Food shortages

Sorry for no Blogg yesterday,

Had to walk home Weds evening and then I needed a day in bed to recuperate.

Spoke to doctor on phone and she raised a new prescription which my Vickey picked up, brought over and then cooked dinner. So an enjoyable evening ensued. Followed by a full night’s sleep these new tablets seem to be working.

It would appear that as we have some white stuff and Jack Frost has come to play, panic buying has reared its ugly head.

I hate to think how much of this food will be thrown away while causing the very thing the purchasers were worried about “Shortages”.

Every body should have a store cupboard.

“What do I store?” I here you ask.

Nothing that you have not tried and enjoyed before.
In fact I believe some luxuries and treats should be held back for, exceptionally, bad times

I keep teabags that are boxed and in individual foil packages of 40’s.

Dried skimmed milk.

Long life skimmed milk.

Tinned tomatoes whole you can chop them yourself.

Try and buy tinned, fresh and frozen goods as an ingredient rather than a meal. Otherwise you are paying for somebody else to assemble the ingredients. In most cases with a pre-prepared £5 meal less than a pound is spent on the ingredients.

Think about this,
When you go for a Chinese, or Indian meal, the menu appears huge.

But on inspection there are only a few different ingredients.

E.g. meat, chicken or prawns.

With a style of sauce, sweet& sour, masala.

Rice plain or flavoured.

And so on….

I find old rice cooks better than new rice.

One part rice two parts water/stock, cover with a plate.

Bring to boil in microwave on high, the 7 mins on low.

I mostly find the less a product is interfered with, the longer the shelf life is.

Dried foods should be re-hydrated over night in the fridge, this helps to prevent a powdery taste texture in the finished result.
All tinned food can be eaten cold from the tinned as it is cooked as part of the canning process.
It is only dried kidney beans that need to be boiled after soaking and before cooking in the recipe.

Remember to eat and replace your stores regularly, and maybe once a year spend a week or more living on just the stores to fine tune which of the ingredients you keep.  

For more in-depth advice on see

 Bin it or Keep it?

Seezya Les