FEBRUARY IS “LET THEM EAT (FOOD STORAGE) CAKE!” MONTH!

Yeah, you heard me right.  Isn’t that so exciting?  It’s sort of reminiscent of the Great Food Storage Cookie Extravaganza (download that food storage handout if you missed it)  Why am I doing this?  Well, let’s be honest we all eat cake now and  wouldn’t you like to know how to do it healthier, for less money, and with your food storage?  Let’s be honest, if and when it all hits the fan-comfort food will still be necessary!  And, I think we’ve all been over come with boring old cake mixes.  There are GREAT cake recipes out there that will dazzle your taste buds and amaze you with their simplicity!….Enter Chocolate Molten Cake…

Have any of you eaten at Chili’s and had their chocolate molten cake?  It’s so delicious and is all the rage to make at home.  I’ve seen a lot of recipes all involving special little bundt pans for individual cakes and a lot of time and effort.  Well this recipe that I’m going to share with you was big in the 50′s and tastes JUST LIKE Chili’s Chocolate Molten Cake but you can make it in one 8×8 cake pan, use your food storage, and make it in the same amount of time it would take you to whip up a cake mix.  You may have heard it under names like Magic Cake, Pudding Cake, Hot Fudge Cake, or Surprise Cake.  Why?  Because it is really magic, it makes it’s own sauce or pudding if you will-so of course this is a great cake to serve warm with ice cream.  Honestly, my husband ate half the cake (and that is saying a lot for him!)

Food Storage Chocolate Molten Cake

1 cup all-purpose flour (1/2 C. whole wheat flour + 1/2 C. All-purpouse flour)
3/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons baking cocoa, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup 2% milk (3 T. dry non-instant powder milk or 1/3 C. instant powder milk + 1/2 C. water)
2 tablespoons canola oil (2 T. bean puree)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup packed brown sugar
1-3/4 cups hot water
Whipped cream or ice cream, optional

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa, baking powder and salt. Stir in the milk, oil and vanilla until smooth.

Spread in an ungreased 9-in. square baking pan. Combine brown sugar and remaining cocoa; sprinkle over batter. Pour hot water over all; do not stir.

Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes. Serve warm. Top with whipped cream or ice cream if desired.

Crystal’s Tip: If you’re using a glass pan, decrease your cooking temperature to 325. Why? Glass bakes hotter than metal and you won’t get that burnt chocolate taste.

Help Spread the Word!

I love it when you share my tips and recipes for food storage!  Do me a quick favor, if you like what you see please share it on facebook, pinterest, or blog about it!  And make sure you link either the word “food storage” or “Everyday Food Storage” back to me.  Thanks-it makes all the hard work worth it!

© 2012, Crystal. All rights reserved.

Okay, I had a lot of people asking how they could purchase JUST the dehydrator racks for their Sun Oven.  So I looked into this and discovered that you can!  It’s $44 dollars (that INCLUDES shipping) for the three racks that instantly turn your Sun Oven into a well functioning solar dehydrator. If you’d like to order yourself a set, CLICK HERE.

And…in case you didn’t get to catch my latest food storage showing on Studio 5-you can catch it below.  I ventured into the world of chocolate meringues and discovered a great way to make them look (and taste) even more delicious! Food storage and gourmet collide once again. Think of them as fudge chocolate meringues.  They are crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, gluten-free, fat-free, and about 10 calories a pop.  Now we’re talking! To view the food storage video, click HERE.

If you’re wondering where to get powdered egg whites, currently you can get them from Honeyville Grains.

© 2012, Crystal. All rights reserved.

Extra Day Extra Deal! Free Multi-Level Dehydrating & Baking Rack Set with each GLOBAL SUNOVEN you order during February 2012.  What does this mean?  It means you can dehydrate your own food storage with the same oven that can help you cook with no power-two machines all rolled into one!  This is honestly, one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time.

Multi-Level Dehydrating & Baking Rack for Sun Oven

A simple, effective way to use a GLOBAL SUN OVEN to dry and dehydrate with the power of the sun. Easily stackable wire racks allow up to 3 layers of drying or dehydrating. Can be used for baking 3 layers of cookies, tarts, breadsticks, cinnamon rolls, flat bread, pizzas, or fish. (Alright, this is awesome just for baking cookies and cinnamon rolls, let alone dehydrating too!)

Comes with a set of 3 stackable racks and one roll of unbleached, silicone coated parchment baking paper.

Want to learn more about Sun Ovens-what they are, how to use them, or to take the mini Sun Oven class, click HERE for all of my Sun Oven information!

Hurry and take advantage of this amazing Sun Oven deal!

© 2012, Crystal. All rights reserved.

January Q&A continues!  This may be my most commonly asked food storage question yet-What is the nutritional analysis of the EZ Wheat Bread recipe?  Well, after trying to check a lot of calorie counters online-none of which would give me extra brownies points for whole wheat flour (because we all know whole wheat flour is not the same as all-purpose flour).  I had a registered dietitian look it over and do all the math.  So here it goes (this is based on 17 slices per loaf-so obviously if you cut them thinner or thicker it will be different.)

Calories: 103
Fat: 1g
Protein: 4g
Fiber: .8g
Carbs: 19.5g
Sugar: 3g

In her words: This bread is inline for an “average” store bought sandwich bread. Other good points are that it is Low in saturated fat, Very low in cholesterol, High in selenium, and High in thiamin.

To see if she was correct I compared the nutritional data to Grandma Sycamore’s white bread (which I think is a close comparison to same texture, density, etc.) and it is very similar (calorie and fat wise).

Next we’ll tackle the cost analysis of the EZ wheat bread!  Stay tuned!

© 2012, Crystal. All rights reserved.

So sorry, I realize I should have the next way for you to enter to win the AMAZING bosch up on the blog right now…but I have one very sick baby who wants to be held (and I’ll take him up on his offer! .  Hopefully, I can get it up this afternoon….thanks for you patience!

© 2011, Crystal. All rights reserved.

I got this recipe from Stasha and was amazed at it’s simplicity AND her story. Do me a favor, and make sure you read all of her story (below the recipe) to hear from a real survivor and what life was like in a war torn Bosnia.

This recipe is very simple, traditionally made in Bosnia for celebrations, it is served on a tray as people come to our house, everyone takes a scoop of wheat (with different spoon and no double dipping you only need wheat, walnuts and sugar the ratio is 1 to 1 to 1 by weight… so for example 1 lb wheat…1 lb walnuts….1 lb sugar
cook the wheat according to your recipe..so presoak and boil until cracked, drain wheat but only the water that it was cooking in don’t let it drain any longer transfer into a food processor immediately, some liquid is OK, puls few times this is really up to you how far you want to go, and do you want to leave some bits, use cheese grinder and grind up the walnuts, I use hand held, I tried it in different kinds of food processors and it didn’t work it only turns into greasy blob, when you use cheese grinder it comes out fluffy, add sugar and walnuts to the wheat and stir….of course you can adjust the amount of sugar or slowly add it to the wheat and walnut mixture.
This dessert is eaten chilled and just like that with a spoon, kind of like a pudding, some people like to add whip cream I prefer not to, hope you try it!

STASHA’S STORY

I’m 37 years old, wife and stay-at-home mom of three 8 year old girl, and two boys 22 months and 4 months, I home school and can’t imagine now not having the food storage. I come from a war torn country and food storage should been my way of life, I experienced hunger and life without electricity, gas and running water, but it wasn’t until few months ago when my sister in law started her own food storage and memories of the war came back. She sent me links to Crystal’s blog and youtube channel. Crystal inspired me and made it approachable. If I can do it anybody can, life is very busy around here, I have limited space and very limited budget, but we make it work.
I should probably tell you a little about myself before the war. Here’s the link to wikipedia about the town where I grew up, Banovici

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banovi%C4%87i

The 29 000 population includes surrounding villages, the town itself had less people. If you compare your family and mine side by side I’m pretty sure the only major difference would be the language we spoke. I had ordinary uneventful childhood, music and dancing was something I loved (Madonna, U2, Michael Jackson, Simple minds…I even secretly liked Wham, hey I was young ) art and books, going out with my friends, watching movies (can I just say Top Gun and any girl that says she didn’t like the movie I don’t believe her lol) My parents worked and my two brothers and I went to school always counting down to the next vacation. It is important to mention this so you know I didn’t go from bad to worse. Life was good, really good, and then one day somebody pulled the plug on all good things and if as that wasn’t enough they pulled the rug underneath me too. How did this happen over night? Well, it did and it didn’t, the stores were emptied over night and money lost all value but there were signs we ignored, prices going up, lack of certain items at the stores, riots here and there, news from other parts of the country….Why we ignored it? Because we were “special”, those things didn’t happen to us, this happens in other countries, it happens to those people, my family is different, my town is different….that will never happen to us. Human beings are amazing in convincing ourselves that bad things happen to other people. We actually think that if we stand on a railroad and see a train approaching fast, we can just close our eyes and think happy thoughts and the train will go around us.
So the war was the fast approaching train and all we did is close our eyes and counted to 10. My worst nightmare became reality, the war started in May of 1992 on the last day of my high school. We became CNN and BBC sensation. Now my family became “those people”.

During the war we had no electricity, gas or running water…..I don’t mean to go down “the war path” I can go on forever but I wanted to share at least few things with you which you probably already know
-The first thing that lost value OVERNIGHT was money, stores have been emptied overnight too, all the owners and managers refused to sell food and kept it for themselves.
-We were able to buy some food from other people for gold, I remember my mom exchanging her rings and other jewelry for sacks of potatoes, flour and rice but that didn’t last for a long, people got scared and the only way we were able to get food was through exchange for other food items.
-things that gained in value other than food itself, tools, any and all tools, if you didn’t have a shovel good luck planting, also seeds, if you had storage of seeds you can get “big items” for your seeds like oil, yes oil or any kind of fat was priceless
-we were lucky to live in a small town so we had natural water spring walking distance from our house but line was long and sometimes took hours of waiting in line to get water, which brings me to the third item of great value, water jug, or any container that you can carry water in and if grenades started falling on the way home you better have a container that you can close so you don’t spill water running.
-when it comes to medicine only three things were in demand, pain killers, fever reducers, and antibiotics

(We’ll go into her story later on in more depth of all the things she learned first hand!)

© 2011, Crystal. All rights reserved.

© 2011, Crystal. All rights reserved.

This is by far the easiest and most delicious of all the food storage recipes! I like to put this jam on sandwiches, waffles, crepes, ice cream…pretty much I could put this on any food and I think it would taste good. (Okay, maybe not ANY food but A LOT of foods My sister-in-law makes this jam all of the time and it is a great way to ease your way into food storage canning and making your own sauces, jams, salsas, etc. Of course I have a how-to video for you to watch. So enjoy, and watch for good sales on berries or use the berries in your garden! ENJOY!  The best part is you don’t need anything special to make freezer jams.  You can use any freezer safe jar or plastic container.

MCP Pectin Freezer Strawberry Jam

Print

Prep time: 30 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Super easy and delicious strawberry freezer jam! Make sure to use the recipe included with whichever pectin you choose to use!

Ingredients

• 3-1/4 cups prepared fruit (buy about 2 qt. fully ripe strawberries)
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 box
• MCP Pectin
• 1 cup corn syrup
• 4-1/2 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl
• Directions:
• RINSE clean plastic containers and lids with boiling water. Dry thoroughly.
• CRUSH strawberries thoroughly, one layer at a time. Measure exactly 3-1/4 cups crushed strawberries into large bowl. Stir in lemon juice. Stir in pectin; let stand 30 min., stirring every 5 min. Stir in corn syrup. Gradually add sugar, stirring until well blended. Stir an additional 3 min. or until sugar is completely dissolved and no longer grainy. (A few sugar crystals may remain.)
• FILL all containers immediately to within 1/2 inch of tops. Wipe off top edges of containers; immediately cover with lids. Let stand at room temperature 24 hours. Jam is now ready to use. Store in refrigerator up to 3 weeks or freeze extra containers up to 1 year. Thaw in refrigerator before using.

Instructions

Google Recipe View Microformatting by Easy Recipe

2.1.7

FREEZER JAM HELPS

MCP Pectin-click HERE for more information

Ball Freezer Containers-click HERE for more information (I use the 16 oz. size)

SHARE WITH US!

Make sure you come back tomorrow to learn how you can make cooked jam with out any added pectin! (It’s also my new favorite jam, so you won’t want to miss it!) What kind of jam are you planning on doing with your friends? Let us all know over at my facebook page!

© 2011, Crystal. All rights reserved.

Who says powdered milk is only for drinking? LesliAnn says…”I found this recipe for a Milk and Honey Facial Mask using powdered milk in the latest Woman’s Day magazine. Thought you might get a kick out of it!” Well I thought all of you would too! And you can guarantee I’ll be doing this tonight after the kids go to bed!

Milk & Honey Facial Mask
Woman’s Day Magazine, Feb.1, 2009

“Beat dryness with a hydrating facial mask from Bettijo B. Hirschi, creator of Bath by Bettijo, an all-natural spa skincare line.”

4 Tbsp powdered milk
2 Tbsp warm water
2 Tbsp Honey
1 washcloth

Combine ingredients and stir until smooth. Spread mixture on face (avoid eyes and mouth). Wet washcloth with warm water and rest it over the mask for 10 minutes. Rinse off mask using washcloth and pat dry

© 2011, Crystal. All rights reserved.

DO YOU HAVE A PAIR OF SHOES UNDER YOUR BED, HOW ABOUT AT WORK OR IN YOUR CAR?

I realize most of us know that we should have a sturdy comfortable pair of shoes under our beds in case an emergency happens at night, but do YOU really have a pair under your bed-what about your kids? I thought about this again after watching a show about 9/11. Survivors were telling stories of how they had to walk MILES to get home in their dress shoes, many of them women in heels. Thankfully, they said people lined the streets and handed them shoes they could change into to make their walk more comfortable. It’s one of the easiest things to do, so today, let’s all do it! Make sure and check your bed and all the beds in your house to make sure there is an old pair of comfortable sturdy shoes under it. It won’t take more than 5 minutes but it’s one of the most important things you can do-everything counts when it comes to being prepared!

© 2011, Crystal. All rights reserved.