3 month storage spreadsheet/menu list

You guys asked for it…and I am sorry to report that I have no idea how to upload my spreadsheet into my blog.  However, if you really want a copy of my chicken-scratch spreadsheet, let me know in the comments and I will email it to you if I have your email address.

However, here are my meal ideas, keeping in mind that I am also counting on using my freezer as part of my three month storage.

Breakfast:  pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, cereal

Lunch:  sandwiches (ham, tuna, peanut butter), quesadillas, soup, and macaroni and cheese.

Snacks:  granola bars, fruit leather, dried pears, smoothies, crackers, popcorn, and trail mix

Dinners: Tuna noodle casserole, spaghetti, pizza, chicken noodle soup, rice casserole, Hawaiian haystack, stir fry, marinated chicken (in BBQ sauce or Italian dressing), corn chowder, chicken enchiladas, goulash, sloppy joes, tacos.

At this point, I have not planned a lot of side dishes with our meals…I am planning on using our bottled fruit, frozen and canned veggies, and whatever else may be on hand.  And I have not included in my list of supplies to get bread or anything else that I can make with the flour, yeast, sugar, and other baking supplies.  I usually have at least a three month supply of most of those items.

If any of your have questions, comments, or ideas on any part of my three month storage plan, please leave a comment!

Food storage room

When we bought this house, we knew there would not be enough storage space for all the food storage we hoped to store–especially for when our family grows larger.  So we decided to wall off a portion of our garage and make it our food storage room.  Scott framed, insulated, sheet-rocked, taped, and added a motion dector light (for when the girls go out to get something and forget to turn off the light.)  Most of our long-term storage is in the white boxes, but we also have some of our bottled fruit.  On the other side of the room are more shelves to store the white boxes and some really neat adjustable shelves for other sizes of cans and boxes.  There are only a few details left to be finished–mainly adding an air conditioner to keep it cool in the summer when the temperature outside raises the temperature in the garage.

Resolution: Something lasting beyond the week

(Not such a happy product model today…although she insisted in being in the picture!)

This week, I started working on my three month storage again.  When I originally began thinking about it, I got frustrated and gave up.  The problem was that I didn’t know if I should plan my meals around non-perishable foods or not.  And when I started to plan the meals, I realized that many of my meals required perishable ingredients.  So I gave up.

When I revisited my three month plan, I realized that I had not read the counsel (linked above) closely enough:

“Build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet. One way to do this is to purchase a few extra items each week to build a one-week supply of food. Then you can gradually increase your supply until it is sufficient for three months. These items should be rotated regularly to avoid spoilage.”

Foods that are in my “normal, daily diet” include perishables and non-perishables alike.  I decided that my meals would include ingredients that could keep for three months–including both non-perishables and items that could be frozen for that long.

I have almost completed an Excel spreadsheet of two weeks worth of meals that have ingredients with shelf-lives of at least three months.  I will then repeat those meals for the remainder of the three months.  The spreadsheet calculates all the ingredients and tells me how many of each I need to store.  Then I will keep my eyes out for sales at the grocery store so that I stock up quickly and as cheaply as possible.