Living on Food Storage Week 3 Day 2

I’m learning constantly, after all these years of preparing. It’s nice to be doing it as a semi-artificial emergency.  It looks very promising for Jeff to be given a new job with his same company that will be a ‘work from home’ arrangement. We won’t have a lapse in employment, if all goes as expected.
 Son Christopher will be home from his two-year Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints TOMORROW! (He’s left Zimbabwe already)

So 26 days after my last shopping trip. . . I didn’t know I would be doing this when I last grocery shopped, which is appropriate. It took at least two weeks to really start running out of things in earnest. With Chris coming home tomorrow, I’m going shopping today, but I want to continue to use up storage.
After a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, I’m out of chocolate chips. But I want my family to have a treat to look forward to in the middle of their day at work or school. So I used cocoa powder in place of some of the flour and added peanuts. (Now I’m also out of peanuts and will use powdered peanut butter in the future) But these are delectable! (I had a few butterscotch chips left that I threw in, but they don’t need them.)

Chocolate peanut Cookies:
Cream together:
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup butter/margarine/shortening (I used a combination of all three)
2 teaspoons of vanilla
Add 4 eggs, (I used the equivalent powdered eggs and water)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4  teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
3 cups rolled oats
1 and 1/2 cups peanuts. (If using peanut powder, substitute it for part of the flour. If using peanut butter, substitute for part of the shortening or butter)
Form into rounded tablespoons, flatten slightly and bake at 350 (Fahrenheit) for 11 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Thomas told me a few days ago that he didn’t like the dried apples, (too little flavor) but he had pretty well gotten used to the powdered milk. They’ve enjoyed the homemade bread all along. Jeff agreed on both counts. I have continued to mix the milk in the blender with hot water (2 cups powder to 2 cups water) and then add a lot of ice as I fill the jug the rest of the way with water. The ‘powdered’ taste is barely noticeable.
Sunday night, Jeff told me that he was tired off all the whole grain everything and wanted something different. We still had some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, (also whole grain) so I think he was in the mood for something that wasn’t stewed or high fiber. I fixed him a quesadilla with green chilis and he was happy.

Yesterday, I soaked about three cups of dried apples, added sugar, cinnamon, cornstarch and a dollop of butter and cooked it in a saucepan until the liquid thickened. It had the flavor, consistency and appearance of Thanksgiving apple pie filling at its best. You would never have known that the apples had been dried in between. I served it between two pancakes, (whole wheat flour and some white flour, powdered eggs, powdered milk, baking soda, baking powder and salt. If you need a recipe with measurements, go to allrecipes.com ) I added the white flour because the powdered eggs don’t act as well to bind the batter as fresh eggs do. The white flour helped.
I made a thinner-than-pudding vanilla sauce from (stored) vanilla pudding mix and served it on top. It got rave reviews. Jeff commented that it was fun to have a “special treat” once in a while. It was more similar to a dessert than a typical meal, but the ingredients were equivalent to apple pancakes with syrup and yogurt on top.