Springville Home Storage Center

Two of our ace reporters visited the new Springville Home Storage Center to get information and try out the new, clean dry pack canning facilities. 

The Spanish Fork location has closed and the new location is right across the street from Walmart (1642 W. 700 S., Springville). The phone number is 801-491-7359.

The canning facility is available during these hours (there is no limit on the amount of food you can process and no time limit, and if you're in by the closing time, they'll let you stay up to 90 minutes to finish up):

• Monday 9:00-2:00 (2nd Mondays only until 12:00)
  
• Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 9:00 to 6:00
• Closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Facilities are available on a first come, first served basis. No appointment necessary. They have several missionaries on staff and lots of other friendly, experienced volunteers to help.

Buy Low

Barbara Galloway called to report a hot tip!

She says that the new Buy Low store in Provo (in the shopping plaza behind the Olive Garden) is worth visiting, especially every Wednesday when produce is on sale and every Friday when meat is on sale.

At the Wednesday produce sale today, she found bananas (4 pounds for $1.00) and potatoes (10 pounds for $1.00)!

Thanks, Barb!

Beans, Beans

Carol Oertle emailed me with a fabulous suggestion. 

She recently canned some beans in her pressure cooker so they'd have something besides dry food to live on. She can easily make refried beans with them or throw them in to soups.

She gets her jars at DI for 25 cents a piece.

myfoodstoragedeals.com

KSL ran a story yesterday about a woman who started a website called myfoodstoragedeals.com. She compares best ad prices at major grocery stores and develops meal plans around items that are great deals. 

There is a subscription fee for her service (though she's hoping to get enough advertisers that she can start offering the service for free), but she does offer a two-week free subscription. She also has all sorts of other ideas and information available on her website at no charge. I've added the link to our blog (scroll down find it in the left hand column).

To see the story KSL ran and read the accompanying article, click here. 

Satisfying

I am so not kidding when I say Roger and I are unqualified for this job of helping people get their food storage together. That's why I'm excited that we can use tools like this blog to share ideas. 

Here's an example of learning from a neighbor:

Last night I was browsing Teresa Jordan's recipe blog, Gather Round Our Table (I've added the link to the sidebar). The photo of her Chicken Cashew Pasta Salad sucked me right in. Not only did it look tasty, but I realized that it would be a perfect way to use some of the cashews that ended up in our pantry over the holidays (I received a HUGE jar of them at work).

I didn't have all of the ingredients listed, but, in addition to the cashews, I had a box of bow tie pasta, a can of chicken from Costco (which I'd never actually tried, but thought it would be good to have in storage), and a can of pineapple. I threw in some chopped up celery, some mayonnaise and a few spritzes of Asian sesame salad dressing. It worked! My craving was satisfied! (And the chicken was surprisingly okay! Though maybe not as good as the left-over rotisserie chicken Teresa used . . .mmm.)

Any and all of your ideas about getting, organizing, using and maintaining food storage are welcome here. Just post a comment below or send me an email.

Here's a topic idea: In Relief Society today, someone wanted to learn more about getting a wheat grinder. (I actually own one, but must confess I have never used it. I'm not even entirely sure where it is. I'll have to get right on that.)  

If you have any information about wheat grinders, please share!

Food Storage Sale at Macey's

Through Tuesday, Jan. 20, Macey's has all sorts of great food storage items on sale, like 25 lb. bags of sugar for $9.99, 23 lb. pails of rolled oats for $19.99 and 43 lb. pails of corn meal for $24.99.

They also have food storage containers on sale, like 5 gallon food storage buckets for $2.99 and 55 gallon water drums for $39.99. 

Actually, we have no idea if these are good prices. Are they? Let us know. Leave a comment if you've got a hotter tip.