I attended the Enrichment presentation on food storage, given by Tammy Hulse, and Michelle asked me to take "copious notes" and we decided to post them on this blog. Well, after taking these so-called copious notes, I went home and checked out the instructor's website and of course her slide presentation is available there :) So I figured I would just give you the address to her website (the link to the slide presentation is on the left-hand side) so you could view the presentation in its entirety, and I am adding some things I personally found interesting about the whole presentation. Here goes . . .
* Tammy Hulse, the instructor, received her degree in Food, Science and Nutrition, which for me gives her some good credibility.
* Her website is
www.homereliance.blogspot.com.
* The website has fantastic information in it (i.e. recipes, ideas, food preservation ideas) as well as links to valuable outside resources.
* I appreciated that she stressed to only build your food storage out of items your family will use, and to make them into your "convenience foods".
* She has an interesting way of using her food storage as "convenience food" and vise versa. She puts all the items needed to make a certain recipe in an old gift bag (for example, if the recipe calls for spices, she pre-measures them out and puts them in a Ziploc baggie and then places it in the gift bag, along with all other required items), with the recipe attached on the front. Then she just pulls out a bag when she needs to make dinner and everything she needs is inside. She has a 3-month-supply of these "meals-in-a-bag" and she replenishes each bag's food items after she uses them, thus maintaining her storage. I think these meals would significantly decrease the headaches we have when it is 5 o'clock and we are thinking "what should I make for dinner?"
* We tasted these foods at Enrichment and they were good. I am kind of picky with how my food tastes, and I liked these and would make them for my family.
* I think these meals-in-a-bag are a great idea for post-baby meals (so you can assemble them before the baby arrives). They also would be great for when younger kids are learning to make dinner. They take a lot of the complexity out of cooking.
* She showed us her bottled meats, which was pretty weird to me (looking-wise and thinking-wise) until I tasted them, and truly they taste
a lot better than canned meats from the store. And the way she bottles beans is genius. Check it out on the blog.
* She stressed using a reference guide (links available on her blog) when canning, freezing, etc. This way your preserved food won't cause any unwanted illnesses :)
* She vacuum seals a lot of dry foods (chocolate chips, baking mixes, candy, nuts) in MASON JARS. I had never heard of that before, but it dramatically increases the shelf life of these items. Pretty cool.
This presentation was really interesting and eye-opening and I suggest checking out her blog if you want to learn and do more of these things. She has some great ideas!
