Food storage

I've been a little obsessive about food storage lately. Actually, it started about 2 years ago when I had a friend who ground her own wheat to make all of the bread for her family. Up to that point I hadn't really thought too much about food storage. My mom had lots of wheat she kept wanting to give me, but since I didn't have a grinder, or really know what to do with wheat other then make flour, I kept telling her I didn't want it yet.

Well, when my friend showed me how simple it was, and how I could go from wheat to fresh bread is 90 minutes, I was hooked! I bought a grinder and, with my mom's next visit, I accepted as much wheat as she could fit in her car. I then started making all of our bread. But since all I had was wheat, that's all I did with food storage.

**And I just need to give a shout out to my mom who is amazing with the food storage she set aside for her children. She bought a year supply of wheat for each of her children. So I had my year supply of wheat instantly (which was very nice). But then she said that there were some others who didn't want theirs. So after checking to see who did/didn't want their wheat, she informed me (since I was the only one who seemed to really want it) that I now would have a 4 year supply of wheat! And that's calculated off of me making all of the bread for a family of my size. So that's a LOT of wheat. So everytime she visits, she brings out a little more. Still not sure where I'm going to stick it all, but bring it on. Anyway, back to my narrative. Thanks, Mom.**

So I now have a 4 year supply of wheat, but nothing else. But, thanks to some of you, I found some great food storage websites. Todd thinks I'm a little crazy because I get really excited when talking about food storage. I've been reading up on anything I can. I bought some jars and a pressure cooker so I can start canning this year. I'm (if I ever find time to start) planning on starting a garden as well. I've looked into Square Foot gardening. I love it! The problem for us is that, being military, we move around a lot. So we can't can too much since it needs to be used up before we move since they won't move liquids in glass containers. I wonder why? ;o) And any garden we plant, we can only use for a couple years. So it makes it a little hard to want to start, but I'm starting small.

We don't have a ton of extra room for food storage right now, but my next goal is to start building up some of our other items. I'm starting with a full 3 month supply. We're not too far from that already, so that should be easy. Then, I'm going to start getting other basics like powdered milk, eggs, oats, etc. and actually start using them in every day cooking. What a concept! **This is where the EVERYDAY FOOD STORAGE website is great. I love her ideas for using food storage.**

And the bonus? We've already been saving a bit of money on groceries. Our bread costs us next to nothing since the wheat was free. (but even if we bought our own, it would still save us money) We've been saving a bit of money for breakfast with the oatmeal. We would always get whatever cold cereal was the cheapest, but still we go through a lot of it, plus the milk. Now we use less milk, the oatmeal costs less and goes further, and the kids like it more anyway.

Wow. I told you I get excited talking about it. Who wants to read a post about food storage the size of this one? lol. Oh well.

So if anyone has any good ideas about food storage, feel free to share with me. :o)