The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Pyxis

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

My food stores have received a decided boost today, or they will when it arrives, I went into the local wholefoods shop last week to see if they had 'Essential Organics Spicy Dahl Mix' which is the handiest, easiest and tastiest almost instant food I know of. It's a red lentil onion and spice mix and 1 cup of that mixed with 3 cups of water and brought to the boil and simmered for 20 minutes gives a very tasty meal when served with rice, naan breads/chapatis and even mashed potato or chips. They didn't but the lady serving said she'd contact the wholesaler and see if she could track some down for me. This morning when I went back in she'd found she could order me in a pack of six for £2 a go, so £12 gets us the basis of many tasty meals. A little more than 3 cups of water makes a good soup, the dahl itself is lovely plain but you can dress it up with any veg, meat, root veg to ring the changes and it is well worth having in store for an easy option that keeps for a very long time. Yummy stuff, lucky us!

That dhal sounds nice, and useful!

I had a look online and this place appears to sell it...... £1.99 for 500g, but I don't know what the delivery charge is.

https://www.naturalgrocery.co.uk/organic/Essential-Organic-Spicy-Dhal-Mix

[Deleted User]

D for V the last time I got some from Scoopaway it had been packed in brown paper packaging with a printed label on it and was on the bottom right hand shelf as you walk down the first aisle from the entrance door.

I'm certain that ALL wholefood shops deal with wholesalers and mine certainly has limited display space in a smallish shop unit but if you ask and would be prepared to take a 'pack' of whatever size it comes in they would try to get what you wanted. My little shop here is more than happy to order in for me but if it's not something they have room for or is a bit obscure and they might not be able to sell on the rest they ask if you're prepared to take the whole pack before getting it. I was offered a pack of 6 x 500g packets which I will use in a year and the use by date is usually generous and I've the room for storage so I am very pleased have them.

DigForVictory

Pyxis wrote: »

There are so many spices, that it takes a time measuring them all out. I have cooked a double batch of sauce and frozen it (you can freeze it before you add the cream or yogurt/cream)

Since spices age badly left in the open air, I'd batch cook the sauce & freeze it ready to defrost & add yogurt etc.
The internet varies hugely on whether you can or not freeze spices but I accept the point that condensation makes a mockery of all the hard work.

At Uni, the devout curry fans (in volume, start with laying out all your herbs & spices then deciding how many animals to shop for) went flat out for do it fresh, feed at least thirty & then next weekend it's someone else's turn. They were very sweet about my box of fish fingers, chuckling that Traditional English Comfort Food was definitely "foreign". And being wonderfully polite about diverting my attention as a bottle of some sauce was shaken vigorously over the fish fingers & the bread whisked back into place.

DigForVictory

Well well. Someone's been lifting from another site to start a thread [URL="https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5989502Seemingly Non-Essential Items Every Traveller Should Pack[/URL] - a torch, ziplock bags, universal travel adapter plugs, insect repellent & a backup stash of cash.

I liked the laconic additional suggestion of duct tape - clearly someone has a travel tale or three.

For my amblings around the UK, I find a couple of Bags for Life are as water-resistant and slightly more multipurpose than ziplocks, but I was stunned to see absolutely no mention of Tea!

DigForVictory

Am about to test a new form of prepping. Husband has been hybridising Kondo with eBay, and thus has not had the time/energy/intestinal fortitude to cook & we have been eating far too many takeaways/pies/food-for-idle-idiots.

I have (so far unliaterally) decided to hand the two teenagers the job (a) of ensuring their father has something to eat at midday & (b) we all have something for a family supper. Bonus points if it all comes from the cupboards, fridge & freezer.

How else am I to find out if they have the cooking & communication skills required, In The Event of parents being unavailable to indulge them?! Suggestion for websites suited to novices welcome - I will try to wean them onto cookbooks, but let's start with the technology in hand...

Zentimes

Lentil dhal is one of my favourite 'quick' meals.

Kittikins

Pinterest and BBC Good Food are my friends for quick and easy meal planning

[Deleted User]

I have just done a little prepping in the garden, I've scattered some Heartsease seeds in all the available areas, apparently once you've got them, you've always got them and just realised they're edible. Love them as flowers, little tiny purple and yellow mini pansies and I'm also going to plant up some pots of Nasturtiums which are edible too and very punchy flavoured like a strong cress. You can eat the flowers and leaves of those and the seed pods can be pickled in vinegar and taste like capers and having grown them in the past once you've got nasturtiums you've always got them, they self seed like the Heartsease.

pollyanna_26

DigForVictory wrote: »

Am about to test a new form of prepping. Husband has been hybridising Kondo with eBay, and thus has not had the time/energy/intestinal fortitude to cook & we have been eating far too many takeaways/pies/food-for-idle-idiots.

I have (so far unliaterally) decided to hand the two teenagers the job (a) of ensuring their father has something to eat at midday & (b) we all have something for a family supper. Bonus points if it all comes from the cupboards, fridge & freezer.

How else am I to find out if they have the cooking & communication skills required, In The Event of parents being unavailable to indulge them?! Suggestion for websites suited to novices welcome - I will try to wean them onto cookbooks, but let's start with the technology in hand...

When you reach the introducing them to cookbooks stage . The following Sam Stern Books are good.
Student Cookbook.
Real Food Real Fast

Eat Vegetarian
Cooking Up A Storm



As my offspring flew the nest one or more of those books went with them.
The student cookbook has some good not typical student recipes so is a good start . Clear instructions and the recipes work!
They're still available on Am*z*n new and used. Used from sellers are cheap as chips often including postage.
pollt

thriftwizard

I've had the sort of day which makes me feel that TEOTWAWKI isn't far away! I'm sure I've mentioned at least a thousand times how all the small independent shops in our little town have been vanishing, thanks to a combination of sky-high retail rents and the proximity of a number of edge-of-city retail parks. Today I had to post a couple of parcels, so decided to drop them off at one of the nearby sub-Post Offices en route to somewhere else. Well, it's closed at some point over the last few months whilst I've been mostly out of action. So I went to the other - which has also closed. I tried to put some lots into the local auctioneers, but they're swamped - no space until June. Everyone's Kondoing - or in the auctioneer's words, liquidating - anything that can be sold. And I won't be fit to do much car-booting until late summer.

Our bank is closing at the end of May; most of the others have already gone. We do still have a town centre sub-Post Office, at which we can withdraw cash after queueing for an hour or so, and some ATMs. I know it's a case of "computer says no" because our population is under 10,000 - but we have a suburb that's 7,000, and vast numbers of new houses being whacked up on every side which, if sold (and most of them start at half a million) will take us well over the 10K.

Our roads are in a shocking state. Our nearest A&E is closing & in an emergency in future we'll have to go to the hospital on the other side of the conurbation, half an hour away. Half an hour, that is, when there's no traffic, no roadworks, no lane closures - in other words, it's almost never half an hour! This WILL cost lives.

Support for special needs kids like my neighbour's 13 y.o. autistic son has been slashed. My headmistress niece has spent most of the holidays so far trying frantically to find the "savings" the grubbyment are demanding when her budget is already only half what the school needs. The care system for the elderly is falling apart round here, carers often arriving 2-3 hours late (if at all) because there's no cover for emergencies. They're on minimum wage and having to pay people to mind their kids...

And Sainsbob's Red Label teabags seem to have gone downhill lately too! If there was any doubt in my mind that things really are beginning to fall apart at the seams, that's proof positive... Time to stock the bunker!