Lunch Has Arrived

Welcome to September! I could not be more excited for this beautiful month to arrive (August was long and hot for us at the Spjute household). To celebrate the new month, I thought we could move on to a new mealtime to focus on for food storage. So, here is this week's food storage lunch idea:

Sandwiches
Fruit*
Chips/Crackers**

This week, I recommend you buy the fixings to make your family's favorite kind of sandwiches, and a few sides to go along with them.

Here's the recommendations:

• 1 jar peanut butter (the bigger jar), which should be enough for about 14 sandwiches (enough for 2 for a week)
• 1-2 jars jam/jelly (flavor of your choice - quantity depends on what you prefer)
• 1-2 loaves bread, to freeze in the freezer until you are ready to use them (but don't forget they're there - I can vouch for the fact that year old, freeze-dried bread is not a tasty find)

Here's some other suggestions if you're not PB&J fans:

• If you like fish, you may want to consider purchasing some tuna fish and mayonnaise for tuna sandwiches. I recommend 1 jar mayonnaise per two people (the bigger size, but not the GIANT size) and about 4 cans of tuna for two people.
• Or, if you have little kids that won't eat either of the above, another option might be to purchase 1 package hotdogs (per person) and some hotdog buns, both of which you can freeze.

 *To make the sandwich idea more of a meal, you might want to consider buying fruit to eat on the side. If you have kids, applesauce is usually a winner, especially when a little red food coloring is added to make it pink (I ate it every time my mom did that for me when I was a little girl obsessed with pink - in fact I didn't know applesauce wasn't pink until I was an adult). Now, I generally eat about half a can of fruit at a meal. So, for one person, you will probably want to buy about 3-4 cans of fruit. Winco usually has the cheapest deals on canned goods, but this is not always the case with fruit so you may want to shop around a bit.

**You can also consider purchasing some chips/crackers to go along with things. Vons and SaveMart are both having sales on certain potato chips and Nabisco crackers this week, so those might be good places to look this weekend.

In all of this, please remember that the goal is to purchase items your family consumes regularly enough that you will not have to worry, "Hmmm, will these go bad before I use them?" The purpose is to buy extras little by little, then when you open the extras to eat, to buy more to replace the food storage. This will eventually keep a constant supply of food storage items that your family likes, on hand, for your daily use.

Recipe of the Week

Now, in case you aren't already aware, I must confess that I'm a bit of a food snob: I pretty much only eat food that is homemade or home grown. So (in case you feel the same), if you wish to you can buy the ingredients to make your own homemade bread (rather than buying the premade loaves), here's a link to Aaron's and my FAVORITE white bread recipe (yum, yum, yum):

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/amish-white-bread/detail.aspx

As a special note: This harvesty month is also a good time to put in a plug to get your winter gardens in. Fresh food cannot be stored long term, but it can be grown and it will add tremendously to your daily diet AND your three month supply.

Money Saving Tips

Sales I noticed this week include the following:

• Von's is having a sale on Safeway Kitchens Wheat Breads (great for sandwiches!) 22 oz. Crushed or 100% Whole Wheat for $1.49 each when you buy 2.
• SaveMart is having a super sale on corn: $0.98 for 7 cobs (Sept 2-5). Also, they are having a sale on 12.25 oz. boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios: $1.77 each when you buy 3.
• Also remember, FoodMaxx will price match sales going on at other stores. You take in the ads and show them at the checkout, and they will do a price match - provided they are the same brands as in the ad.

Additionally, Aaron and I have been on the hunt to find the cheapest gas in Fresno. Our latest find: Von's Gas. I was surprised because I believed that Von's was expensive, but when I went to fill up my tank the other day - using my Von's Club Card, which is free and doesn't require a yearly fee - it cost me $0.10 - $0.20 less per gallon than Bad Bud's (which normally has pretty cheap gas). This may not be cheaper than Costco (I don't know), but it was the cheapest non-Costco gas I've seen, costing me $3.53/gallon one week, then $3.43/gallon the next. It only added up to a savings of about $1.80 each time I filled the tank, but that adds up over time and, as I mentioned above, could have then been used to purchase a loaf of bread or a box of cereal for food storage. So, I wanted to pass along our little find in case it helped at all.

Please let me know of any other deals you may become aware of this week, and let me know if you have any questions or concerns about food storage. I'm always happy to help where I can! You can e-mail me at peachwoodpantry@gmail.com.

Happy Storing!

Diana Spjute

Notes:
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The opinions expressed in this blog are the sole opinion of the author and are not meant to promote sales for any institution, nor to represent the opinions of any church, business, or institution.