Mock Emergency Week

I was browsing the web, looking for something for Primary, when I came across a website that suggested going on a "mock emergency week." I decided to give it a try. Two rules: you couldn't go out grocery shopping to "stock-up" beforehand (simulating a disaster where you cannot make it to the grocery store OR you find the store has been looted prior to you making it there), and you could only use what you had in your home (fridge, freezer, pantry, food storage).

I had bananas on my counter. I had in my fridge 6 eggs, 1 1/2 gallons of milk, sour cream, some cheese, a green pepper, carrots, green onion, potatoes...not a whole lot. My freezer had some baby food, ground beef, frozen veggies and other random stuff. The pantry had basics, cereal, crackers, pasta, etc. The bulk of my meals came from our food storage.

Brian and I had spent a lot of time working on our food storage a while back, but we never really gave it a trial run....this was the perfect opportunity. Although, I do have to say that we had all the conveniences of electricity and gas to be able to cook our food as usual. Maybe next time I try this we'll go off the grid for an added challenge!

Our menu consisted of items such as whole wheat pancakes, cornmeal pancakes, wheat bread for sandwiches, chili, chicken tetrazzini, hawaiian haystacks, shepherd's pie, peach cobbler, jello ice cream, and chicken soup.

It was pretty easy the first few days. I heard comments like: "This is a food storage meal?" The kids liked everything I made, which is good to know. It progressively got harder as the week wore on. By Thursday night, we ran out of milk. It was hard to hear my kids ask for more milk or for a drink of milk and not be able to give it to them. I also noticed how fast we went through produce and cheese. I was craving fruit more than I thought I would. And I really wanted some cheddar cheese. I guess that's why the saying goes, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone"

The thing we learned from this experience is that 1) we have an awesome 3 month supply and a fairly good 1 year supply of basics 2) we know how we ought to scale our recipes in the future to feed the right amount of people 3) we are more aware of what we want to bulk our food storage up with (I'd really like to learn how to wax my own cheese, so I can store it on the shelf!).  It was a great time of year to do this too: end of the winter when our produce put up from last fall was low, and we didn't have the convenience of our garden to supplement our meals....it gave us a good idea of how things "might" be should anything disastrous happen.... Give it a try!!