Helen's Sweet Potatoes

This recipe is a favorite in our family. It's not Thanksgiving without my Aunt Helen's Sweet Potatoes.

3 c cooked mashed sweet potatoes (2 large cans)
1 c sugar
1/2 c melted butter
2 beaten eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Stir until well mixed, pour into caserole dish.

Topping:
1 c brown sugar
1/3 c flour

Sprinkle over top of the sweet potatoes. Sprinkle additional melted butter over topping until completely covered.

Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

Pumpkin Delight

I'm taking advantage of the holiday sales on canned pumpkin and sweet potatoes to stock up, they probably won't be cheaper throughout the year. They are both high in vitamins and you can make so many wonderful recipes.

This is one of my favorites. I got this recipe from a sister in our stake presidency. You have to try this one. It's good enough to serve for Thanksgiving pie.

Pumkin Delight

Crust
1 yellow cake mix (reserve one cup for topping)
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 egg

Filling
1 can (large size libby's) pumpkin
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt

Topping
1 cup reserved cake mix
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
To make crust, combine cake mix (minus one cup), melted butter, and egg. Press into a geased 9 x 13 -inch pan.

Combine all filling ingredients and mix until smooth. Pour over crust.

For topping, mix reserved cake mix, cinnamon, and sugar. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over filling.

Bake 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into center comes out clean.

Food Storage Flapjacks

These are the best flapjacks. I don't usually like whole wheat pancakes, they're too heavy for my taste. But this is a great, hearty recipe. The oats and the cinnamon make them wonderful.

4 c quick oats
2 c flour
2 c whole wheat flour (I use white wheat)
1 c brown sugar
1 c powdered milk
3 T baking powder
2 T cinnamon
2 1/2 t salt
1/2 t cream of tartar

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Put in ziplock bag. Use as needed. I usually double the recipe and keep my bags of pancake mix in the freezer so it stores better.

For every 2 cups of mix add the following:

2 beaten eggs
1/3 c oil
1 c water

We had these for breakfast this morning. My kids love them. They'll even eat the leftovers cold out of the fridge for a snack. I've used red wheat and white wheat, both taste great. This is a great recipe to get your family used to wheat.

Thanks so much to my sister's friend Vicki for this recipe.

Save Your Blankets

I cleaned out my blanket closet today. I pulled them all out, folded them up neatly and put them all back. I realized that I haven't ever gotten rid of a blanket. I have the comforter we had when we first got married 15 years ago. I have Calvin's Toy Story comforter. I have the blanket our leather furniture was wrapped in when we bought it from my aunt. Each of my children have blankets that were given to our family when they came to us, most hand made. I even have the blanket that was left in our house when we bought it. I know, weird. Each has memories for us, and they're so useful.

In times of winter, and with the possibility of power outages, blankets become invaluable. If your power goes out, it is recommended that you find a central room that you can close off and huddle together as a family. You can line your walls with blankets to help insulate the room, and use your blankets to bundle up. What you don't use personally, you can share with your neighbors.

If you don't have a closet to store your blankets, you can store them in plastic bags under your bed. Save the zippered bags that your comforters and pillows come in when you buy them, and stack them in the tops of your closets. My sister uses those vacuum sealed storage bags, they take up so much less space. I have an old trunk at the foot of my bed that is great for blanket storage too. If your stockpile of blankets is low, you can look at second-hand stores. Sometimes you can get better deals on clearance items at stores like Shopko and Walmart than you can in thrift stores. Of course you can make blankets. You can often find great sales on fabric also, but there is probably a wealth of unused fabric and quilt-making talent in your family, neighbors and ward, all waiting to be made into blankets.

So if you stay at my house and you get a well-loved blanket, don't be surprised. We love them well and wear them out, but they will always be clean!

My 2008 Chirstmas List

I have a more no-nonsense sense of gift giving this year. It seems like time is speeding up, and life is happening so quickly. There isn't any room for frivolity, and I really feel the need to get back to basics. I think it will be good for my kids to have a simple Christmas. I take inspiration from Adam's grandparents. There have been years when our gift from them would be a case of canned peaches or pears. A gift was never more appreciated or received with such love. There was no doubt in our minds of their concern for our happiness. Isn't that the purpose of gift giving?

Now, Santa will still come to our house, of course. But our four kids may just get pajamas, shoes, and flashlights from mom and dad. When thinking about what others might get for me, I thought I would put together a wish list of things I've been wanting to acquire for my homemaking or preparedness needs. Here it is:

Kitchenaid mixer
Heavy duty blender
Victoria Strainer (for canning applesauce and tomatoes)
Handheld Wheat Grinder
4 more zero degree sleeping bags (we have 2)
Flashlights
Shortwave Radio, crank operated
Any Food Storage Items
Big blue water barrels

This is my list so far, I'm sure it will change as I learn. My plan is to work toward acquiring these things gradually based on need. But to have a list of things I really need rather than receiving jewelry or purses (which I love) may help for those who love me to know what I would like the most for Christmas. This is where my heart is right now, in my desire to make my family prepared. What's on your Christmas list? Have you thought about giving gifts that will help your loved ones to be prepared?

Emergency Savings

One of the things I've been concerned about is having some money in the house in the event of an emergency. If a disaster happens, if the power is out, the banks won't be open and our debit cards most likely won't work. What would we do if the stores were only accepting cash? I knew I had $100.00 that I had saved from last Christmas, a gift. That was my start. Now any time I receive extra money that we weren't planning on, like when Adam fixes a computer for a friend and he gets $20.00 it goes in the emergency fund. I keep it with our important papers so if we ever have to leave the house in a hurry, I can just grab it all at once. Little by little, we will have enough saved for our emergency fund.

My First Experience with White Wheat

My husband is allergic to red wheat. He has adverse stomach reactions every time he eats it. He can eat store bought whole wheat bread, but when I use my food storage wheat in homemade bread, pancakes, cookies, etc., he gets sick. So I bought a 5 gallon bucket of white wheat from a contact through our ward. The first thing I did with it was to try out a recipe I found in a self-reliance handout. I put one part wheat to four parts water, (1/3 cup per two adults, but I cooked extra)in my crock pot and let it cook on low overnight. It was the consistency of pearled barley. We ate it for breakfast with brown sugar and milk. I liked it, and my family ate it. My kids love hot ceral. I had a big bowl of leftovers, which I added to my crock pot again with the soup mix from the cannery, some dehydrated carrots from the cannery, beef boulion, hamburger and fresh garlic (cooked). We had a great beef soup for dinner. The starch from the wheat thickened the soup almost to a stew consistency, very hearty. My friends told me I was supposed to crack the wheat in a blender, and it cooks up like cream of wheat. I want to try this, once I get a blender that won't explode when I try to crack wheat in it. I'm glad I tried it this way, though. It's good to know that I can cook my gallons of wheat in a way that my family will eat it, even if I don't have electricity to crack it with.

The best part? It didn't make Adam sick! Now I get to replace all of my red wheat with white wheat, and I know he can eat it.

Emergency Preparedness Binder

O.K. so the first thing I've done is to organize the information I collect on preparedness. I had a binder started from our last ward and their emergency preparedness push, but you can just get a 3-ring binder and make tabs with the following titles:

Home Production and Storage
Rotating/Replacing Storage
Recipes
72 hr. Storage Kits
Water Storage
Energy-Heat and Light
Natural Disaster/Caring for your Utilities
Preserving important documents
Prepare Your Home for a Disaster
Financial and Resource Management
Spiritual Preparedness

My dollar store often has binders and tabs, so don't spend a lot if you don't already have something you can use at home. I will put a label on each post, linking them to these titles. Sometimes there will be links where you can print out handouts, etc. Sometimes you might have to copy the post into a word document and then print if you want a hard copy. On my other blog, I posted "All Rights Reserved" but on this site, everything is up for grabs. That's what it's for. Copy it, paste it, print it. I recommend hard copies because if the power is out, your computer is a useless heap of plastic and parts. Plus you can watch your preparedness grow!

You of course can order these any way you want. I always find that the best way for me to start a new thing is to have a system of organization. So, this is your first assignment. We'll get stuff to put in there soon, happy organizing.

A Beginning

I have become obsessed with being prepared lately. I have this deep desire to make sure my family is ready in an emergency, and I have felt the urgency to do so recently. Because of my calling in our ward's Relief Society, I thought this blog would be a good forum to share information that our ward teaches to its members, and also the information that I attempt to implement for our family of seven. My husband and I have four children, ages 14, 9, 7, and 4. My sister also lives with us. We want our kids to actively participate in our preparations. It is so important that they are taught the skills to live in the world today, and they understand all that we are doing to follow the Prophet's counsel.