Patty cake, patty cake

Saturday started our informal fall family self reliance plan. When you live in Hurricane Alley, suddenly having a year supply of food and water starts to seem much more urgent than it ever did living on the East Coast.

First, I went to pick up my order from a bulk food distributor out West. An intrepid woman in the South has worked out a deal with these folks whereby once a year we get a discounted price and discounted shipping because we order by the container load and unload it ourselves. I'm using my order to augment the basics I get from the church cannery, so I picked up several kinds of dehydrated vegetables and dehydrated oils, the kinds of things that will hopefully turn my rice, pasta, and beans into something resembling meals.

Next, our community supported agriculture (CSA) harvest begins on Tuesday. This week, our haul could include the following: Arugula, Radishes, Eggplant, Yellow Squash, Zucchini Squash, Patty Pan Squash, Green Beans, Popping Corn, and White Sweet Corn. I see a squash casserole in our future, the first and perhaps only one this season (we ate too many last year!) and I will once again start my quest to find ways to cook eggplant that I like. The husband (and perhaps Toddler J) will eat any radishes raw, the arugula is easy to use up, and fresh green beans are fabulous. I never really did much with our popping corn last time around, but perhaps I will feel intrepid this time (there is some method involving a microwave and a paper bag and corn on the cob but I was always too chicken to try it in the past). And, of course, nothing beats fresh corn on the cob!

Finally, next month I will head back to the cannery in hopes of rounding out my year supply. I need to calculate exactly how much I need, particularly of things like milk that heretofore have not been part of our diet much but now we will need to keep Toddler J and Baby X alive. I've got a handy dandy estimate for necessary servings (thanks Becca!), so most of the legwork has been done for me. Now all I need to do is learn to make bread successfully, and I will be all set!