Prepping amidst Pandemic - Thread 17

[Sprayitall]

Hi all, starting this thread to continue from preppers thread 16. Because we are amidst a pandemic now, I have changed the title to prepping amidst pandemic than “for pandemic”. I hope all of you keep well amidst this and get all the help, support and hope needed to cope during this challenging times. Feel free to add your thoughts, preps and ideas here.

Also short on storage space, and I did last minute extra shops in February and March which just got shoved anywhere. I am sorting stuff out gradually.
Collected all the dried fruit and sorted into date order.

Most of the rice and pasta is now on the living room while I stare at it not knowing what to do.

Living room floor, doh

I am missing cruising the middle aisles in Aldi & Lidl. In fact missing browsing anywhere really. I have bought so many nice or useful things just by coming across them, would never have thought to look for them, oh TK Maxx too.

Wholesaler delivery came today so added a bit more to stocks and freezer and rearranged a few kitchen cupboards to make things work a bit better. I have extras of things in the kitchen in the respective cupboard eg cereal, pasta, flour behind the open packets then stores are by same so type then date a bit like a shop but somethings get shoved in where they fit and then I rearrange again.

Dried apricots good for chutneys or rehydrating in say a pork or chicken casserole or something. If you are into bread baking I make an apricot loaf that uses loads and is delish

I love the middle aisles.

Right, I am going in, behind the sofa... Hoovering the cobwebs...

I do wonder if I have gone completely bonkers with all this rice and pasta...then half a second later I worry that I don't have enough!

Love the idea of the apricot bread.

I can't work out how to share from Guardian app but look up Dan Lepard apricot and wheat germ loaf. I don't have wheat germ so always use a crushed up weetabix, sounds like you have plenty of those too!

Yeah, got quite a lot of a few things. Putting them in groups so I can manage stock levels better.

Hoovered now repacking in groups.

Anyone bought bulk chicken and frozen? I have several kg of fresh chicken breasts that I want to freeze individually for ease of defrosting and portioning. I was going to freeze on open trays then pop say 3-4 in freezer bags and squash/suck air out rather than wrap each one in cling film. Should I oil trays first to stop them freezing to the tray?

Any advice?

I use baking paper to line trays to freeze things like breasts, just make sure they are relatively dry (so don't stick to the paper) and separated so not touching at all. I have a large chest freezer so I just lay the tray on top for 4-5 hours. Then transfer to storage bags and they don't stick.

I do this with meat, Chinese dumplings, waffles, pancakes etc makes it easy when doing large batches of things likely to be defrosted individually.

Brilliant fruchoc thx, am new to bulk buying/making and freezing having only just got a chest freezer, appreciate it.

I have read about vacuum sealers but don't think I am going to need one often enough to warrant getting one and will use chicken up fairly quickly so not looking to preserve for a long time. Get ready for chicken surprise for tea Loofah family.

Happy to be of help @lexloofah. I love my freezer. I will freeze anything and mostly everything lol

Oh I also don't worry about vac sealer - we eat thru our supplies so quickly as a family of 5 that freezer burn is an uncommon occurance. If it was just dh and I I would definitely consider one.

Do they not get freezer burn if frozen uncovered?

Only freeze for 4 - 5 hours initially then place in freezer bags/ziploc/storage containers for longer term storage. It's just to freeze individual items/portions rather than things freezing in one lump.

Marking my place. Planning to cook up some food for freezing to tide us through winter and need to read through for tips on freezing.

Sorry if it's been covered but for general freezing of stews curries etc, is the consensus ziploc bags or plastic containers?

Ziploc are great for freezing flat and being more efficient use of space (can stack or "file" them very easily).

I've been slowly buying a stash of reusable silicone versions of ziploc bags (trying to reduce plastics waste) and they are great! Can be put thru dishwasher too for easy cleaning/reusing. Very much recommend.

That's a good idea. I've been buying in bulk and then freezing in portions of two or three breasts. Individual would be handy too.

@FruitTingleFrizzante thanks for the tip, I might invest in some of those. I do struggle to fill ziploc bags with watery stuff without spillage. Found some once that were called stand and tip or something like that, but reusable versions sound lots better

FruitTingleFrizzante which silicone bags do you have? I have looked at the stasher ones but they are £££

Flash freezing worked a treat fruchoc thnx

We went strawberry picking yesterday - so nice to do an almost normal family outing - making jam tmrw, will be nice to have a few jars put by in winter.

Sorry @lexloofah - not much help as I'm not in the uk, but most of mine have come from Aldi - silicone snack bags/storage bags they get advertised as (but have the freeze /dishwasher symbol on them) Every few months they are a middle aisle special.
Others from homewares section in discount shops. I've just picked up one or two every time i see them over the last 6/9 months.

Thnx fruit, it's the browsing and just coming across useful home stuff and gift ideas that I think I will miss the most. Any physical shopping I do now is ninja style in and out. Will hit the old internet and see what I can find

Every time I wander in here I find something that I needed to know but didn't know I needed to know. Reuseable silicone storage bags would be ideal for me and I didn't know that they existed.

Kitten I keep my dried yeast in the freezer with a little tub on the kitchen shelf.

I did an inventory of the dry goods box yesterday. It started off with flour and I've been chucking other stuff in there as I bought it. The result is that one of the bags of flour split from the weight of chickpeas/sugar/rice on top of it. I have now repacked in a sensible manner with the flour on top.

I'm currently making bread with plain flour and added vital wheat gluten (Holland and Barrett or health food shops, also called seitan flour). It works and it means that in future I would only need to keep plain flour on the shelf, I can add baking powder to get SR flour and wheat gluten to make it into bread flour. It's a big space saving over storing both plain and bread flour especially if we're in the scenario where it's only available by the sack.