One of my guilty pleasures is that the local restaurant supply place sells frozen dumplings by the case. I toss em, frozen solid, into my steamer and in 15 minutes I have delicious, hot, Chinese(ish) dumplings. No muss, no fuss. Splash some tamari soy sauce on ’em and eat. About as labor-unintensive a meal as you can get.
Except, when I opened the cupboard I found my bottle of soy sauce with but a few dribbles in it. Solution? Trek to the basement, locate the five other bottles on the shelf, pull out the one with the oldest date, return to the kitchen, make a note to purchase more on my next grocery trip, and then have dinner.
I went to Wallywolrd the other day, picked up another couple bottles, wrote the purchase date on them with a Sharpie, and stuck ’em back in storage.
Thats what food rotation looks like. Nothing magical, mysterious, or tinfoil-hat about it. It’s that easy. And it is bloody convenient to not have to halt your meal plans because you need to run to the grocery for something. And it’s especially convenient to not have to run to the grocery when the streets are littered with bodies of the BLM/Antifa/ProudBoy/redneck battles that, I am told, we are all heading for as the looming second Civil War approaches. (Yeah, thats sarcasm….I’m wrong on a lot of things but I’m willing to bet that this time next year the lights are on, the water is running, the shelves are stocked, and it’s not Bosnia out there.)
In other interesting news, when I was at CostCo the other day I noticed that the limits had been removed from some items (notably the torpedo-shaped “chubs” of ground beef I’ve been purchasing) and reinstituted on others (toilet paper). Doesn’t really matter to me, though…I’ve gotten into the habit of buying certain items every weekend, religiously, so a limit of ‘one per trip’ doesn’t slow my roll. Matter of fact, I may have to dial it back a bit because the freezer is way full. Buying another freezer might make sense but for my household, one freezer full of meat is plenty for a good long while. Also, it seems that freezers are a bit hard to come by in some parts these days. Restless natives…….
I do the same thing, purchasing certain things every week, whether I need them or not. In the early days of Kung Flu, there were a few holes in my larder. I filled those holes, and continue to keep them filled. I was caught a little short on the TP and PT, but could have worked around their absence. This event taught me that panicking is not rational, and that just because you’re not panicking doesn’t mean the shelves won’t empty of items you’d never think would disappear! Indeed, as soon as I saw the idiocy with the TP, my wife and I laid in extra food. It took exactly ONE DAY for the good ship Panikstrikken to come about and denude the grocery aisles. By that time, we’d been there and gone.
I stuffed the freezers too. I even brought a refrigerator/freezer on line which had issues in the fridge, but had a good freezer. Same here; freezers are pretty much unobtainium even now. Those that are for sale are going for their weight in gold! The downside of extra freezers is extra-high electric bills… especially out here in the deserts of the Wild, Wild West. …I sided with a full larder to go along with the big bill…
For the record, my coworkers have laughed at my “prepper” attitude for years. After Kung Flu took hold, I had two of them say “I’ll never laugh at you again…”
A thought on a second freezer: Two freezers, each 1/2 full, for redundancy. If one fails the surviving unit takes the total load.
Not good. They are more efficient the less air space inside. Plus, the more full, the longer time frame before it warms up if you lose power. Having that longer window of being frozen might be the difference between salvaging the contents, and tossing them. Plus, double the power consumption for no real benefit.
Being away from home when the power goes out, and finding the contents at room temperature when you get back, can get expensive in more ways than one.
The solution there, I would imagine, is to fill the ‘unused space’ with something that has theral mass but can be kept frozen or thawed with no deleterious effects. Bottled water comes to mind. A ‘half filled’ freezer that has it’s other half filled with bottled water would give you the thermal advantage of a ‘full’ freezer and as you need space you simply remove the bottled water and put it on the shelf.
A local grocery store has a seniors 10% off day the first Wednesday of the month. Taking advantage of this, I picked up canned goods, soap and paper goods. I watch the sales, but the canned chicken and Spam doesn’t usually go on sale, so this is when I get them.
I did score some beer brats, marked down from $1 each to 6/$1. The freezer is full and the grill is heating up.
I’ve commented before, but it bears repeating the backup plan to the backup plan. The freezer is full, and a backup freezer is in storage. I have a generator and stored fuel to run fridge and freezer for a couple of months, but I have also stored supplies for canning. In a long term grid down, I plan to start thawing in batches and pressure canning meat for room temp storage. As freezer space opens I can either re-stock it or simply freeze jugs of potable water (freezers are most efficient when full).
My long term philosophy has been that every time I run out of something, the next time I go to the store, I purchase two. They both go on the shelf to replace the oldest one that I grabbed when I used the last one up. So when the toothpaste tube is empty, I get the oldest one on the shelf and get two more. The growth rate is controlled because I buy more of the things that I use up faster. Some things that don’t age as well I might replace every other time. Other things that store indefinitely (like TP and laundry detergent) I will always keep buying at that rate. I view it as a hedge against inflation. Do you realize that laundry detergent has almost tripled in the last 10 years? How many of your investments tripled in that time? It’s certainly better than money in the bank! And, should I lose my job, I’m set for a LONG time. The dog’s dinner tonight said it’s best use by date was June 2012. It smelled and looked fine and he enjoyed it.
I have a bunch of “pre-ban” toilet paper. Bought around 2006, it’s always the permanent backup (stored in a safe dry PITB location). I took some down a year back or so.
it’s easily a 3/4″ of an inch bigger in width than current TP. So not only does current TP cost way more, but it’s physically smaller. They are literally robbing us on everything.
What size freezer do you have?
Canning supplies are unobtanium right now, too. If you didn’t get them by now, it’s too late.
Couple of years ago I bought a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer. Great investment. Just cooked up a batch (10) of hamburger patties; put them in the freeze dryer along with a bunch of sliced pepperoni and let the dryer do its thing. When they were done, I put the pepperoni in a jar and vacuum sealed it. Put the patties in bags and vacuum sealed them.
Want a burger? Just drip some boiling water on the patty until it’s the right consistency, put it on a bun with fixing of your choice and presto you’ve got a great burger.
I’ve freeze dried all kinds of stuff. Amazing what you can do. Got your favorite chili recipe down pat? Make a big batch, freeze dry it, put in canning jars and vacuum seal them. Want some chili? Open a jar, pour in some hot water, wait a few minutes and enjoy!
Anyway, you get the idea. Better than buying a new freezer. Yes, a little work but it pays of in the long run.
I’ve got one of these things too. The only thing better than getting ahold of a Harvest right freeze-drier is getting ahold of a mint condition Harvest Right freeze-drier for $500.00 on Craigslist! SCORE!!!
One of the things I do with the drier is to take canned goods that are reaching their “best by” dates and running them through the drier. Then I mylar bag or jar the products with some oxygen absorbers, and they’re good for what; another 25 years?…
That’s a good idea, thanks. Also when frozen vegetables are on sale, stock up and freeze dry them. They’re already blanched and frozen which saves a lot of time.
A couple of months ago I bought an older upright freezer at an estate sale, and a garage freezer/fridge combo unit at an estate auction. New freezers were going for $800+ and had long lead times. I’ve been working on filling them with whatever is onsale this week. Luckily, the big grocery chain has been running specials on beef. They don’t list it as ‘short time’ or ‘manager’s special’ but it clearly is. I don’t care, I’m going to freeze it same day… and $5,99/pound for Prime sirloin is a deal any time.
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I’ve used the Sharpie Method for many years. I don’t remember where I heard of it, very well could have been here.
Steelheart