End of the Line:

Guys, yesterday was so insane that after I blogged about it, I forgot to publish.  Anyway, I FINALLY did it!  I made wheat bread today, and it was SO easy!  I was really surprised how much time it DIDN'T take!  I mixed the yeast into the warm water, added honey and butter, then stirred in the flour until it was the lump you see below.  After kneading it for a while, I left it in a greased bowl for a few hours, then punched it down and baked it for 40 minutes.  There was a slight hiccup when I had to run an errand right in the middle of the timer and entrusted the bread removal to my 11 year old.  She took it out on time, I ran home for a quick second, admired how beautiful it looked, thought about how I should probably take a picture, didn't, and then had to run out the door again.

When I got home, it looked like THIS.  They had RIPPED OFF THE ENTIRE TOP OF THE LOAF!  I'm really torn between being really annoyed, and finding it very funny.  I bet they don't realize that this is their sandwich bread for tomorrow.  Have fun with that, guys.

Day 30:

Remember how I was going to make bread today, guys?  Well...it didn't happen.  I was running crazy all day long except for that brief and beautiful nap on the couch before kids came home.  I thought about starting it really fast before bed, but that would ruin the fun. I'll get back with you all tomorrow when I have the time to really enjoy the process!

Day 29:

I still haven't found the absolute perfect wheat bread recipe, but I am one step closer.  Today, I ground my own wheat; something I have been kind of avoiding since starting this challenge.  Knowing that I had tons of cans of white flour out in the garage, I knew that I didn't really have to, and I remembered it being a lot messier than it really was.  Where my kids were concerned, the wheat grinder was a super star, and they were all extremely eager to help.  Tommorrow, on the final day of this challenge, I really, really, REALLY will make homemade wheat bread.  I almost promise.

For lunch today, I ate one of my favorite things that I've talked about before; frozen peaches, all warmed up, topped with a little bit of stevia.  As you can see, they aren't perfectly devoid of frost, and I have left the peels on.  This was very much on purpose.  First of all, I freeze peaches because it is SO much faster than canning them.  I wash, quarter them, lay them out on cookie sheets and freeze them that way, then scrape them off the pan the next day and put them in gallon baggies.  Freezing them separately first makes it so they don't all end up in a frozen, nasty, nearly unusable lump at the bottom of the bag that you have to chisel out with a butter knife and a hammer.  Ask me how I know this.  Second, I would like to say that I leave the peels on because it adds more fiber and significantly increases the health benefits of preserved peaches (I can them with peels on too), but that really isn't why I do it.  I have a limited amount of time that I am willing to devote to food preservation, and it's not worth it to me to spend such a huge allotment of my time resource on removing something I don't really care about.  Sure, I prefer to eat them later without the peel, but I really am not picky enough to not eat them if it hasn't been removed.

Tonight, it's pork (prepared, shredded and frozen) and veggie soup!  My family is getting MOST anxious to eat "normally" again.  I have to admit, the grapes at WinCo were mighty tempting.  I think they will be the first thing I buy when I go back to normal shopping!

Day 28:

I came across my bread dilemma again; I either make too much and it goes bad, or I don't make enough, and my kids are all in a panic about what to eat when they want sandwiches.  (I know.  Their lives are SO difficult.)  Another bread issue we have is the little kids get to it, shred a slice to bits, and then put it back in the bag.  Really, guys?  This was the only place you could think of for the disposal of your bread bits?  Maybe...oh, say, your MOUTH?!  If not that then perhaps the garbage?  The sink disposal?!  So, we end up with a whole bag of little shredded bread bits that everyone knows has been mangled by (probably dirty) little hands.  Ew.

So, we're back at bread baking time, again using flour, sugar and salt from our food storage, as well as milk mixed halfway with dehydrated milk.  I have had this recipe memorized ever since the Great Bread Boycott of (I think) 2015.  (I boycott so many things that I forget when I do them.)  Although, apparently, my memory isn't as amazing when I'm trying to make bread really fast before bed, because I just realized that I forgot to add the butter and had to run down to put it in 10 minutes into the mixing cycle.  One of the things I have learned about using homemade bread for family eating: don't slice it when it's straight out of the machine, unless you're doing fat ol' slices to serve immediately.  Those slices do NOT make amazing sandwiches unless you like really fat sandwiches.  I always wait for it to cool, and then cut them nice and thin.  This makes it last longer, and makes the sandwiches small enough to fit in a sandwich baggie.

I have also had several people give me their wheat bread recipes, and I think I'll try those during these last few days of The Challenge.

Day 27:

Today, Savannah (7) decided to make waffles from our food storage pancake mix that Paul made last week.  The kitchen was a catastrophic disaster, but at least I didn't have to make anyone breakfast.  This was good because I was out running anyway...and then I realized that I locked my keys in the car and Paul had to come rescue me.  By "rescue", I mean drive over to where I was, remind me that the back venting window opens too far, and help unceremoniously shove me through it into a dignified heap on the back seat so I could unlock it myself.  (One of these days, I really should invest in a spare key.)

We had corn tortillas from the freezer with melted cheese in them for lunch, along with some canned apricots.  For dinner, I went crazy and bought a real, live onion to mix with some ham, and food storage mashed potatoes.  YUM!!!  I could have used dehydrated onion, and for experiment integrity, I should have.  It really was deliscious though.  But, I'm regretting eating as much as I did because I now have severe onion breath, and we're about to go to a church adult social.  (It's a dance, but I haven't told Paul this.  He just knows it's a social, and may mutiny if he knew.  In all fairness, he had equal access to the church bulletin last Sunday and could have read it himself.  I know.  I'm a terrible person.  A terrible person who truly loves dancing.)

Day 26:

Nicole almost cried when I told her we only had 4 days left of this challenge.  This has been such an enlightening experience, you guys.  One of the things I hadn't really expected was how empty the fridge and pantry would be all the time.  I'm so used to having tons of crackers, cereals, noodle packages, fresh fruit and veggies filling up our kitchen.  Not having those things is so odd.  Now, we have tupperware containers holding leftovers of main dishes, and occasionally opened jars of fruit.  With just those in the fridge with eggs, butter, milk and cheese, it's really empty!  The plus side is that it makes the refrigerator WAY easier to clean!

Tonight, I made Fried Rice, and it was gone before I hardly blinked.  (Having four guests over for dinner probably impacted that.)  I sauteed the rice and deydrated onion in butter, then added tomato bouillon and water, lowered the heat and covered it.  It was gone in a flash!  Nicole even ate it and didn't leave to Grandma's house for "real food". 🤣  The only sad thing...I totally forgot to take a picture of it.  Picture pink-ish/ red-ish rice, guys.  Then imagine a fantastic sauteed oniony smell.  Mmmmmm! 

I buckled down and dealt with the cooled cooked pork and beef, packaging them in serving sizes in saran wrap and putting them in a gallon baggie in the freezer.  It has made meal prep so much faster!

In other good news, I didn't even eat one chocolate chip today.  Progress!

Day 25:

Guys, I was on form today.  Honestly, I can't say that every day, but today, I got stuff done.  Laundry is 100% caught up, everyone made it out the door on time, I read books to the kids at the bus stop, sorted out the baby's extra clothes, went walking with my mom, got completely caught up on dishes...twice (!), gathered all of the clutter from downstairs into a small pile for the kid who owned that after-school chore, bought all the painting supplies I will need to paint two bathrooms, replaced a lightswitch cover, worked on making a hat on my hat loom, and then purchased and spray painted a toilet paper holder.  Oh, and while I did all of this, I binge watched Father Brown and kept my kid and one extra alive and fed. There is one thing I didn't do though.  Remember how I was going to cut all that pork into steaks?  Well, that's not going to happen.  I just cooked it all.  There was a ton of it too.  I was tired of it looking at me in that condescending, accusatory manner every time I opened the fridge.  But, I will deal with all of that tomorrow after it has cooled off in the fridge.  Father Brown was more important.  😉 We have to pick our priorities, people.

Today, we had pork, homecanned apricots and leftover spaghetti. 

And, maybe I ate a lot of frozen chocolate chips too.  Perhaps.  Only 5 more days!  I have to admit to missing fresh veggies.

Day 24:

Well, I went and did it.  I ate the whole darn thing of yogurt all by myself.  People!  Where is my self-control?!  It was just so dang good that I didn't want to stop...and then it was almost gone, so I figured I should just finish it off.  Oy.  Why do I do this to myself?!  *shakes fist at all delicious yogurts*

Today, we are having spaghetti and ground beef; not quite meatballs, because who really wants to spend all that time spicing it, carefully patting it into little spheres, baking it, etc.?  Not I!  The noodles, spahetti sauce and diced tomatoes are from food storage, and the beef is from a HUGE tube of it that I cooked up to freeze today.  (I really should have sliced the pork roasts into steaks as well, but by the time I had hauled three dressers and 14 drawers upstairs, dragged a heavy locker unit downstairs and around to the garage, folded and lugged 4 or 5 baskets of laundry up the stairs, all by myself, I honestly just wanted to lay on the couch and watch Father Brown on Netflix.)  It smells great, and for the first time in a while, my kids are excited to eat it, so there's that.

Day 23:

Oh, guys.  The yogurt.  I made a ton of it, and added 2 packs of lime Jell-o to make it super healthy (ha-ha).  It tastes SO good, you guys!  I absolutely love it!  However, before adding lime Jell-o to a ton of yogurt, I probably should have done some recon to see if my family likes lime yogurt.  Um, they don't.  So, I've got this ton of lime yogurt, and I'm the only one who likes it, and I really, really shouldn't eat dairy.  And now, after a very nice bowl of it, I can't swallow, and I'm pretty sure it's worth it.

Isn't it pretty?!

So, being allergic, or sensitive, or whatever it is I am to wheat and dairy would have been so helpful to know about 30 years ago.  I would even take 19 years ago when I got married and started thinking about having kids.  Unknowingly, it was the effect of eating these things that made it so I threw up EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. for all six pregnancies, which really is a blast.  And guess what I absolutely craved?  Bread and cheese.  It's a sad, sad story, friends, but I'm glad I lived through it, and I'm glad I know now.  And, I'm also really glad I'm done being pregnant forever. 😁

Day 22:

My kiddos want to take yogurt in their lunches again, but, knowing that I can make it from food storage stuff (and one little store-bought yogurt cup), I couldn't justify buying a ton of little individual yogurts at the store; not this month, anyway.  So, I'm giving yogurt another shot in the InstantPot, but this time I changed it up a bit.  I read somewhere that you could add a can of sweetened condensed milk, which I happened to have in my food storage, to help with the taste.  Now, I will use just about any excuse to open a can of sweetened condensed milk, just for the opportunity to lick the lid and snitch any leftovers.  SO yummy.  Anyway, another person mentioned that they knew a person who added jell-o to their homemade yogurt to flavor it (which I also have in food storage...Yay!).  So, my hypothesis with adding both of those things, is that it will have a thicker consistency, and not require a lot of jelly for flavoring.  I still used half normal milk and half dry milk, so this really is going to end up being really cheap.  I'll let you know how it goes when it has had a night to firm up in the fridge.  Other than that, we ate chicken, rice, some granola from our pantry, and leftover chicken and dumplings.  It was Veteran's Day, so we all took it easy, enjoyed a fantastic new obstacle course park, and all of the kids took fantastic, long naps!  So much winning today!

Day 21:

My teenage daughter is FINALLY starting to feel a little better, and got some appetite back today.  The only thing that sounded good to her was rice.  I didn't have any made, and the InstantPot was full of chicken and dumplings in the fridge, because refrigerating food in its original prep pot is just how I roll, so it took some prep work to make that happen for her.  After putting the chicken and dumplings in two big tupperware bowls (I told you I cook in bulk...I can't help it!), I scrubbed out the InstantPot, then noticed all of the other dishes needed to be done.  After the dishwasher was running, the floor was mopped, the livingroom was vacuumed and the toddler had his fill of his Fly Guy books, I remembered the rice.  Oh, yeah.  THAT's why I came down here...  I'm grateful to have what feels like an endless supply of rice just out in the garage, because this child is a rice-a-holic.  Well, rice and toast.  And she's still skinny as a rail.  Friends, if I ate only rice and toast, I would blow up like a pregnant balloon.  (The thought of this makes me want to go running.)

So, here is our super basic, eat-this-or-any-of-the-gajillion-other-leftovers meal for tonight:

Day 20:

So, I'm realizing how much meat we use in our dinners.  We went shopping again today and had to spend over $100 to get a free turkey.  I mean, who can pass that up?  Not us!  So, we got $125 worth of groceries; milk, almond milk, eggs, one yogurt so I can make more, ranch dressing, lipstick and cheese.  (Yes, I buy my lipstick at WinCo, and will continue to until I no longer have children who EAT it.)  All of the rest of it was meat of some sort. (Paul almost cried when I steered him away from the fresh fruit and veggies.)  So, one take-away that I've gotten from this experiment is that I either have to seriously beef up (*snort*) my TVP supply in my food storage, or we need to partner with a hunter.  (I'm actually scared to open the 5 or 6 cans of TVP that I already have, because I've never cooked with it before and I don't trust it to not be gross.  I should get over that.) 

When we were first married, we were so, so, SO poor, guys.  SO poor.  I got really good at making really cheap, meatless or near-meatless meals, stretching those whole chickens that I de-boned by hand over many, many meals.  So, I know I could go meatless again if I really had to.  But, I don't, and I really don't want to, so we're going to need some hunting buddies if the world blows up and we have to use our food storage for realsies, because it's a necessity and not just a fun experiment.  Any volunteer huntsmen or huntswomen?  I could swap you in wheat!  Wheat for meat; I like that.  I suppose I could learn to hunt myself...

Another thing I've learned, that I actually knew all along, but I re-learn it really frequently, is that I make WAY too much food at a time.  We have leftovers for days and days and days.  As in, my kids groan when I even touch it BEFORE any attempt to offer it to them for more meals.  I grew up in a family of 5 kids, and now have 6 of my own.  Cooking in small quantities has never been my forte.

I only managed one blurry pic of dinner tonight before it got snarfed by a kid.  We went to an uncle's funeral today where they begged people to take home the leftovers from the luncheon.  I have a feeling this is going to play into our breakfasts and lunches over the next few days.  For breakfast this morning, Paul whipped up some pancakes, including flour, dry milk and olive oil from food storage, all while I was out running (because he is fantastic).  It would be so much harder to do this experiment without his patience and support!  If y'all have a chance to marry Paul, you totally should. 😉😉😉

Day 19:

Chicken and dumplings tonight!  I finally used up all of my flour and got to open a food storage can to make the dumplings (which I totally thought were going to be the consistency of biscuits when I dropped them into the soup, then I ended up quadrupling the amount of dumplings because I kept adding more and more flour to thicken it up).  I also added potato pearls-- a suggested step at the bottom of the recipe, and it really improved the texture.  My kids LOVED this, which honestly, is pretty rare for my cooking.  Yay!

Day 18:

This week has been one for HUGE projects.  So much sanding, painting, unscrewing, rescrewing, and thinking grumpy "why the heck won't this darn bolt come off" thoughts.  I have patched up walls that had experienced a little too much teenage boy angst, and all the mudding, taping, sanding, breathing in of dust, texturing and painting that project entails.  I have painted our kitchen island, and then ruined it with clumping polyurethene.  I have changed out our kitchen faucet for one that doesn't spew water.  I have painted the loft in our kids' room with a little hand brush because I didn't want to change back out of my painting clothes to buy a roller when I realized too late that we no longer owned one.  Then, I painted a mural of a tree, with tons of "fairy sparkles" all around the walls (different colored glitter glue circles).  What does this mean?  It means that the rest of my house blew up, friends.  I'm a day behind on dishes, and my sick teenager hasn't been able to do her very necessary chores for the last few days.  Tonight, we're eating leftovers and oatmeal (technically, from food storage), and that's as gourmet as we're getting.  I'm just happy everyone is still alive. 

Check out that stack of dishes, guys!  Although it's hard to tell, it's actually organized over there.  I hate, HATE having dirty dishes in the sink, so I have three bins for dirty dishes; one for plates/ lids, one for cups/ bowls, and one for silverware.  The space in front of the bins is for large bowls/ pitchers/ jars that are too big for the bins.  I will never go back!

This is me, soaking wet under the sink because I can't tell the difference between "lefty loosey" and "righty tighty".

The tree!  Eventually, I will probably paint pink flowers all over it, but I needed to get the tree painted so I could put a mattress in there ASAP.  When you have 5 kids (at home) in a 3 bedroom house, you learn to get super creative with living spaces.  To make this loft, we punched a hole through the bedroom wall and built a living space over our lower staircase.  If you jump on it to push it down, you can squeeze a twin mattress in here.  Seeing as how our now-adult son used to have this "room", this was where the majority of the wall-patching happened.  This will be our 7 year old's new room, and we just moved the 5 year old into the 16 year old's closet.  A space for everyone!

I'll try for more creative food storage ideas tomorrow, guys!

Day 17:

'Tis the season for sickies.  After having a sibling party with all six kids chilling on Kobe's bed (you know, breathing each other's air and stuff) the night he started feeling sick, it's been like watching dominoes go down.  They're falling one by one.  Sharon even went down this week.  And what do we do for sick people? We make SOUP!  I tried a different one today; a brothy, ricey, meatbally concoction from my own brain.  I will be the first to admit that those brain children do not always go well, but this one is pretty dang good AND incorporated food storage!

It will be served with fresh homemade bread, made this morning to replace the loaf the littles mutilated last night. (I saw Savannah walking through the house with a third of the loaf, liberally sprinkled with garlic salt.  Of course, someone had opened the bread machine while it was cooking, so the loaf had collapsed anyway.  Children + bread= mischief).  I am praying that this plague will be banished from the house really, REALLY soon...so we can all go get flu shots on Friday. 😃

Me: "Congrats on not being sick everyone!  Here's your prize!"

Day 16:

Back on Sunday, I didn't get to use the meal I had prepped.  My sweet mother in-law invited us to dinner, and no one who has control of their faculties would turn down a succulent meal made by my in-laws.  The funny thing was that they served a tastier version of what I was going to make: pork, green beans, mashed potatoes (plus a whole lot of other fantastic stuff I had zero intention of taking the time to prepare).  Great minds...

So, I had all of these thawed steaks, and hungry people, so I figured I should get those things together and made foil dinners!  I added potatoes and garlic salt, and voila!  Minimal effort, hardly any clean-up, and extremely happy people.  It really doesn't get better than that.

One thing that did make it interesting was the fact that I do not have a kitchen faucet today.  Sunday night, right before leaving for the in-laws', my 5 year old wakes me up from a truly luscious nap and tells me that the kitchen is spraying water everywhere.  Apparently, some, uh, pipe thingy had snapped off of the under-faucet thingy, and experts say that isn't fixable.  (I'm still over here, with my obviously limited plumbing knowledge, thinking that SURELY someone could, I don't know...solder SOMETHING, right?  Alas, no professional could validate my genius idea.)  So, yesterday, today, and probably tomorrow will be spent without running water in my kitchen until my new faucet gets here.  I am just thanking every single lucky star, and a few unlucky ones, that the dishwasher still works...as much fun as it would have been to wash dishes in the bathtub or something.

Day 15:

I got a text from my 18 year old son at 1 a.m. saying he was really sick and was requesting soup in the morning.  I love that, even when he is all big and grown up and moved out, his Mama is the one he texts when he's sick.  It helps my heart when I miss him so much.  So, soup just got on the menu again today.  I made the same type as last time, but in this one I omitted the broccoli and kept it pretty simple.  Hoping that it helps comfort my sickie boy.

I'm having trouble with keeping a balance of homemade bread.  Either I bake way too much and they end up going bad, or I have too little and people are panicking when trying to pack their lunches.  It's like the Israelites when they were collecting manna; collect too much and it would get nasty; too little and they starve.  Feast or famine, people: the overall dilemma of the universe.  When my kids were scraping together the heels of several different loaves for their sandwiches, I figured we were really at bread-making time, and got some going; only one loaf this time. 

Seeing as how it is still really close to Halloween, and my kids are still addicted to sugar like its their crack, I have hesitated to try a food storage dessert.  However, my sweet friend who brought me recipes included one for brownies, and I am really tempted.  I'm going to ponder it in my soul for tomorrow's edition of 30DaysofFoodStorage!

Day 14:

Today is fast Sunday, where we don't eat or drink between dinner on Saturday night to dinner time on Sunday.  It's a challenge and a day of reckoning to see where you're at in overcoming bodily temptations.  I recently did a study on this for a talk I gave last week, and it was a FASCINATING subject to dive into!  One of my favorites parts was from a talk in 1928 by Melvin J. Ballard, called "The Struggle for the Soul", and it really made my fast more meaningful.  It was about the discussion we have between our spirit (the immortal part of us that enters our body some time before birth, and leaves at death), and our body:

 “My head will ache; I will feel faint; I cannot fast so long; I must eat a little.”  Are you yielding to it?  If so, I can tell you who is being boss in your establishment, who is gaining the mastery.  It is a splendid thing, at least once a month, for [body and spirit] to come into a real settlement of the question, and for the [spirit to say to the body], the house I live in, my servant: You can do without these two meals; it will not hurt you.  Indeed it will benefit you.  And though my head may ache and my body may feel faint, I will not die; I am bigger than you are and once a month I will show you that I am master.” What strength that will give you to resist tomorrow when some other craving arrives!  It may be for liquor, tobacco, or some other craving of the flesh—and I have gained strength to say to the house that I live in: “You cannot defile this tabernacle; I will have it clean; I will not have the windows darkened, I will not have this body defiled; it is my servant, and it must be kept clean.”

Isn't that awesome?!  It's not just going hungry!  It's not just about having a more powerful prayer!  It's about teaching our body to come into submission to our spirit.  I love it.

Anyway, because it's fast Sunday today, I want dinner to be more fabulous than a normal day.  I'm pulling out some steaks that I cut from a pork roast and froze, some mashed potatoes and home-canned green beans.  Lots of food groups represented, guys; and you know that's weird for me.   Should be good!

Day 13:

Dinner was slightly less glorious than anticipated, but that was only because we didn't have any crushed chips to sprinkle over the top.  Other than that... fantastico!  I should probably work on my presentation though.  I realized, as I've been posting all of these pictures, that most of my dinners just look like indistinct blobs.  You'll just have to take my word that this one was good. 😁

This afternoon, I decided to go ahead and give those wheat muffins a try.  It called for 2 cups of wheat flour, which I didn't have on hand; so I made some!  Since it called for such a small amount, I didn't want to haul out my huge wheat grinder, completely demolish my kitchen with flour dust, and inhale a ton of it (remember...allergic).  So, I pulled out my teeny weeny spice grinder, ran 7 or 8 measures of wheat through it, and it ground it just perfectly.

 Here is the finished result:

These are really very healthy, but a little less sweet than the kids are used to with muffins (I used half molasses, half honey.  Also, keep in mind that it IS two days after Halloween, people.  These little peeps are sugared up).  After the initial taste, they ran out to play, so I didn't get a full, analytical review from them.  We'll try them again later with butter and jelly. 

Day 12:

Today, I am sick as a dog, and have been SO grateful for the leftover soup from yesterday!  I'm also making one of my VERY favorite dinners from my childhood just because it sounds cozy and wonderful: Hot Chicken Salad.

My first memory of this dish was from high school.  My mom had whipped it up, put it in the oven, and then had to run out the door for a few hours.  She asked me to take it out of the oven in 30 minutes and then left.  Being the responsible teen that I was, I promptly forgot.  Two hours later, my mom came in and asked how the dinner was.  Jaw dropping, I ran up to the kitchen, threw open the oven and grabbed out the evidence of my shirking.  It was actually amazing.  The edges were crispy, in a very fantastic way, and the whole thing was just divine; the most forgiving meal you can ever prepare.  Plus, for my experiment, it has a lot of ingredients that I can get out of my food storage!

In other news, my sweet ministering sister came over to visit me today.  Knowing of my challenge, she brought me tons of food storage recipes to try.  I can't wait to give some of them a go!  This is the one I'm hoping to do in the morning:

I'll report back with pics to let you guys know how it all went!