Organizing Class #7

She saved the best for last: Food Storage Night!!

-She says that for regular storage, Rubbermaid lasts longer than Sterilite, but Sterilite is cheaper. And she really likes this one Sterilite bin that has the lid attached on both sides so there's no losing the lid. Also important: clear sides so you can see the contents, and stackable (won't slide when you stack them).

-She also likes these clear 1 gallon squarish bins she keeps in her pantry. The lid pops open and doesn't come off, so you just flip the top, scoop out what you need, and snap shut.

-Master Menu: she suggests dividing our lives into 7 days of food. Name each day according to your family. Her example: Monday: Pork, Tuesday: Mexican, Wednesday: Chicken, Thursday: Beef, Friday: Italian, Saturday: sandwiches, Sunday: Breakfast for Dinner.

-Beef night is mostly because you love your man. The kids won't be too happy, but he'll be pleased.

-Okay, now within those categories you chose, choose 4 recipes. Example for Mexican dishes: tacos, enchiladas, burritoes, and taquitos. Now choose a vegetable that works well with Mexican dishes, and a fruit. So now you know that every Tuesday you will be having some sort of corn and oranges with your Mexican dish. If it is the first Tuesday of the month, you'll be having tacos with your corn and oranges, if it is the second Tuesday of the month you'll be having enchiladas, corn, and oranges. And so on.

-Try to make things simpler (don't overwork yourself). On roast beef night, you'll cook double what you need and freeze the second portion (BEFORE dinner, so that it doesn't get gobbled up accidentally). Then the next week on Beef night, you'll have that roast meat to use for Roast Beef Sandwiches or whatever. Cook once, eat twice. And alternate. Let's say you cooked a roast chicken on Wednesday, then the next day use the leftover roast beef (so you're only cooking a complex recipe once in 2 nights). Then the next week use the leftover chicken meat, and the next day make meatloaf. And so on, alternating easy and hard. (Does that make sense?)

-For her Mexican dishes, she uses the same taco meat mixture for all 4 recipes. She cooks this once a month and freezes it in 4 portions. The same with her pasta sauce. She color coordinates these so she doesn't have to label: blue cottage cheese tubs are pasta sauce, green sour cream tubs are taco meat.

-Having a routine to meals will settle kids down. And it will answer the awful question, "Mommy, what are we having for dinner? Aw, not again!"

-Some of us take pleasure in getting mad from 4-5pm each day while we stare at the pantry trying to decide what to make. It is your decision to control this and the anger/frustration associated with this. There is something magical about not having to find the blue cookbook and which certain page has the right recipe. You know exactly where it is: in your recipe box. This is a professional way of thinking.

-She puts her 28-day recipe collection into index-card dividers labeled Sunday through Saturday. Behind that are other recipes she doesn't use as often, like her taco meat mixture. Then behind that are even less frequent recipes, like holiday recipes. Behind that go recipes she wants to try someday. Then in the back are heirloom recipes written in her Grandmother's handwriting that she doesn't want to get rid of but probably won't ever try.

-5-Point Nutrition. Draw a star. The five points that should be in the meal: calcium, protein, carb, fruit, and vegetable.

-On Monday mornings, she pulls out of the freezer all of the meat she will need for the week and puts it in the fridge. She also gets anything else out she'll need to thaw (whipped cream, sauce, etc.). She also doesn't like having warm applesauce or peaches, so those types of canned goods also go into the fridge at this time.

-This Master Menu is not in cement, it is a plan! It's flexible. You can change it for birthdays, holidays, etc.

-For teenage boys with hollow legs, she serves a bread along with every meal. So, for Mexican night, she makes cornbread. For Italian night, she makes breadsticks. And so on, so they can fill up on cheaper items.

-A fun thing to do is to have a taste test with your family. Buy 4 different brands of green beans. Cook them and label them A-D. Do a blind tasting and the one that most everyone likes is the one you stock up on.

-You only need one brownie recipe. Once you find one that functions for your family, stop searching!

-D&C 88:119. Food storage. The prophets have asked us to do this (even this month in the Ensign!). The Lord wants you to do this and so will bless you with the capacity to get it done. Store what you eat, eat what you store. Put your grocery store in your home. If you decide to do this, the Lord will provide a way. Trust in Him, and you'll find more ways to stock up and find more money to spend on food storage. Where there's a will, there's a way. And if you do accomplish this, the Lord will miraculously extend your capacity and things will last longer. (AMEN.)

-Initially, she went out and bought 18 months of food. Then they worked their way down so they only had 12 months of food, and then she went out and got 6 months worth of food. And so on, till now she only has to get non-perishables twice a year.

-To start out small, just buy double. If you need 1 ketchup, buy 2. If you need 2, buy 4. If you need 4, buy more than 4.

-Start tomorrow by choosing one item your family uses often, maybe it's Cheerios, and going out and buying 48 boxes of it.

-Emergencies appear in a variety of forms. Who knows if you will or won't have electricity (i.e. a freezer) in an emergency. You might, so store it.

-Don't be self conscious when you're buying 100 lbs. of ground beef. To be laughed at is a small price to pay to be obediant.

-Remember, put a rubber band on the last item so that you know when you're about to run out (and therefore need to redo your inventory).

-People in Europe during WWII didn't have any soap. They bathed for 4 years without it. Might make you think twice about how much soap you have stocked up.

-Let's say you've got a bonus coming in soon. Try to spend it all on food storage. The plan: 1. Make a Master Menu to give you focus. 2. Look at food receipts for the last 4 weeks. 3. Look at the pantry and double check what things you use often. 4. Make an inventory of what you'll need to get. (If you're making spaghetti every month, then you'll need to buy 12 boxes of spaghetti).

-DO NOT WORRY WHERE TO PUT IT UNTIL AFTER YOU BUY IT. You will always find a place for it. You always find a place for gifts and other things that come into your home. The Lord will bless you and help you be creative as you try to find places to store it.

-She keeps apple boxes and buckets filled with food underneath everyone's beds. And she picks the room that is used least (or seen least by company) and puts Xerox or apple boxes along one wall, floor to ceiling, of food storage. This only takes up a foot of the space.

-Wouldn't you rather have food in your house instead of at the store?

-Make all your shelves approachable, out away of the wall (perpendicular) so you can get to the front of the shelf and the back. This makes it much easier to rotate (putting new items behind the old).

-Keep only a few in the pantry, the rest in the food storage.

-Date stamp. Make it big! (I put the month I bought it, and then the month it expires. Just because I don't buy things twice a year, so the peanut butter I stocked up on last month is good till next year but the peanut butter I bought this month is only good till next month. It helps me organize it better. But she doesn't care about expiration dates, so oh well).

-If you buy food buckets to put bulk items in (flour, oats, etc.), don't buy bigger than 4.2 gallons. Any more and the average woman cannot lift it. Label both sides, and put one label up against the wall.

-If you buy 18 months worth of food, for unexplained reasons, it lasts much longer.

-Do what you can and in your season of life.

-Spices last forever. She is using 20-year-old spices that work just fine. She just rubs/pinches them before using and they're fine.

-If you do have crackers or chips that have gone stale (again, she doesn't worry about expiration dates and rarely has problems with staleness), she puts them on a tray in a 200 degree oven for 20 minutes.

-Don't worry about expiration dates. Things will last for 1 year. The Lord will bless you. She's still standing!

-Start with the 28-day menu, make an inventory, and start buying.

-She promised that if we ask the Lord tonight what thing we can do tomorrow to help us get our house in order, He will let us know, and help us get it accomplished.