Guest Article by NRP & Blue, January 2, 2022
Good Morning from Lightning Point.
Ole Blue says “Good Morning”
“Turning a New Page”
Ok Folks, let’s start something a little new.
Let’s Turn a Page or Two and start putting some real-life into all this Deep Pantry stuff we have need gathering and storing.
I’m wanting to actually start to use some of those items we are storing and really try and understand why we are doing what we are doing.
So, I believe it may be a good idea to start this with some Cooking (Yes I know you all know how to cook, I got that) some things that would be good When/If we have all those things that ARE happening every day in the world.
I want to not make this a “How To Cook Series” (gosh knows there are a million of those out there), but to give examples of what to have on hand and how to ‘Long Term Store’ some ‘Stuff’ that will allow you to feed yourself and family/friends if the time arrives you need to do so.
I’ll also add some ideas on “How Much” to store for a year for each recipe.
So let’s get this kicked off, shall we?
“Bread”
Yeppers, good old Homemade Bread, besides Beans and Rice, Bread is a good “Go To” food.
Now there a few hundreds of thousands of recipes out there how to make “The Best Bread”.
But I want to look at those Ingredients a little and how to store them.
So I’m going to take my recipe piece by piece and talk about how to store each of them.
I will attach my Bread Recipe at the end if you just might be interested.
BTW, this is a rather heavy Wheat Bread, but it’s very high in nutrition and calories for when times get a little rough.
Here is the list of ingredients and quantities;
3 cups flour home ground Red Wheat Berry
2 cups Red Rose or Blue Rose Flour from Cortez Milling
2 Tbsp. yeast
2 Eggs
2 1/2 cups hot water (105-115 degrees)
3/8 cups honey
1/2 cup ‘good’ Oil
1/2 tsp. salt
“Wheat Berries and Flour”
Flour and Wheat Berries, obviously are the main ingredients in Bread.
Wheat Berries are a very VERY good long-term storage item, literally years upon decades of “Shelf Life”.
I store mine in good old 5-gallon food-grade buckets with an unwrapped stick of Wriggle’s Spearmint Gum in each bucket. I do store all three types of Wheat Berries, Hard White, Soft, and Hard Red. Granted the word is that Soft Wheat will not store as long as Heard Red and Hard White, it still will last a VERY long time.
You can store about 35 pounds in each 5-gallon Bucket. Each Pound will yield approx. 3 and 2/3 cups of flour, so that bucket of Wheat will give you around 128 cups of flour.
Pre-Ground Flour or just regular old ‘Store Bought Flour’.
I also store this, I do like to Red Rose Flour from Cortex Milling or from any Mill you can find locally. Mainly because it will be a LOT fresher and just all-out better flavor. Gold Medal and the likes are not necessarily my favorites, but if that is what you can get that get that.
I do put any Flour and Berries in the freezer (if there is room) for a good two weeks, this is to kill any bugs or larva that “May” be in the flour, yes it sounds gorse but there ARE bugs in your food. Sorry, just the facts. Defrost the flour for at least a week or two before sealing in buckets.
I like to use 3.5 gallon buckets for the Flour, with Gama Lids (Look them up). Ya can put right at 23 pounds of flour in a 3 gallon bucket, it’s just a lot easier to handle. Also, add a stick of Spearmint Gum to this, it helps to keep Bugs Out.
My recipe calls for 5 cups of flour, but honestly, it will actually use a good 7 cups after it’s done. So that one bucket will give you probably around 36 loafs of extremely good nutritious Bread.
So to do the math easy, let’s say a loaf of bread a day for a family of 4, Simple, one bucket a month, or 12 for a year of Food Insurance. So I’m going to say $120 for the flour.
Cost you ask? A 25-pound sack of Red Rose Flour is right at 10 bucks a sack. TEN lousy bucks for a MONTH of bread ‘If’ you need it, that my friends is cheap. A Years’ worth, $120.
Buckets can be had for free if you ask “Nicely” at most Bakeries. And they will have the lids, not Gama Lids, those are around $7 if you want a couple.
Wheat Berries usually rune about $18-$20 for a 50-pound sack.
An added note, ‘IF’ you store Wheat Berries, you will need a way to grind them, and let me tell you, grinding Hard Wheat Berries by hand (Hand Grinder) is a LOT of work. So if you can, get a “good” electric grinder, even if you have to use a generator when the power goes out.
“Yeast”
Ahhhh Yeahhhhh, good old Fleishman’s Instant Dry Yeast, love the stuff.
So, there are approx. 53 TBSP of Yeast in a pound.
Easy math again, 2 TBSP of Yeast in a batch of bread, will yield right at 50 loaves of Bread
Yeast comes in Mylar Packaging and will keep for many years if left unopened, I’m using a package that’s 5 years past the Best By Date, I just add a touch more and it’s good to go.
Keep the Yeast in the back of the Fridge, I do NOT like to freeze it, some people do.
Once you open the Mylar, put it into a Glass mason jar and seal with a new lid, keep in the fridge.
Yeast now is right at $14 for a twin pack, yielding 100 loafs of bread, So a year’s worth of Yeast, $49.
Side Note, a lot of folks like Sour Dough, I do make a batch once and awhile, but the “Starter” is a little involved and honestly If/When TSHTF, I don’t want to be messing with it, so I store a lot of Dried Yeast.
“Eggs”
Ohhhh YUCKO!!!!
Freeze Dried Eggs. Well to be honest, they’re not really that bad, especially if you happen to be hungry.
I do make a loaf once a year with Freeze Dried Eggs, just to practice, but I LOVE my neighbors Home Fresh Eggs. I Trade them out, but he charges $3 for dozen, that would be 6 batches of Bread, so 12 loafs. For a year, that would add around $90 for fresh eggs.
That Freeze Dried Egg stuff runs around $138 for Long Term Storage Eggs.
Problem is, If/When hits, I might not be able to get those Fresh Eggs.
“Hot Water”
Well I could talk for an hour on Water Storage, but by now you probably should have that figured out, you BETTER have Water Stored Up.
The Simple Fact is if you don’t have Water for 3 day, YES only 3 days, you’re going to be Toast.
Store Water NOW!
“Honey, Yes Sweetie”
Sorry I could not resist that HAHAHAH
Now a LOT of people use Sugar in bread, and honestly, there is NADA wrong with that. I use Honey for several reasons, 1st I like the taste a lot more, and yes from Sugar to Honey there is a difference. 2nd Honey is a LOT better for the body than Sugar, especially in times of stress and health reasons.
Anyways, this recipe uses 1/3 cup, and I tend to use a heavy 1/3 cup, probably 1/2 cup.
Cost is the hard part here, and where you get your honey, Sam’s Club carries Honey, to me it seems like it’s 1/2 water just of the way it pours from the container, and it does NOT taste that good, BUT, it’s better than Sugar.
For $18 you can get a 2 pack (40 OZ) of honey at Sam’s.
So about 2.66 OZ in each batch, around 30 batches of bread, 60 loaves, times 6 you’ll spend right at $108ish for the Honey
“Good Ole Olive Oil”
This is what I use, simple and not too expensive.
1/2 cup at 68 OZ for $16.48 is right around a buck per batch or 50 cents per loaf.
So let’s add $180. to the yearly cost at 1 loaf per day.
Oil WILL go rancid after a long stretch, so I freeze it to keep more than a year.
Salt.
I’m not going into Salt much, I like Redmond, a little more expensive than all the others, but I like the minerals and all that stuff it has in it.
Runs about $4 a pound, and there are about 80 tsp in a pound of salt, so we use ½ tsp per batch, of for 2 loafs. Guessing around about a pound for the year….. so lets add 8 bucks just cause.
Well, that’s it, so let’s do a summary for the cost of 1 loaf of Bread per day for one year.
Flour $120
Yeast $49
Eggs #138
Water No Charge
Honey $108
Olive Oil $180
Salt $8
If my math is correct, I’m thinking right around $600 for a loaf of bread every day to ‘HELP’ feed your family of 4 for a full year. 50 cents a day per person is mighty darn cheap insurance is it not?
Now before anyone goes off on me, I know darn well you’ll need a LOT more than Bread to eat If/When. BUT, this is just a start.
BTW, how much will you spend to eat out each meal, each day, per family of 4? Easy math, figure $10 (average) per meal, per person, per day = 4 x 3 x 365 x $10 = you ready for this? $43,800 for the year if you eat out every meal………
I’m looking to do a full day’s meals to actually see what it would cost per year to do good nutritional food for the Family.
Thank you for reading.
Life is good here on ‘Lightning Point’.
Full Recipe:
Two Loaf Batch
2 cups flour home ground Red Wheat Berry
3 cups (more like 5 cups) Red Rose or Blue Rose Flour from Cortez Milling
2 Tbsp. yeast
2 Eggs
2 1/2 cups hot water (105-115 degrees)
3/8 cups honey
1/2 cup ‘good’ Oil
1/2 tsp. salt
Mix water, honey, salt, eggs and lastly yeast in a warm bowl.
Do NOT allow ‘Mix’ to cool down from here on out.
Allow Mix to set for a few minutes, till Yeast starts to bubble a little
Add 2 cups ground Red Wheat Flour, mix well.
Add a cup at a time of remaining flour until the dough is sticky but pulls from bowl.
Cover and let rise till more than doubled, MUST KEEP WARM
Add Oil and spices if wanted, kneed for a while, till it “Feels” right adding more flour as needed, this will take most of the flour remaining.
Shape to loaf (under fold), cut into two loafs Set each loaf into very slightly greased pan.
Again place in a warm place, let rise till doubled
Bake @ 365 for 15 minutes.
Raise temp to 375 and bake 10-15 minutes more till golden brown.
Knock out of pan, Rack cool, try to NOT eat the entire loaf in one sitting.