Food Storage Cookbook Giveaway: Not Your Mother’s Food Storage
UPDATE: Congrats to Cozette Freckleton, who won the prize drawing for this cookbook! I will be contacting you for your mailing address.
I’m giving away a copy of “Not Your Mother’s Food Storage,” by Kathy Bray and Jan Barker. To enter the prize drawing, leave a comment at the end of this blog post.
The past year has shown us how quickly our lives — and the food supply chain — can be disrupted. Last spring when people were out pandemic shopping, grocery stores shelves rapidly became bare.
A wise friend recently noted that the topic of “food storage” was brought up three times during the last General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Whether you believe it’s divine warning or not, there’s no harm in being prepared for the next calamity. It might not be the Zombie Apocalypse, but may just when a spouse is out of work, or medical bills dip into your income. Or if there’s a big storm and you can’t make it to the store for awhile.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency also advocates storing an emergency supply of food and water in the event of a natural disaster.
Anyway, “Not Your Mother’s Food Storage,” (Deseret Book) isn’t about giant cans of wheat and powdered milk languishing in the basement.
It advises storing specific ingredients for meal, and using them on a regular basis so the food isn’t wasted. The title is fitting, since the authors, Kathy Bray and Jan Barker, are mother and daughter. And the book’s system IS very different from Bray’s first food storage, which included buckets of wheat, honey, freeze-dried food and powdered milk.
Bray learned firsthand the value of food storage in 1986, when she had to live on it for six weeks as her husband’s health was failing.
“We were literally down to pennies until I got my first paycheck,” she recalled to me in an interview back when the book first came out.
They were grateful to have food to rely on, “But I struggled to make meals out of what we had available. The drastic change in our diet was hard to manage.”
Daughter Jan also saw the disadvantage to bulk food storage when she couldn’t get her kids to eat it.
So instead, Jan decided to store foods her family usually eats.
“I started with five breakfasts that we eat all the time, and that are storable. We have six kids in our family, so I figured out how many cups of oatmeal multiplied by the amount of times a year I would serve it. Then, I could relax, knowing that no matter what happened, my family could have breakfast every day for a year.”
After that, she moved on to lunches and dinners. Then, she rotated the food by using it in everyday meals.
“I’ve been doing it this way for 15 years,” said Barker. “It makes my life easy. I watch for sales, so I never have to pay full price for anything. I’m not a slave to the grocery store; when we want something, I’ve already got it. If company comes unexpectedly, you are always prepared.”
In their book, Bray and Barker outline a three-month food supply of meals, with planning sheets to help families customize a plan based on their own food preferences. They also included 80 recipes.
“We thought we needed to do a three-month supply because that’s what the Church (of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) has advised. And in these economic times, three months is more doable,” said Bray. “It will get people through most situations, other than long-term unemployment.”
For this reason, their plan includes dairy products such as Velveeta cheese, which has a best-by date of eight months and requires no refrigeration. Other cheeses can be kept refrigerated for several months, she said.
“If you keep track of the use-by dates, you can have more things that you wouldn’t think of as food storage,” said Bray.
Barker said she uses fresh milk, but she sometimes mixes up a whey-based dry milk substitute and adds it to a nearly empty milk jug. The key is to serve it well-chilled.
“If you refrigerate it the night before, by morning, they won’t even know it’s powdered milk,” she said.
By necessity, the recipes are heavy on canned and convenience products. But the book includes fresh-ingredient substitutions.
Barker pointed out that her mom’s generation cooked a lot from scratch, but younger generations don’t.
“If you ask a 20-something to buy wheat, rice and beans and then make something to eat with it, they don’t know what to do,” she said. “This way, they can take things they’re comfortable with. If you like Hamburger Helper, plan that as one of your meals.”
Barker added that the book’s emphasis is storing for everyday use, not necessarily for a major disaster.
“We’re storing for the ‘I’m out of work,’ or ‘We spent to much money and can’t go to the grocery store,’ times,” she said. “The big disaster may come only once in 20 years. But here in West Mountain, we got snowed in for 10 days. It was nice to have food.”
To enter the prize drawing, leave a comment at the end of this blog post. I’ll be drawing out a winner on Monday, Feb. 8.
Here’s a recipe from “Not Your Mother’s Food Storage.”
SUNSHINE FRUIT SALAD
1 small package vanilla pudding (cook and serve)
1 small package tapioca pudding (cook and serve)
1 20-ounce can pineapple chunks, juice drained and reserved
1 11-ounce cans mandarin oranges, juice drained and reserved
1 15-ounce can fruit cocktail, juice drained and reserved
3 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
1 or 2 bananas, if available
Grapes, if available
Put both pudding mixes in a large saucepan. Combine reserved juices, orange juice concentrate, and enough water to equal 3 cups. Stir liquid into pudding mixed and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until pudding comes to a boil and thickens. Remove from heat and chill for several hours or overnight. Once pudding is chilled, fold in well-drained fruit and any fresh fruit you have on hand, such as bananas or grapes. over. Serves 6-8. —”Not Your Mother’s Food Storage,” by Kathy Bray and Jan Barker