Storing your family's favorite foods, such as Grandma's Meat Loaf Recipe.

Some of you may wonder how a recipe and food storage blog ties into to being an old lady but a new mom. The nice thing about being an old lady and a new mom is I know what recipes kids will eat. I have made them for years before having my own children. This is a recipe for meatloaf that I've been able to get most picky eaters to eat. The great thing about it is it has eggs and carrots and onions And anytime you get that down my kids mouth you're happy! Unless they're allergic of course.

Making food storage more convenient only takes storing food that your family likes to eat. It took a little while before I found out all the likes and dislikes of my family but one dish that was a hit from the very start was my Grandma Matthews meat loaf. The first dinner I ever made for my husband while we were dating was this simple family recipe that is easy to store and can be made and frozen in advance as well. But this dish didn't just feed my future family it can  honestly be given credit for helping the family come together. My husband said it was the first possitive conversation that he had with his son in a long time. It went something like, "Hey Dad that was good meat loaf. I think it was a sauce." To which my husband responded, "yeah" ahh the power of meat!

Meat Loaf  by BETSY MATTHEWS

2 pounds ground beef
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
2 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
One medium onion diced
One medium carrot graded
Two eggs beaten

Sauce:
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons mustard
3 tablespoons brown sugar

Pour milk over breadcrumbs, add ground beef, salt, pepper, carrots, onion, and eggs. Mix then pack in loaf pan. Spread sauce over top. Bake at 325 for one and a half to two hours.

Now how I make this food storage really takes having space in your freezer. I always have a few pounds of hamburger that I can use. My husband likes getting a half a beef every year so a few pounds is actually not quite accurate. It's always a good idea to have catchup, mustard and brown sugar as part of the temporary short-term storage. I say temporary because these items do go bad and are best if you rotate them more often. I used dried onions in my meatloaf 1/2-3/4 cups works great in place of the medium onion. My husband likes a little bit firmer meatloaf so I do not rehydrate the onions but if you want to really moist you would want to rehydrate the onions before you added them. I like to use the heels of the bread and also crusts that I used the bread for it in other dishes, for the soft breadcrumbs. By the way the homemade bread makes amazing meatloaf! I just store these in Ziploc bags pull them out whenever I'm going to make this dish. Garden carrots last a fairly long time in a cool dry place. Carrots are the only thing that I haven't used a food storage items for but it would be easy to do so. Either canned carrots or freeze-dried carrots would work if they are rehydrated before added. I used powdered milk for the milk.