Loving Life – You’re so right about the importance of storing spices, herbs, and other items to flavor your stored foods! I have a couple of types of Tabasco sauce (the red and the green kinds) in storage, as well as some jarred curry paste, soy sauce, sweet and sour sauce, Worcestershire sauce, BBQ sauce, A-1 steak sauce, etc., in my storage pantry along with many different kinds of whole dried herbs and spices that I bought in bulk and have vacuum-sealed in glass jars (with a small Oxygen absorber packet in each jar also). I have found that, packaged that way and kept in a cool, dark, dry place, the herbs and spices have at least a 3-5 year shelf life. That works out well since then I can afford to buy a larger quantity of each herb or spice in bulk, get the benefit of the volume discount, and not have to use them up as quickly – which, as a single person, is hard for me to do! I also stock up on bottled salad dressings when they go on sale. As you probably know, some salad dressings are useful on more than just salads. For example, I have used “Honey Mustard” (or Creamy Caesar) salad dressing mixed with cubes or slices of cooked chicken and served over rice as a quickie “casserole”, and have used Newman’s Own “Olive Oil and Vinegar” salad dressing mixed with cooked commercially packaged diced mixed vegetables as a tasty side dish. Plus, some salad dressings make great marinades for meats! Many commercially prepared salad dressings can last well beyond their stated “best buy” dates, so I have found them quite useful for short and mid-range storage. (Another easy “sauce” that I think tastes really good with slow-cooked chicken can be made by mixing a jar of mild salsa with a jar of apricot jam. Not exactly “homemade” – but sure is quick, easy, and tasty, lol. I then serve that chicken dish alongside yummy herb-roasted potato wedges. Surprisingly, they taste really good together!).
Littlesister – Thank you for the information about the Aquatank II! I had not heard of that brand of water bladder before. I agree that Daisy’s “The Prepper’s Water Survival Guide” is very helpful! I also learned a lot from watching the “Simplifying the Wacky World of Water Storage” video posted by Debbie Kent on her “Store This Not That” YouTube channel. That video is from a live presentation Debbie did on the subject of water storage and posted about 2 years ago. It is still available on YouTube. It’s about 43 minutes log but I was really glad I watched the whole thing. I’ve been prepping for almost 20 years and yet I still learned some new tips from that video on practical ways to store water economically. (At the time she made the video, Debbie’s opinion was that people should try to find ways to store water that wouldn’t cost them more than $1 per gallon).
Yesterday, I stayed home and worked on unpacking and re-organizing more of my preparedness items that were boxed up for my move in 2018. Still have a lot more to go, unfortunately. I’m a slow-poke! Today, I’ve done a little more unpacking but have spent some “fun” time watching more preparedness-related videos online and reading a couple of heirloom seed catalogs I got in the mail last week. Don’t know how much gardening I’ll actually do this year but I do want to make a “wish list” of heirloom seeds I’d like to get and the best suppliers for them. I also found out that there is a small museum in a nearby County that sells heirloom seeds harvested and saved from the historic garden on their grounds. I’m going to try to buy some of my seeds from them since I can at least be confident that the varieties they sell will thrive in this part of the country.