Monday Message

"Be prepared in all things against the day when tribulations and desolations are sent forth upon the wicked" (Doctrine and Covenants 29:8)

"We encourage you to follow this counsel with the assurance that a people prepared through obedience to the commandments of God need not fear." (First Presidency letter, 24 June 1988).

I feel it will be so necessary to have storage. Times look to be getting rough ahead. As one who knows, you have to work more when money is tight. They just seem to go to together hand in hand. We have to stretch food and other stored items. More thrifty measures have to be taken, like making bread items from scratch instead of buying them. What if you cannot just go purchase those items but HAD to make them instead? Could you do it with what you have on hand?

From this recipe above I can change it by shaping it or adding a few ingredients to it (click pic to make it bigger).

I make about ten quart jars at a time, making a mix of it with all ingredients except water. When I want to make one, I put 1 1/4 cup of water in the bread machine and dump in one of these quart jar mixes. I stocked up on a couple of used bread machines from thrift stores or yard sales, paying from three to five dollars each.

If you don't have a bread machine, do not fret. This recipe is a bread recipe from way before bread machines were ever thought of. Just put your water in a bowl and dump the "jar mix" in, stir, give a little knead, only adding some flour on your hands to knead, then cover with a damp towel for an hour, then shape it and place in a greased bread pan or whatever shapes you want. 

When doing bread, I spray and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise fifteen minutes and start preheating your oven, continuing to let the bread rise. I like it one inch above the rim of the pan. Uncover and bake. When you bake it for as long as the recipe above says, I remove it from the pan and let it cool on a cooling rack. Then I use an electric knife when the bread is cool and slice the entire loaf up at once and store in a plastic bag. If I don't think we can use it fast enough in the summer months, I'll put half of the loaf in the freezer.

http://frugalmeasures.blogspot.com/2015/03/monday-message_16.html - if you look at this past post, you can see I make hamburger buns or a platz for breakfast or bread sticks or seed bread with it. I haven't even scratched the surface of what you can do with it. Here's some other ideas and tips...

I don't like to bake the bread in the machine. It seems to dry it out more, I just like to put it in till it is ready to shape.

I think with things going the way that they are, we need to be learning this skill. Get everyone used to homemade bread and be storing everything it takes to make it. If you wait till you have to then it might be harder than learning gradually.

The same with introducing everyone to more frugal meals. For example, saying we are having chili instead of chicken nuggets may draw frowns from everyone (except me) :p but if you say chili with cinnamon rolls now even you want to eat that, am I right? So start introducing some yummy frugal meals like soup with popovers, yum! Add some homemade raspberry jam to the popovers and it is a whole new game.

It all means more work but it's very frugal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2FGMg88YsU - this is true and makes us sit up and take notice.

Another podcaster said to grab canning lids as you see them. They will be in even shorter supply this year. It does seem to already be the case. Just wait till everyone is canning. If you find yourself with produce and no lids to can, remember you can dehydrate it or freeze it.

I have even dried green beans by threading them on a string before I had dehydrators. When they are dry, just pull out the string. They look funny like stringing beads, just go through one end of each bean.

I have dried celery. Just leave it on a plate on the counter. I have done the same with orange or lemon zest.

You can do oregano or basil or parsley all just on a plate but if you have a lot, I like to tie a bouquet of oregano and one of parsley and one of basil or one of dill or thyme or rosemary or sage or mint and just hang them upside down from a nail or hook or coat rack or back of kitchen chair or two chairs and a dowel rod or broom across the backs, then you can hang them from the handle or rod.

We just really have to think outside the box

We need to learn all we can now.

Keep working on those skills

I have learned to weed whack while my husband had a pinched nerve in his back. Do I love this skill? Nope, but I like it better then pulling weeds. We have 9/10's of an acre and nature wants to reclaim it.

I was able to finish the test knit with two days to spare...

We all just have to keep working hard at storage and skill building. If it never gets worse, we are not out anything by doing that. We can eat and rotate our food storage and we have learned great skills. You never know when you might need them, like I had to do with the weed whacker.

Missy says that we all need to be actively engaged and keep an eye on things.

Gus says will we make it through the hard times coming? YES, we will! Those who have gone before us made it and showed us the way.

They both say it is a must to have catnip in your storage plan.