Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Thrive Life New Price List--great deals

It is time for Thrive Life to launch a new quarterly price list.  I wanted to give you a heads up on the items that are changing in price.  New pricing goes into effect August 1st at 5:00 pm MDT so make sure to get all orders in before then!

Individual Items that are changing in price
Packages with price changes
TROPICAL FRUIT PACK Current Price:  $118.70, New Price:  $126.99
  •  Freeze-dried Peaches
  • Freeze-dried Mangoes
  •  Freeze-dried Pineapples
  •  Freeze-dried Bananas
  •  Freeze-dried Pears
  • Freeze-dried Apricots
*This is my very favorite package!

FRUIT VARIETY PACK Current Price:  $124.49, New Price:  $126.99
  • Freeze-dried Strawberry
  • Freeze-dried Raspberry
  • Freeze-dried Blackberry
  • Freeze-dried Blueberry
  • Freeze-dried Peaches
  •  Dehydrated Apples 
VEGETABLE VARIETY PACK Current Price:  $67.25, New Price:  $70.99
  • Freeze-dried Broccoli
  •  Freeze-dried Onions
  • Freeze-dried Corn
  • Freeze-dried Peas
  •  Freeze-dried Dehydrated Potatoes
  • Dehydrated  Carrots

These three packages are some of my most favorite package. Each package contains 6 #10 cans.  If you are interested in purchasing one of these packages please email me at heather@teamshelfreliance.com or call 435-535-1470.  



One last thing
If you haven’t tried the new Thrive Classic Lemonade it is AMAZING.  It is by far my most favorite product, my kids love it, my husband even took a can to work.  The lemonade is an unsweetened mix allowing you to use the sweetener of your choice. The lemonade is only being offered for a limited time so be sure to try it before it is gone.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

What Would You Learn From Living off Your Food Storage For 30 Days?


Calendar Card - January
source:Joe Lanman

Have you ever wondered how complete your food storage is?  What holes you would find if you were living exclusively out of what you have stored?

Earlier this year my good friend, Sariah, decided to live exclusively out of her food storage for 30 days.  She started with the food in her house and didn’t buy any food (grocery store or restaurant food) for 30 days.  She did use the food she had in her fridge and freezer but they were both on the low side when she started.   No eating out or grocery shopping - for a full month.  What did she learn?

  • Store a lot more fruit!  Sariah had no idea how much fruit they would go through.  They snacked on it, put it in oatmeal, added it to muffins, and used it in smoothies.   Before this exercise she thought that she had a lot of fruit stored but found that they needed a LOT more.  So what can you do?  I recommend a three pronged approach
  • Fruits
    source: .v1ctor Casale.
    • Freeze fruit while it is in season.
    • Plant fruit trees/bushes in your yard.  I think of this as perpetual food storage because you store replenished each year.  At our house we have grapes, strawberries, peaches, apples, apricots, and raspberries. 
    • Add freeze dried fruit to your pantry and food storage.
  • Greens are hard to come by in the winter.  Sariah and her family did their 30 day food storage challenge in the winter and they live in an area of the country where snow and freezing temperatures are a part of life.  Fresh lettuce and other greens are hard to add to you food storage and are impossible to find/grow in the deep winter.   So what can you do?
  • schoolhouse 2
    • Store seed sprouting supplies.   At my house we really like alfalfa and mung beans.  I use this one from Amazon.  It isn’t perfect but it is inexpensive and gets the job done.  We have been very happy with it. 
    • Add freeze dried spinach to your food storage.  Freeze dried spinach will not make you a great salad but it is great to add to soups, lasagna, casseroles, scrambled eggs, etc. 
    • Freeze spinach and chard.   I love to freeze spinach as spinach pesto, and I like to freeze greens for green smoothies in advance so all I have to do it throw it in the blender.   Frozen greens won’t make a great salad but they will give you some great vitamins.
  •  Sariah learned that if you kids don’t like something normally they still won’t like it in your food storage.   One of the things I hear most often when I talk to groups about food storage is:  “If they are hungry enough they will eat it”  I guess my kids have never been hungry enough because with the foods they really dislike they would rather be hungry and super winy then eat something weird.  Sariah ran into the same problem a couple of times and it really has emphasized to me how important it is to store food your family will eat happily.  What you can do.
    • Store foods your family likes
    • Store high quality foods.   When you are buying food storage ask yourself “would I feed this to my family tonight?”  If the answer is no then you might want to reconsider your purchase.  
  •   You need a breakfast plan other than cold cereal.   Breakfast is tricky for a lot of us.  You and you kids are probably used to eating cold cereal.  But in a situation where you will be eating out of your food storage cold cereal will not be an option.  So what can you do? 
    • Figure out what cooked breakfasts your family likes.  I really love grits but my kids think they are poison, so grits are not a great addition to our food storage.  I have found that making my own instant oatmeal, is a great way to help the kids eat food storage for breakfast.  We also really like: 
      • Scrambled Egg make from Scrambled Egg Mix
      • Biscuits and Gravy (make with Freeze Dried Sausage)
      • breakfast: menemen
        source:  Paul Keller
      • Chocolate Malt-o-meal
  • Butter is delicious and really hard to store.
Butter
source:  Greenmelinda
For real butter you have two options for storing.  Have it in the freezer or buy a cow.  Both of those options have some downsides.  There are other options including,  
§  Commercially Canned butter—like Red Feather is very expensive
§  Powdered Butter-(which I store), has some of the fat removed in the processing and is a fine substitute but will never be as good as real butter
§  Shelf Stable UHT cream, with this you can make your own butter, but it is kind of hard to find and pricy to store in quantity. 

All of these options have limited shelf life, and can be very pricy to store in bulk.  As Sariah started her food storage experiment she counted how many sticks of butter she had in her freezer and rationed them out.    Even though butter is delicious on toast don’t forget to store other fats too.  Vegetable Oil, Olive Oil, and Shortening and all reasonably priced and can be stored for a reasonable amount of time.  I buy all I need for the year at Sam’s club and keep it stored in a cool dark place.  (You can read about how I store fats and oils here). 

Sometimes I see the idea of home canned butter floating around the internet.  Just know it is NOT safe to can butter at home you run a huge risk of botulism poisoning (which is very quick acting and fatal).  It just isn’t worth the risk.  Don’t do it.   

How would your food storage stand up to a 30 day challenge?  What holes would you find? 


Friday, July 26, 2013

Flashback Friday: Magic Mix made with Powdered butter




Magic Mix is a wonderful thing.  If you have never tried it is a white sauce mix that uses food storage ingredients to make delicious alfredo, cream of mushroom (or whatever) soup, or pudding.  

Magic Mix was originally developed by USU extension using fresh butter and requiring refrigeration.   A couple of years ago I started making it with powdered butter.   Using powdered butter makes magic mix shelf stable, giving you extra room in your fridge.  You can check out my original post on making magic mix here.  



If you are already familiar with magic mix make sure you scroll down to the new uses that I have added:  including Alfredo, vanilla pudding, pumpkin custard and microwave directions.  


For printable recipe click here: Magic Mix Using Powdered Butter

Magic Mix
2 cups NON-INSTANT milk powder OR 4 cups instant nonfat dry milk
1 cup THRIVE butter powder
1 cup flour or 1/2 cup cornstarch

Put all items in a large lidded container and whisk to combine. Store in pantry no need to refrigerate.

 To Make a White Sauce: 
Combine ½ cup Magic Mix and 1 cup water in saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until sauce is thickened and simmering. Makes 1 cup.



To Make Alfredo:
Combine 1 cup Magic Mix and 2 cup water in saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until sauce is thickened and simmering, remove from heat. Add 8 ounces cream cheese cut into chunks.  Stir until cream cheese is melted.  Add 3/4 cup  Parmesan cheese, and 1 teaspoon garlic powder.  Stir until combined. Serve over cooked fettuccine noodles.


To Make CREAM OF CHICKEN Soup:
Combine 1 cup of Magic Mix with 1 ¼ cups of cold water and 1 tsp chicken bullion in saucepan.  Cook and stir until thickened. Add to casserole as you would the canned product. Substitute for 1 can.

To Make CREAM OF MUSHROOM Soup:
Combine 1 cup Magic Mix with 1 1/4 cups cold water.  Cook and stir until thickened. Add 1/4 cup freeze dried mushrooms. And allow to rehydrate in the soup.  Substitute for 1 can cream of mushroom soup.








Peachy Lemonade






When I first started dating my husband I was surprised when at restaurants he had long conversations with the waiters about their lemonade.  “It’s just lemonade, not vintage wine” I thought to myself as he quizzed the waiter on if it was premade or fresh squeezed, if they had flavored mix ins and if so which was the best. Ten minutes later he would finally order a drink.      I usually just ordered what he ordered.  I mean if you are going to spend ten minutes talking with the waiter about your drink I hope it is going to be amazing.  And sometimes they were amazing.  I’ve learned over the years that we like our lemonade tart and flavorful (no country time mix for us).

This summer I stumbled unto this Peach Lemonade recipe (from the back of the simply peach can) and it is fantastic, simple to make but super flavorful and refreshing to drink. 

 

Peachy Lemonade
½ c sugar
5 cups water
1 cup lemon juice (or 2 tablespoons Classic Lemonade or other unsweetened lemonade powder)
Heat sugar, simply peach and 1 cup water in small sauce pan until completely dissolved. 
In the meantime, juice 4-6 lemons to make 1 cup lemon juice. 
Combine Simply peach mixture and lemon juice in a pitcher.  Add remaining 4 cups cold water.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes or until cold.