So you've been a good little prepper and stored up a years supply of beans, spices, rice, pasta and all the other staples you've been advised to buy. Maybe you've stored some canned chili or have some ground meat in your food storage. Now, what can you do with all that stuff?

If you're like me you might just make a huge pot of chili with beans. Its filling and if you have a large group of people its easy to serve everyone a bowl of chili. The leftovers are even better the second day too. Who wants to eat chili every day or every week though? Pretty soon, if you are living off of your pantry then you might get tired of that pot of chili with beans every week. NOT if you learn to use the leftovers in creative ways.

Hopefully, this post will help you with ways to use leftover chili (with or without beans) whether you buy it or make it in a large batch like I do. Often, I purposely make an extra large batch just so I can remake the leftovers into something else or so that I can pressure can the leftovers in pint jars for later meals.

Here are 33 suggestions for using chili:

1. Day one eat it plain:)

2. Day two eat it over rice or pasta.

3. Mix some chili Into homemade Mac and cheese then bake.

4. Make chili cornbread by mixing chili Into your favorite cornbread recipe. Substitute the chili for part of the liquid.

5. Make a chili casserole by layering chili with other ingredients and topping with cheese.

6. Make soup by thinning the chili with broth or water and adding other vegetables and pastas.

7. Make chili burritos or tacos for a twist on the normal Mexican flavor.

8. Make Chili lasagna for a new twist to the normal Italian lasagna.

9. Make a taco salad but use chili as the meat and corn chips for the chips.

10. Make a Mexican casserole by layering with the chili, tortillas, cheese. Bake and finish by topping with salsa and sour cream.

11. Make a chili pizza.

12. Make a chili Stromboli with pizza dough.

13. Make a Stuffed potato by adding chili and other ingredients.

14. Make a dip by stirring into sour cream then serve with crackers or chips.

15. Make a different dip by mixing with salsa.

16. Make a shepherds pie with chili as the meat.

17. Make a chili burger.

18. Make a chili sloppy joes.

19. Make chili dogs.

20. Make croquettes AKA patties using chili as the meat and sticky rice as the binder. Add an egg and a little flour and THICK chili then form patties/pyramids/logs and chill. Roll in bread crumbs and cheese then bake or pan fry.

21. Another kind of croquette can be made like above using leftover potatoes or rehydrated hash browns as the binder.

22. A third croquette can be made with leftover grits as the binder.

23. Make chili hush puppies by stirring chili into your batter before frying.

24. Make chili hash browns or fries.

25. Use chili as a topping on grits or mashed potatoes.

26. Make grilled cheese and chili sandwiches.

27. Make a chili meat loaf by adding some uncooked meat, bread crumbs, eggs, and mixing with THICK chili (not the soupy stuff) then packing it in a loaf pan and baking with your favorite chili sauce on top.

28. Make chili hoe cakes by mixing a thin cornmeal batter using the chili as the liquid then frying in a hot skillet.

29. Make stuffed peppers mixing chili with the rice before stuffing.

30. Make cabbage rolls using chili as the meat.

31. Make a chili meat pie in a pie pan with a simple crust and a cheese topping.

32. Make beanie weanies with chili instead of plain beans.

33. Make pinwheels by rolling bread or pizza dough (or canned crescent rolls) into a rectangle. Spread chili on top. Sprinkle with cheese and then roll up forming a log. Pinch the seam closed. Slice the log into pinwheels and bake on a greased cookie sheet.

So there are MY ideas for leftover chili. I'm sure you can come up with others. Feel free to share them. They won't be authentic flavors for some of the Mexican or Italian dishes but they will be just as tasty. The point is to be creative with your food pantry to prevent food fatigue and make those simple ingredients into something you and your family will look forward to eating when you are cooking with food storage.

As I have talked about before on this blog my husband and I are moving south which is a complete change in life as we now know it. Where we are right now we have to worry about severe winters, biting cold, frost bite and snow up the ying yang. Where we are moving to we will have to worry about extreme heat and humidity. Which means a lot of the preps we have will not be needed in the south.

Because of such a change I need to completely rethink our prep needs. Why keep preps we will no longer need and have them take up storage that will be needed for preps we will need? So I have been going through those preps and pulling out what we will not need in the south and putting them into the yard sale we are going to have. The money I make will be used to help pay for the move and also resupply my preps. Some of the things we won't need in the south are the big snow blower (which hubby sold already) the heavy duty sleeping bags, 4 snow shovels, 4 electric heaters and a lot of heavy winter clothing. One thing we will be keeping is our kerosene heater. It does get cold in the south and there can be power outages due to ice storms so we will need that if such things happen.

Also in rethinking my preps I have been looking at my small kitchen appliances. I will be able to cook out doors a lot more in the south then I can up here due to the extreme winters so I have many small kitchen appliances. I didn't buy most of them, my hubby and kids did and I really do not care for them. Oh they cook fine but they take more time to clean then a simple pan so this move is giving me a good excuse to get rid of them. Because of all they bought me I now have to George Foreman grills, two deep fryers, two 18 quart roaster ovens, two mixers (one is a Kitchen Aid stand mixer the other is a little hand mixer) and 4 crock pots.Oh and a donut maker and a X-press 101 which is more or less a sandwich maker.

Who on earth needs that many small kitchen appliances. Not me! For me all these small appliances do it take up space that could be used for preps I do want and make clean up harder at meals times if I use them. Thanks to the move I now have the best excuse ever to get rid of them. Give me a a good piece of cast iron cookware any day and I will be one happy camper. :)

Another thing about the move is that is giving me a good excuse to down size on all the stuff my house is packed with right now which will give me a good excuse to get rid of all the knick knacks my kids and hubby has bought me over the years. It takes a week to clean them all. A week which I can spend time doing something I love instead of something I hate.

While I admit that I am dreading the move because of all the work it takes to get ready for such a long move and downsizing I do look forward to a more simplistic way of life without all the clutter in it. Which goes to prove there are good points and bad points when it comes to choosing to move far away from where you are living. Like with all things in life you have to take the good with the bad or you won't get anything but bad.

Sorry for my rambling but I wanted to point out a few things like needing to rethink your preps if you move to a different climate then you are use to and some ideas on how to find more space for your preps.

As I walked through the herb garden a few days ago armed with my pruners and basket, I noticed that the Bee Balm is blooming. Its not only blooming but it is covered with many new buds which are ready to open too. Nothing is quite as lovely and interesting as the bee balm when its in full bloom. One small patch can be covered with 50 or more blooms all at the same time and puts on a display like no other herb I know. Mine blooms with a variety of colors from red to fuschia to purple and lavender all on the same plant.

I grow bee balm because it is both edible and medicinal but even if it wasn't it would still be pretty enough to make me want to plant it in the garden. Its also a great plant for attracting bees and butterflies to the garden which are so important for pollination and the reason its common name is bee balm.

Even though the bee balm is so nice to look at, it is so much more than just another pretty face and its those other uses that I really want to share. First of all, the entire plant is edible. Just the flowers can be tossed in a salad for color and flavor. The leaves and flowers can be eaten fresh, cooked and eaten hot like other greens or dried and stored for teas and seasoning. The plant is a member of the mint family and very aromatic but it doesn't taste or smell like mint. If I had to compare it to another herb then I would describe it as tasting and smelling more like a cross between sage and oregano with a dash of citrus. It gives a nice flavor to meats and stews as well as roasted vegetables. It can be used both fresh or dried.

The smell of bee balm is spicy and clean and helps to lift your mood as well as ease headaches and nerves. It can be added to a cloth bag and placed under the faucet when running a tub of hot water for a soothing scented bath. It can also be simmered on the stove to release its scent. Breathing in deeply helps to relax the body and mind but is also soothing for sore throats, congestion and colds. Use the dried leaves in a bowl of potpourri or make a sachet to place in your pillow when you go to bed to help you sleep.

When steeping that pot of bee balm or oswego tea, don't toss it out after you get all the aromatherapy out of it. The oswego tea can be strained then sipped for sore throats, headaches, allergies and to aid insomnia. It also helps with colic, cramping, gas, stomach upset, nausea, vomiting and to improve appetite. Because it promotes sweating, it also helps to reduce a fever.

The tea can be used topically for minor skin irritations and insect bites. It helps with mild psoriasis, eczema, scratches, acne, cold sores, mouth ulcers and minor cuts because it is antibacterial and antiseptic. Just place some in a small spray bottle or dip a cloth in it to make a compress. Bee Balm is one of the milder remedies and very gentle when used externally or internally. Be sure to do a test patch on skin before slathering it on since any herb can cause a reaction. Misting it on with a spray bottle can help to repel biting insects but could cause sun sensitivity.

It is often called oswego tea as I have done here. The reason is because it was used as a substitute for tea during colonial times. When the king began charging higher taxes for tea, the colonials had the Boston tea party. Then bee balm or Oswego tea, which was popular for its Earl Grey-like flavor, was the tea that became a favorite replacement. It was introduced by the Native Americans since they were already using it for teas and medicine. Oswego tea is good just by itself but can also be combined with other herbs or regular black tea as well. A combination of black tea and bee balm is similar to Earl Grey. Chamomile and bee balm is very soothing and promotes sleep. Ginger, lemon balm, mint and bee balm makes a spicy uplifting combination which soothes the stomach. I have several sun tea jars and I often make several batches of tea all at once. I combine different herbs and teas in the different jars for a variety of tea flavors. Served hot or cold and sweetened with local honey it is one of my favorite simple summer joys. I think I will pop out now and make a jar or two of herbal tea. I hope you are inspired to enjoy a cup or glass as well for both the flavor AND the benefits. Learn just one new herb at a time and add it to your survival medicine knowledge. It might just become a simple pleasure for you as well.

Search for any topic on the Internet and you will come up with more responses then you can ever read. It can sometimes be overwhelming sifting through all the different information. Sometimes its difficult to know what bits are accurate and which ones are just "cut and paste" information gathered from other blogs and websites. It becomes a matter of trust with so much inaccurate info floating around. I just want to make a short post about THIS blog. It may seem like we don't have enough posts or they jump around on all different subjects but hopefully this post will help to understand why that is. THIS blog isn't about "cut and paste". In my opinion (I'm just one of the contributors mind you) its more about sharing what we KNOW or what we are doing towards our future survival. So, when I do a post about herbs or bacon or salves or making vinegar or soap you can bet that its something I have done or I am in the middle of doing. I do use the Internet for some of my own research when I do something new BUT by the time I pass information on to others believe me when I say I have been there and done that and I know it works (for ME) I don't talk about herbs I haven't grown or harvested or used myself. I don't talk about preserving in ways that I have never tried UNLESS I tell you that it was done that way in a historical information sort of way. I don't talk about gardening or butchering, camping or anything else unless I have first hand experience. The reason I am sharing this post is because I want you to realize that when there is a gap in posts it is because we, the writers, are working on our own survival preps and living life as well. Sometimes I snap pictures as I go and then share several posts all at one time when I "make time" to write it up. Other times its just the things I'm doing may not pertain to survival or I've shared them before. I really want this blog to be a place where there is a variety of information to help with your own survival and self sufficient homestead. More then that though, I want it to be a place where you can trust the information as something that is tried and true with as much honesty as possible. Even failures are learning opportunities but with the cost of materials and time its much nicer to know if something REALLY works:) So, this blog post is just to reassure you that while MY way isn't the only way or necessarily the best way it works for me. That DOES NOT mean it will work for everybody. I'm in the south. What grows here doesn't always grow where you are living and climate can make a difference in so many other things too. This is also an explanation for why there isn't always a fresh new post every morning. Life is sometimes just too busy for daily posts. It doesn't mean that there are no posts being planned or in progress but it takes a bit of time to get things properly written out and organized. I sometimes have to decide if it would be useful from a prepping perspective because I don't want to just share "fluff" that isn't helpful. I'm pretty sure you don't come here to see every new goat or chick born on the farm or every herb that's blooming. Life's too busy for twitter posts:) So be patient, keep prepping, know that what I know and DO is what I share and that I'm not an "expert". I'm just a self taught homesteader preparing for whatever comes my way and sharing it with those who might want to try the same things. I'm always happy to hear suggestions for future posts as well. Be safe and do your own research and if you learn something here then that's what I personally WANT for this blog. Southern Wood Elf *Note from Prepping Granny*SWE asked me if I wanted to add anything to this post and I do. I just want to say that anything we post in blog section of this group is what we have tried ourselves. We are only trying to pass on what we have found to work and just give you things to think about when it comes to prepping, protection and survival in any SHTF event. I personally want to remind you that a SHTF event does not mean the end of the world as we know it for a life time. It can be anything from the aftermath of a tornado ripping through a town to a hurricane, a long term job loss, loss of the main bread winner in the family, some one breaking in to your home in the middle of the night and so on. Think of all the things that can go wrong in your area and prep for them. Even a one week loss of power due to a storm can reek havoc on your life if your are not prepared for it.