What Preps are you doing this week? Part 8.

[jansman]

What Arzosah says is what my dad in law did,back in the day. He always ‘weathered’ it before digging it in. I always stuck to compost and horse muck.

[jansman]

We are steadily restocking the pantry with tinned and dry foods.Every now and again,we let it run down to get top side of rotation.Does anyone else find that certain foods come and go in popularity? At the moment we use a lot of tinned carrots for instance,probably because we are getting lazy! We used to eat a lot of pasta,but not so much now.That gave us a chance to run our enormous stock down,although to be fair,it was our youngest daughter who consumed it in quantity.

Mind you,we won’t let it run down to Lockdown 1.0 levels.I don’t mind admitting that March 2020, we got caught out.Youngest had left ( the first time) and we let stores run down.Right down.Then the panic buying started.To be honest ,our lives were more focused on my wife’s ill health,and (I) dropped the ball,as it were,prep-wise.I work at the sharp end in food ,and I just didn’t cotton on what the situation was.Hells bells,we actually had no toilet paper! Fortunately,Kamaal,our local off licence/ grocer,had plenty.We have shopped with him regularly ever since.

We always have a Tesco delivery on a Monday.That week the delivery never showed,just ghosted away.That was when delivery slots got rarer than hens teeth.As a result,my wife is still in the habit of booking slots three weeks in advance ,since then.The following day we had another hospital visit,and on the way back we decided to call in to the big Tesco on the way home.Dear Lord! It was stripped. But I don’t need to tell you,do I? That situation reminded us that you need local ,very local,supply and support networks.

In the here and now,I am continuing to stack firewood.After breakfast I have another load to process.Mrs J reckons I am like a squirrel on speed! My instinct tells me that the way fuel prices are rising,it will be a good judgement on my part.

On that note,food prices are rising too.Also,minor shortages of certain meat products ( and horrendous price hikes) are becoming apparent in my own trade.I can only see prices of pretty much everything going upwards at the moment,and possibly ongoing supply disruptions.All the more reason to step the prepping up a gear I reckon.I don’t want to repeat Lockdown 1.0.

[jennyjj01]

Hmmmmf.

Spending the week busily sampling some of the older stuff from my stash. Corned Beef, Tuna and big soups are fine. No issues with old tinned tomatoes where I was expecting them to degrade. but no: They are fine.

Ancient pasta and rice are fine. I'm sprouting some quite old mung-beans to make salad bean-sprouts, and sprouting some dry old chickpeas, and they seem quite healthy still. I reckon if they will still sprout, they can't be too bad.

A few tins of Branston Baked beans from BBE 2018 are starting to swell, but cooked up fine. Inside the tins have gone a bit grey. To be eaten ASAP and replaced.

Chocolate raisins have all gone white and unappealing. To be dumped and not replaced. Barely a year old.
Dried raisins and sultanas Have gone somewhat bitter. 50/50 on whether to chuck them, or maybe make wine or scones with them.
Aged Flour still all seems in good condition ( in pancakes at least )
UHT Milk being sneaked into use. A few month past BBE, but not noticeably deteriorated. Tricky to sneak it past Mr JJ
Cereals and cream crackers have lasted remarkably well. Some about a year past BBE.
Been using more of my dried and vac sealed veggies. Still good in sauces.
Renewed and replenished most herbs and spices, some of which had lost their fragrance.

Liquorice Allsorts ( about 10 bags ) the liquorice part has gone REALLY bitter. Dumped. Didn't expect that.

Spirits and beer getting major replenishment. It's all evaporated during the lockdowns and Fathers day brought prices well down.

Doing some batch cooking with some of my older frozen meats. Pretty good at stock rotating the freezers.

I admit I'm poor at most stock rotation, especially for stuff that is not in regular staple diet. Sorry, humanity!

[GillyBee]

I try to do a stock take every few months or so which really helps with understanding our usage.

I went a bit mad during lockdown 1.0 with a restaurant supplier. Since then I have been trying to run the (over)supply down a bit. I am bulk buying still for the things we use regularly (coffee beans, cashews, buckwheat flour). Beans & rice, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, herbs spices will all take another year to seriously dent the supply.

The big headache is that Lockdown 3 made it clear just how much fresh food we use and how resistant the famiy is to alternatives. With 2 demi vegetarian adult sons at home, we can eat 1kg of cheese a week and while it keeps well I simply can't fit more than a month's supply in the fridge. We ate the freezer meat down quite well which helped to stock rotate but the issue was fresh fruit & vegetables. My normal "weekly" shop is usually about 1/2 fruit and veg.

It makes it clear that in a longer term situation I would have a headache. Our garden is fairly small so producing enough food to make a dent in the shopping would involve converting every inch of the garden to raised beds. Family preferences and intolerances mean that potatoes are out and most winter greens I am able to grow are just plain refused. Concentrating on tomatoes, courgettes & beans this summer as a result.

[Le Mouse]

Budgeting again. Sigh. Moving house has been even more expensive than I had feared. I've decided to drastically reduce what's going into savings for the next few months so I can get everything settled with where my money is all going! In the old place, I paid bills all in my rent (which was also a LOT cheaper); I've not actually paid bills as such for nearly a decade! There's so many more of the buggers!!

That being said, I've just ordered a few shelf organiser thingies so I can make a bit more sense of my pantry shelves. This is becoming urgent as the gas company is updating the pipes locally and are making their way up my road! As well as having to switch my gas off for a day (or however long - I don't hold out much hope for their promise!), they have to get at the gas meter, which is in the pantry and currently somewhat obscured by disorganised provisions.

Jenny's post above reminded me about how earlier today I was trying to be a fabulous daughter and give my mum some of my OTC antihistamine stock as she's hayfevery. It's all goddamn out of date! I get prescription high strength stuff and keep the OTC in case everything went wrong (especially what with covid) but it seems I've been very good at keeping myself in stock of the prescription tablets. That's a lesson for me to check the dates of all my OTC meds. I remember on here someone marking the BBE date with sharpie on their boxes. I think I'll do that.

[jennyjj01]

I remember on here someone marking the BBE date with sharpie on their boxes. I think I'll do that.

Yes. I suggested that. Maybe someone else did too. I use a few rather fat permanent marker pens and write the BBE date VERY conspicuously on everything. Much easier than trying to locate the often faint or obscure printed date.

There's a sneaky follow up trick. When you sneak the expired food into the regular pantry, use the marker to completely obscure the original BBE markings and maybe use alcohol to erase your own clear mark.

[Le Mouse]

The pantry is mostly sorted! I was all pleased with myself last night and wandered back in the living room and found a box on the floor I had missed. Then remembered the stuff on the side in the kitchen behind the open pantry door But now I have some empty space on the shelves which I can use for storing stuff like the slow cooker and things like that. And importantly the gas meter is a bit more accessible! Next job is to make a curtain for the pantry window, partly for shade, partly for privacy. I'm on a fairly busy road and people who walk by on the verge outside my house (no pavement) can see in my kitchen and pantry windows.

[Yorkshire Andy]

Tested the smoke alarms today... One in lads room was dead... New battery... Dead....

Mooched up to bq had the cheap basic ones same as the that had failed

https://www.diy.com/departments/fireang ... 453_BQ.prd

£8 with one year battery life (anyone else noticed that 9v batteries are getting hard to find?)

In the hallway and other 2 bedrooms I've got the ones with the escape light in

For £13

https://www.diy.com/departments/fireang ... 118_BQ.prd

Plus side 5 years life from 2x AA batteries


Then next to them was this

https://www.diy.com/departments/fireang ... 023_BQ.prd


So £2.40 for a extra (no light) alarm

https://www.diy.com/departments/fireang ... 023_BQ.prd


So I've now got a spare alarm on stock so to speak not that I've got anywhere that I could put it as every room bar the bathroom has an alarm

[jansman]

Tested the smoke alarms today... One in lads room was dead... New battery... Dead....

Mooched up to bq had the cheap basic ones same as the that had failed

https://www.diy.com/departments/fireang ... 453_BQ.prd

£8 with one year battery life (anyone else noticed that 9v batteries are getting hard to find?)

In the hallway and other 2 bedrooms I've got the ones with the escape light in

For £13

https://www.diy.com/departments/fireang ... 118_BQ.prd

Plus side 5 years life from 2x AA batteries


Then next to them was this

https://www.diy.com/departments/fireang ... 023_BQ.prd


So £2.40 for a extra (no light) alarm

https://www.diy.com/departments/fireang ... 023_BQ.prd


So I've now got a spare alarm on stock so to speak not that I've got anywhere that I could put it as every room bar the bathroom has an alarm

I have a small stock of 9v batteries. For smoke alarms. I’ll check availability. Thanks for the heads up.

[Yorkshire Andy]

I have a small stock of 9v batteries. For smoke alarms. I’ll check availability. Thanks for the heads up.

You can get them but the likes of Lidl and Aldi no longer seem to stock 9v or C or D cells ..

Just noticed the mains alarm in the living room is also no longer lit up...... Phonecall to the council on Monday..... New spare going up temporary till they can send a sparky out.... Hope they have stocks of the alarms as the EI branded model in here are discontinued just downloaded the instructions... It was lit earlier when I hoovered it and hit the test button There's power to the base unit according to my contact less fluke volt stick so it's the detector head that's dead..

Bit of double sided tape and fire cover restored for now.




*** Update***

We had a new living room light installed by an electrician (FIL) the neutral supply to the fire detector had come out the terminal block at the light fitting I've re fitted it and it's live again