Mike Marlow's Survival Blog

The Pantry – Your Family Survival Store- pt 2

Big Mike — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:51:34 +0000

When I first began building up my food storage, I started small. You don’t have to go out & spend a ton of money. And you certainly don’t have to do it all at once. Don’t go out & buy 100 cases of MRE’s because someone on some website told you it was a great idea. Use common sense. One of the most important things I think you should keep in mind about food storage is: “Store what you eat, & eat what you store.”

50 cans of Spam on your shelf won’t do you any good if you don’t eat Spam. It will either go to waste, or you’ll wind up donating it to a food pantry or something. If you eat Spam on a regular basis, then by all means – put some on the shelf! Store things that you will eat. There is no point wasting money on food that is just going to sit there and collect dust! Most of the things that I bought when I first started were canned goods. They will generally stay good for at least a year, and it seemed like an easy way to start.

If you set small goals at first it is a much less intimidating project. Most of us already have enough food in our homes to keep us alive for a few days, or even a week. Perhaps for your first goal, you could say that you want to make sure you have enough food & water for everyone in your family for 2 weeks.

You probably already have a pretty good idea of the things that you buy at the store, & eat on a regular basis. If not, you can keep a journal of everything your family eats for a month, as Jack Spirko suggests in episode 491 of The Survival Podcast. As a matter of fact, if you haven’t listened to that episode before, I recommend that you do. Jack is a smart guy, and you can learn a lot from him.

Ron & Karen Hood called their method “copy canning.” You can read her article here: COPY CANNING. Other people have also written articles about their slightly different take on the subject. Basically, it boils down to this: Buy what you’re already buying, just buy a little extra each time. Watch for sales at your local store, and take advantage of them. If you are going to buy a can of green beans & you find that they are on sale that week, then buy several. Take advantage of the savings. you will probably be buying another can next week anyway, so save the money while it’s on sale. Even if it’s just a couple of extra cans of food each time you go to the grocery store. It will start adding up, & you will have a food storage pantry in no time!

Once you have a little bit of storage, say 2 or 3 weeks of food, then you can start planning for something bigger. And you can also start leveraging the sales and coupons to greater advantage. When that can of green beans is on sale, you can now buy an entire case of them instead of two or three cans. You have several cans of corn, peas, and carrots on your shelf, so you don’t need to buy them this week. You can just buy the green beans while they’re cheap. Then you’ll have enough green beans to hopefully last you until the next sale.

Then let’s say the store has carrots on sale the next week. You stock up on carrots (or beets, or whatever is on sale that you normally buy.) When you have a reserve of most of the most commonly used items for your family’s menu, you can be more selective of what you buy. If you save 10% on 10 cans of something, it’s the same thing as getting one can for free! When you combine store sales with manufacturer’s coupons, the savings can add up very quickly.

By using this method, not only are you storing up food in case of hard times, you are also able to save money on your food expenses. We all have to eat. We all have to spend money on food. But we can do it differently, and better, than most people do. I don’t have a background in economics. But I do know 2 things that are painfully obvious to most of us. 1 – My dollar buys less than it used to, and 2- food prices are higher than they used to be. That has been a consistent trend for as long as I can remember. I am betting that that trend will continue into the future.

If you know you are going to be eating in the future, and you’ll have to buy food with a dollar that consistently becomes worth less & less, then why not invest in the food while your dollar buys more? Do you think that inflation is going to stop? Our economy DEPENDS on inflation. It is designed that way. Your dollar is worth more today than it will be in a year. Do you believe that your food is going to cost less at the store than it does today? Very doubtful!

The conventional “wisdom” of all of the financial experts is that you should invest a portion of your hard earned money into a 401K, or some other fund that is managed by someone that you don’t know, who doesn’t know you & your family, & you are supposed to trust them and hope that they can make a profit for you. A lot of people have lost a lot of money in the stock market & other “investments” who would now tell you that they wish they had chosen another route. I think that a wiser choice for many of us is to invest in things that we know we will use, that we have more control over, and that we don’t have to entrust to a stranger. Your food supply is one thing that you should consider investing in.

The Pantry – Your Family Survival Store- pt 1

Big Mike — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:37:17 +0000

pan·try pan-tree

noun, plural -tries.

1. a room or closet in which food, groceries, and other provisions, or silverware, dishes, etc., are kept.

If you don’t have some sort of pantry in your home, you should. I am not talking about one of those extra large cabinets in your kitchen where you keep your canned goods. That’s not a pantry, no matter what the real estate agent called it when you bought your house. A real pantry is a separate room, or at least a large closet where you have a substantial amount of food stored up.

The amount of food that you store is your business. There is no “right” amount. The size of your family is probably the main thing that will determine how much food you should store. But there still isn’t a certain amount of food per person that you can plug into a “one-size-fits-all” formula. You have to decide what your comfort level is. For some people, a year’s worth of food and water for every person in the family isn’t enough. For others, they feel comfortable with 6 months, 3 months, or even a month’s worth of food. And we all know people who have essentially no food storage at all. Only you can determine what is right for your family and your situation.

There are a lot of reasons to have a well stocked pantry, with a substantial amount of food on hand. I will cover some of them in this post, & follow up posts. I think (at least for me) the main reason is that it provides a layer of protection for my family that we would not have without it. Hopefully, we will never have to rely only on our pantry for food. I hope that there is never a time when there is not an adequate supply of food for everyone. But I realize, that food shortages are possible. I realize that hard times come around in everyone’s life at some point. The whole idea of preparedness & survival is to try to do everything you can to prepare when times are good, so that you can minimize the impact of whatever tragedy or disaster comes your way. I think of it like insurance. If your house burned to the ground, it would be tragic. If you have home owners insurance, the tragedy would be less severe. You would at least have something in place to lessen the impact. You could rebuild your home, or get a new one. You could replace some of the stuff in your house. Without the insurance, the impact would be much more severe.

One of the greatest things about having a pantry that we have experienced in normal everyday life is convenience. I can’t tell you how many times we have gone to get something out of the cabinet in the kitchen only to find that it wasn’t there, or that there wasn’t enough of what we were looking for. Rather than having to stop & run to the store to buy what we needed, we can simply go downstairs, get it out of the pantry, & go on with cooking. Marisa isn’t much into the prepping/survival thing. At least she doesn’t rank it as high on her priority list as I do. But she has told me quite a few times that she does like the pantry, & knowing that we rarely run out of anything. Our trips to the grocery store are minimized, and we are able to save more money on our grocery bill.

Money savings is another terrific advantage to having a well stocked pantry. By buying in bulk, watching sales, & using coupons, we have been able to add a substantial amount of food to our pantry without increasing the amount of money we spend on food each month. I’ll add more information, & give you some links about how to save money with coupons in another post.

That’s all the time I have for now. If you haven’t done so yet, please register on the site for updates via email. I’ll be writing more on how to build up your pantry reserves through smart shopping, caning, dehydrating, freezing, growing some of your own food, and more. Thanks for taking the time to visit the site!

A New Year & A New Look For The Blog

Big Mike — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:14:06 +0000

Hello everyone! I have not posted anything to the blog for quite sometime. We have been busy with the babies, work, and other things going on in our world. Since Marisa has gone back to work, I have been spending more time with the twins. Luckily, I am able to schedule my work around her schedule, & things that need to be done with the children. The girls are 3 months old now, & growing fast! They are beautiful, and I LOVE being a dad!

I just changed the look of the blog, and some of the background stuff in how it’s set up. Hopefully it will be easier for you to navigate & find the information you’re looking for. I added a new section to the “Pages” titled “Skills.” I’ll be putting information in there about different skills that will hopefully be useful to you. The first one I put up is on knife sharpening. I’ll be adding more soon. If you have suggestions, or things that you would like to add, feel free to email me, & I’ll be happy to add it.

Family Update and Some Wisdom From Others

Big Mike — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 22:18:14 +0000

Baby Update: The girls are both doing fine, & gaining weight like they’re supposed to. They both had gained more than 2 pounds in 6 weeks, & they were happy with that at the doc’s office when we took them in to be weighed. They’re sleeping longer now most of the time, & we’re able to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep in a row. That is a blessing! I’m about 6 weeks into being a dad now. I have to tell you, it awesome! They keep us extremely busy, & don’t let us sleep much. It seems sometimes like a constant cycle of feeding, changing diapers, and trying not to nod off in the middle of it. But it is SO worth it, & I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Here are a couple of pictures from the photo session with Michelle a couple of weeks ago. Michaela is on the left, Melayna on the right.

Michelle did the maternity photos of Marisa when she was pregnant, & she does a great job! If you need photography done in the KC area, send me an email & I’ll get you in touch with her.

I was listening to an episode of TSP, & Jack Spirko had Paul Wheaton on the show. It was a good show, full of lots of useful information. If you don’t listen to The Survival Podcast, I highly recommend it! I thought I’d share some of the info here, for those of you that don’t listen to the show.

CFL’s: You know those squirrely little corkscrew fluorescent light bulbs? The ones that supposedly will save you a ton of money, provide just as much light as an incandescent (real) light bulb, save the planet….yada, yada, yada. Well there is a lot about those bulbs that you may not know. If you ever fell for the hype (I did), you probably were disappointed in the light you got from them, how long they lasted, and decided to switch back to real bulbs. I hate those crappy little bulbs. After reading the information that Paul Wheaton has on his website about CFL’s, I hate them even more! Read his article HERE. Also, in case you didn’t know it – our government, in it’s infinite wisdom is planning on phasing out all of the regular incandescent bulbs over the next few years. Stock up on incandescent bulbs now, because you won’t be able to buy them anymore. The ban will begin on 1/1/12 with 100W bulbs, and move on to the 75W bulbs 1/1/13. I found this informational sheet that you may find helpful. Click Here.

Cast Iron Tips: In the same TSP episode, Paul Wheaton was talking about cast iron, & I got some helpful tips. I own & use several different cast iron pans & dutch ovens. I have to admit that I abused one of my dutch ovens, & let it get pretty gross. We made some cherry cobbler on a camp out, & it was late when we got done eating, so I decided to clean it the next morning. However, the next morning we were in a hurry to break camp & get home for some reason or another. So I decided that I’d just clean it at home. Then when we got home, something or another was happening & I said I’d just clean it later….. So, a couple of months later when I noticed it sitting on the floor in the garage, it was pretty disgusting.

I tried the method Paul mentioned of putting it in the oven & using the self cleaning cycle on the oven. Three hours later - the dutch oven was completely clean, except for a little bit of ash, & it had a little bit of surface rust on it. It cleaned up quickly & easily with a scrubber. I re-oiled the pan, & it looks even better than it did when I bought it! Check out Paul’s article on cast iron HERE. this is the end result of my dutch oven overhaul. If you look closely at the surface of the dutch oven, you can see the rough surfaces that Paul was talking about, as compared to the older styles of cast iron that were much smoother. I have two other dutch ovens. One is newer like this one, & one is old, & much smoother.

So, as I’m finishing up this post, I just pulled a BBQ brisket out of the pressure cooker, and I have some potatoes & onions in one of the other dutch ovens that will be done in a few minutes. Everyone is getting hungry, so I’ll finish for now. I hope everyone has a good week, & please email me, or comment on the blog. Thanks for reading! ^MM

The Best Soup I Have Ever Made!!!

Big Mike — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 05:38:32 +0000

I have eaten this soup at Olive Garden before, and loved it. Here’s the recipe for you, and quite frankly, I thought it was better than Olive Garden’s. Do yourself a favor – print this off, get off of the computer, & go make it NOW! This stuff is awesome!!! I didn’t invent it. To give credit where credit is due, I got it from HERE.

Zuppa Toscana (according to Google Translate, that means Tuscan soup)

4 slices bacon, diced (I used 5, & next time I may add a few more – I love bacon!)
1 lb ground hot Italian sausage
1 large yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups (32 oz) chicken stock ( I used my home made chicken stock)
3 cups russet potatoes, cubed
3/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 cups kale, in bite size pieces
1 cup heavy whipping cream
parmesan cheese, grated

In a large pot, cook the bacon until crispy. Drain the grease. Add the sausage, breaking it apart as it cooks. Once sausage is browned and crumbled, drain off grease leaving a tbsp to saute the onion.

Push the sausage and bacon to the edge of the pot and add the onion to the center; saute until translucent; add garlic; saute until fragrant.

Stir in the stock and potatoes, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Add kale and heavy whipping cream. Bring to a simmer. Top with parmesan cheese, when serving.

I’m a Lucky Man!

Big Mike — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 05:12:01 +0000

I’m working on a new article for the blog, but I won’t be finished with it tonight. Maybe not even by tomorrow night. I might have to break it into 2 sections. Anyway, I thought I’d just share a quick note about where my head is this weekend.

I have had a great weekend with Marisa & the girls. I feel blessed & thankful to have them. I’m 25 days into being a daddy. It is amazing! I’ve been puked on, peed on, & (almost) pooped on…. I don’t even know how many times. I’ve been deprived of sleep, & learned a lot about babies in general, and more specifically – little girls. I have learned that one of the most beautiful things in the universe is to look at the woman you adore as she looks down into the eyes of the child she has given you. And I have learned that having twins is indescribably cool!

For any of you that have not been lucky enough to meet Marisa – here is a picture of her. Not only is she beautiful, but is truly the kindest, sweetest, most gentle person I have ever known. She is the mother of my twin baby girls, and my best friend.

And these are my two baby girls. Absolutely amazing…..

This is Noah, the girl’s brother. He’s 11, and an awesome guy. This picture was from the day I took him out to shoot his bow for the first time. He is a fast learner. I think there are a lot of dead deer in his future! He’s extremely intelligent, and funny, funny, funny. I’m glad he’s going to be around to help me keep an eye on all of these pretty girls around here!

Finally, last but not least… this is Mckenzie. She has adapted quite well from being the baby in the family to being big sister/”mommy jr.” She’s beautiful like her mother, and has a sparkle in her eyes & a laugh that makes everyone love her. She is also a very smart child, and very fun-loving. She makes me laugh a lot. She loves to help mommy with the babies!

Life is good! I am blessed, and very happy! When you read the things I write about preparedness and survival of the family, these are the ones I’m talking about.

I like this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5D4Trt7AiA

Coupons – A Family Survival Tool!

Big Mike — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:10:00 +0000

Marisa and I clip coupons from the paper every Sunday. She’s really good about watching sales, & matching sales up with the coupons she has. She has all of her coupons organized in a binder. It’s pretty amazing to me. She is a very organized person. Me? Not so much! We save a lot of money with coupons, & we’re getting better at it.

We have been working on it more, because we were inspired by the show Extreme Couponing. If you have never seen the show, click the link & look at what some of these people are doing. It’s a show where these people are coupon experts, and they go with them to the stores, and show how they are able to buy hundreds of dollars worth of groceries, and wind up paying little or nothing for their purchases. I think every show we have watched, the people have gotten over $500 worth of groceries, and I think all of them wound up paying less than $50. Most of them are under $25. We aren’t anywhere near that good at it yet, but we’re working on it.

One good tip I have for you – check out The Krazy Coupon Lady. There are new posts there all the time on sales & coupons. You can save a lot of money just by following the info on that site alone. Another good site is Regular Mom. I get email updates from them all the time. Both are also on Facebook. We are in the Kansas City area, and I found a site that’s KC specific – Kansas City Mamas. There are similar sites for large cities all over the USA. I don’t know about any other countries, sorry.

We took the twins grocery shopping today. It was their maiden voyage to Walmart. They were both really good the whole time. We were gone about 3 hours, because we went to 2 other stores when we left Walmart. We have a twin stroller, and it seems like you’re driving the Titanic down the isles. It’s pretty cool taking the girls out with us. Everyone wants to stop and look at them. They’re adorable!

Before we went, we made up a dinner menu for the next 2 weeks. Then we took a look at what we had in the freezer, & in the pantry. Then we made a shopping list. Marisa was really on the ball with the coupons today, & all of the sale ads from different stores. Did you know that Walmart has a policy to price match any competitors print ads? If you have a sale ad from the paper & it’s a lower price than what they have for the same item, just show it to the cashier when you check out & they’ll match it.

I’m sure you have heard the old Ben Franklin quote “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Have you ever really thought about that? Old Ben was a pretty smart guy. In other words – it is just as important to save money that you already have, as it is to earn more. If someone will give you free coupons that will save you money on your grocery bill, then why wouldn’t you want to use them? It’s free money! Even if you just clip a few coupons & save five bucks a week, that’s $260 a year. If $260 doesn’t mean anything to you, then by all means, please email me & I’ll give you my address & you can send me $260 as often as you like!

Yeah, you may not think of coupons as a survival tool. But any tool that can be used to help us toward the goal of the survival of our family is a survival tool in my book. Some guys probably think clipping coupons is for the ladies. Those guys are dumbasses! Another good old saying is “A fool & his money are soon parted.” Don’t be a dumbass with your money. Use all of the tools at your disposal to ensure the survival of your family. Bad things happen to good people everyday. You never know what lies ahead. Be prepared. Save up for a rainy day. ^MM

A Different Kind of Omelete

Big Mike — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:00:57 +0000

I was talking to my buddy Rob the other day, and he told me that he & his wife Casey had been making some omelets with different ingredients. They were using Parmesan cheese, thyme & basil. (I think that’s what he told me) Anyway, I thought I’d try something a little different for breakfast this morning, so I made omelets for Marisa & I, and tried their idea out. I made ours with Parmesan cheese, thyme, rosemary & parsley. They were good. Marisa thought so too & we’ll have them again. I like trying new things to eat. Sometimes it works out, other times, I learn what I don’t like to eat.

Do you have any unusual & delicious omelet ideas to share? We’d love to hear them!

Protecting Your Valuable Information

Big Mike — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 04:01:30 +0000

We went today to pick up the girl’s birth certificates. It got me thinking about protecting valuable documents. We keep important documents in our safe, but I feel like we should do more. If we ever had a fire, or if a tornado hit our house, there’s no guarantee that we would be able to get any of it back from the safe. I have duplicates of my birth certificate, as well as my social security card. I’m going to get duplicates of all of our other important documents, & store them somewhere other than in our home.

We had a fire in our home years ago, and I don’t ever want to have to deal with all that mess again. In the event of any disaster, you should have duplicate copies of all of your important documents. Even if they’re not hard copies, you can scan the originals, & at least have digital copies of birth certificates, social security cards, insurance documents, etc. You can burn copies of them on to a CD or DVD, or put them on a flash drive. Having multiples is not a bad idea.

If you don’t have a safe, or at least a “fire-proof” box, then you might consider keeping your important documents in a safe deposit box. Some people like them. I personally have an issue with locking my valuables up somewhere that I can’t have access to them anytime I want/need them. If the bank is closed, you can’t get to your stuff until they open. That doesn’t work for me. For some people that’s fine. You could keep one (or more) at a trusted friend or relative’s home.

You can bury some items in a waterproof container in your yard, or somewhere else that you feel is safe. There are a lot of different options, & you have to choose what works well for you. I was just thinking about it, & thought I’d write a quick post while I’m eating some killer hummus that I made earlier. If you haven’t tried my hummus recipe, you should! I made a double batch, because it really isn’t any more work, & then I have twice as much! I kind of have a tendency to eat a lot of it when I make it, so it’s good to make extra so other people can eat it too. I took about a half a cup of it & chopped up some green olives & threw them in. Delicious!

Sorry, I am easily distracted by hummus! But, unfortunately, I just finished off the last of the crackers. I guess I’m done with that for tonight. So I hope you figure out some way to keep all of your valuable information safe in the event of a disaster. Fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, theft…. a lot of bad things can & do happen to people every day. Do what you can to turn disasters into inconveniences. Be safe out there! ^MM

Super Easy Homemade Egg Noodle Recipe

Big Mike — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:53:44 +0000

Marisa & I went over to her mom’s house for dinner the other night, & she had homemade chicken noodle soup. She made the noodles herself, and they were awesome! She told me how to make them, so I thought I’d pass it along. Here ya go:

Homemade Egg Noodles:

3 C. Flour

2 1/2 T. butter

4 eggs

mix thouroughly

let mixture sit for 30 minutes

divide into 4 portions

roll out one portion to desired thickness

cut into noodles

repeat with other portions.

The soup she made was with all of the meat she got off of a rotisserie chicken, and added vegetables (some fresh, and some dehydrated veggies that I had given her) & the noodles. It was delicious!

**Extra tip: Take the carcass of the chicken, throw it into the crockpot with 8 cups of water & some more veggies & spices. I like to add salt, pepper, garlic, onion, carrots & celery.

You cook it overnight, then let it cool. Strain it, & keep the liquid. Discard the rest. Put the liquid into tupperware (or whatever) containers with lids. Allow to sit in the refrigerator overnight. All of the fat will solidify on the top. Remove it, & viola! You have delicious, healthy chicken stock! Way better than the stuff from the store!