Friday Food Storage Quickie: The Three Sisters
Sharon November 13th, 2009
Hi Folks – The weekly Friday “what to put in your pantry update” is here! This week, we’re going to focus on the three sisters – corn, squash and beans. It is a useful mnemonic, I find, to choose items that seem to be related to one another in some way.
The beans are particularly important, because they provide much needed protein. You can actually use any dry legume – there’s a lot of them. If you don’t like beans, how about cowpeas, split peas, or lentils. You can also get canned beans, which are convenient, but mostly come in BPA lined cans, and are comparatively more expensive. I don’t find cooking beans to be that onerous – in the summer, it is easy to throw them in the solar oven. In the winter, they can go on the back of the woodstove, or in the crockpot during transitional times. I prefer dry beans, although I do keep a few canned beans (Eden are expensive but no BPA) around for sudden bean-related emergencies 
.
How much to get? Well, generally speaking you want a 1-3 ratio of beans to grains if they are your primary staple. Beans are one of those things that are much cheaper per lb if bought in bulk. Plus there’s less packaging – but if what you can afford is a supermarket package, don’t let that stop you from having enough to eat in a crisis.
What do you do with beans and legumes? Soups, of course – black bean, red bean, lentil, split pea… Obviously chili. Dal. Beans and rice. Bean dips and spreads. What’s not to love? If, btw, you are one of those people who get gas from beans, you might want to throw in a couple of bottles of beano, or start growing epazote, which both help. Also, generally if you haven’t eaten a lot of legumes, you should add them gradually, rather than all at once.
This time of year, a lot of people are selling winter squash very cheaply, and it is an excellent time to stock up. Good keeping varieties of winter squash – Pink Banana, Hubbard, Butternut will keep the whole winter at around 50-60 degrees, so in your house in a cool spot. They do not keep as well at cold temps, so don’t put them in the root cellar. Most pumpkin varieties don’t keep nearly as well, but pumpkin or squash with lesser keeping qualities can be cooked and dried or canned.
This is also a good time to purchase canned pumpkin, if you are not overly concerned about canned goods. It is usually on sale now, and over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be focusing on foods that go on sale between now and New Years due to the holidays. Whether fresh, dried, frozen or canned, the squash or pumpkins provide rich flavor, vitamin A and important nutrition. If you are dealing with whole ones, don’t forget to eat the delicious seeds as well.
What can you do with them? Bake them, add mashed squash and pumpkin to biscuits and baked goods, stuff them, make pies and puddings….yum.
Finally, I’m going to give corn short shrift here, because we already added popcorn to our storage, but if you are just starting now, one form of corn to add would be popcorn. You might also want to add grits, cornmeal or masa – tortillas, tamales, cornbread, johnny cake and cornmeal mush are part of the traditional foods of our culture. It goes without saying that if you can get good local dry corn for grinding or making into hominy, that’s the way to go. If you have to get pre-ground cornmeal, make sure that you rotate it regularly, because it will go rancid – replace every six months.
Also, if you live in a region where sweet corn is still available, now is a great time to cut some off the cob and dehydrate it – mixed with beans it makes a delicious sweet succotash, on its own, a wonderful corn chowder, added to chili or soups it has a great flavor and wonderful texture.
As you are picking up food for your own storage, please don’t forget your local food pantry. They’d appreciate popcorn, canned beans or bean soups and fresh squash as well to give away in thanksgiving baskets.
As for a non-food item – this is a good time to pick up candles and lamp oil in case of a power outage. Or, for a more modern option, consider buying cheap outdoor solar lighting – you can pick the sticks out of the ground and set them in buckets or vases around the house for lighting. Adding even a few sources of light is the difference between safety and comfort and misery and accidents in a power outage.
Cheers,
Sharon
- food storage quickie
- Comments(18)
For those who do not remember ever precious MEA minute, I’m in the habit of cooking a lot of soup, putting it into salvaged frosting containers and putting them in the freezer at work. When I was just starting to feel sick last week, I had one of those I don’t feel so well, so I’ll start a big project and reorganize the freezer moments, in the course of which I found a sandwich bag stuff with spirial ham from some event at church. It was a bit freezer burned, but nothing loath, into the pot with the odds and ends of bean tipped out of the storage bin that needed a clean too, a carrots, potato and onion (from the garden!!!!!), and not it’s soup. It’s a rather onimous color from the black beans, but I just call it the soup of gloom and doom.
I don’t think you can go wrong with beans.
Yes – it is pumpkin stock up time! while I’m not nuts about the idea of bpa in my food – I will continue to buy canned pumpkin and keep it in my food storage – I use it frequently and the consistancy of pre-canned vs home canned pumpkin is something I depend on.
beans – we are a dry bean family – but also keep some canned ones on hand –
Unfortunately I’m willing to take the risk of ingesting a little bpa in emergencies if it means we get to eat. I’m sure there would be other things more risky that would hinder our chances of eating I would be worrying about in an emergency….
I’d like to put in a vote for red lentils as being pretty much the quickest-cooking legume out there
They’re the little tiny orange (no, not actually “red”) ones that form the main ingredient in many dals. Unfortunately, they’re much more expensive than the big brown ones, at least around here, but it’s a reasonable markup for me for the convenience. They’re cheaper in Indian grocery stores, but I’ve never been able to find organic ones there.
Around this time of year, a lot of grocery stores around here have food pantry donation coupons or premade boxes, which can be more bang for the food pantry per buck, since they get bulk/charity discounts.
Thank you, Sharon, for suggesting now is the time to start eating our storage goods, to make sure we know how and that we can digest a storage diet! I stocked up on dry beans over a year ago, and dutifully worked beans even more into our daily diet.
I’d been having some health issues, which intensified to the point that six months ago, I did a blood test and elimination diet for food allergies. It turns out I’m allergic to almost all legumes! Black-eyed peas might be ok, but pinots, kidney, white, black, garbanzo, and split peas are out.
It was disappointing to learn, but at least I learned it before I had to rely on my food storage 100%, and the food shelter got a big donation of dry beans last month. (At first they were iffy about taking open bulk bags, but I convinced them to think of them as produce…if I’d brought beans straight from my garden, they’d take ‘em, so why not these?)
Sharon, I love your Friday food storage posts. They’re very helpful.
I was wondering what type of non-electric lighting people are using. I was thinking of buying an Aladdin lamp but they’re pretty pricey. Any suggestions or advice?
Sarah, thanks for the reminder that giving money/coupons can give the pantries even more!
Emily, that’s a really good point – I know at least two people with 500lbs of wheat that they can’t digest too! Remember, you’ve got to eat it, and eat it more or less the way you would.
We have a mix of lighting – we have a couple of solar lanterns, battery powered flashlights, some solar driveway lights that can be moved inside, as well as candles, oil lamps and an aladdin. Honestly, I’d rather use the flashlights with solar-recharged batteries for reading, or the solar driveway lights than kerosene, so I’ve found the regular oil lamps more useful than the Aladdin, not to mention vastly cheaper.
Sharon
I just cut up and froze the puree from a Rouge Vif d’ Etampes squash last week that I harvested in November.
November 2008 that is…!!!!!
I spent many years as a vgetarian and beans were a staple (plus, my parents cooked bean soups
a lot in my childhood). I think the more you consume them, the easier it is on the digestive system. I have never had problems from them or my children who have had them since a toddler.
Love the Friday Food Storage Quickies. Great reminders!
Thanks for the tip about Eden brand being BPA free. We do seriously have bean emergencies around here. Bean burritos or tacos are my “Yikes! It’s six o’clock and the world is falling down around my ears because everyone is hungry” go-to meals. Dry beans just don’t do the trick on those evenings. The rest of the time I plan for them and use the solar oven or the woodstove.
A question about new crockpots- are the stoneware dishes lined with some sort of nonstick junk?
Just a reminder that even though Eden uses “BPA-free” packaging, the contents may not be BPA free. The recent consumer reports testing found an average of 20 ppb in Vital Choice “BPA free” tuna and 1 ppb in Eden Baked Bean. They didn’t test other Eden products, to my knowledge. But their testing suggests that the issue is much more complicated than it seems and not predictable. I recommend the article which is available to the public at the consumer reports website to any who haven’t read it. It has made us seriously reconsider our habit of storing Progresso soups for emergencies of the extreme and more domestic kind.
On the other hand, there are no small children in our household and in a true food emergency, BPA would not be highest on my list of stuff to avoid (as in cleaning out the supermarket before the asteroid hits in 2012).
Susan, thanks so much – I didn’t know that. Honestly, I dont’ worry as much about BPA as I probably should – it is so hard to avoid. But I do try and mention it.
Robin, I’m not aware of nonstick junk – mine just has a regular ceramic coating. But it isn’t one of the newest ones, either.
Sharon
I just bought a Crockpot and it has a regular ceramic coating.
Thanks for your opinion on the lighting, Sharon. We have some rechargeable solar lights too, but I think I’ll get a less expensive oil lamp as a back up. I was looking over at Lehmans and they seem to have a pretty good selection.
I bought a whole bunch of candles last January in the ‘after-the-holiday’ discount baskets. If it’s dark and the power is out, I don’t care if they are holiday colors. But thanks for the reminder about lamp oil. We have multiple oil lamps that we use as back up in the winter.
Also, after Halloween, I purchased several chemical glow sticks that were only 37 cents each. I never leave candles or lamps lit when we’re sleeping and our battery lamps are old and not that reliable. The glow sticks cast just enough light to make things safe when the power is out.
Just a note about the distinction between lamps and lanterns. There are kerosene versions of both. Lamps are usually for indoor use only and must be carried around very carefully if at all. They are usually almost entirely made of glass and designed to look nice on a table or mantel.
Lanterns are fully enclosed with handles for safe carrying. They are designed for outdoor and work use, (some can be used for simple cooking!) but can be used indoors as well.
Lamps are widely available at discount and hardware stores and can be quite inexpensive (unlike the “lamp oil” which is sold beside them). Lanterns are harder to find and you may have to order them from someplace like Lehman’s.
The “lamp oil” that is sold for lamps is just deodorized kerosene. Kerosene can be bought by the five-gallon or one-gallon can in many places including Home Depot and is usually much cheaper than “lamp oil”.
A wonderful way to use dried bean that is not usually familiar to westerners is to slightly sprout them – just for about 24-36 hours – then grind them or puree roughly in the blender, add spices and a little baking soda and make pancakes. This is a common way to use beans of all kinds in India. Good spice3s are fresh ginger, fresh chiles, garlic, turmeric, cardamom, etc. If you get sick of bean soup, try bean pancakes!
I keep a candle and matches in the bathroom medicine cabinet after learning that it gets very very dark in that little room when the power goes out. ;o)
We also found you get much more light from candles if you put a reflector of some sort behind it. I use a folded piece of cardboard covered in tinfoil. When I had small children in the house, we practiced lamp and candle safety when there wasnt an emergency. It helps to get the novelty off a little so you dont have to deal with scared kids in an emergency.
Alan, thanks for the clarification – I tend to just use “lamp oil” as a general term for all the things you could conceivably put your lamps. I agree that kerosene is much cheaper, but I also know some people prefer (and can afford) olive oil and have olive oil lamps.
So get whatever your lamps appropriately burn
.
Sharon
Even cheaper than “on sale” – I have bought numerous oil lamps at the goodwill stores and other thrift stores. For some reason there always seem to be at least 2-3 of them on the shelves, easy pickins!!!! I’ve never paid more than a dollar or two for them, even cheaper at yard sales. There really isn’t much that can go wrong with them, no matter how old they are. Can be refurbished to like brand new with a good cleaning (usually not even necessary from the thrift stores), new oil and probably a new wick. Wicks btw are very inexpensive. I don’t know, maybe I’m just a misfit oil lamp collector? I find them everywhere for next to nothing…
I adore my Dietz lanterns. They have a lever that lifts up the globe for lighting, versus needing to remove the glass chimney and then replace it accurately after lighting. They also have handles for moving about, but be cautious of hot handles. I know at least one of mine was cheaply purchased at Big Lots, so check the discount stores.
I also make it routine to wipe the globe clean and trim the wick when refilling the fuel. (Different wick trims cast different light, so experiment!) Be aware that if you don’t use your lamps/lanterns regularly, the fuel can evaporate – very disconcerting to discover during an emergency!
I am sensitive to smells, so I prefer to use high-grade lamp oil. One of my long-term goals is to find a plant that I can press my own oil from, but right now that’s a much lower priority than food sources. But do make sure you store fuel and a funnel. Citronella oil will also work, and might still be available on clearance just now.