Convenience Food

I have been giving some thought to our discussion on "convenience foods." I believe a bit of clarification would be helpful.

Some convenience can/box foods are necessary in our storage. It makes sense to have them for short term emergencies (like no electricity). If you are out of power for two days, it will be better to open a can of ravioli then make your own from scratch. Same with macaroni and cheese.

What we don't want to do, in terms of long term storage, is have 1,000 boxes of mac and cheese, or 500 cans of ravioli in our storage.

Another example: dry onion soup mix. I use it a lot. I was storing about 12 envelopes at a time, but I really had to keep track because I would run out without realizing it. Now, I have things in my long term storage that I can very quickly throw together to make my dry soup mix. I don't have to worry about running out of it ever. Why? Because the ingredients I use for it are ingredients I use for many other things as well, and I can store larger quantities without it going bad.

Over the next few months we will be making mixes that can replace some of your convenience items - some you will like and some you may not, but at least you will have choices open to you besides just buying the box at the store.

Are you keeping up with your grocery/menu list?