What Preps are you doing this week? Part 7.

[Medusa]

Thanks GillyBee

[diamond lil]

3 kilos of coffee beans. Might get another 3 next week.

[Arzosah]

I found a delivery slot for Wednesday, only £1.75 - originally got it to bulk up the dried peas, beans and lentils, but the range from Asda has been *severely* cut down. I've still managed to book about £80 of goods though, but I need to fine it down a bit. Huge amount of tidying going on to fit it all in ...

[jennyjj01]

Been frantically blanching and Dehydrating Tesco veg.

They have carrots at 29p/Kilo, parsnips at 29p/500g and spuds at 29p per big bag. The carrots were a bit B Grade, but not bad.

I've read that Aldi and Lidl are about to have even cheaper veg later this week, but 29p is close enough to 0p to not have to worry.

Did the carrots in assorted shapes including as thin 'crisps' Going to try making some carrot and parsnip crisps.

I might have a stab at dehydrating spuds. At 29p, nothing to lose.

While putting away my dried veg, I noted that I'm still using carrots and mushrooms from March, and they are still fine.

Also made a big batch of wine, just bottling it now.

[Moorland Prepper]

The trick to not getting flour in the machine or, worse, embedded in the vac seal melt, is to have the flour in it's paper bag and push the opening, and probably floury end of the bag deepest into the vac bag. So any leakage would have to get sucked the full length of the bag. If the inner bag is plastic, puncture it at the top, so you draw out max air from the inner bag too.
Oh... And routinely double weld the seals a couple of mm apart.

Just a thought. Has anyone vacuum packed a bag of flour straight from the supermarket and while it is in the original bag? Paper bags are quite porous. Was it successful?

[Lemne]

I have done loads like that. It works perfectly.

[Lemne]

My dehydrator is still banging away and today I have pulled all my bread out of the freezer and dried it to make breadcrumbs. I make my own bread so when it is past best I slice it and freeze it for toast. No room for bread now though. Tomorrow I am taking all my minces out of their packets and vac packing them so I can fit more in. I have mutton coming in a week or so so need the room.

[PreppingPingu]

I have pulled up the last of my carrots and half my parsnips. I peeled, blanched, and vac sealed them and now they are in my freezer. They are the sort of stuff good for soup or stews. I also rotated some tinned goods from the back of the garage.

I pulled out 2 cans of Sainsbury's tomato soup that had a BBE date of August this year. The first tinned looked a little rusty sound the ring pull area and when I opened it, it seemed ok but ... my second sight as it were, said "narh" as the soup inside seemed thicker than normal round the top. The other one looked right and I had it for lunch - not got ill yet Made me wonder about the long term viability of these newer ring pull tin cans. I am wondering if the pull lid is going to be a weak spot on the tins. Old tin cans have always been considered good way past the BBE but I wonder about these newer ring pull, no need for a can opener style? I think I need to check my tinned stores carefully this week.

[Lemne]

Carrots are done and am moving on to onions tomorrow in the dehydrator. Our van is off the road at the mo so hubs has my car so all the parsnip have been gone by the time I get there when he finishes work. I have ordered some extra filters for my p3 respirator, just in case with the way things are going.

[diamond lil]

Preps so far this week have been me shaking my head and rolling my eyes so much I'm dizzy, at the mess things have turned into so fast. Wishing I hadn't picked this year to move back down from the hills into civilisation and am without a veg garden.