Banana Split Smoothie

My son was late getting out of bed, so I needed something quick for him. Here is the smoothie I made for breakfast, and I am calling it the banana split smoothie.

Here is the line-up of ingredients:

8 oz. non fat milk (I used powdered)
1 package chocolate powdered instant breakfast (got these dirt cheap at Target using coupons)
4 oz carton low fat banana yogurt (yoplait kids....also very inexpensive with coupon)
1/2 c. frozen strawberries

Blend all ingredients in your blender or vitamix. I also added a few ice cubes because I like my smoothies cold! Pour into a large glass and serve with a straw.

Sorry, forgot to put the strawberries in the picture....gotta start getting these pictures right! Below is a picture of the powdered milk we like. It has a good flavor to it and is easy to mix. I like the Pampered Chef plunger pitcher. It is perfect for mixing up powdered drinks or frozen juices with water.

Calorie content of one drink (use a large glass) is approximately 350 calories. A great drink to start your day, and a little different than the spinach smoothie I usually make. Do you have a favorite smoothie that you enjoy? Feel free to share it with us.

Using Pudding from food storage

For dessert, I pulled out a #10 can of vanilla pudding. I have had this for awhile, when the drypack cannery used to carry it. We are not big pudding eaters, so I decided I had better make it special! I had gotten oreos a few weeks ago on sale at Walgreen's, so I chopped up a about 1.5 cookies per serving, and mixed them in with the pudding. It was really a tasty dessert and it didn't require much of my time or energy in making it. I used my vitamix to blend the pudding powder and water.

Crockpot Lasagna

I have a blogger friend who has the best recipe...well she has many great recipes..but the crock pot lasagna is such a great one. I just had to share it! It is a great recipe to use for a 3 month food storage recipe. So, Sherri, thanks for sharing your recipe. Please check out her blog over at http://kaysvillemomma.blogspot.com/ . Sherri posts her recipes in the left column.

So here are the star ingredients for the lasagna (this is slightly different from Sherri's recipe...it is what I used this morning) :

1 jar spaghetti sauce (or equivalent)
16 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
1 lb. ground beef, browned
1 c. cottage cheese (I prefer this to ricotta)
12 oz pasta, any type
1 can diced tomatoes
1 TBSP Italian seasoning
1 TBSP parsley flakes
1 diced onion, sauteed in olive oil

The ingredients below are all from the pantry. The ground beef can be frozen flat in the freezer in Ziploc bags, as can the the cheese. The cheese can be frozen in the bags from the store, or if you are shredding your own cheese, put it in the Ziploc bags and freeze it. You can also buy frozen diced onions or dice you own and freeze them.

Saute the onions in the olive oil and brown the ground beef. Then, put all of the ingredients into a large crock pot and cook on low for 3 hours. I mix everything around a few times in the first hour. This is a great dish to take for a potluck meal and you can easily store all of the ingredients as a part of your 3 month storage. You are probably wondering where the final picture is, right? Well, I took my crock pot of lasagna to a luncheon today, and forgot to take the picture...sorry!! But it looks just like regular lasagna, so I hope that you can envision it!

Food Storage Dinner: Red Lentil Tomato Soup

Tonight for dinner I had planned to make a meal using red lentils. If you've been reading my blog, you know that I have some cases of tomato soup in my food storage that I want to use up. I did donate a case of tomato soup to Dixie Care and Share, the local food bank, but I still have a little less than a case worth in my pantry. So, I decided on Lentil Tomato Soup. There are many recipes out there using a variety of ingredients for this recipe. I decided to make this one my own, by using what I had on hand. So here it is, Red Lentil Tomato Soup:

Here are the ingredients I used.....

2 1/2 c. Chicken Broth (3 month food storage)
14 oz can Tomato Soup (3 month food storage)
1 c. red lentils, sorted and rinsed (1 year food storage)
1 TBSP Italian Seasoning (1 year food storage)
1 onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced

Step #1 is to sort through the lentils. I like to put mine on a white paper plate, and pick out the dark lentils and anything that is out of place. You might find little rocks or other debris. I put about 1/3 c. on the plate at a time and clean it out. One you are done, rinse all of them in a deep bowl and carefully pour the water out. Do this a few times.

I have this handy-dandy dicer, I peel the onion and cut it into smaller pieces. Then, I put it into the dicer for an easy way to dice the onions.

My parents bought this for me.... I think that they got it on one of those TV infomercials! But it is really great to dice onions with.

Here is the finished product on the onions.

Put the minced garlic and onions in a TBSP of oil and saute in a frying pan until translucent.

In a crock pot, I dumped the tomato soup, Italian seasoning, chicken broth and lentils. Add the onions/garlic to that when they are done. Do not add a can of water like you are making regular tomato soup. Pour the chicken broth into the can to rinse the can out.

It doesn't look like much initially. I cooked this on high for 4 hours. Check the moisture level occasionally, you may need to add some more water or chicken broth. I was gone for an hour toward the end of cooking so it turned out more like a stew. I picked up some artisan bread: rosemary olive oil and cut a slice to go with it. Delicious! My 16 year old son agreed that it was really good (amazing!...you know it was good if he said so!).

If you don't have tomato soup, you can substitute canned diced tomatoes with the liquid. You can use any tomato product but remember to use the same amount of liquid. Just adjust as necessary. I hope that you'll try this and let me know how you like it.

Breakfast and Lunch using Food Storage

Using your food storage for meals really shouldn't stress you out. I know that a common complaint from people about using food storage is that they don't know how to use what they store. I thought I'd take you through my day today and show you what our meals have been and what came from "storage". I regularly use items from both my 3 month and 1 year food storage.

Below is breakfast. We happen to love oatmeal. I store oat groats instead of oatmeal. As detailed in a previous post, I have a Marga flaker, and I use this to roll out my groats into flakes. I roll enough for the week, then store it in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator. Oat groats take up half of the space as oatmeal. This is important for me now that I am in a smaller home without a basement. I made oatmeal on the stove, added a few raisins and milk before serving. I also used the hot cocoa mix from the cannery and served hot cocoa. Throw in a banana, and you have a breakfast of about 450 calories. This is nice on a cold morning.

For lunch, I made wraps. I had tortillas in the freezer. I had purchased them on sale and they are the kind you "cook" before using. By the way, I love my cast iron griddle, it belonged to my now deceased grandmother. I think of her every time I use it. It is so well seasoned from years of use.

After cooking the tortilla, I added a little shredded cheese, canned chicken that I heated with bbq sauce. I then topped this with sunflower sprouts.

Next, put a healthy amount (I use about 3/4 c. per serving) of lettuces...I used iceberg and green leaf lettuce. You can use a little ranch dressing to hold the lettuce in.

Here you have a very delicious taco/wrap/whatever you want to call it! My sons love these. They are filling without being fattening.

Food storage items used so far today:

• oat groats


• raisins (3 month storage)


• hot cocoa mix


• canned chicken (3 month storage)


• tortillas from freezer (3 month storage)

See, wasn't that painless! I will post dinner's meal after I make it tonight. If I had sprouted my own sprouts, I would have considered that a part of my storage also.

Dry Pack Canning

This week I checked out a dry pack canner from the LDS Cannery to can items for my one year long-term food supply. If it is hard to get a appointment at your local LDS dry pack cannery (I can't get an appointment for the St. George cannery until April 2009), you can request to check out a canner. Then, buy grains and beans in bulk, along with the cans and oxypacks (you can buy all of this at the cannery) and do it at home.

I had members of the ward (congregation) sign up for times to come do their own canning. One of the items I packed was black beans. I canned about 50 pounds of black beans in this session.

In my garage I had a fairly good set-up for doing all of this. I put the cans up on the work bench, and had a small table to the side for setting the large bags of food. Because I was doing all of this by myself. I filled all of the cans first before getting the oxypacks out.

Below is a picture of the can with an oxypack in it. This are meant to keep the food fresh for a longer period of time. They have a limited amount of time to be exposed to air, so I put these in the cans after I have all of the product in the cans, put the lids on, then start sealing the cans.

I was able to get about 12 cases of food canned in about 2 hours. That is 72 cans of food for my long term food storage. I will gradually use and replenish what I have, and always have enough food on hand for my family. If you are unfamiliar with long term food storage, go to http://www.providentliving.org/ for more information. I will store about 300 pounds of grains per person/year and about 60 pounds of beans per person/year for my household.

The items I drypacked this time around came from both the cannery and Costco. I put up Calrose rice (our family favorite), black beans, fruit drink powder, hot cocoa powder, white beans, oat groats and dehydrated apple slices.

If you would like to store food items in the #10 cans, but aren't into doing the work, you can actually go in and purchase certain items already canned. This includes rice, pinto beans, hard red wheat, oats, or a starter kit with each of these products in the case. You can get additional information at http://www.providentliving.org/ .

Farmer's Market Report

Today was the last day of farmer's market this year in St. George. I am really going to miss it. Sigh! Most of the produce vendors are gone, and there were a lot of craft sellers there today. I immediately went hunting for Lea's Micro Market, because I get my sunflower sprouts from her. If I remember correctly, her farm is in Veyo. Anyway, she has terrific greens and sprouts.

Today she had bags of bok choy, greens, sprouts and she had bunches of turnips.

She gave me a taste of the white turnips, and all I could say is "I'll take some!". They are really delicious. I'll use the turnip greens in a recipe also. I also bought a bag of greens and a container of sunflower sprouts (LOVE THESE...yummers!)

From another vendor, I bought some cilantro in a pot. I am tired of paying such a high price for cilantro. I am going to put the pot in my kitchen window, and for $4, I will get a lot more cilantro for the money.

I will use the turnips tomorrow for Sunday dinner, and maybe the greens. Check back on Monday, when I will post about how I prepared them!