not coming in till the first week of August so I’ll have to see what I want to do.

I rearranged the prepper pantry in the barn and moved all the non food( well almost) to other shelves that used to hold all my magazines. It looks good and based on what’s there I’d say I have almost a year for some things and 6 months for others( TP).

I was watching a few youtubers who are preppers and the recommendation was a cooler dark place. We do not have a closet to use in the house as there is only one real designated closet albeit that it is large. So I got to thinking maybe we should build a closed in cabinet in the barn. I’m not sure since the barn does not get any direct sunlight in there and is generally on the cooler side. I don’t know, I’ll have to think on that too.

I tell you though, some of these preppers are really out there with survivalist stuff. I sorta ignore all that and just try and glean some ideas about storage.

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Some of my orchids are reblooming which I’ve never had happen. It must be they like where I put them which was actually an accident. I had put them on B’s to get them out of the way and sure enough the morning light and then the coolness from the windows at night must be the right condition. Excited to see if it happens again.

the week ahead…

Posted in Blood test, Flylady, prepper pantry, simple foods, Uncategorized by

Another quiet week with no appts. I don’t get my labs till the first week of August. I’m expecting the worst with another steep rise but am still hoping to delay treatment till fall or even this winter. Not to be pessimistic but realistic since Myeloma just doesn’t go away and blood work doesn’t magically get better:(

Monday is chore day and doing little things around the house. I cleaned the tub with Comet and I plan on washing the towels which I try to do on Mondays. The Flylady zone is the bedroom. I’d say if you’re new to Flylady, clean everything out of your bedroom except your bed and maybe a dresser. No TV’s, no extra chairs( unless it’s a very large room), and basically remove all distractions.  If you haven’t uncluttered, now is the time to do so. As I’ve said many times, once things are simplified and cleared out cleaning is a snap, and keeping it that way is quite easy. More stuff means more cleaning and it is visually distracting. I do have a Heywood Wakefield bedside table I need for my meds that I take in the evening and my water.  If I could figure out a way to eliminate that I would.  Maybe another wood crate attached to the wall like the one on B’s side of the bed. It’s small but has enough room.

Mondays are also the day we don’t walk but oddly it feels like the day just doesn’t feel quite complete. But since I’m quite OC about it, it’s probably good I break up the routine.

I’ve been researching long term prepper pantry storage and it seems Mylar bags are the way to go. But since I’m using the vacuum sealer right now, I don’t think I’ll add mylar to the mix. Maybe down the road.  But I’m not looking to try and prep for 5 years and those people that do are kinda extreme. So what I am going to do is get a few more 5-gallon buckets and put some of the vacuumed sealed bags in them so light doesn’t affect them. I’ll try and do a bucket for rice, then one for beans, and then one for flour or baking things. Also, I’d get the gamma lids since they screw down.

I do think that in the fall things are going to get worse and so it is good to be ahead of that. I still like the idea of the upright freezer for certain things but we need to kinda regroup from the tree expense.

Meal plan for the week is : ( in no particular order of using)

  • Tacos, bean and some taco beef for the carnivores plus all the trimmings
  • Cobb salad with hardboiled eggs, sliced cheese, olives, maybe some kind of bean like kidney beans, veggie bacon, cherry tomatoes from the garden and we also have cucumbers coming in as well.
  • homemade macaroni and cheese with broccoli on the side
  •  chicken piccata/tofu with corn I froze( from the fruit stand) and maybe potatoes.
  • homemade pizza
  • mystery meal???

Well, that’s a wrap for now.

 

 

 

 

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cooking, Flylady, home stuff, ikea, Political things, prepper pantry, Uncategorized by

BOYCOTT GOYA FOOD PRODUCTS!

( just a reminder)….

We stocked up the prepper pantry this week with

  • 25 lbs of black beans. they’re not organic but grown in Washington state so I felt ok about it.
  • canned goods
  • coffee( 2 bags of Starbucks French Roast on sale at Costco)
  • Bob’s steel cut oats
  • TP
  • paper towels ( Costco’s giant package gets us through most of the year) We try not to use a lot of paper towels but sometimes you just have to.
  • Dove soap( 16 bars)
  • ramen soup( my favorite breakfast)
  • lots of single item things from Winco like Asian seasoning stuff, and olives
  • four more boxes of pasta
  • Another 10 bag of Calrose rice

The barn pantry looks really good and as soon as I get the Ikea pantry the other stainless steel shelves will go out there too.

Not much on the schedule this week, so that’s nice. With the weather being so hot, I don’t like having to go out much.

I went to Goodwill yesterday and Whoaaaaa… I got there at 9:45am. Dropoffs start at 10am. there were probably 25 cars already in line. By the time it started, I had probably 30 cars behind me. I guess it’s the season.

My order from Ikea ( from 2 months ago) showed up. So it’s another bamboo plant stand. And another small cabinet. I have this cabinet in our entryway and my plan was to put this one next to it. But then since we put the small TV in my office area, I decided I will put it under the TV and put ALL the DVDs in it. If they don’t fit some will have to go. So a little more organization.

I’ve been taking some pictures of the different rooms again and looking at the spaces. In my office area, the brown rug ( once I took the picture) looked really awful with the grey Ikea couch. So that was pulled out and I’ll have to see if I want a grey rug to replace or just leave the wood floor. Some of the pine boards need replacing so another project.

This week on the menu will be

  • individual Lodge quiches, a mushroom /cheese, spinach/ cheese)
  • Yakisoba with crispy tofu
  • burrito bowls with pintos, avocado, tomato salsa, cheese and tortillas
  • maybe something with beef like in a Japanese recipe from Just One Cookbook
  • spinach crepes with a bechamel sauce( maybe) depends how ambitious I feel!

BTW, I am loving the Zojirushi rice maker I got. It is fantastic ( thanks Laura from The Occasional Nomads who always has great suggestions and has lovely Japanese things in her home on Kaua’i.

My head is spinning with the political crap going on. With Trump getting Stone off the hook and out of his scheduled sentence, I just want to throw up. The corruption is so blatant it’s mind-boggling. Then he and Devos ( who is also evil incarnate) just wants the kids to go to school 5 days a week. Ok, you send YOUR kid or you go and spend a week in a classroom with 30 kids and tell me it’s safe. Yeah, right.

In other boring news, the Flylady zone is the bathroom. Not exciting but hey it still needs to get done.

 

How the prepper pantry is going.

Posted in cooking, home stuff, Uncategorized by

I haven’t bought anything in the last few weeks. But our last Costco trip @2 weeks ago did add some stuff.73917E27-9CE3-45B5-8681-5AFB0CFE7863.jpeg

On that trip, I bought the 2 pack of vinegar, baking soda, dish soap, and TP, plus I was lucky enough to walk by the cleaning area and there were a few Clorox wipes still there.

So these restaurant shelves are out in our barn.  Some stuff in the bins has been vacuumed sealed and placed in there for safekeeping. We have the other set of restaurant shelves in the kitchen actually and once we get the Ikea pantry, that will go out to the barn as well.

Under the kitchen workbench, I have some wine crates with misc items too. I’ve been crazy about these Far Niente crates. So now I have 4.They fit under the shelves and the work bench.

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I went down to our local fruit stand, Ikeda’s, and bought corn to freeze. Here it is blanching. Then I cut it off the cob and froze.

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Then I made sourdough bread in the bread maker. But I always bake it in a regular pan.

Tomorrow I’m going to make some strawberry jam with some berries I got at Ikeda’s. If you’re ever in Northern Ca and going up I-80 stop at Ikeda’s. It is been there for many years. And Danielle Steel has written about it in one of her romance novels.

 

 

Anything new?

Posted in California, cooking, covid-19, prepper pantry, Uncategorized by

No, not really. It’s just same ole same old.

On Monday we went down to Winco, which is @ a 25-minute drive. We went early like at 6:15 am. It was fairly empty and we got everything I was after for the prepper pantry. Extra pasta, salsas, instant potatoes, and lots of other stuff to put out in the barn where the prepper pantry lives. We have stainless steel restaurant shelves out there and I’m using bins to put things in. The bins are to keep things clean and to keep bugs or other things out. We haven’t had any problems out there in a while but better to err on the side of caution. Some things I don’t keep in bins like the canned goods. Plus we will need to be rotating stuff into the house so some stuff I want to be able to see. I have labeled most everything. There’s a little more to do but mostly it’s done.

In the house, I have my closet pantry and then in the kitchen, I have some wine crates dedicated to canned goods as well. Overall, I’m happy with what I’ve done. I think if I planned meals, I have at least 3 months worth at this point.

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I’m still spending ALOT on food but as it is prepper pantry stuff, I feel okay about it. I have a very bad feeling about what the second wave of Covid-19 will bring. People are going a little crazy going out and so many are not wearing masks. Go figure.

Tomorrow I will go to my eye doctor’s appt. I’m planning on wearing a mask. This is my annual eye exam and my macular pucker scan. I probably should do the surgery but honestly, I don’t want to deal with it. I can’t really see out of my right eye but my left compensates so I guess for the time being ( unless it’s worse) I live with it.

It’s really hot here for the next few days so the coolers are in the windows. By Saturday though the temperatures are expected to drop again. last year at this time I was driving to Sacramento every day and it was also a heatwave. By the time I was in the RV it was sweltering.  So I guess its par for the course.

I made a chocolate cake last week.

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It was very chocolatey… I ended up freezing half as we weren’t eating it all.

Our daughter’s birthday is Friday. Wow, 35 years ago!!! We were so happy!! And had waited a long time for her. We’d been married 15 years so, a pretty long time to wait for a kiddo!!

 

Friday Stuff

Posted in cancer, MDS, prepper pantry, reading, Uncategorized, Walking by

I’m not sure that Frugal Friday works anymore since groceries are much more pricey and I’m still buying to build up the prepper pantry.

I added some Bob’s Red Mill polenta to the pantry in the vacuum seal bags. Also in the Costco home delivery order got the 2 pack of Lemon Juice, Rosarita beans, and a case of their corn. I have a Costco Instacart order ready to go but will wait till next week.  That way that will take me almost into June. Oh yeah, they had SAF instant yeast and I also got some really nice powdered cocoa for baking.

 

For the prepper pantry, I’m making a list of dinners that I could put together from what I have to see how many months/weeks I would have. I have some combinations of dinners we eat normally like beans, tortillas, salsa, pasta with sauce, rice-based meals.  Mostly, I’m trying to have meals that we normally have so things aren’t weird like Spam for dinner:(  From the freezer, I am adding some meals like chicken, or organic beef, but that would really be stockpiling unless I bought a 1/8 of a cow from a farmer. If I knew someone that did that I would consider it. Right now, I’m good with Costco’s organic ground beef and chicken.

In other news, Barclay is continuing to have GVHD with intestinal stuff and skin rashes. His doctor ordered a new drug call Jafaki.  The drug is enormously expensive and the co-pay was coming in at $1500. a month. ahh, there is no way we can pay that now we are on a fixed income with no extras coming in. Our Medicare prescription plan had it for slightly less. So he talked with the financial coordinator and UCD Medcenter gave us a grant for $7000 that is JUST for the Jakafi. Let’s hope this does the trick.  Tomorrow is his 1-year re-birthday and I would really like to have the GVHD be gone. Well, I guess we will see but at least we’re not going bankrupt from a drug cost.

Today we walked and it was refreshing. I have the pizza dough ready to go in the bowl. I also cut up a whole bag of Vidalia onions to freeze.  Last week I made the mistake of trying to make a larger pizza and it was not good. It was too big for my pizza steel and was a mess. It tasted fine but it was falling into the oven because it was too big. You’d think I’d learn:(  So this week it’s back to 2 pizzas.

I just finished reading Adam Savage’s ” Every Tool’s a hammer”. He’s the guy from Myth Busters.  Quite interesting.  Check it out.

 

 

Costco and Dr. Stangelove

Posted in budgets, home stuff, prepper pantry, Uncategorized by

Yay….., our Costco toilet paper order showed up yesterday. That means we’re set and won’t need to go into the store at least for a while yet. I have another home delivery of some prepper pantry stuff showing up. That includes brown sugar, regular sugar, and bakers yeast and chocolate.  I was talking with B that the last time we were in Costco was March 3. so if we can get to June 3 that’s 3months.  The home delivery, even though more expensive, has been a lifesaver. Time, gas, driving down to Roseville. So really a win-win.  I think I’m still going to do one more Instacart, but I’ll wait on that for now.

We used more of the LLS gift card at our little market yesterday and bought things to get thru the week, like hot dog rolls, burger buns, tofu, milk, and cream.

I also am expecting a farm to table meat delivery of some chicken and a small amount of beef. It’s called Crowd Cow if anyone is interested. They are 2 guys from Seattle who wanted to support small farmers.  I’ll do an update on how it is after it arrives. I kept the order small to check it out.

For anyone who drinks wine out there( we do) Darci Kent wineries have case sales going on. We have bought from them before and their wine and labels are quite lovely. I’m planning on buying the new case release( if it’s still available) of a rose, sauvignon blanc, and chardonnay.   Maybe I better go check right now.  Whew…. all good. I ordered it. Yeah, I love NOT having to go to the store to buy wine.

B has the gate ready to go up today so that will be one project down and lots more to go.

We watched Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove last night and wow, for a movie back in 1964?? it was great and so well done. Usually, I don’t really like Kubrick’s stuff but this was good and Peter Sellers was pretty phenomenal.