Tag: Storing Systems

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Shelf Reliance: Free On Friday

Our friends over at Shelf Reliance are having a giveaway that they would like people to know about.  Now I am slightly loathe to tell folks about it, since hey, I want to win.  But it’s only fair to share right?  So over on the Shelf Reliance blog they have a post with all the details, some of which I’ll copy here:

“Shelf Reliance is giving away a Harvest 72″ food rotation system! Visit the Shelf Reliance blog at http://www.shelfreliance.com/blog/ to enter. The Harvest 72″ is valued at $459.99 and can hold up to 600 cans, making it perfect for a healthy food storage supply. The winner will be announced on Friday, June 26th, so hurry to the blog for your chance to win!” Continue reading “Shelf Reliance: Free On Friday”

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Messiest pantry contest: cast your vote

Shelf Reliance, maker of the famous rotating shelf system, is holding a Messiest Pantry Contest. It began on 19 April with contestants submitting photos of their messy pantries or food storage rooms along with a description of why they deserved the makeover. The entries have been narrowed to five semi-finalists which are now competing in an online poll on Shelf Reliance’s blog to be one of the three winners. Continue reading “Messiest pantry contest: cast your vote”

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Shelf Reliance event at Utah Costco locations

Starting yesterday, April 2nd, the Orem Costco and the Sandy Costco are again hosting their Food Rotation System special event. They are offering the Shelf Reliance can rotating shelves for $269 which is a great price. If you have been planning on purchasing one of these systems, now is a great time to get your Food Storage organized with these great products and save some money at the same time.

Based on the Costco Special Events file, the Orem and Sandy Costcos will be hosting this event from April second to April eleventh.

The West Valley Costco location will be hosting the same event April sixteenth to twenty-fifth.

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Shelf Reliance Recipe Contest

Do you have a favorite recipe for using your food storage?  Maybe a comfort food your family wouldn’t want to go without, or something that makes excellent use fo the basics?  Well here’s a good chance to show your stuff, and have a chance to win some *awesome* prizes.  Our friends at Shelf Reliance are having a recipe contest this month.

shelf_reliance_contest

There’s some seriously nice prizes too:

Entries can be emailed to [email protected].  For more information, such as the rules and details, go check out their page.

Also, go ahead and send along your favorite recipe to me, and we’ll post them up on the site here.  Of course, just watch out because I’ve got a few recipes up my sleeve, and I’m gunning for that #1 prize myself :)

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Review: Shelf Reliance Cansolidator Pantry

By now I’m sure all of our readers have had time to gawk at the wonderful photos in previous posts showing large shelving units with impressive amounts of canned foods with a nice rotation system built in.  These Shelf Reliance products are favorites of the folks around here.  A wonderful local company delivering something we all love.img_3016 But let’s face it.  Not all of us have room for a large shelving unit, or maybe we just cant afford it.  Better yet, maybe you’re like me and you have one, but you also really need a way to rotate a few cans that are in your kitchen too.  And as impressive as the rack is, it just doesn’t quite match the decor of the kitchen.

Enter two other products made by the same company, the Cansolidator ‘Cupboard’, and the ‘Pantry’.  Two smaller sized roller systems designed for use in your kitchen/pantry/closet. Continue reading “Review: Shelf Reliance Cansolidator Pantry”

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Slimline Can Roller Project

Ever wanted to find a way to store a bunch more cans, especially those big #10 sized ones?  Love the idea behind products such as the Shelf Reliance, but maybe you don’t have enough money for one, or better yet, maybe not enough space because of oddly sized rooms?  Maybe you’re like me and maybe several of those are true all at once.  What follows is a restatement of a post I did last year about some home-made can rotation shelving I built, along with the basic instructions you need to create your own (and you’ll want to).

Continue reading “Slimline Can Roller Project”

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Dry-pack Christmas

For Christmas this year, we decided to forgo gifts and add to our dry-pack food supply. With access to a dry-pack canner through the local unit of my Church, I decided the most cost effective and efficient route this time would be to buy in bulk and do the canning myself at home. I purchased all of the food and supplies from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Home Storage Center in Sandy.

We were able to get everything we wanted except wheat which they were out of until the first of the year. I will be going back in a few weeks to finish off that part of the order. I did learn exactly how much will fit in a 4Runner, although I had more than the traditional blind-spot to worry about on the drive home. For this round, I canned rice, sugar, pinto beans, black beans, white beans, potato flakes, dry milk, dried onions, apple slices, and both quick and regular oats. Continue reading “Dry-pack Christmas”

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Get Home Bag

Recently I took some time to rotate a few items in my ‘Get Home Bag’ that I keep in my car.  The seasons were changing here, and they require different items to fill the bags purpose.  As I was changing, I realized I should take a few pictures to post on here (and satisfy the requests of a few friends wanting to know what I have).  With that in mind here’s a basic breakdown of my winter Get Home Bag.

Purpose:

I live a fair distance from my work now (oh how I long to telecommute again!).  Around 25 miles one way, around a lake, across a river, through several places that have limited road options.  How do I know this?  Well, I would say everybody should be very familiar with every alternate route between their home and most common destinations, because you never know when you will need them.  I have needed mine.  Beyond a natural curiosity and desire to optimize my commute, my neighborhood often requires it because it has a population that overwhelms the local road infrastructure on a good day.  Add in an accident, or bad weather and it becomes horrid.  Get worse weather, and you can actually shut down access to our town.  It’s happened before, it will happen again.  Throw in an earthquake, and there will be *no* cars heading home.  Whatever your locally preferred disaster, would you be able to get home to your wonderful food storage?

Continue reading “Get Home Bag”

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Twas the Night Before Christmas – Storage

Twas the month before Christmas
And all through the house
The storage was low
Hardly a crumb for a mouse.

The shelves were about empty,
Oh, what a plight!
The wolf’s at the door,
And no money in sight.

All the children were nestled
To keep warm in their bed,
Hoping that before long
They surely would be fed.

The prophet had counseled
“Each one be prepared,”
We had procrastinated the day,
Why hadn’t we cared?

ALAS! “Twas only a dream”,
But that didn’t’ matter
I jumped from my bed
Making a loud awful clatter.

Away to the basement
I flew like a flash,
Stumbling over boxes and bottles,
Along with some trash.

As I surveyed my storage,
With eyes all aglow
The security of filled bottles
All straight in a row

Filled my heart with a warmth
And my eyes with a tear
To think I had food
to last us a year.

This feeling of warmth
And security too,
Is what we as your friends
Wish for you.

So put gifts of storage
Under each Christmas tree
For those on your list,
Is our warmest plea,

Give honey, give sugar,
Give flour or wheat.
Give milk, give salt,
Give something to eat.

And you’ll hear them exclaim,
When Christmas is here,
“Thank-you so much,
It will be a good year.”

Author unknown (If you know, tell me :) )

This was handed out to my wife’s Relief Society (Womens Group at Latter-day Saint Churches)

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Mylar Bag Wrapup – Issues with Mylar Bags

This will wrap up our series on Mylar Bag Food Storage. You can catch the previous posts here: a How-To Pictorial on Storing Food in Mylar Bags and Alternative Ideas for Mylar Bags.

This post will talk about some of the experiences, techniques and tips that readers and others have provided us.

MaKettle10 provides us with this info:

In a study done with mylar bags and mice, it took the mice about 15 seconds to sense the food was there, and get into the bag to start eating it. Good idea you have to put the mylar bags into the big plastic storage bins. I’d never store them in cardboard boxes for extended, long-term storage.

Continue reading “Mylar Bag Wrapup – Issues with Mylar Bags”

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Alternative Storage Techniques using Mylar Bags

We recently covered the step-by-step process of storing food in Mylar Bags and went over some of the advantages of them, key of which is protection from air and moisture. It’s pretty clear that you can store most any dry food in Mylar Bags, but what else can be stored in them? A Mylar Bag is an easily portable, strong, waterproof bag – there are lots of things you can store in them! Here are a few ideas (we welcome any other ideas!):

  • Cough Drops – wintering TEOTWAWKI will probably lead to a cough or two, better be prepared for it! We purchased 20 bags of 50 cough drops each from the dollar store. Each Mylar Bag received 2 big handfuls of drops. The normal shelf life of a Halls cough drop is 2 years. I think I’ve probably at least doubled that by storing them this way.

coughdrops

Continue reading “Alternative Storage Techniques using Mylar Bags”

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Cesta Básica

For several years I lived in the amazing country of Brasil (yes, that’s how to spell it right :) ).

Stack of Cesta Básica's ready be sold
Stack of Cesta Básica's ready to be sold

One of the many things I learned while living there was about a product called the Cesta Básica (Basket of Basics).  This product is the lifeblood of many Brasilian families, making up the core of their grocery shopping.  What it is, is simple.  It is a package containing an assortment of basic food items, designed to meet the basic needs for a given amount of time.  Which products it contains, and how much would vary by store, but largely were the same.  This was an extremely common item for several reasons.  The first of which is the basic brasileiro’s diet, which starts with beans and rice, and almost anything else is extra.  Which type of beans was largely a regional choice as the default, but alternative ‘versions’ of the packages could easily be found if you preferred another regions flavor.

Continue reading “Cesta Básica”