Step #1 - Menu Planning Decide on a set of meals for one week - 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches, and 7 dinners. Because I want to cook with my Sun Oven we decided the "big meal" will be lunch and dinner will be sandwiches so that we have time to cook bread and the big meal in the midday. Here is what we planned: Sunday - Oatmeal
- Spaghetti
- Tuna Sandwiches
Monday - Wheat Muffins
- Shepherd's Pie
- Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches
- Oatmeal
- BBQ Beans
- Tuna Sandwiches
Wednesday - Wheat Muffins
- Chicken and Rice Dinner
- Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches
- Oatmeal
- Posse Stew or Vegetable Soup (Alternate)
- Tuna Sandwiches
- Wheat Muffins
- Chicken Dinner
- Peanut Butter & Jelly
- Oatmeal
- Creamy Chicken on Rice
- Tuna Sandwiches
 Not a ton of variety, but it will keep us fairly healthy and from starving. I wrote out each recipe and put them in a little index card book (see pictures). I have the menu for each week separated by Breakfasts, Lunches, and Dinners, with an additional section of substitutes for eggs, how to cook wheat for extending meat, and other food storage tips including alternatives for shampoo and other hygiene needs.Each recipe has instructions for how to cook it using various methods - stove top, sun oven, crock pot, etc. That way we can use whichever method we have available. I keep these recipes separate from my other recipes. I feel that in times of crisis I don't want to be searching around for what to make. Also, this has given my children peace of mind because they know that they can pull this out and have food to eat for 3 months. I had planned to then do a "week 2" set of recipes and enlarge our food supply to 6 months, but I never got that far. :-)
 Whew! All the brain power I used to tally my recipe ingredients wore me out! Don't worry if that part takes a week. It is a bit of work. Take the time you need to not feel overwhelmed and to make sure it is is right. Step #3 - Pantry Inventory  I actually like this part even though it takes a bit of time. I stand in my pantry and just start recording everything that I have into my spiral food storage notebook. Many of the items in my pantry are not on my Week 1 ingredient list. That's OK! I still record it in my notebook. I have three columns: - Item Name
- How much we have
- How much we need (don't do this part yet, just leave a column for it)
 If you have a small house like we do, you have food storage located in several areas of the house...under beds, stacked in closets, in our garage storage room (in the Midwest you can do that, but in Arizona do not store anything in your garage!). I tally what we have on hand right now. This can take awhile if you have a lot or a depressingly small amount of time if you are just getting started. Don't worry! You are getting prepared and that is what counts.  Since we do have items scattered around the house, we made "maps" of what we have and where it is located. For example, we have boxes stacked in our closet and under our bed. The boxes are labeled from the top and the end so that we can see what is in each box. We have a diagram of what is under our bed so that I know which side and whether I should pull from the foot of the bed or the head of the bed if I need green beans for example. Mike is a great organizer and has helped me with this part a lot. We keep all the diagrams, "maps" and list of things together in a food storage binder that also has my spiral notebook in it. This way as we rotate it is easy to find what we need. 
Now that I have chosen a menu, calculated the ingredients and taken an inventory of what I already have it is time to calculate what I need to acquire. This seems VERY overwhelming, especially if you are like me and start running totals in your head...48 lbs. of chicken at $1.70 per lb. (if I get it on sale) equals $81.60...yikes! That's just one ingredient on this big list. (I will be talking about canning meats in a later post...you don't need to buy another freezer!) Step #4 - Acquiring Food Now we need to determine how much we need by subtracting the total we need from what we have. I fill in my third column in my list that I created when I took an inventory which is "What We Need". Because I have a list of what I need, I can now watch for sales and buy what I need when it is priced decently. I often take my food storage spiral notebook with me when I shop so that I can remember how many I need of the items I might want to buy.
Take a deep breath! You can do this over time. I decided to take $10 a week...that's just $40 a month...and in the last month I was able to buy... - 36 small cans of tomato sauce = $7.50 (25 cents each)
- 12 cans of diced tomatoes = $7.08 (59 cents each)
- 8 cans of cream of mushroom soup = $5.52 (69 cents each)
- 8 cans of cream of chicken soup = $5.52 (69 cents each)
- 8 cans of cream of celery soup = $5.52 (69 cents each)
- 12 16oz boxes of rigatoni noodles = $10.68 (89 cents each)
Total = $41.82
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Not a ton of variety, but it will keep us fairly healthy and from starving. I wrote out each recipe and put them in a little index card book (see pictures). I have the menu for each week separated by Breakfasts, Lunches, and Dinners, with an additional section of substitutes for eggs, how to cook wheat for extending meat, and other food storage tips including alternatives for shampoo and other hygiene needs.Each recipe has instructions for how to cook it using various methods - stove top, sun oven, crock pot, etc. That way we can use whichever method we have available.
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