Food Storage In Vernonia

Liberty Apple Tree

2011-05-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

Since I mentioned my Liberty apple tree in my last post, I thought I'd find a picture of a productive Liberty apple tree so you can see what mine will look like when it grows up.

I shamelessly stole this picture from the Edible Landscaping website. They're a nursery that serves backyard fruit growers in Virginia--sorta like Raintree and One Green World do here.

Anyway, here's the tree. Can an apple LOOK flavorfull?

Guilding My Gravenstein

2011-05-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

My Gravenstein apple tree is going to bloom this year, for the fist time. I'm very excited. I'd be a lot more excited if the tree I got to pollinate it, my Liberty apple tree, were going to bloom also! There's a chance that my Resi, which is also going to bloom for the first time, will bloom early enough to pollinate the Gravenstein. But it'll be dicey. Gravensteins are triploid, and so do not pollinate other trees. So I won't get any Resi apples. But it would be nice to at least get some Gravensteins.

Up until now I've just been mulching around my apple trees. But I've decided it's time to get serious about making an apple guild.

"Guild" is a permaculture term that means a group of plants, usually with a food-bearing tree in the middle, that support each other, providing for each other's needs. They typically consist of some combination of nitrogen fixers (so you don't have to fertilize so much), deep-rooted nutrient accumulators (for bringing nutrients from deep in the soil up to where other plants, including the tree, can use them), insect attractors (for attracting pollinizing and pest-eating insects), mulch makers (than you can slash periodically for on-the-spot mulch, or that drop a lot of litter to act as mulch), and ground covers (to protect the soil from splashing rains and too much sun, and to suppress weeds). Typically, some of the plants will be shrubs and some will be perennials. There may even be a vine or two. Annuals are usually avoided in a guild, unless they self-sow.

I'm just starting this guild, so it doesn't have everything it will eventually have. For example, I'll want to put 4 or 5 berry bushes around the edges--maybe goosberries, currents, honey berries, or goumis (which are nitrogen fixers). And I don't have any nitrogen fixers, but I bought a packet of sweet peas, which I'll plant to grow up the cheap-and-cheesy deer fence.

So here's what I got, and why I got it.

2 artichoke plants. I really like artichokes, so that's a good reason to grow them--although 2 plants isn't very many. But artichoke plants are nice in a fruit-tree guild or a food forest because they have leafy growth that you can slash for mulching in place. I'm not sure whether you can do this during the summer, or whether you need to wait until they die down at the end of the year. That's the deer fencing in front of the plant.

I transplanted a couple sprouts from the black-eyed susan in my front yard. I see all kinds of little bugs flitting around the ones in the front yard, so I'm sure they'll attract some that are beneficial. And I've seen Red Admiral butterflies on them too, so that's another benefit. And...I just like them (not everything has to be utilitarian!). They will spread into a nice-sized clump.

I planted a lemon thyme plant. Just one, but it will spread--I think. I know English thyme can spread quite a bit, but I expect this to be a little tamer. Thyme is good because it's a ground cover, and it's a nice culinary herb. But it's also aromatic, so it's possible it'll help repell some pests. If not, that's OK. It's a pretty little thing.

I planted 4 strawberry plants. I don't know that they do much besides cover the ground. But they do do that, and they are mighty tasty berries. Again, 4 strawberry plants isn't a lot. But there will be more in other apple-tree guilds. It's good to mix up the plants rather than having all of one kind grouped together.

In the strawberry picture, you can see a parsley plant. They're supposed to be good for attracting beneficial insects.
And finally, I planted 1 small lavendar plant. I must be really strange because I really don't like the scent of lavendars. But they are beautiful small bushes, and they probably attract beneficial insects.

Oh, and I sprinkled some seeds from a wildflower mix.
I'm toying with the idea of planting some nasturtiums around the outside of this--haven't decided yet. But "nasties" are a pretty ground cover, and nice mulching plant, have edible leaves and flowers, and are really pretty. So I'll probably add some.

That's it so far. One of the goals of creating fruit-tree guilds and food forests (which is basically an expanded version of a guild), is to increase bio-diversity. I've got a fairly good start here. I'll add more next year (or maybe later this year, if I get impatient!).

Making a Homemade Berkey Water Filter

2011-05-08T16:19:00.000-07:00

Are you like me? You want a Big Berkey water filter, but you just can't justify spending so much on one? Well! Did you know that you can purchase the filter elements and make one yourself, from a couple food-grade buckets? It won't be as fancy as a real Big Berkey. It probably won't be as rugged as the real deal. But it will work.

A note: I can't claim credit for figuring this out. I learned of it from How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, by James Wesley, Rawles.

I made one. And I took some pictures. So I thought I'd show you how easy it is.

What you need:

2 six-gallon, food-grade water buckets (You can use smaller buckets, but they aren't recommended.)
2 black Berkey purification elements, with priming button
1 spigot, if you want to use one
1 1/2" drill bit

I didn't have a 1/2" drill bit. So I went to my go-to guy for hardware. He said that most home drills aren't big enough to accommodate a standard 1/2" drill bit. But they make a 1/2" drill bit that narrows down at the end so you can fit it in your drill. I got one, and it worked perfectly. So that's probably what you'll need, too.

I got my black Berkey purification elements from the Berkey Guy. I bought from him because he was the last supplier I found on the Internet who was still selling them for $99 and including a free Sport Berkey Water Bottle Portable Water Purifier. Everyone was selling them for this price last year. Now, no one is. Even the Berkey Guy has raised his prices since I got mine. (2 black Berkey purification elements are now $107, and the Sport Berkey is $24.99).

The process is simple:

Prime the purification elements.
Drill holes for the purification elements in the bottom of one bucket and in the lid of the other bucket.
Put the purification elements through the holes in the bottom of the bucket, with the elements inside the bucket, and tighten the wing nuts.
Install the spigot in the bottom bucket, if you want one (I did not).
Assemble the Water Filter.

Set the lid with the holes on the bucket without the holes.
Put the bucket with the purification elements on the other bucket with the lid, with the stems going into the holes in the lid (the clean water drips through the stems).
Put the lid without holes on the bucket with the purification elements in it.

Then just pour your dirty water into the top bucket and wait for your clean water to drip into the lower bucket. If the water has a lot of particulate matter, you'll get better results if you pour it through a couple layers of cheese cloth before pouring into your new filter--you can go longer without cleaning the elements.

So. Let's get started.

First, you need some clean water to prime the purification elements. I had some bottled water on hand, so I used that. It took a 20-oz bottle of water to prime each element. If you have nice water from your faucet, you can use that. The instructions for priming the purification elements are in the box.

The priming button looks like a tan rubber gasket. It goes over the stem and rests against the bottom of the element. The priming process forces water backwards through each purification element, wetting it and flushing out any residue. The priming button serves to prevent (mostly) water from squirting out while you're forcing the water backwards through the stem and into and through the element.

You hold the element firmly against the faucet (you'd probably have to take the little screen off) or against your water bottle, and force water through it until it beads up on on the surface of the element and runs down.

Once the elements are primed, you can set them aside. It's time to drill some holes.

I found it easiest to put the bottom bucket on the floor, with its lid on top, and put the filtering bucket on top of the lid. That way I could make sure the holes in the bucket lined up with the holes in the lid. I drilled my holes about 3 inches from the side of the bucket, which left plenty of room for the elements. The downside to this method is that you have to clean little bits of plastic out of both buckets.

Then I installed the elements.

And finally, I stacked up the buckes to make my filter.

Oops! Despite my care I got the holes in the lid in the wrong place, and the filter bucket doesn't quite sit on the lid of the lower bucket properly. Ah well. It still works.

So. How do I like it and what have I learned?

It's easy to use. I just take a third bucket (labeled "Dirty Water") out to my rain barrel and fetch some water. Pour it into the filter bucket, and a few hours later I have clean water in the lower bucket.

Yeah. That's right. A few hours. It is not a fast filter. But there are a few things you can do to speed things up.

Keep the water level in the filter bucket topped off. The higher the water level in the filter bucket, the greater the water pressure against the filters, so the faster they filter. Just make sure you don't overflow your bottom bucket!
Use 6-gallon buckets. I used 4 1/2-gallon buckets, because when I wanted to order them Emergency Essentials was out of the bigger buckets and I was impatient. But by using 6-gallon buckets, I would have started with the water level higher, and would have gotten clean water faster.
Get 4 purification elements instead of 2. You can cut your filter time in half. This also lets you filter a lot more water before you have to replace your purification elements. Of course, it costs twice as much up front.

Each element will purify pu to 3000 gallons. So if you have 2 elements in your filter, you can purify 6000 gallons before you have to purchase more elements. And if you have 4 elements, you can purify 12000 gallons before replacing them. Of course, when you do replace them, it costs that much more!

Another thing to remember is that you can clean the black Berkey purification elements several times. They recommend using a ScotchBright(r) pad.

You can put a spigot in the bottom bucket, to use it as a dispenser. I decided not to do this for 2 reasons. I forgot to purchase a spigot! But also, I already have a couple water dispensers. So I just collect water in the bucket and pour it into the dispensers I already have.

I got my first dispenser from The Water Crock Shop. They have a very nice selection of water crocks. You can either get a lid, like I did, or put a water bottle on top. The crock, by itself, holds 2 1/2 gallons of water.

But the water crock was too big for my tiny bathroom counter. So I picked up a glass dispenser on sale at my local Fred Meyer store. I think it's supposed to be for serving Limoncello. But I'm using it for nice, clean, water.

Now, next time the power goes out for a week or so after a winter storm, I'll have all the clean, fresh, water I can drink! And you can, too!

Availability of Freeze Dried Foods

2011-03-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

As you may know, it's difficult to purchase freeze-dried food in #10 cans these days. The websites I've been to all have some or most of their #10 cans on backorder, both Mountain House and Provident Pantry. I assume the same is true of other brands. Apparently, the demand for freeze-dried and dehydrated foods is increasing faster then the supply can respond. Here's what Mountain House says about it.

On the one had, it's good that--apparently--so many people are preparing. On the other hand, this makes getting your food preps in store harder.

However, all is not lost. I've noticed that both Emergency Essentials and Disaster Necessities will backorder these items for you. You'll just have to wait for them. (I should note that I have no experience with Disaster Necessities. I recently placed an order with them--for backordered items--but I haven't received it yet. No, I'm not abandoning Emergency Essentials, I just wanted to try another supplier.)

While you're waiting for backordered freeze-dried food, you can stock up on canned goods and other products that store well, from Costco, Walmart, or whatever store is in your area. And don't forget non-food items, such as soap, toilet paper, etc.

I also noticed that Emergency Essentials is out of, and back ordering, their 55-cal water barrels. So it looks like people are storing water, too. Storing water is very important, especially for people living in dry areas. We need water even more than we need food, although water is usually easier to find. But it must be CLEAN water. Dirty water can kill you. So it's a good idea to store some way to clean dirty water.

I recently joined Costco again after being away for several years. I was happy to see that they have 12-packs of many canned goods at reasonable prices. And big bags of rice and other staples. Personally, I'd want to repackage rice or other staples that are in burlap bags, so they have a longer shelf life.

Many food-storage types talk about storing food (rice, beans, wheat, etc.) for up to 20 years. But that isn't really necessary. Ideally, you want to be storing foods that you and your family like to eat, and be regularly eating those foods from your storage. When you buy more, you put it in the back of your current stock and use the oldest things first. So you don't need to store something for 20 years. If you have a year's worth of food stored, you might have things no older than a couple years, because you're constantly cycling through it.

Besides, who wants to store food for 20 years? If there's no disaster, you've wasted your money. But if you're buying and storing food you eat all the time anyway, and you're cycling through your stored food, your money is never wasted.

I would argue, though, that convenience foods stored in cardboard should be re-packaged in some way to make them both more airtight and less available to pests. You DON'T want mice eating all your stored food.

Good luck, and happy food storing!

Creamy Soup Base Review

2011-03-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

I've been ogling the Creamy Soup Base over at Emergency Essentials for a while now, so I finally decided to give it a try. I am sure glad I did! It makes wonderful cream-of-broccoli soup. I've also used it for making creamed peas and scalloped potatoes. I haven't tried this yet, but I'll bet you could make good mac-and-cheese by melting some cheddar cheese in it and pouring it over macaroni.

The only real down side is that the ingredients aren't the most healthful: 1060mg of sodium and 11g of saturated fat per serving. And a serving is only 1 cup, so I usually eat 2 servings at a time (a big bowl of cream-of-broccoli soup and a chunk of homemade bread is an awesome lunch!). This is probably not something you'd want to eat every day. On the other hand, fats are one of the most difficult food categories to store for more than just a few months, so this could be valuable in a well-rounded food-storage plan.

I make my soup a little healthier by adding a little white bean flour (from Bob's Red Mill) to the soup mix before adding it to the boiling water. You can, of course, make a cream soup with just the white bean flour (the recipe is on the package), but it's lumpy--the recipe on the package tells you to put it in the blender before serving it. And the bean-flour soup doesn't have any seasonings in it (the chicken bouillon in this soup mix has some seasonings). So I just add some bean flour to the creamy soup mix. You have to be careful, though. If you add too much it makes the soup lumpy.

But soup from this mix tastes good, is versatile, and is quick and easy to prepare. I makeit when I'm too tired to cook a "real meal".

Here's how I make my cream-of-broccoli soup:

First, I measure out 1/2 cup soup mix, and put it into a 1-cup measuring cup. Then I add a spoonful of white bean flour. I start 2 cups of water to boil (do not add salt--there's plenty in the soup mix). While the water is coming to a boil, I cut up some broccoli--about 3/4 cup.

When the water comes to a boil, I whisk in the soup mix, then turn down the heat, because this likes to boil and you want it to only simmer.

The soup is supposed to simmer for 10 minutes. About half way through that time, I add the broccoli. I've learned that you shouldn't wait too long to add the broccoli, or it will taste raw. Of course, you don't want to put it in too early or it might get too mushy. I use thawed-out frozen broccoli, so it's been blanched (before it was frozen), so it's partially cooked. If you're using fresh broccoli from the garden, it might need to cook longer.

And that's it. After simmering for 10 minutes it's done. Easy, peasy, Cream of Broccoli soup.

Oh, there is one thing. The recipe on the can says to "Whisk 1/4 cup Creamy Soup Base into..." so I was picturing the kind of whisk that you'd use for whisking eggs while baking. But a gravy whisk works better.

Onion Relish

2011-02-25T18:46:00.000-08:00

My younger brother has been giving me a bad time for not posting anything to my blog for the last few months. I haven't really been doing anything lately, food-storage wise. But looking back, I see I never posted about a couple projects from a few months ago. So here we go.

Sure, you can store onions in your root cellar (assuming you have one--I don't). But some onions don't store well. And besides...wouldn't you like to do something new with your onions? How about Onion Relish? Sounds weird, doesn't it? But it's actually quite tasty.

I got the recipe from Blue Ribbon Preserves, by Linda J. Amendt. I used Walla Walla Sweet onions in my relish (so yeah, this was from last summer). But I'm sure normal onions would be good, too. I'll bet red onions would be beautiful. The recipe calls for white wine vinegar, rather than ordinary white vinegar. I had to look around my grocery store a little bit before I found it. It was with the specialty vinegars in fancy bottles, not with the gallon jugs of white or cider vinegar.

Here's the recipe (of course, all the normal safety precautions should be followed):

Makes about 4 pint jars

8 cups finely chopped sweet onions

1 tablespoon pickling salt or kosher salt

1 ¾ cups white wine vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon minced fresh tarragon or ¾ teaspoon crushed dried tarragon
2 garlic cloves, crushed or minced

In a large bowl, layer the onions and salt. Gently stir until well combined. Let sit 4 hours.
Prepare canner, jars and lids.
Drain the onions thoroughly. Press out the excess liquid.
Make the relish:

In a 6- to 8-quart stainless steel pan, combine the vinegar, sugar, tarragon, and garlic.
Over medium-low heat, gradually heat the mixture, stirring constantly, until the sugar is completely dissolved.
Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the syrup to a boil.
Add the drained onions to the syrup.
Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
Remove the pan from the heat

Ladle hot relish into hot jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot relish. Wipe jar rims and threads with a clean, damp cloth. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool, and store.

Wait at least a month before opening jars of relish, to allow the flavors to fully develop.

I didn't get 4 pint jars from this recipe. The onions reduce by almost half while sitting in the salt for 4 hours. I had purchased enough onions for 2 batches, and I got 5 pint jars out of the 2 batches. I made two separate batches. I did not combine into one batch.

This is a very mild, slightly sweet, relish. I've used it on both hamburgers and hotdogs, and I really like it. But I don't like really hot food. This might not have enough zing for something who likes spicier food. I also found that if I put mustard on the hotdog or onions on the hamburger, I can't really taste this relish.

I don't remember whether I used my 6-quart or 4.5-quart stainless-steel pan, but there was plenty of room for this recipe--you don't need to worry if you don't have an 8-quart pan.

Mountain House sale at Emergency Essentials through 9/16

2010-09-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

The Mountain House freeze dried food in #10 cans is on sale, 25% - 30% off, at Emergency Essentials from Friday, Sept. 3 through Thursday, Sept. 16.

So if you've been thinking of stocking up, this may be a good time to do it.

Home Made Mylar Packets for Seasonings

2010-08-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

This post describes how I made the packets to hold the seasonings in the rice-mix post.

Some time ago I purchased a mylar bag from Emergency Essentials. These bags are intended to be used inside plastic buckets for storing grains and things. But I'd heard that you can seal them with a regular iron--like for ironing clothes. So I decided to give it a try.

The bag is (well, it was) 20" X 30". I wanted by packets to be 4" X 6", so I cut a 6" strip off the top of the bag.

Then I measured 5 4-inch sections across the strip, but I didn't cut yet. I wanted to seal along the long edge before I cut the 4" sections, so the pieces wouldn't come apart. I tried to make my seams about the same width as the factory seams.

Once I sealed along the bottom and cut the sections, I just sealed the both sides of each packet.

I put the labels on while the packets were still flat--before I filled the them. Then I filled them and sealed the top. I also snipped a small notch part-way through the side seam near the top, so I can just rip them open when I use them.

It took me a while to get the seams sealed, because I was trying to use the lowest possible setting. I was worried the mylar would melt on my iron. But finally I turned it up to the "synthetic" setting, and that worked well.

I'm actually quite pleased with the way they turned out.

Homemade Rice Mix

2010-08-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

I am all about convenience foods. I don't have a lot of time for cooking during the week, so I appreciate being able to fix something quickly. And the people who blend the seasonings for convenience foods are much better at it than I am.

Some of my favorite convenience foods are the Farmhouse Rice mixes. I eat a lot of grilled chicken, and these go well with that. Before I start grilling the chicken, I dump the box of rice, 1 1/2 cups water, the seasoning packet, and a pat of butter into a 1 1/2 qt. casserole dish and microwave it for 18 minutes. Then I just need to steam some veggies while the chicken is grilling, and dinner is served! When I don't have fresh food on hand, I make a casserole out of a box of Farmhouse Rice, a can of chicken, and a can of green beans. Or I go Hawaiian and add a can of pineapple.

But like all convenience foods, these can be pricey. And they take up a lot of room in the pantry. And I'd refer it if it made just a little more rice. So I've been keeping an eye out for an alternative. I've been looking for something that would be just as easy to fix, and be cheaper and easier to store. I believed I've found what I was looking for.

While browsing through the Make-A-Mix book again, I came across a recipe for Chicken Continental Rice Seasoning Mix. This book has a lot of great recipes in it, and this one does not disappoint.

Chicken Continental Rice Seasoning Mix
2 Tbsp instant chicken bouillon granules
1 Tbsp dried parsley leaves, crushed
2 tsp minced dried onions
1/4 tsp dried basil leaves
1/4 tsp thyme
1/8 tsp white pepper
1/8 tsp garlic powder

As you can see, this recipe is for making individual packets rather than a spice jar full of seasoning that you would measure out (each packet about 1/4 cup). At first, I wanted to make up a full jar of this mix so I didn't have to make up the mix 10 times for 10 packets. However, after making it the first time I realized that this really is the best approach. This mix has fine powders and chunky herb leaves, and it would be difficult to keep the ingredients properly mixed in a spice jar. The powders would want to fall to the bottom, while the leaves would migrate to the top. So, individual packets it is!

Making the rice was just as easy as making the Farmhouse rice. Put 1 cup of long-grain rice, 2 cups of water, 1 packet of the seasoning mix, and a pat of butter (if desired) into a 1 1/2 qt. casserole dish and microwave for 16-18 minutes. I was worried it might boil over in the 1 1/2 qt. dish, since it's more rice than in the Farmhouse box, but it didn't. So I was happy about that.

Obviously, the rice didn't taste just like the Farmhouse rice, as it's a different recipe. But I really like it. It has a lot of chicken flavor, with the flavor of the herbs in the background. The night I made it I hadn't thawed out any chicken, so I made a casserole with this rice, a can of chicken, and a can of green beans. It was very good. I took the leftovers to work the next day for lunch and one of my coworkers said it smelled like chicken soap.

It's nice that I can make up several packets and use them with rice from my food storage. This raises the question, though...what is the best way to make the packets. I could use the snack-sized zip-lock bags. Or I could experiment with making packets from larger mylar food-storage bags. You can also buy small heat-seal mylar bags. But I decided to make my own--I'll make a separate post about that.

So I'm good to go. I can purchase my rice in bulk and store it in #10 cans (for 3-month storage), keep a few packets of the seasoning mix on hand, and make a quick dinner whenever I want. All for less money than I was paying for the Farmhouse rice. Now, I just need to find more seasoning mixes for variety...

Two Versions of a Cookie Mix

2010-08-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

I invented a cookie mix for one of my favorite cookies--and I just have to share it with you. I like to have a mix like this on hand just to make cookie making quicker. But it's also nice to know that if you're snowed in for a week you have quick, easy-to-make cookies from your food storage. As long as you can boil water, you can make these cookies.

This is a cookie recipe that I got from a friend when I was in the fifth grade. Boy, THAT was a long time ago! The name of the cookie on the recipe was "Penny Cookies". I have no idea where the name came from, but I changed it to "Summer Cookies" because I make them in the summer. I've seen versions of this recipe on various cooking websites, usually called something like "Chocolate No-Bake Cookies". Yes, "no-bake" is the reason I make them in the summer, when it's too hot to have the oven on.

Here's the original recipe:

     Boil for 1 minute:
     2 cups sugar
     3 Tblsp cocoa
     1/2 cup milk
     1/2 cup butter or stick margarine

     Add:
     1/2 cup peanut butter (I like to use crunchy)
     1 tsp vanilla

     Pour over:
     3 cups quick oats (I use regular rolled oats)

     Drop by teaspoon over waxed paper. Refrigerate (I usually just leave them on the wax paper on the counter)

The first version of the mix (we'll call it Version A) is not a food-storage version. It just combines the dry ingredients from the "boil" part of the recipe, and uses powdered milk instead of fresh milk.

     Mix together and put in quart zip-lock bag:
     2 cups sugar
     3 Tblsp cocoa
     1/2 cup instant non-fat dried milk (this adds more milk solids for richer cookies)

     Boil 1 minute:
     1 package Version A cookie mix
     1/2 cup water
     1/2 cup or stick margarine

     Continue with the recipe above, starting with Add:

But I decided to try creating a mix from all food storage items--keeping in mind that vanilla, peanut butter, and rolled oats are part of my food storage.  This version (Version B) uses powdered margarine in addition to powdered milk.

     Mix together and put in quart zip-lock bag:
     2 cups sugar
     3 Tblsp cocoa
     1/2 cup instant non-fat dried milk
     1 cup margarine powder

     Boil 1 minute:
     1 package Version B cookie mix
     3/4 cups water

     Continue with recipe above, starting with Add:

The cookies made from Version A mix taste no different than cookies made from scratch. The only real difference is using instant non-fat dried milk, and that is not noticable.

The cookies made from Version B mix took a little longer to harden, but they did harden up just fine. They tasted slightly different when I first tried them, but by the third cookie I could no longer taste a difference. I don't know whether it's because the flavors blended or whether I just got used to the different taste.

It's easy to make up a couple batches of one of these mixes to keep on hand. Then you can whip up a batch of cookies in no time. It is quicker to user the Version B mix, but Version A works well when you don't have powdered margarine.

I Can't Believe I Didn't Think Of This Before!

2010-07-24T01:03:00.000-07:00

I use freezer bags a lot. Sometimes I use gallon-size, but mostly I use quart-size bags. I often use them to freeze smaller portions of food I buy in bulk, such was walnuts or those family-packs of meat. Or I'll buy a big bag of frozen berries and break it up into smaller bags for freezing (so I have to open each bag less often and it gets fewer ice crystals).

But filling the freezer bags can be awkward: they don't stand up by themselves, and they don't stay open. This is particularly troublesome when I'm puting chicken or other meat into the bags. I don't want to touch the outside of the bags and possibly contaminate them with any salmonella I may have on my fingers (from the meat--I don't walk around with salmonella on my fingers--not often any way).

But a couple days ago I thought of a simple solution to both problems, and tonight I got a chance to test my idea.

First, I washed out an empty #2 can, and used a can opener to remove the bottom.

Then I simply stood the bottomless can up in the freezer bag I wanted to fill, and put the contents into the can.

The can is shorter than the bag, so as I filled up the can I shook the contents down into the bottom of the bag, and slid the can up to finish filling up the bag.

It worked great. I filled the bag with no problems. Now I'm ready for the next time I buy a big package of chicken!

Couponing Webinar

2010-07-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I took a couponing Webinar (don't you just LOVE these made-up words?) from Kellene Bishop at Preparedness Pro. Wow! Did I learn a lot!

I had no idea you could save so much money with coupons. Of course, I was ignorant of the strategies involved. You can stack manufacturer's coupons on top of store coupons on top of a store sale. Who knew? Well, Ms. Bishop did. And, as you might imagine, organization is the key to successful couponing.

I'm getting all my stuff together (store cards, coupon binder, etc.) and I'll start saving money very soon. I have $350 in my monthly budget for groceries. If I can use Ms. Bishop's strategy well, I should be able to save $200 a month on groceries. Or maybe more.

I'll report back in how I'm doing.

Kellene Bishop has several blogs, including Women of Caliber -- one of my favorites.

Oh, I almost forgot. There's another blog that uses the same strategy as Ms. Bishop: The Krazy Coupon Lady. It's run by two women who've been couponing for ages, and they update daily with sales and hot coupons. Their blog, by the way, is included in the list of links provided by Ms. Bishop in her webinar.

You are probably wondering what sweet peas have to do with couponing. Well...absolutely nothing. But I couldn't have a post with no pictures, now could I?

I Got My Can Organizers

2010-07-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

I received my Can Organizers, and boy are they nice. My shelves are spaced so I could stack my vegetable cans 2 high, and that turned out to be just the right height for the Can Organizers. You can see them at http://www.thecanorganizer.com/.

I should admit that with the Can Organizers ("C.O." from now on), I can't squeeze as many cans on the shelf as when I was stacking them. However, the C.O.s solved two problems I was having: the cans didn't stack very well because they don't have rounded bottoms, so they were always falling down; it was really hard to put my newest purchases behind my previous purchases, because I had them crammed so tightly on the shelf.

So, with the C.O.s, I need more shelf space, but it's incredibly easy to put the new cans behind the old cans: simply put the new ones in the top of the box, and they'll roll down to the bottom.

I got the shorter "cupboard" version, which is 10"-11" long. They fit perfectly on my 12" shelves. Each C.O. holds 7 cans of vegetables. So far vegetables, chili, and refried beans are all I have in mine. I will be getting some more for the rest of my stuff.

Cheap and Cheezy Deer Cage Update

2010-07-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

I've had my deer cages around my fruit trees for some time now and I'm happy to report that, with one minor exception early on, they have kept the deer out of my trees. Whew!

Here's one of the cages around my gravenstein apple tree:

The gravenstein is on a full-size root stock, so it will be a few years before it comes into production. But when it does, it should produce a lot of apples.

OK. I have to make a confession. This was the last of the deer cages I made, and it's by far the best looking. On most of them, the piece of fencing I cut off the roll was way too small and doesn't reach around the tree very well. It takes a lot more fencing that you might think it would. Hmmm.... Maybe I should have measured first...Naw!

And here's one of the wiley beasts--still eating from Bonnie's Buffet--but just eating clover in the grass this time.

How Cool Is This?

2010-06-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

I was just reading the most recent post from the Totally Ready Blog (the link is on the right), and saw an ad for cardboard can organizers. They look like they work similarly to the Shelf Reliance Cansolidators, but they're made from cardboard, so they're much cheaper.

Paraphrasing Captain Steve Hiller from Independence Day, 'I have GOT to get me some of these!'

Here's the link, in case you're interested: http://www.thecanorganizer.com/ .

I shamelessly stole an image from their website so you can see what they look like:

You put your recent purchases in the top, and it rolls around to the bottom. When you want to use a can, you take it from the bottom. So you're always using the oldest can, thus rotating your storage easily. Of course, you'd have to get one for each type of food you're storing. But at $12.00 (US) or $16.00 (US) for a 4-pack (depending on which size you get), that's not too bad.

It looks like they don't have them for #10 cans yet. But they'd be great for storing store-bought canned foods.

I Made Jam!

2010-06-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

I wanted to use my new canner, but there's really nothing in season yet. Strawberries will be ready soon, but not yet. So I tried an exotic jam recipe form Blue Ribbon Preserves, by Linda J. Amendt: Coconut-Pineapple Conserve.

This isn't a frugal recipe, as it uses canned pineapple and purchased shredded coconut (from Bob's Red Mill, of course!). But not everything has to be frugal, right? Everyone deserves a little luxury now and then, right? So what if I could buy blackberry jam at the grocery store cheaper than I can make this? I can't buy Coconut-Pineapple Conserve at the grocery store for any price. So what the heck, this IS a frugal recipe--for a luxury item!

For those who may not know what a conserve is, it's a jam that uses fresh and dried fruit and nuts. Or in this case, canned and dried fruit and nuts. The recipe called for macadamia nuts, but I didn't have any. So I substituted pecans.

Here's the recipe:

Coconut-Pineapple Conserve

A refreshing tropical spread, it will remind you of warm, sunny days in the islands.

Makes about seven 8-ounce (half-pint) jars

2 (20-ounce) cans crushed pineapple, lightly drained
¼ cup bottled lemon juice (not fresh)
5 cups sugar
2 (3-ounce) pouches liquid pectin
1 ¼ cups shredded or flaked coconut

1 cup chopped roasted macadamia nuts (or pecans)

Prepare canner, jars and lids.
Make the jam:

In an 8-quart stainless steel pan, combine the pineapple and lemon juice. Gradually stir in the sugar. Over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, heat the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved.
Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Stir in the entire contents of both pectin pouches. Return the mixture to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the coconut and macadamia nuts.
To prevent floating fruit, allow the conserve to cool for 5 minutes before filling the jars. Gently stir the conserve to distribute the fruit.

Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot jam. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool, and store.

This jam is so good, I actually like eating it right out of the jar. I think it would be really good in little tarts, maybe on top of a layer of mango curd (the recipe is also in the book), for a real tropical treat.

Of course, it's good on homemade biscuits, too.

I also made Banana Butter, from the same book, and Tropical Breeze Freezer Jam from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, which is edited by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine. I thought the Banana Butter was a little too sweet. But the Tropical Breeze Freezer Jam was as good as the Coconut-Pineapple Conserve. Yum!

Oh by the way, the package of shredded coconut from Bob's Red Mill has a recipe for chocolate macaroons that is really, really good! I've had macaroons from a bakery that where this sticky, too-sweet gob of coconut. Not these macaroons. They're light and fluffy, and full of chocolatey coconut flavor.

Those Pesky Deer

2010-05-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

While walking the dog this morning, I discoverd that some deer did get at one of the trees I'd put the cheap-and-cheesy fencing around. But they just got a few leaves; they weren't able to get the whole thing. I'm toying with the idea of securing the fencing to the fence posts better, but then it will be harder to get inside for weeding, fertilizing, etc. Of course, there's no point in weeding and fertilizing if the da*n deer eat the trees down to nubbins!

Dehydrated Canned Mandarin Orange Sections

2010-04-30T00:16:00.000-07:00

I know it sounds strange. Why would you dehydrate something like canned mandarin orange slices? They're are already preserved.

There are a couple reasons. Dehydrating them concentrates their flavors, so when you chew one you get a blast of tangy sweetness. But also, it makes them easier to take along as a snack. And although I haven't tried this yet, I think they'd be good chopped up and added to all kinds of foods: carrot muffins, orange and cranberry muffins, a bowl of oatmeal, or chicken salad.

Dehydrating canned orange sections is very easy. The only thing easier is dehydrating frozen corn. And that's only because you don't have to drain or rinse the corn.

I have four dehydrator trays, so I used six 15-oz cans of oranges (load up on them when they're on sale!). Each tray took about 1 1/2 cans (with a couple left bites over for the cook!). I used those flexible mesh tray liners you can get, which make it really easy to peel off the dried oranges.

Just open the cans, drain the orange sections, and rinse them lightly. Then put them on the dehydrator trays. It's best if you arrange the slices so they aren't touching, as they will stick together.

I turned my dehydrator on for 6 hours, and that wasn't quite enough. I needed a couple more hours. The time, of course, will vary depending on the humidity, and the drying power of the dehydrator. They should be chewy, without any juicy spots

At the end of the 8 hours, you have a tasty snack. They're still a little sticky, but not bad. Just put them in a zip-loc-type bag or a plastic container.

I can't advise you on long-term storage, because mine never last long enough to worry about. But if you really want to store them long-term you should probably vacuum seal them (if you have a vacuum sealer) or at least put them in a bag and squeeze out the extra air. And then freeze them.

I wouldn't really consider these part of my long-term, I'm-going-to-live-off-these-in-case-of-a-disaster kind of food. But they'd be great for hiking or kayaking trips. Or just nibbling on at work.

Protecting Fruit Trees From Deer

2010-04-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

I've tried the garlic clips. I've tried the rotten-egg/garlic spray. I've tried hanging a bar of soap from the branches. None of it has kept the deer off my fruit trees. My poor little Honeycrisp apple tree is no bigger than it was when I planted it 4 (or was it 5?) years ago. To be honest, I'm amazed it's still alive, what with the way the deer "prune" it every year.

So today I'm making deer cages to go around my trees. The ones I'm doing today are kind of cheap and cheesy--not intended to be permanent. I'm just driving in a t-bar (I have several old ones in the shop) and attaching a circle of old fencing (which I had in the shop) to it. It ought to keep the deer out for now.

But I've been thinking about how I want to deal with this problem permanently, and I think I have a solution. I don't want to just put a fence around my whole property. The deer (and sometimes elk) come down the hillside, cross the road, and go through my property to the woods and creek on the other side. I don't want to impede that. I just want to keep their snacking down to a level that will let my trees grow.

So I was thinking I could build a fence around each tree. Four fence posts to make a square eight feet on a side, opening to the south, with a gate on that side. Then I could use the sides of the square as a trellis to grow raspberries and blackberries. And I could grow grapes, or maybe kiwis, up the posts and onto a horizontal trellis attached to the outside of the square.

Eventually, I think the trees would get big enough that the deer could still get at some of the branches. But I don't mind sharing some of the trees and fruit with the deer. I just want to let the trees grow so there's something to share with the deer.

It sounds like I'll be growing fruit trees, cane fruits, and vine fruits awfully close together. But by including plenty of mulching plants, nitrogen fixers, and other nutrient accumulators, it might work. At least until the trees get big enough to shade out the canes and vines--but that will take years.

What do you think? Does that sound feasible?

Well, I have four more deer cages to make, so...break's over!

I Haven't Canned Anything in 30 Years

2010-04-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

I've decided I'm going to can some produce from my garden this year. It seems a great way to store food without spending a lot of money. The only problems I can see are growing enough food to store, and storing it so the jars won't break if we have an earthquake.

I bought some cucumber seed so I can make pickles--something I haven't done since high school. I'm looking forward to making both dill and sweet pickles. And of course dilly beans. Yum!

My younger brother (he doesn't like it when I call him my "little brother"--but I refuse to call myself his "older sister") sent me a link where they collect info on you-pick farms. They have links for all kinds of fruit and vegetable farmers. And they have lots of articles on canning and otherwise preserving foods. Here's the link:
http://www.pickyourown.org/ I think this is good for people who don't have a lot of space to grow food, or maybe just don't have the time or desire to garden, but want to preserve food. I'll look for fruit produces because my fruit trees aren't bearing yet. But maybe I'll get some good veggies, too, for freezing or dehydrating. Oh, and they have some links for farmer's markets, too.

Since it's been so long since I've canned anything, I'm going to start with only water-bath canning this year. I picked up a copy of the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, and it has a ton of yummy recipes that I'm eager to try. "Mom's Apple Pie in a Jar" is an apple jam that sounds wonderful. And who can resist "Carrot Cake Jam"? Not me.

More Hamburger Jerky

2010-04-11T13:59:00.000-07:00

I really liked the hamburger jerky I made a few weeks ago, and I wanted to make some more. But I'm too cheap to want to keep buying the packaged spices for making jerky. So I Googled "hamburger jerkey recipe" and found several recipes on the Internet.

One website I found had easy instructions. Basically, they said to add 1 tsp. curing salt and 1/4 cup teriyaki or BBQ sauce to every pound of hamburger. How can it get any easier?

So I ran to the store and picked up a package of Morton's Tender Quick Home Meat Cure and a bottle of Teriyaki sauce. Then I grabbed a thawed-out pound of hamburger, mixed it with the Meat Cure and teriyake sauce, and pressed out strips of hamburger on my dehydrator trays. I dehydrated it for several hours, then cooked in the oven at about 200° for an hour.

The jerky wasn't very flavorful. I'm not entirely sure the Morton's was what they meant when they said "curing salt." Maybe I shouldn't have gotten the cheap teriyaki sauce. Next time, I'm going to try 2 tsp of the Morton's with 1/4 BBQ sauce and see how that goes.

Also, the hamburger I had in the freezer was 80% fat free--which means it was 20% fat. That's fine for making spaghetti sauce, but was too much for jerky. My hands were covered with grease by the time I finished mixing in the salt and sauce. Next time I'll use the lowest percentage of fat I can find, like I did the first time.

Maybe I'll try 1 1/2 tsps Morton's before I go all the way to 2 tsp.

While poking around on the Internet I discovered that you don't need to get a jerky gun to make hamburger jerky. After mixing in the curing salt and seasonings, you can put the hamburger between two layers of Seran Wrap (or equivalent) and roll it out with a rolling pin. Then cut strips with a kitchen knife. I'll bet that would get you more even strips that what I've been doing with the jerky gun.

How to Store Soaps and Lotions Economically

2010-04-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

Along with food, water, and toilet paper (Dude! Do you want to go 6 months without toilet paper?), you need to think about storing enough soap and lotion to last the length of time you're storing food for. So...why not think about making your own soap and lotion?

It's true that you can buy cheaper soap at the grocery store. But if you want the good stuff, that doesn't dry your skin out, it costs more--so why not make your own?

When you think of making your own soaps and lotions, you have several options. You can make your soap from scratch, using raw materials, and the cold process or hot process method. You can make your own lotion from scratch, using raw materials. You can purchase melt-and-pour soap bases and add colors, fragrances, and/or other additives. And you can purchase lotion bases and add fragrances and/or colors.

Personally, I gave up making lotion from scratch a few years ago. I just wasn't getting the results I wanted. After experimenting with sample lotion bases from my suppliers (listed in the Soapmaking Resources at the right), I found a couple bases--one for lotion and one for cream--that I really like. I usually purchase a gallon of each base at a time, then make up enough to fill 3-4 bottles or jars (also available from the resources at the right) each time. Sometimes I leave them unfragranced, sometimes I add fragrance.

What do I, personally, use for lotion and cream bases? For lotion, I like the "Lotion Base- Gallon" from Bramble Berry. Its first ingredient is aloe vera, so I know it's good to use after I go out in the sun. If you don't use too much, it soaks in quickly and doesn't feel greasy. And it gets rid of the middle-age crinklies on the backs of my hands (something my from-scratch lotion never did). For cream, I like "Body Cream Base" from MMS. I don't use it on my hands during the day because it does leave a little bit of a greasy feeling. But I put it on my feet before going to bed, and it is wonderful for keeping the skin on my feet moist and supple. It's also great for rubbing into dry knees or elbows. All the suppliers I've listed have a variety of bases.

Now, for soap. I make my own soap from scratch. Really, it isn't hard to do. There are lots of resources available: books, tutorials on the Internet, and mailing groups. I'd suggest Googling "soap making" and reading the sites that come up. If you're interested, I'd recommend getting a couple books (or more!). The Soapmaker's Companion, by Susan Miller Cavitch, has been the the bible for soapmakers for a long time. While I don't agree with everything she says, this is an excellent resource. Smart Soapmaking, by Anne L. Watson, is a great resource, but it shouldn't be your only book on soapmaking. She has a radical method for telling when the soap is ready to pour into the mold. I haven't tested her theory myself, so I don't know how good it is. I still rely on the method of pouring at "trace". The Everything Soapmaking Book, by Alicia Grosso, is also a good resource for the beginning soapmaker. With any soap recipe from a book or the Internet, it's a good idea to double-check the amount of lye to use (every author makes mistakes, and some books are known for printing lye-heavy recipes). Bramble Berry and MMS both have good lye calculators, and http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcWP.asp is another good one.

If you make your own soap from scratch, you need to deal with lye. You can't make soap without lye. If you use melt-and-pour to craft soap bars, you don't have to deal with lye. But the manufacturer used lye when they made the melt-and pour. So don't believe soap crafters who tell you their soap is better than cold process because it doesn't contain lye. Whether you make soap from scratch or use melt-and-pour soap base, there isn't any lye left in the soap. It has all reacted with the oils and fats you added to make soap.

There are soap artists who make absolutely stunning soaps with melt-and-pour bases. I rarely use melt-and-pour myself, though, because I prefer cold-process soap. But you can make beautiful soaps that are better than what you buy in the store.

Back to the subject of lye. You have to take precautions, which I'm not going into here. But the books listed above do discuss how to safely handle lye, and most on-line tutorials also discuss it.

Because dissolving NaOH in water to make your lye is an exothermic reaction (it generates heat--quite a lot of it), and you want your lye no warmer than 100° when you make the soap, many people mix their lye the night before and let it cool overnight. If you do this, be sure no one can accidently spill it or drink it. Years ago I was on a mailing list with an experienced soapmaker you did this. Her husband got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water. Because he was half asleep, he forgot that the pitcher on the counter was filled with lye. And he poured himself a glass of lye instead of a glass of water. He survived the experience, but his mouth, throat, and esophogus were horribly burned, and permanently damaged. The moral of this story: Be Very Careful with Lye!

Now that I've scared you about lye, let me say that it can be handled safely. You just need to be careful. You can't go on autopilot with lye. You have to think about what you are doing.

So, why would you want to make cold process soap? Because you can make a rich, creamy, soap that doesn't dry your skin out, and that smells better than anything you can buy in the store. If you want to go the natural route, you can use essential oils to fragrance your soap. Or you can use one of the many [non-natural] fragrance oils available for soapmaking. Personally, I almost always use a fragrance oil.

As a teaser, here are some pictures of soap I've made.

I just made this green soap today. I wanted it green because I used Woodland Elves fragrance oil, which smells like Christmas trees with some Christmas spices. For the color, I used Yellow #10 die in the entire batch of soap, plus Seafoam Green pigment in a couple cups of soap that I then swirled into the yellow soap.

I made this blue-swirled soap last year. I used the Woodlands fragrance oil from Sweetcakes. It's a knockoff of a Bath & Bodyworks mens' fragrance. It doesn't smell like trees, as the Woodland Elves above. But it's a wonderfully sexy men's fragrance. I used blue ultramarine (cosmetic grade, of course) to color this. You may notice the the blue swirls have little blue speckles. That's because I made this soap before I discovered that you really need to blend the colors in with an immersion blender--stirring isn't good enough. Also, I experimented with using the silicone baking molds you can get in the kitchen department of grocery stores. The ones I got worked well, except that the sides of the loaf mold bowed out somewhat. But the soap un-molded very easily. I've heard reports of soap picking up some red dye from some of the red silicone molds, but that didn't happen to me.

This is a batch of soap that is still in the mold (or was when this pic was taken). I used Vanilla Hazelnut fragrance oil from MMS. This is one of my all-time favorite fragrance oils. But like most vanilla fragrances, it turns soap brown (the vanilla part oxidizes). In this batch, I left some of the soap un-fragranced so it would stay cream-colored. And I swirled that into the fragranced part, and fluffed up the top.

This soap is my most beautiful attempt to make a nice, scrubby gardener's soap. I made the lye with chamomile tea instead of water, and put ground-up and whole calendula petals in it. Chamomile and calendula are both supposed to be good for your skin, and I figured that gardener's hands need a little extra help after they've been out digging in the dirt. I added a little bit of Yellow #10 for color, and cornmeal for scrubbiness. But the cornmeal was too scrubby--it hurt my hands. I'm still experimenting with gardener's soap. I haven't gotten one I like that's as pretty as this soap.

This is a picture of a couple bars of soap I made some time ago. I don't remember what they are, but I suspect they're my two favorite ones. I believe the one on the bottom is a bar of Vanilla Hazelnut, and the one leaning against it is a bar of Honey Almond. I usually put ground hazelnuts in the vanilla hazelnut soap, for extra cleansing.

So, what about storing your soap and lotion? They should be stored in a cool, dry, location just like your stored food.

I have soap that has still been good 5 years after I made it. The fragrance was mostly gone, but the soap was still good. So you can make several batches of soap and store them wherever it's convenient. If you cycle through your stored soap as you do your stored food, you shouldn't have any problems. You probably shouldn't store it too closely with your food. Your food should be sealed so I shouldn't pick up any fragrance from the soap, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

You have to be more careful with stored lotion. Most of the manufacturers say their lotion should be used within a year of the date purchased. Kept cool and dry, lotion can probably last longer than that, but you never know. Remember that lotion is a wonderful environment for growing bacteria, molds, and funguses--that's why they require a preservative. I don't store as much lotion as I do soap. I'd recommend keeping at least a few month's worth in storage, and cycling through it as you do your soap and food. I keep mine in the gallon jugs, and only make up (add fragrance and put into bottles) a few bottles or jars at a time.

Man Does Not Live By Food Alone

2010-03-15T00:49:00.000-07:00

It's great to store food for when times get tough. Having food in the pantry is like having money in the bank.

But if you ever need your food storage to live on, you'll need a lot more than food: medicines, soap, and toilet paper, for starters.

But the most important thing to store is water. We need at least a gallon of water per person per day. That's roughly 1/2 gallon for drinking, and 1/2 gallong for cooking and sanitation. And that is a bare minimum.

There are lots of resources on the Internet for how to store water, so I'm not going to go into it too deeply. But I found one thing recently that I wanted to mention because I've only seen it mentioned one other place: the WaterBOB(R).

Many of use who live in rural areas know that if a storm is predicted, we'd best fill our bathtub with water because we'll need it if the power goes out. But although that water is great for flushing the toilet, it isn't very good for drinking. It'll pick up any bits of skin flakes, soap scum, cat hair, and dust that may be in the tub. And you don't want to drink those.

Enter, the WaterBOB. It's a plastic bladder that fits inside the tub. You fill it with water, and use the manual pump on top to get water out of it. It seems to be designed for the scenario I mentioned above, fairly short-term preparedness where you have some warning. The website says it'll keep the water clean for up to 4 weeks.

I don't know whether it's recommended for longer storage. Obviously, you wouldn't want to leave it in your bathtub all the time. And you have to fill it before the power goes out. But I'd think a reasonably handy person could build a bathtub-sized box to contain and support it, and fill it with purified water.

Anyway, it seems worth looking into--for short-term, predicted, situations like storms. I'll put the link on the right side of the screen.

You Can Grow Hundreds of Pounds of Food in Your Yard

2010-03-15T00:21:00.000-07:00

Did you know that you can grow--potentially--hundreds of pounds of food in your yard every year, without as much work as you might think.

By carefully selecting fruit trees, bushes, and vines, you can grow hundreds of pounds of fruit a year without much more work than growing strictly ornamental varieties. You can have a gorgeous landscape. And you get lots of fruit that is often much tastier than what you get at the grocery store--because you can select your favorite variety and pick it at just the right time for best flavor.

Need a beautiful tree in your yard? Sure, you could plant a flowering pear tree--they are gorgeous. But why not plant a self-pollinating fruiting pear tree that's almost as beautiful but that also produces awesome pears. Or how about a persimmon tree? Many varieties have gorgeous fall foliage and yummy fruit.

Need some shrubbery with fall color? How about a few blueberry bushes? Want an evergreen bush? How about an evergreen huckleberry? They taste better than blueberries and they stay green all winter (at least, here in the Pacific Northwest).

Got a patio or deck that is too sunny? Why not build an arbor or pergola over part or all of it, and grow kiwi or grapes over it.

With any of these options you can have a beautiful yard and grow armloads of fruit that you can eat fresh, preserve (can, freeze, or dehydrate), trade with neighbors, or whatever you want. That fruit can be wonderful now. But if you ever need to rely on your food storage, it could be life saving.

We're lucky here in the Pacific Northwest, because we have two awesome nurseries that specialize in fruiting plants (trees, bushes, and vines) for home growers: Raintree Nursery, and One Green World. Not only are they great suppliers, but both their catalogs contain a ton of information on growing the fruits. If you're interested in growing fruit, I highly recommend you check out these two nurseries, or any similar nurseries in your area. The links to both of these nurseries can be found on the right side of the screen.

A Couple Pictures of My Yard

2010-03-14T23:49:00.000-07:00

OK, I admit that this isn't food-storage related. But I took a few pictures while walking around my yard the other day, and I can't resist posting them. It was a nice, sunny winter day, so there were no leaves on the trees and bushes. So it was easier to see mossy stumps than it normally is. For some odd reason, I really like mossy stumps.

This first one looks like it was probably a douglas fir tree. The trees around it now are fairly young big-leaf maples. And there's red elderberry, some salmon berry, a red huckleberry, and some sword fern.

Spiced Cranberry Apple Fruit Leather

2010-03-14T23:42:00.000-07:00

I'm making spiced cranberry apple fruit leather. It's still drying. In fact, it's taking a long time to dry. But I think it's going to turn out really well. The puree sure tastes good.

Ingredients:
1 47 oz jar unsweetened applesauce
1 or 2 12 oz bags cranberries (mine were frozen)
sugar to taste
cinnamon to taste
pinch of nutmeg
water

To make the sauce, put the cranberries into a 3-quart saucepan with one or two inches water. Bring to a simmer, and simmer until the berries begin to burst when you stir them up, 3-4 minutes.

Being careful to not burn yourself, pour the berries and water into the blender and blend until they are pureed (add more water if needed). Pour the puree back into the saucepan, and add sugar a little at a time, stirring and tasting between additions, until you like the sweet/tart balance. Then add cinnamon to taste and a little bit of nutmeg.

Add the jar of applesauce and stir with a spoon until well blended. Spread the mixed apple/cranberry puree onto lightly-oiled leather trays (or mesh trays covered with parchment) and dehydrate for several hours until leathery but not tacky.

Peel the leather from the trays, roll into tubes, and cut into bite-size pieces.

The more sugar you add, the longer the puree will take to dry. Also, the more water you add while blending, the longer it will take to dry.

Depending on how dry the leather gets, it may be difficult to cut with a knife. I find it easier to cut with an electric knife.

I Made Beef Jerky From Hamburger

2010-03-14T23:14:00.000-07:00

While grocery shopping at my local Fred Meyer store one day a couple weeks ago, I discovered that they had a "Jerky Express" on sale for $19.95. It contains a Nesco dehydrator and their jerky gun with three different nozzles, 5 sample packages of jerky seasoning, and 5 packages of jerky cure. A jerky gun is like a cookie press, but instead of making spritz cookies, you make jerky strips from hamburger. Even though I already own a dehydrator, I just "had" to have the Jerky Express. The jerky gun kit alone is normally $20, so it was like getting the dehydrator for free.

So I went home with the Jerky Express and a pound of hamburger to try out.

I mixed the hamburger with a package of teriyaki-flavor seasoning and a package of the jerky cure. I used my hands to mix the seasoning in well, as if I were making meatloaf (the spoon in the picture was for scooping it into the jerky gun.

Then I loaded up the jerky gun and pressed out some jerky strips.

The press held a little less than 1/2 pounds of hamburger. Pressing it out in strips the way you see here, I almost filled 4 dehydrator trays. Then using a lamp-timer set to 6 hours, I turned on the dehydrator and went to bed.

When I got up the next morning, the hamburger had dried into leathery strips. I put them on a cookie sheet and stuck them into a 160-degree (F) oven for an hour to make sure there were no nasty bacteria. Then I pulled them out and blotted the grease off with paper towels.

I took the jerky with me when I went to visit family for dinner the next evening, and we darn near polished off the jerky, so I had to make some more a couple days later. It was that good.

The Jerky Express came with 1 each of 5 different seasoning flavors, so the next batch I made was the Original Flavor. While this one tasted good, I found it too salty. The little booklet said that if it's too salty you can make it with 1 1/2 pounds of hamburger instead of just a pound of hamburger. So I'll probably do that next time.

All in all, I'm happy with my purchase. I like the hamburger jerky: it's cheap to make, and it isn't as hard to chew as sliced jerky. And even though I already had a dehydrator, it's handy to have another one with the same size trays. Both are expandable to 7 trays, so I can use the trays from the new dehydrator to expand my first one.

The Jerky Express dehydrator isn't as powerful as the one I already had. It's only 350 watts, and my other one is 425 watts. But it worked will with the jerky. I made fruit leather with it today, though, and it did take longer than with my other one. It's good to have options.

Making Celery Powder

2010-03-14T22:38:00.000-07:00

I hadn't done much with my dehydrator yet this winter, so I thought I'd better get started (before warm weather gets here and it gets too hot to run it). So I decided to make celery powder.

Celery powder is very easy to make. Simply dehydrate chopped celery until it's hard, then process in a food processor or blender it's as powdery as you want it.

But it takes a lot of celery to make celery powder. I started with an entire bunch of celery from the grocery store, and when it was all done I had about 1/3 cup celery powder. Fortunately, the flavor is concentrated, so a little goes a long way.

Here's how I made it:

I got one bunch of celery from the grocery store. I chopped it up and spread the pieces on 4 dehydrator trays. I used flexible fine-mesh tray liners, because the pieces get very small. Then I dried it for 6-8 hours. It needs to be dried until the pieces are hard. Here are the dried pieces in a stainless bowl, and then on the cutting board.

Then I put the celery pieces into the blender and blended until they were in very small chunks. I put the powder in an 8-oz. spice jar. You can see that one bunch of celery processes down pretty small.

This powder can be used to flavor soups or stews, spaghetti, salad, or anything else that goes well with celery.

In Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook, she recommends processing asparagus this way and using it to make asparagus souffle. She says it's fluffier than souffle made with asparagus pieces because the water in the asparagus weighs down the souffle. You don't have that problem with dehydrated vegetable powder.

You can make powders out of all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Mary Bell also recommends making strawberry powder from dehydrated strawberries. You can mix the powder with sugar for strawberry sugar. It's great on cereal or for sweetening...anything that tastes good with strawberries.

Seed Potatoes

2010-02-06T13:08:00.000-08:00

AI ordered some seed potatoes form Wood Prairie Farm. They're in Maine -- I almost felt guilty from ordering someplace other than Idaho! But I survived it.

They have so many different varieties--how can you choose? And I don't need a whole pound of each variety I want to try. For one thing, I would seriously go over budget. But I can't eat that many potatoes anyway.

So I ordered their Organic Potato Blossom Festival. I don't care about the "organic" part of it. I think "organic" is way over-hyped. But this has a nice mix of potato varieties, a pamphlet on growing spuds, and a recipe book. The potato varieties were selected for "their exceptional blossom beauty and fragrance": Red Cloud, Carola, Cranberry Red, All-Blue, Onaway, and Butte.

The Wood Prairie catalog itself contains a wealth of information about the different types of potatoes (the ones included in my order are itallicized):

Texture	Uses	Varieties
Soft Moist	Steamed	Cranberry Red
	Au Gratin	All-Blue
	Sauteed
	-----------	----------
Creamy Mid-Dry	Baked	Carola
	Steamed	Rose Gold
	Creamy Soups
	-----------	----------
Mealy Dry	Baked	Swedish Peanut
	Mashed	Butte
	Fried
	-----------	----------
Waxy Moist	Boiled	Onaway
	Soups & Stews	Reddale
	Salads
	-----------	----------
Waxy Mid-Dry	All purpose	Caribe
	Baked	Elba
	Boiled	Prairie Blush
	Salads	Rose Finn Apple
		Russian Banana
		King Harry
	-----------	----------
Firm Dry	Baked	Red Cloud
	Fried	Yukon Gold
	Boiled	Island Sunshine

I'm really looking forward to getting try see and smell all the beautiful blooms. And, of course, to tasting all these varieties. Well of course I'll have pictures of the plants blooming, and of the potatoes.

Bean and Squash Seeds

2010-02-06T12:15:00.000-08:00

I also ordered some seeds from the Vermont Bean Seed Company (guess where they're from). I got some Dragon's Tongue beans, which I'm really excited about. You can pick them early for green beans, or let the beans mature for shelled beans, or let the pods dry on the bush for dried beans. These beans also have a built-in color indicator! When the pods turn from green to yellow with purple stripes, they're ready to eat as a snap bean. When you pick them and cook them, they turn green, so you know they've been suitably blanched and you can freeze them. Or can them, I suppose. They are a bush bean so I won't have to trellis them. I think I'll plant them out by the fruit trees. I have plenty of room there, they'll get lots of sun, and like all beans they're nitrogen fixers so they'll help fertilize the soil.

I also ordered some Scarlett Runner beans. Who can resist the pretty red flowers? They can also be used at all three stages: as green beans, shelled beans, and dried beans. These do require a trellis. I have some 1X1s out in the shop. So I think I'll drill some holes in them, string some twine, and make teepees. The runner beans should be beautiful growing up the teepees.

I ordered a couple rhubarb plants. Again, I'll plant them out by the fruit trees (which, come to think of it, is where the wildflowers will go). I won't be able to get any stalks from them this year, but in a couple years I should start getting plenty. All the more for rhubarb sauce and leather.

I ordered 1 pound of Jerusalem Artichoke tubers. What is it everyone says? "They are neither from Jerusalem nor artichokes". They're actually related to the sunflower. I think they look like Maximilian Sunflowers, if you're familiar with them. But these have edible tubers. I've never eaten any, so I hope I like them. If not, at least they'll be pretty flowers that should attrack bees and butterflies. And I think they grow thickly enough to act as a hedge. Maybe I should plant them around the fruit trees that the deer keep "pruning" for me!

And I ordered a couple packets of Snackjack Pumpkins--one for my little brother and one for me. These pumpkins have shell-less seeds. That's right. You can roast them or eat them raw, and you don't have to take the shells off. Yipee! Their flesh is supposed to be good for pies, too.
Ooh, and I ordered some Turk's Turban Squash seeds. I don't know how they taste, but they look too cool to pass up.

Wildflower Seeds

2010-02-06T12:03:00.000-08:00

I took The Prudent Homemaker's advice and purchased some wildflower seeds from Wildseed Farms. They're in Texas, but they have seeds that will grow all over North America. I got 1/4 pounds of the Western Wildflower Mix, plus some chicory, yarrow, shasta daisy, Laura Bush petunia, and gloriosa daisy. And they threw in a free packet of seed mix.

The Western Wildflower Mix has a lot of lupine, some california poppy, blue and scarlet flax, tickseed, african daisy, cornflower, wallflower, dame's rocket, black-eyed susan, corn poppy, and several others. It should attract lots of beneficial insects as well as bees and butterflies. The chicory and yarrow are both good for improving the soil. And of course, the petunias, shasta daisies, and gloriosa daisies are just plain beautiful. Well, they're all beautiful. I should really have planted these last fall. But they'll do OK planted this spring. I just can't wait until next fall!

I'm going to plant these out in the field, around the fruit trees. I didn't get enough seed to plant the whole area this year, but this is a good start.

Dehydrated Frozen Corn

2010-02-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

I've read in several places that you can dehydrate frozen vegetables. So I finally decided to give it a try. I bought a couple bags of frozen super-sweet corn and spread then, still frozen, on the fine mesh tray liners in my dehydrator. It turns out that 2 bags was exactly the right amount, as each tray can hold 1/2 bag.

I dried the corn for about 6 hours. I stopped it an hour or so into the drying and stirred the corn around a little. The pieces closest to the center of each tray dry faster than those near the outside edge. So they dry more evenly if I stir them up at least once.

One problem I have drying things is that I often want to dry them while I'm at work. But I'm gone for longer than most foods take to dry. If I leave them drying while I'm gone, they'll be too dry by the time I get home. So I grabbed an electric-socket timer that I had on a lamp, set it for 6 hours, and plugged the dehydrator into that. Worked great.

Here's what the dried corn looks like.

The dried corn makes a great snack. It tastes really good. Well, it tastes like sweet corn. I took it to work and everyone who tried it said they liked it.

At first I just put the dried corn in a zip-lock bag. But that was awkward. So I finally hit on the idea of using a small RubberMaid pitcher. It worked great! Take off the cap to fill it, then just flip the flip-top to pour some out.

It was so well, I went out and bought some frozen peas to try.

Apple and Cherry Fruit Leather

2010-02-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

I made some apple and cherry fruit leather the other day (actually, it was about 6 weeks ago). It was really easy.

You know you can make fruit leather by just spreading a big jar of applesauce on a lightly-oiled leather tray and drying it, right? Well, that's pretty much what I did. I just pureed a can of drained bing cherries and added it to the applesauce. You can use applesauce with no sugar added. If you use the stuff with sugar in it, it'll take longer to dry. And it's plenty sweet without added sugar.

It turned out that I needed a bit more than 1 jar of applesauce to fill up my 4 fruit-leather trays. So I just dropped spoonfuls of pure appleasauce in with the cherry applesauce already in the tray. I thought it might look artistic.

I dried it for about 6-8 hours (I can't remember for sure), and it was ready to roll up and cut. I used a small serated knife to cut it up. But an electric knife actually works better.

You know, it was fine, except that it really didn't have a lot of flavor. I couldn't taste the cherries at all. But then, I snuck a cherry out of the can before I pureed them, and it didn't have a lot of cherry flavor either.

I munch of pieces of this now and then. To be honest, I don't gobble it up like I did the rhubarb leather I made last summer. But it's still good. I keep it stored in one of those Glad disposable plastic containers, and it's holding up just fine.

Gaia's Garden 2nd Edition Set Me Straight

2010-01-04T22:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I couldn't resist. I stopped at the book store the other day and picked up a copy of Gaia's Garden, 2nd edition. I've been reading it the last few days.

It reminded me that to make progress building my food forest, I need to be planting soil-building plants. So I'm scrapping my plans to get some honeyberry bushes this year. Instead, I'll get some Seaberry (also called Sea Buckthorn) bushes, since they are nitrogen fixers. And I'll plant a mix of annual and perennial flowers that attract beneficial insects and also help build the soil. I think I'll plant my squashes out there, too. Then after I harvest the squash, I can slash the plants and let them compost in place. And comfrey. I defintely need some comfrey (it can be cut for compost-in-place 2-3 times a year).

I'd best get busy!

I Wish I Liked Squash - or - Long-term Food Storage

2009-12-30T12:31:00.000-08:00

I'm not an expert on food storage or nutrition, but it seems to me that there are three basic kinds of food we should store for long-term disasters: protein, starches, and fruits and vegetables. Well, four, if you included fats.

Everyone knows that meat is a good protein source. Fish is also good, and some people argue that it's healthier. But meat and fish can be expensive to store. Even if you do the work of preserving it yourself--which is a lot of work--you still have to buy or otherwise acquire it first. Some people are in a position to raise beef or chickens for food or eggs, but not everyone can do that.

Fortunately, beans and grains can help provide the protein we need, and they're a lot easier to store than meat. Don't get me wrong, I still want to store lots of meat. But by adding beans and grain to my diet, I can get by with less meat, and still have enough protein. Remember, though, that beans and grain are each not a complete protein so you have to eat both of them. I read recently that "they" are no longer saying that you have to eat beans and grains in the same meal. As long as you eat them the same day, that's OK. That said, there are so many beans-and-grains recipes or traditional meals, that it isn't hard to eat them in the same meal.

Starches are important because they have the bulk of the calories that will keep us from starving to death, and we have lots of options. The beans and grains you can eat for protein also provide starches. Beans are chock full of fiber--which most of us don't eat enough of. And whole grains have lots of complex carbs, and also vitamins and minerals. And of course, grains can be ground into flour and baked into all kinds of yummy things. Beans and grains are inexpensive to buy in bulk and they're easy to store long term. You can buy them already packaged in sealed, airtight buckets, or you can package them yourself. Delta69Alpha has several youtube videos about how to do that. You can check out his channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/delta69alpha . Of course, if you're storing whole grains for use during a disaster, you'll need a hand-operated grain mill. And you'll want to store whole grains because they store a lot longer than flour or rolled grains.

Potatoes are another great starch option. Potatoes have a lot of nutrition if you eat the skins along with the potatoes, and they store well. Potatoes are easy to grow, and they are attractive plants. You can buy dehydrated potatoes in several forms: shredded for hashbrowns, sliced, and potato pearls (whatever those are). And we all know you can get boxes of mashed potato flakes at the grocery store. I think it's good to have a supply of dehydrated potatoes, because although potatoes store well, they don't store for an entire year. So you can eat fresh potatoes when you have them, and stored potatoes when you're out of the fresh.

Now, here's the reason I wish I liked squash. Squash are very nutritious, and can provide a lot of complex carbs. They are easy to grow, and the plants and flowers are beautiful. Winter squash store very well, and some of them are gorgeous. There is carnival, which is small enough for individual servings: http://www.territorialseed.com/product/9913/221 . There is delicata squash, which has a bush and a vining variety: http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1121/221 . There is fairy squash: http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1119/221 . There's sweet dumpling: http://www.vermontbean.com/dp.asp?c=51&P={266797CE-5A61-428F-BEA2-69936D7F5C4B} . And there is turk's cap squash: http://www.vermontbean.com/dp.asp?c=51&P={DBD5A95C-2399-45CA-92B8-87D680F7AFF7} , just to name a few. (Sorry about all the links. I don't have pictures myself and I didn't want to violate copyrights). But I simply don't like the taste of squash. Pumpkin pie is about the only way I like to eat winter squashes. That said, I'm growing some this year anyway. I simply can't pass them up, and who knows--I may find a recipe I like.

And that brings us to the fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables do have carbs, but not enough to rely on them during a crisis. But with fruits' sugar content, they are often a great pick-me-up. And fruits and vegetables have lots of vitamins, minerals, and other phytonutrients. Of course we all know we should eat plenty of vegetables with lunch and dinner. And fruits are great for breakfast and desserts. Fresh veggies and fruits are always good when they're in season, and many of them are easy to grow. You can can them, or make jams and jellies from the fruit. You can also dehydrate them for use throughout the year. And you can purchase them already dehydrated or freeze-dried.

There are, of course, lots of other things to consider for long-term food storage, but this is a pretty good place to start. Now, off to find a good squash recipe.

My Territorial Seed Catalog Came Over the Weekend

2009-12-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

My Territorial Seed Catalog come this weekend. So now, in addition to trying to make up my mind which bushes to plant, I have to make up my mind which vegetables to plant. I have to admit, I get a lot more excited about planting fruit trees and bushes than vegetables.

There are a lot of good seed companies out there, but I like to buy from Territorial because they test all their seeds right here in Oregon. So I know they offer varieties that will do well in the Pacific Northwest.

I always plant their London Springs lettuce mix. I never let the lettuce grow into heads, I just pick off leaves as I need them. The London Springs mix has lots of loose-leaf lettuces anyway, so this is OK. And it seems to work well with the butterhead varieties that are also in the mix.

I also always plant a variety of snap peas and some pole beans. I get snap peas because I'm too lazy to shell regular peas. And besides, I like them. And fresh green beans are so much better than canned or frozen that I have to grow them too.

I also like to grow kale. Territorial has a Wild Garden Kales mix that I like. I snip off individual leaves when they're young and mix them in my salads. Sometimes I'll snip off some kale and mix it in with soup or scrambled eggs. Or whatever strikes my fancy.

Last year I grew green onions for the first time, and I think I'll do that again this year. I like green onions in my salad, and they were really easy to grow.

And I'll try to grow beets again this year. I've never been able to get good beet roots. The greens grow fine, but not the roots. So I think I have too much nitrogen in the fertilizer and not enough phosphorous. So I'll try to tweak my fertilizer.

I'll try cantaloupe and pumpkins again this year. I've tried them the last couple years, and I've messed them up. I've procrastinated too long and gotten them in the ground too late to get good fruit from them. This year I'll do better. Really!

Ooh, ooh, and I'll try Aunt Molly's Ground Cherries again. I tried them last year, but procrastinated too long with them, too. They grow, and produced fruit, but nothing had time to ripen. So this year I'll get them in earlier and they'll do well. I've heard so much about ground cherries that I really want to try them.

I want to try Snackjack Pumpkins this year. They have hull-less seeds, so I really want to give them a try. But Territorial doesn't offer them any longer. However, I got a catalog from the Vermont Bean Company, and they do offer them. So I think I'll get seeds from them and see how the Snackjacks grow.

Oh, and potatoes. I liked my experiment with them last year, so I'll grow them again this year. We're supposed to be able to overwinter our potatoes in the ground here, so I tried to do that with my fingerling spuds. But then we had a week of never-before-in-my-life cold weather and the ground froze much deeper than normal. The spuds I've found so far have been mushy. There may be some deeper that are still good, but the ground a couple inches deep is still frozen so I don't know what's beneath that. I'll probably have to get new seed potatoes this year. Oh well. They were easy to grow, and nice looking plants.

That ought to be enough veggies for this non-vegetable grower.

Onion Soup Mix from Mix-A-Meal Cookbook

2009-12-28T08:58:00.000-08:00

I've used the Onion Soup Mix from the Mix-A-Meal cookbook a few times, now, and I have to say that I really like it.

My favorite way to eat it is in a chip dip. And it couldn't be easier to make. Just mix 2 tsp Onion Soup Mix into 1 cup sour cream. It doesn't have a really strong flavor, but it does have a really good flavor. Of course, you could make it stronger by adding more soup mix.

I also tried using the Onion Soup Mix in the Alfredo Delight recipe from the same book. This recipe uses both the White Sauce Mix and the Onion Soup Mix. I wasn't really crazy about this recipe, but I think with some tweaking it would be really good. First, the White Sauce Mix isn't rich enough. I know, I know, people are trying to cut down on fat and stuff. But come on...I'll reduce fat in my spaghetti sauce. But there's no point in having something like Alfredo if you try to wimp it down so much it doesn't taste like Alfredo. So...more powdered milk, a probably more butter or margarine powder, in the White Sauce Mix. Or maybe, more White Sauce Mix and less water in the Alfredo Delight recipe. And I'm sorry, but Alfredo needs more than a little sprinkling of Parmesan Cheese. It needs lots of Parmesan Cheese. So next time I'm grating a bunch of it and tossing it in. That ought to make really good Alfredo sauce.

The last thing I tried with the Onion Soup Mix is baked chicken. Mix-A-Meal has a recipe for baked chicken mix, and it was OK, but it wasn't great. So this time, I just dumped some flour into a 1-gallon zip-lock bag, and added some Onion Soup Mix and some Johnny's Seasoning Salt. Then I shook the chicken pieces in that mixture, baked it for an hour at 350 degrees, and it was wonderful. Really made the house smell good, too.

So...what's the Onion Soup Mix recipe? I'll share it with you, but you should really get this book. It's only about $15.00 and it has a lot of stuff I'm not sharing with you, including several more recipes using the Onion Soup Mix. You can get it from Amazon.com.

Onion Soup Mix
2/3 cup dehydrated chopped onions
1/2 cup beef bouillon (soup base)
1/2 cup dehydrated buttor or margarine
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 tsp. onion powder
2 tsp. parsley flakes

There's a new edition of Gaia's Garden

2009-12-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

I got the first edition of Toby Hemenway's Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Homescale Permaculture several years ago, and I found it the most useful gardening book I've ever read.

I'd been trying to decide what to do with my 3 1/2 acres. I was toying with several different ideas: native garden: edible ornametals: a native forest garden, etc. But I couldn't make up my mind.

Then I got a copy of Gaia's Garden and learned that I could combine all those ideas into an easy-to-maintain (although not necessarily easty to create) garden that would be beautiful, produce food for me, and provide food and habitate for wildlife.

There are other permaculture books out there, but I found this one to be the most helpful. Mr. Hemenway was able to present the information in a way that was both interesting to read, and made me feel like I had everything I needed to get started.

I haven't seen the 2nd edition yet, but I'm excited to get a copy.

Pondering Spring Planting

2009-12-21T11:01:00.000-08:00

The One Green World 2010 catalog arrive a couple weeks ago, and I've been drooling over it, trying to decide what to plant for my food forest next year.

I don't think I'm going to plant any trees next year. I have a couple pear trees (Bartlett and Comice), a few apple trees (Gravenstein, Honeycrisp, Resi, Liberty, and Ashmead's Kernal), and 1 plum tree that's still alive (Italian Prune Plum). I've killed 4 plum trees so far--they were on the moister side of my property and I think it was too moist for them. The Italian Prune Plum is on the drier side of my property, and it's still alive. I want to plant a couple more plum trees over there, but not this year.

I also want to plant some edible Mountain Ash or Hawthorn trees, but I think I'll hold off on them for now, too. I'm leaning towards a Chinese Haw (Crataegus pinnatifida) for the Hawthorn because it has edible fruit and colorful fall foliage. But not this year.

This year I think I'll start to fill in some of the areas where I already have fruit trees. Remember, one way a food forest seeks to mimic a natural forest is by using layers. A tree canopy layer, a shrubbery layer, an herbaceous perennial layer, etc. So I think I'll work on the shrubbery layer next year. I have some fruiting shrubs (huckleberries, gooseberries, and blue berries) scattered around my property, but none in the food forest yet. So that's what I'll do this coming spring.

My fruit trees are almost all semi-dwarf trees, and they're planted about 20 feet apart. That should allow enough light for at least a couple bushes between each pair of trees, especially if they're planted off line from the trees (not on a direct line between the trees).

I'm thinking of planting Honeyberry bushes. I need to plant the late-blooming varieties, because I can get frosts until the middle of May. So I get to choose between Blue Forest, Blue Moon, Blue Pacific, Blue Velvet, and Kamchatka. They all look good. How do I choose between them?

And I think I'll add another 3-4 rhubarb plants between the bushes. I like rhubarb, and they produce big leaves that can be cut for mulching in place.

Then I'll plant a patch of wildflowers. These should bring in lots of beneficial insects while providing cut flowers for my vase. And some flowers, like yarrow, have deep roots that are good for bringing minerals from deep in the soil up to the top soil (after they die down in the fall) where they're available to other plants.

That should be good for this coming year. Of course, once the Raintree catalog comes out, I'll probably change my mind.

Brownie Mix

2009-12-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

My goal is to find or develop a brownie mix recipe that makes awesome fudgie brownies, and you need to add only water. I don't have that yet. But here's a recipe that you can add only butter and water. I modified a recipe I found on the Internet. I actually found the same recipe on several different sites, so I don't know who originated the recipe. If anyone knows who originally created the recipe, please add a comment and I'll update this post.

Brownie Mix Recipe:
Mix together
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cups cocoa powder
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3 Tbsp whole egg powder

Brownie Recipe
1 recipe brownie mix
3/4 cups softened butter ( 1 1/2 sticks)
1/4 - 1/2 cups water

Beat softened butter with 1/4 cup water until well mixed and fluffy. Add the brownie mix and mix with a spoon. You may need to add more water to make a thick batter (I needed another 1/4 cup of water). Turn into greased 13 x 9 baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Cut when cool.

For thicker brownies, back in greased 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 baking pan for 30-40 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Options:
You could make these into a health food by substituting white bean flour for some of the flour. Or at least, I tell myself that makes them a health food!

You can make several batches of mix at one time, and store them in individual 1/qt freezer bags.

You can make the mix without nuts for longer storage, then use fresh nuts.

This mix will probably store longer if kept in the refrigerator. I store my nuts in the freezer for longest storage.

I think adding some powdered milk to the recipe would make a richer brownie, but I haven't tried it yet.

My next experiment will be to replace the 3/4 cups butter with butter powder and water. But I don't have butter powder yet.

Cheese Crackers from Food Storage

2009-12-21T09:46:00.000-08:00

Last night I tried making cheese crackers from my food storage. I used the Biscuit Mix recipe from the "Mix-A-Meal" book, which is a home-made version of Bisquick. Did I mention this before? It makes really good biscuits. Well, they weren't as crispy as I'd like, but they sure taste good.

You can use Bisquick in this recipe, if you don't have home-made biscuit mix.

Recipe:
2 cups biscuit mix
1/2 cup water
seasoning salt
freeze-dried cheddar cheese

Put about 1/2 - 1 cup freeze-dried cheddar cheese in a liquid measuring cup or a bowl. Cover with water and let sit for about a minute. Drain well.

Mix the biscuit mix with water to make a dough. Pinch off about 1/4 of the dough and roll out very thin. Using a pancake turner or the rolling pin, place the rolled-out dough on a greased baking sheet. Sprinkle with seasoning salt and the moistened cheddar cheese. Use pizza cutter to cut into squares, rectangles, or diamonds.

Bake in 425-degree oven for 7 minutes. Remove and cool on wire cooling racks.

Repeat with more biscuit dough.

I tried using the cheddar cheese without moistening it, and it just baked into hard little chunks. They tasted good, but didn't stick to the crackers. I didn't want to thoroughly reconstitute them because I wanted them to be dried after baking. But moistening them for about a minute seemed to work well. You can see from the picture that they melted and stuck to the crackers. And they were nice and dry.

You can sprinkle with herbs rather than cheese and seasoning salt. I made some by sprinkling with Mrs. Dash, but I wasn't crazy about them.

I also tried sprinkling some cinnamon and sugar, but I wasn't crazy about them, either. Too bad.

Obviously, you can be as adventurous as you want and try sprinkling anything you want. Or maybe add something to the dough itself. Crumbled bacon comes to mind. Oh the possibilities!

I used 1/2 whole wheat flour when I made the biscuit mix (a big advantage of making your own):
1 1/8 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
5 Tbsp dehydrated shortening
3 Tbsp powdered buttermilk
2 Tbsp whole egg powder
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp baking soda

I think replacing some of the flour with white bean flour would be awesome. It would add protein and fiber to the biscuit mix. But I ran out. I better order some more soon. BTW, I've used the white bean flour in cookies. The dough has a slight uncooked-bean flavor, but it goes away in the cookies. So white bean flour is great to add to lots of baked items to make them more nutritious. I get mine from Bob's Red Mill (see the link at the right side of the blog).

Welcome Delta69Alpha and BustedNuckles

2009-12-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited. I logged on today and I have two followers. Thank you so much Delta69Alpha and BustedNuckles. I hope you find something here that's interesting or helpful.

Sorry I've been neglecting the blog

2009-12-21T09:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted the last couple months. I've been busy with financial stuff. But I'm back now and have a couple posts for today.

Mountain House Freeze Dried Food on Sale at Emergency Essentials

2009-10-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

I got an e-mail from Emergency Essentials (http://www.beprepared.com/). They're having a 25% off sale on all Mountain House meals in #10 cans.

According to the e-mail, the Chicken A La King & Noodles is $26.62 (it's normally $35.49). Their Turkey Tetrazzini is $26.99 (it's usually $35.99). I've had both of these in the 2-person pouches, and they were very good. There are similar price savings on the other meals.

The sale goes from Oct. 16th through the 30th. So if you've been thinking of stocking up on MH meals, now might be a good time. You might also want to add your e-mail address to their e-mail list so you can get these notices, too.

Now I have to go check my budget to see whether I can squeeze in a couple more cans of food this month.

This Month's Food Storage Purchase

2009-10-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

I'm late reporting on my food storage purchase for this month. It's a tight month financially, so my purchase was smaller than normal. I got a #10 can of Provident Pantry (R) Freeze Dried Banana Slices, a #10 can of Mountain House (R) Freeze Dried Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, and a #10 can of Scrambled Egg Mix.

I've gone though 1 can of the Scrambled Egg Mix already, so I know I'll eat this. I know I like the scrambled eggs. But one of these days I'm going to have to try making french bread with it. And it should also be good for dipping sliced green tomatoes into before dredging them in the seasoned flour I use when I make fried green tomatoes. I've been eating lots of those lately.

The freeze-dried bananas are very good. They have a nice, crispy crunch. And they taste just like bananas (who would have thought?). I'm sure I could re-hydrate them and make an excellent banana cream pie. And they would be good to take on a bike ride--they wouldn't squish like fresh bananas. Personally, I like the freeze-dried peaches better, but that's because I like peaches better. Firenzi also gives his stamp of approval.

I've eaten a lot of Mountain House Freeze Dried Spaghetti with Meat Sauce the last three winters when the power's been out for days. OK, it isn't as good as fresh-made spaghetti. But it's still very good. And it's easier to fix. I've always had it in the 2-person pouch before, so it's nice to get it in the #10 can so I can re-hydrate just as much as I want**.

I scooped some of the spaghetti into quart-size freezer bags and wrote directions on the bag for re-hydrating. I'll be able to re-hydrate them just like a freezer-bag meal: dump in the almost-boiling water, put in a cozy for 10 minutes, and supper's ready! These are going into my BOB. I'll get some MREs for my BOB, too. It's nice to have a variety of things. And I'll put a couple bags of spaghetti in my desk at work for those days when I forget to bring a lunch (it happens occasionally). A bag of freeze-dried spaghetti will be cheaper than going to Subway for a sandwich. And I won't be hungry a half hour later. Hmmm, I wonder whether I could make some homemade texas toast and dehydrate it. It would be good with the spaghetti.

Oh, I almost forgot. The last thing I got this month is a metallized liner, like for using in food-storage buckets. You can seal these with an iron (you know...for ironing clothes, which almost no one does any more). I thought I could cut it up and make individual packets of seasonings for freezer-bag meals. You can put the seasonings into a zip-lock snack bag, but that seems like overkill for, say, a tablespoon of Mrs. Dash and a teaspoon of Johnny's Seasoning Salt. If I make packets out of the metallized liners, I can then seal them with my iron. It should work.

**The web page says that after you open the #10 can of the Mountain House freeze-dried meals, you should eat it within a couple weeks. I could never understand that. Most freeze-dried foods last longer than that if you seal them back up again. It prevented me from bying MH freeze-dried foods in a can, because I knew I wouldn't be able to eat the whole can in a couple weeks. So I e-mailed Emergency Essentials and asked them why the MH food would last only a couple weeks. They said that estimate was based on the assumption that someone was taking the food hiking, so it would be in a backpack in the blazing sun and subject to moisture. They said it should last as long as any other freeze-dried food if stored properly in a cool dark place. So that's really good to know.

Another Way to Store Cheese

2009-10-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

While browsing around the web the other day I discovered that there's another way to store cheese. You can buy big chunks of cheese and cut it up into portions that you'd use in a couple days. Then you can dip it in melted cheese wax (or brush on the cheese wax) and store it in a reasonably cool place.

The wax seals the surface so it won't get moldy.

You do this with the hard cheeses: cheddar, parmesan, etc. Soft cheese has too much water and might go bad.

You can get cheese wax on the Internet. Just Google "cheese wax" and you'll be amazed what you find.

Here's a website that tells you more about waxing cheese:
http://www.lacarte.org/calamity/projects/cheese/index.html

There are other websites that talk about how to do it. Again, just Google "cheese wax".

Pretty cool, huh?

Quesadillas made with Freeze Dried Cheddar Cheese

2009-10-16T19:16:00.000-07:00

This morning I made a quesadilla with my freeze-dried cheddar cheese, and it was really good.

Here's how I did it:

First, I measured out 1/2 cup freeze-dried cheddar cheese. I put it in a 2-cup measuring cup, covered it with warm water, and set it to soak for 5 minutes.

Then I heated my griddle. It goes over two burners on my stove, so I have room to cook 2 tortillas at the same time. I lightly oiled the griddle and put on the 2 tortillas.

When the timer went off I drained the cheddar cheese and left it draining until I needed it.

The half of the griddle that sits on the big burner always gets hotter than the half that sits on the little burner. But that's good because the tortilla on that half of the griddle cooks faster.

When the tortilla over the big burner started to get brown, I turned it over and plopped the drained cheese on it. I spread the cheese evenly over the tortilla, to within 1/2 inch of the edges.

By then the other tortilla was ready, so I put it over the cheese, cooked side towards the cheese.

By the time that was done, the bottom of the first tortilla was ready, and the cheese was partly melted--enough to stick to the top tortilla--so I turned the quesadilla over.

I let it sit for a minute or so until the bottom was brown, then took it off the griddle. Let cool for a minute, then cut into six pieces with a pizza cutter.

That's it. Easy peasy quesadilla with freeze-dried cheddar cheese.

Adding to Prepper Blogs

2009-10-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

I just went to Prepper Blogs (http://www.prepperblogs.com/) and added Food Storage in Vernonia. We're now listed in the "Homesteading and Sustainable Living" section. Yeah us!

Do you know about the "Preppers" blogs? There's an American Preppers Network, and Canadian Preppers, and lots of State Preppers (including Oregon Preppers Network (http://oregonpreppersnetwork.blogspot.com/) . And Prepper Blogs is a place you can go to find all the links to them, and to other people's preparedness blogs.

So if you're looking for more information on food storage and other preparedness topic, check them out.

Whole Egg Powder for Breakfast

2009-10-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

I found a way to use the Whole Egg Powder with my Hash Brown Potatoes for breakfast. Instead of making scrambled eggs with the Whole Egg Powder, I mixed it with water and just dumped it over the top of the hash browns about 30 seconds before they were done cooking. Then stirred it in to cook.

I reconstituted some dehydrated onion and freeze-dried green peppers and celery along with the hash browns, so I had some veggies in there too.

I really liked it.

Food Storage Spaghetti

2009-10-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll admit it. The hamburger wasn't from my food storage. I could have used freeze-dried hamburger, or home-dehydrated hamburger. But I thawed some hamburger I had in the freezer. So this isn't entirely food-storage spaghetti.

Before crumbling and cooking the hamburger, I set about 1/2 cup mixed freeze-dried green peppers, freeze-dried celery, and dehydrated onion to soaking. I browned and crumbled the hamburger (seasoned with 3-4 shakes of Johnny's Seasoning Salt) and dumped in the soaked veggies. Then I added 4 cups of water, 1 cup tomato powder, and 1/2 cup Spaghetti Seasoning (from Emergency Essentials). As I whisked in the tomato powder, the sauce thickened more than I wanted, so I dumped in more water until I liked the consistency--about 1/2 cup. I simmered for 15 minutes, and it was done.

I really liked the spaghetti. OK, it wasn't Preggo, but it was tasty. I didn't notice that acidy taste I've found when using tomato powder before, so either the cooking or the seasonings got rid of it.

I just dumped the tomato powder right into the water in the pan. It seemed to dissolve fine, with no clumping. I just whisked it in with a wire whisk.

The label on the tomato powder can says to mix a 2:1 ratio of water and powder for tomato sauce. But remember that when you use tomato sauce from a can, you also add water. So you really need a 4:1 or so ratio of water to tomato powder for your spaghetti sauce.

It's nice to know that if I have to eat entirely from my food storage I can still have tasty spaghetti. It'll be even better once I get some food-storage hamburger.

Rolled Oats

2009-09-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

This morning I tried the Provident Pantry Rolled Oats I got from Emergency Essentials, and I have to admit that I don't like them as much as those from Quaker Oats. It's entirely possible that I simply prefer the Quaker Oats rolled oats more because that's what I'm used to.

The ones from EE look like they weren't rolled as much as the ones from QO; the kernals are smaller and thicker. It takes a little longer to cook them. And the resulting cereal consists of more discreet kernals with runnier fluid. The QO oats cook up with more oat goo between the kernals There is nothing wrong with the EE oats; I just prefer the QO rolled oats, or the rolled oats in the bulk bin at Fred Meyer (which are more like the QO oats).

So now I wonder whether the QO rolled oats will store well in re-used #10 cans with the plastic lids. I doubt that they'd store as well as the EE ones sealed in the #10 cans. But I'd think they will last at least for a year, especially if I fill the can right up to the top and put plastic wrap over the oats.

Maybe I ought to fill up a can with QO rolled oats and put it away for a year. Then I can see how they are after the year.

Scrambled Egg Mix Better Than Whole Egg Powder For Scrambled Eggs

2009-09-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

I ran out of the Scrambled Egg Mix. Well, it has 36 servings in the can, and I've eaten it almost every day for over a month, so it isn't a surprise.

This morning I decided to try making scrambled eggs out of Whole Egg Powder. So I added some Buttermilk Powder and a little Margarine Powder to some Whole Egg Powder. I mixed the powders together, then whisked in some water.

Scrambled eggs made from Whole Egg Powder just aren't as good as those made from Scrambled Egg Mix. First, the mixed powders didn't fluff up when I whisked in the water like the Scrambled Egg Mix does. Also, the scrambled eggs tasted kind of watery. They had a lot less flavor than scrambled eggs made with Scrambled Egg Mix.

So from now on I'll keep the Whole Egg Powder for baking and use Scrambled Egg Mix for making scrambled eggs.

My Pocket Bread Saga

2009-09-21T00:20:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I tried to make pocket bread from the hot roll mix recipe in the Mix-A-Meal book. I got round flat breads that were very tasty. They were thick enough that I could slice a pocket into them with a small knife. But they didn't form a pocket on their own.

So I got on the Internet to read about making pocket bread. I just did a Google search and visited several of the websites. I read that you need to roll the dough very thin, and bake it in a very hot oven: 500 F.

So today I tried again. I made the dough and let it raise for an hour. Then I formed the dough into 6 balls and rolled them out and baked then in a 500F oven for 2 1/2 minutes each. The first 5 breads sorta bubbled up. There were air bubbles that formed small pockets, but the whole thing didn't pocket up.

The bubbles seemed to form mostly around the edges. I thought maybe I was rolling the dough thicker at the edges, so I rolled the last one a little thicker. And it pocketed up!

Doesn't that look beautiful? I don't know whether it worked because I rolled it thicker, or whether I just got lucky. But I was glad that one of them puffed up properly. The others are tasty with just butter on them. They are, after all, still homemade bread, and that's always good!

Here's the recipe I used for the hot roll mix. I'll admit, I modified it from what was in the book. I used whole wheat flour, plus some white bean flour for the fiber and protein. And I added some dough enhancer and vital wheat gluten.

2 2/3 cups wheat flour

2/3 cup white bean flour

1/3 cup dehydrated margarine

1/4 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon powdered milk

1 Tablespoon dough enhancer

1 Tablespoon vital wheat gluten

2 teaspoons salt

To make the dough, I just used 2 cups of the hot roll mix, 1/2 Tablespoon SAF yeast, and 3/4 cups warm water. After mixing the dough, I let it raise for an hour, then kneed for a few minutes, then pinch off 6 balls of dough. Roll each ball out until it's about 1/16 inch thick. Bake in 500F oven for 2 1/2 minutes.

My Pantry

2009-09-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd post some pictures of my pantry. This isn't my food storage area; I don't have a food storage area yet. But this is some of the food storage in my pantry.

The room is a snuggy 4' X 4'. It has 4' long shelves on one wall, 3' long shelves on another wall, and some items hanging on what's left of the other two walls. The door cuts off one corner of the room so it isn't quite square.

I made the shelves using the metal brackets you can get at Home Depot or Lowe's. You screw the brackets to the wall, then attach the shelf supports to the brackets, then lay the shelves on the shelf supports. I also screw the shelves to the shelf supports, so they won't tip up if I set somthing heavy on one side of a shelf.

This first picture is of the upper shelves on the 4' wall. You can see several #10 cans of food, plus some spices and some other things. The glass jars on the top shelf next to the dehydrator contain some freeze dried shredded cheddar cheese and freeze dried peach slices. Although it's best to store food in the dark, I feel OK using these glass jars since the light is normally turned off in that room, and since food isn't stored in them for long. I refill the jars from the cans periodically.

You can also see that I took some advice from one of the other food-storage blogs and put all my small baking items in a plastic box. So when I make cookies or something, I can just pull out that box rather than all the small containers of salt, baking soda, vanilla, etc.

One other thing I'd like to mention is the boxes of Farm House Rice Pilaf on the shelf. I wouldn't store boxes like these in my long-term food storage area. They are just too easy for pests to get in to. In fact, I usually put them in plastic boxes in my pantry, but my plastic boxes are all full right now, so I left them out.

The second picture is the lower shelves and floor space on the same wall as the first picture. You can see some of the plastic boxes I keep small food items in, and some of my soapmaking supplies. And you may notice an Emergency Essentials box that contains a 5-gallon mylar bag of water.

The next picture is of the top shelves of the wall of 3' shelves. The top shelf has a re-used #10 can that I put pre-measured packages of home-made brownie mix in. You can also see some clear-plastic containers with freeze dried strawberry slices and broccoli. Eventually, I'll keep the #10 cans in the food-storage area and re-fill these containers from them. That'll save a lot of room in this pantry.

And finally, the last picture shows the bottom 3' shelves. You can see that the food items are starting to encroach on this space, which was once all bowls and other kitchen items. I don't know whether you can make out the white label on the can on the bottom shelf. It's the graham-cracker-crust mix I made last weekend. You can also see the jars of peaches my brother canned (thanks Dan!).

So that's it for my pantry. As you can see, I'm going to be needing that food-storage area in the back bedroom soon.

Freeze Dried Peach Slices are Awesome!

2009-09-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

The Freeze Dried Peach Slices I got from EE (Emergency Essentials) arrived this morning (they'd been back-ordered). Well, I had to try them.

They aren't exactly as I expected. I thought the slices would be skinny, like what I made when I dehydrated some canned peach slices last year. But these were nice and chunky, like you'd find in canned peach slices.

Don't they look good? And they taste great, and they're crunchy. Firenzi loves them, too.

Freeze-Dried Cheddar Cheese is Awesome Right Out of the Can

2009-09-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

It has the full cheddar-cheese flavor. And it's a little crunchy. I think I'll like eating it as a snack. And it would probably be good in trail mix.

This Month's Emergency Essentials Order

2009-09-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

This month I spent quite a bit more on my food storage than I have been spending. I've been spending about $100 a month. This month I spent a little over $200. I justify that with two arguments: I'm eating my food storage now, so it reduces what I spend at the grocery store; I purchased several items that I'll use with other items to make them more useful, and save money in the long run.

I got two cans each of dehydrated hashbrowns and sliced potatoes. I polished off the hashbrowns and sliced potatoes I bought earlier, so I needed more. Since I've been making breakfast at home with the Scrambled Egg Mix and either potatoes or biscuits, I haven't felt the need to drive through Micky D's on the way to work. So that's a savings right there!

I got one can each of shortening powder, margarine powder, and instant nonfat dry milk, along with dough enhancer and SAF instant yeast. From these items, together with flour and other baking items I got from the grocery store, I can make mixes for baked goods. By making my own baked goods, and my own mixes for the baked goods, I can save a lot of money, as well as being prepared for power outages (or whatever).

I ordered a can of Original Flavor Swiss Whey D'Lite Drink. It has less lactose than milk (too much lactose being a problem for me). But now I don't see any Swiss Whey D'Lite flavor on the Emergency Essentials website. It looks like they've replaced it with several flavors of Creamy Select Drink Mix, which is lactose free. Maybe I got the last can!

I got a pound each of spaghetti and taco seasoning, and the spice bottles to put them in. I'm particularly looking forward to using the spaghetti seasoning with the tomato powder I got awhile ago, to make spaghetti sauce.

One thing I like about the spice bottles is that they come with a press-n-seal seal. You fill the bottle, put on the seal, and securely screw down the cap. Then the bottle is sealed until you use it. I expect each 1-lb bag of seasoning to fill four 8-oz spice bottles. So while I'm using one bottle, the other three are still seal. It should keep them fresher than using a bigger bottle.

This is going to sound weird, because oatmeal is so cheap at the grocery store. But I got a can of it. And I'll get more cans as time goes on. Why? Because the stuff you get at the grocery store is in cardboard containers, which aren't good for long-term storage. A whole host of pests can get into cardboard containers.

And I got a can of freeze-dried shredded cheddar cheese. It's pricey at $44.95. But I think it will be worth it in the long run. I like cheese, but I waste a lot of it when I buy a bag and don't use it all before it gets moldy. This way, I'll just rehydrate what I need at one time and the rest won't go to waste. I'll be able to make quesadillas with re-hydrated cheese and home-made tortillas (with the tortilla mix from "Mix-a-Meal").

And I got a few things to start on my BOB (Bug Out Bag). No, this isn't for getting out of town if something bad happens. I actually intend to stay home in most scenarios. This is so I can get home from work or somewhere else, if something bad happens while I'm away from home.

For my BOB, I got a couple of 32-oz water bottles (I already have a couple water bottles in the bag, and some Aqua Blox). I got some Katadyn Micropur Purification tablets, and one of those reflective emergency sleeping bags. I don't expect to rely on that flimsy bag, but it might be handy to use along with my sleeping bag.

And that's it for this month. I'll let you know how I like the stuff I bought as I use it.

I Have Plums!

2009-09-07T22:39:00.000-07:00

Well, OK, there were only 6 of them, but they're my first 6 plums, so I'm excited. I should tell you that I've killed 3 plum trees before they could produce fruit. I don't know what the problem is. They do fine for 2-3 years, they they start wilting and just die. Grrrr!

But I have 2 plum trees that are 7 years old. They were given to me as seedlings by a neighbor when I first moved into my house (actually, she gave me several seedlings, but these are the only 2 to survive). They just sprouted in her garden, apparently from seeds from plums that fell from her trees. So there's no telling what their parentage is. You know, trees from random crosses of named varieties are usually inferior trees producing inferior fruit. So I wasn't really expecting anything--not even when one of the trees flowered for the first time this spring.

But today I was out by the trees picking blackberries and I noticed that there were some plums on one of the trees, way up high where the deer can't get them. I was shocked! So I got a step-ladder and picked the plums. They were wonderful! They taste just like Italian Prune Plums, which are my absolute favorite. Italian Prune Plums are self-fruitful, so maybe that is what they are.

Now I'm really looking forward to plums next year!

Re-hydrated Dehydrated Mac and Cheese

2009-09-07T22:15:00.000-07:00

I had a problem I needed to solve: how to take a single serving of Kraft Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese to work for lunch, and have it taste fresh. You might think that I could just cook some of the macaroni at work, and put the cheese goop on it. But we don't have a stove at work, only a microwave. And microwaved macaroni isn't very good. Besides, I can't make it without it boiling over in the microwave, and that's a mess to clean up. And I didn't want to make it at home and bring it to work to heat up, because then it's like rubber.

So it finally hit me. Cook the macaroni, then dehydrate it. You can re-hydrate just the amount you want in the microwave. Then you can put the cheese goop on it (I use part of the goop package at once, putting the rest in the fridge).

So Friday night I tried it, and it worked really well. I cooked up the macaroni for three packages of Kraft Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese, as usual. It seemed like I was overloading the dehydrator, but it worked out fine. I dehydrated it for a couple hours, then turned off the dehydrator and "fluffed up" the partially-dehydrated macaroni. By that, I mean that on each tray I mixed together the pieces that were getting dry fast with the pieces that were getting dry more slowly, breaking apart the pieces that were stuck together. I did it again a couple hours later. Then I left it on to run while I went to bed. When I got up on Saturday, I had dried macaroni.

Dried cooked macaroni looks almost like dry uncooked macaroni, but a little flatter. Most people probably wouldn't notice the difference.

The 3 packages of macaroni filled up a 1-gallon freezer bag a little over half way.

I shook out enough to make a bowl of mac-and-cheese tonight and started it to boil on the stove. Once the water came to a boil, the macaroni took only 1 or 2 minutes to rehydrate. Way faster than cooking it from the package! Then I mushed out some of the cheese goop and stirred it into the re-hydrated macaroni. I had dinner in less than 5 minutes. The only difference when I do this at work is that I'll re-hydrate the macaroni in the microwave rather than on the stove-top.

It's going to be nice to have good macaroni for lunch. It'll also be fast and easy to cook when the power goes out.

Book Review: Mix-A-Meal Cookbook

2009-09-04T14:44:00.000-07:00

Mixes and Recipes by Deanna Bean & Lorna Shute. Old Fashioned Taste...New Modern Mixes.

That sounds intriguing, doesn't it?

This is a mix cookbook for mixes using food storage items. It's exactly what I was looking for. And it does not disappoint.

Most of the recipes are for some form of baking, so it doesn't have all the dinner recipies that Make-A-Mix has. But there's a mix for just about anything you'd want to bake.

I like the way the book is organized. It has sections for Basic Mixes, Sauces and Spice Mixes, Instant Meals (so there are some dinner recipes), and Easy Fun Dessert Mixes. Each section has several mix recipes. Each mix recipe is followed by a mini-mix recipe (for testing) and the recipes that use that mix. So you don't have to keep paging back and forth between mix recipe and final recipe.

Here's a list of mix recipes in the Basic Mixes section: Biscuit Mix, Chicken baking Mix, Cornbread Mix, Homemad Bread Mix, Hot Roll Mix, Instant Potato Mix, Maple Syrup Mix, Muffin Mix, Onion Soup Mix, Pancake and Waffle Mix, Potato Coating Mix, Stuffing Mix, and Tortilla Mix.

Although some mix recipes are followed by only 1 or 2 recipes, some have a lot of recipes. Look what you can make from the Biscuit Mix: drop biscuits, rolled biscuits, pot pie, pizza crust, mexican pizza, fruit breakfast pizza, crackers with several variations, cream puffs, tempura, fritters, braided dinner roll, and breakfast cake. Whew! And it's cheaper than buying Bisquick!

I am really looking forward to making the Hot Roll Mix. But my dehydrated margarine won't arrive until next Wednesday, so I'll have to wait until next weekend. I eat a lot more rolls than I do loaf bread. But also, you can make pocket bread from this mix. And all kinds of dinner rolls.

The book includes recipes for several types of fillings for the pocket bread. But I think the pockets would also be good with tuna salad, chicken salad, and other things like that. And they would be so easy to take to work: just bring a couple of pockets, a container with your filling, and a couple lettuce leaves.

There are recipes for things other than baked goods: Onion Soup Mix, White Sauce mix, and a few others. Then, of course, there are recipes for using those mixes. Several recipes use more then one mix. And sometimes one mix is used as an ingredient in another mix. The Italian Tomato Sauce recipe uses both the Italian Spice Mix and the Tomato Sauce Mix. Then the Spaghetti Supper uses the Italian Tomato Sauce and the Onion Soup Mix. And the Alfredo Delight uses the White Sauce Mix and the Onion Soup Mix. There are several recipes for various Cream Soups, although I was disappointed that none of them used White Bean Flour. Oh well.

This book is great for anyone who wants to use their food-storage items to make mixes to make their everyday cooking quicker and easier.

Book Review: Make-A-Mix

2009-09-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

The subtitle is "Over 300 Easy Recipes for Every Meal of the Day". The authors are Karine Eliason, Nevada Harward, and Madeline Westover.

This book is not geared for using food storage in the mixes--it's written for ordinary people using ordinary ingredients. So, for example, the Buttermilk Pancake & Waffle Mix recipe does not include powdered shortening or butter powder or powdered eggs (although it does include buttermilk powder).

The book includes recipes for three kinds of mixes: dry mixes, which use only dry ingredients and should keep for 6 to 8 months on the cupboard; semi-dry mixes, which use shortening, butter, or margarine (but not powdered), and will keep for 10 to 12 weeks; and freezer-refrigerator mixes, which include perishable ingredients and need to be kept in the freezer or fridge. And it includes several recipes for using each mix.

As you might expect, there are recipes for all kinds of quickbreads: biscuits, brownies, corn bread, etc.

But the freezer-refrigerator mixes include some you might not expect. Let's look at the All-Purpose Ground-Meat Mix. In contains 5 lb. lean ground beef, turkey, or chicken; 1 tablespoon salt; 2 cups chopped celery; 2 cups chopped onion; and 1 cup diced green pepper. You brown the hamburger, then add the salt and veggies. Then you cover and let it simmer until the veggies are tender. The recipe says to ladle into six 2-cup freezer containers with tight-fitting lids (but you can use whatever size makes sense for you and your family). And you freeze it (use within 3 months).

This ground-meat mix is almost identical to how I begin making spaghetti sauce (except that I don't use 5 lb. of meat). I never thought to make up a bunch of it and freeze it in portions. How clever!

The book includes several recipes using this ground-meat mix: Best-Ever Minestrone Soup, Dinner in a Pumpkin, Hearty Chowder, Saturday Stroganoff, and several others.

The book is organized with all the mixes first, divided into chapters for the dry & semi-dry mixes, freezer-refridgerator mixes, and special mixes, followed by chapters for the recipes.

There are a lot of good recipes in this book. Of course, if you have a lot of your own recipes, you could figure out how to make parts of them into mixes to make cooking them easier. But the book does that for you. And besides, every cook likes to get his or her hands on new recipes, right?

The only thing I didn't like about this book was the organization. Looking at the mixes, then looking at the recipes for what I can make with the mixes, took a lot of flipping back and forth between pages.

By the way, the brownie mix is awesome. I did find that when I made the brownies I needed to add some liquid. But the brownies are very good. And they give lots of options for topping the brownies.

All in all, this is a great book and I'm looking forward to trying more of the recipes.

Book Review: freezer bag cooking; trail food made simple

2009-08-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

Freezer bag cooking; trail food made simple by Sarah Svien Kirkconnell, is the book that got me started researching dehydrating my own foods. Mrs. Kirkconnell uses freezer bag cooking while hiking, and hikers are her intended audience. But the same idea is great for people who want to keep easy-to-fix meals on hand for short-term emergencies or power outages, or simply to have a quick, easy meal when one don't feel like cooking. I also think it would be good to keep some of these meals in a bug-out bag (B.O.B.) instead of, or in addition to, MREs or freeze-dried foods.

This book has several chapters besides the Introduction: Gear & Techniques, Breakfast, Drinks, Salads & Vegetables, Soups, Lunch, Dinner, and Desserts.

Although the book has no pictures, almost all the recipies are very easy. She includes directions for making each dish, and directions for preparing it on the trail. Most recipes use dehydrated or freeze-dried foods and single-serving packets of condiments.

Here's an easy breakfast recipe:

Trail Oatmeal

In a quart freezer bag put:
2 packets instant oatmeal, your choice of flavor
2 Tbsp dry milk, powdered soy milk or protein powder
2 Tbsp dried fruit

In camp: Add 1 cup boiling water. Stir well, put in cozy for 3 minutes. Let cool a bit and eat.

Yield: Serves 1

See how easy it is? You could easily make up several of these packages in 10 or 15 minutes, and keep them on hand.

Here's another recipe that I need to try:

Carrot Raisin Salad

In a sandwich bag put:
1/2 cup dried or freeze-dried grated carrots
1/4 cup golden raisins

Also take:
1 packet sugar or sweetener
1/4 tsp salt (take a small packet)

Carry in a leak-proof container:
1 tsp vinegar (1 packet)
1 tsp oil (1 packet)

In camp: Soak the carrots and raisins in enough cold water to cover, for 20-30 minutes (soak carrots for only half the time if they are freeze-dried). Add the dry ingredients to the liquids and shake well. Toss with the carrot mixture.

Yield: Serves 3.

The book can be purchased from Sarah's web page, where you can also find more recipes:
http://www.trailcooking.com/

Sarah's web site also has several videos showing how to cook her meals. I enjoy the videos; she has a very relaxed, friendly style.

She also sells the "cozy" she mentions in her recipe. Basically, it's a quilted bag that you put your freezer-bag meal into so it stays warm while it's hydrating.

Oh, and I highly recommend this book.

Book Reviews

2009-08-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

The reason I became interested in Food Storage is that I realized there could be times when the food in my 72-hour kit together with the food in my pantry might not be enough to see me through a disaster. I live outside a small town in Oregon's Coast Range. Our little town has been cut off from the rest of civilization 3 times in the last three years. Once from a nasty storm that knocked trees down everywhere, closing the highway in several places. Once from flooding over the highway (and in town). And once from heavy snowfall that the road crews couldn't keep up with.

So, food storage is important. But once you have food storage, how do you cook with it? I need to be able to cook delicious meals now, so I rotate through my food storage, keeping it always fresh. And I need to be able to cook delicious meals during a short-term disaster when the power is out for several days. And I need to be able to cook delicious meals during a long-term disaster when the power is out for who-knows-how-long (my goal is to have food for a year).

Fortunately, many of the books available for learning to cook with food storage are fairly inexpensive. So far, I have gone through several book dealing with such topics as freezer-bag cooking, cooking beans, cooking with food storage, and making mixes for normal use and from food-storage items.

I'll write individual book reviews of the books over time. Please remember that these reviews are simply my opinion of the books. Other people will probably find different strengths and weaknesses for each book.

Breakfast from Food Storage

2009-08-27T13:34:00.000-07:00

I used up my Dehydrated Hashbrowns a little while ago. So when my Scrambled Egg Mix* arrived, I had no hash browns to eat with the eggs.

Dehydrated Potato Slices to the rescue! The Dehydrated Potato Slices make awesome fried potatoes. I like mine crunchy, so I use a really big frying pan and really spread out the potato slices. I fry them until they're almost like potato chips. Yum!

I was anxious to try the Scrambled Egg Mix. And I wanted to make my breakfast all from food storage. So after frying up some potatoes I made Bonnie's Deluxe Food Storage Scrambled Eggs. (You can name your own dishes, too. Go ahead, it's fun. How about "Linda's Caramel Delight Brownies". Wasn't that easy?)

Here's how I made the scrambled eggs:
I took about 1/4 cup mixed (by me) freeze-dried green peppers, freeze-dried celery, and dehydrated onions**, and re-hydrated them (while the potatoes were frying). Then I re-hydrated 1/2 cup Scrambled Egg Mix in 1/2 cup water. The freeze-dried veggies re-hydrate quickly, so after only a couple minutes I drained them and sauteed them in a pan with some butter (oops, not from food storage). When they were nicely sauteed I poured in the reconstituted egg mix, and cooked just like I do "real" eggs.

The eggs were awesome with the fried potatoes. One thing, though. I noticed that if you overcook the eggs they begin to taste sorta powdery. So make sure you leave them nice and soft. I don't think you have to worry about salmonella poisoning, as I'm sure the processing would have killed any bacteria that might have been present in the eggs.

This egg mix is supposed to be good for making french toast, too. I'll have to try that next.

*The Scrambled Egg Mix ingredient list: homogenized and pasteurized blend of whole egg, non-fat milk, vegetable oil, salt. So it's pasteurized; you don't have to worry about salmonella.

**I use green peppers, celery, and onions together in a lot of my cooking. So to make things easier, I just mixed together roughly equal portions of each and put then in a plastic container in the pantry. That way when I cook, I don't have to open 3 #10 cans to get the veggies I always use together anyway. I ASSUME that it's best to use refillable air-tight containers for food that I get in #10 cans. That way I don't have to keep opening the cans and letting fresh air in. I just have to open the cans a few times when I refill the containers.

Nasturtiums

2009-08-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

Nasturtiums are one of my favorite flowers in the garden. They're beautiful, they self-seed, and you can eat both the flowers and the leaves.

I usually plant a trailing mix. The mix has flowers with one of two colors: bright orange, or bright gold with an orange splash at the base of each petal. Here's a picture of some that I planted this year. All the flowers are either that bright orange or the bright gold.

But since nasturtiums self-seed, the seedlings come up as mixtures of those two flowers bred to each other and to themselves (compliments of the bumblebees that love them), and there's a greater variety of colors.

These flowers are a result of nasties I planted three years ago, and that have self-seeded every year. Notice the softer orange of the flowers on the left. And look at the soft yellow with orange streaks in the flower below. You never get these colors out of the seeds in the seed package.

I have to admit, though, that I don't eat them. I'm not really crazy about the peppery taste.

Potato Flowers

2009-08-15T00:25:00.000-07:00

I have three varieties of potatoes growing outside, and I think they're getting ready to start harvesting. I have Carola, Russian Banana, and Yukon Gold.

They say that you can start harvesting when the plants are blooming, and my Carolas are blooming now.

They're pretty little flowers, aren't they? I actually planted these Carolas last year. But I forgot what I planted so I never harvested any potatoes. Luckily, they overwintered and started growing again this year.

It's good to know they'll overwinter, because I'll want to grow them again next year.

Making Mixes From Your Food Storage

2009-08-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

One of the things you can do to use your food storage on a day-to-day basis is to make mixes from it. Having a nice supply of mixes can make your cooking faster and easier (I'm all about fast and easy cooking--as long as it's good!). And it's cheaper to make your own than to buy them at the store.

To that end, the last time I was at the book store, I picked up a copy of Make-A-Mix, Over 300 Easy Recipes for Every Meal of the Day, by Karine Eliason, Nevada Harward, and Madeline Westover.

So tonight I decided to try making my first mix. I made a half recipe of their Brownie Mix, only I substituted white whole wheat flour for half of the all-purpose flour (so I can tell myself the brownies are a health food). Then, since the brownie and chocolate cookie recipe both call for 2-1/4 cups of the mix, I measured that much out into each of 3 quart-sized freezer bags. I had a little bit left in the bowl when done, so I mixed it with water and ate it. Yum!

I put the bags of mix into a #10 can (I finally polished off my dehydrated hash browns, so I used that can). Next, I made a label to fit the can. I used a full-page label from Avery, cut to fit the can. It didn't go all the way around, but that's OK. On the label, I added the recipes for the brownies and cookies I was interested in making, including the topping options. Then I added the ingredients in the mix. And finally I added the expiration date. The label looks awfully utilitarian, though. I need to add some pictures or something next time.

Once I get powdered eggs and shortening powder added to my pantry, I can add those to mixes and make them even easier to use.

The book also contains a baking mix recipe, similar to Bisquik, but I didn't make that because I have some Bisquik in the pantry. Might as well try that mix when I've used up the Bisquik.

The book also has a recipe for a Snack Cake Mix, and the recipe for several snack cakes you can make from it. The Applesauce Snack Cake sounds good, and I was thinking it might make a nice Christmas gift. Start with a nice jar, than add the Snack Cake Mix. Then add the dry ingredients for the Applesauce Snack Cake, including powdered egg and freeze-dried applesauce. It might be best to put the applesauce into a separate packet. Then it can be rehydrated, adding a little extra water for the egg (which will be mixed in with the mix).

Actually, I think my brother might like a #10 can full of brownie mix for Christmas, too.

Anyway, if you're at all interested in making mixes for yourself or for gifts, this is a good book. There are several others on the market. I went to amazon.com yesterday and oggled them all. I finally ordered a copy of Mix-A-Meal Cookbook. It sounds like it's geared more toward using food storage, so it should be even easier than Make-A-Mix.

ShelfReliance Sale Items

2009-08-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

Since I posted about the Emergency Essentials sale items, I thought I'd check out the sale items at ShelfReliance. Wow! They have a ton of stuff on sale. Some items you can get individually, but some you have to buy by the case (six cans) to get the special price. Here are some of the things they have on sale:

Apple Drink
Whole Wheat Flour (6 cans)
Potato Chunks (6 cans)
White Flour (6 cans)
Apple Slices
9-Grain Cracked Cereal
Freeze-Dried Chopped Onions
Freeze-Dried Strawberries (6 cans)
Powdered Milk

Emergency Essentials August specials

2009-08-05T23:17:00.000-07:00

I've received my August catalog for Emergency Essentials, and I thought I'd post about this month's specials.

Their Scrambled Egg Mix is on sale for $18.99; it's usually $33.95
Their Freeze Dried Scrambled Eggs is on sale for $25.99; it's usually $30.95
Whole Eggs powder is on sale for $17.99; it's usually $27.95
Powdered Egg Whites is on sale for $22.99; it's usually $44.95
Freeze-Dried Green Bell Peppers is on sale for $12.99; it's usually $19.95
Freeze-Dried Peach Slices is on sale for $16.99; it's usually $21.95
Freeze-Dried Neapolitan Ice Cream Slices is on sale for $18.99; it's usually $31.20 (except the web site says it's usually $19.95, so I'm not sure which is correct.
Freeze-Dried Ice Cream Sandwiches is on sale for $20.99; it's usually $31.20 (except the web site says it's usually $21.95, so again I'm not sure which is correct.
Their new 925 All-American Pressure Cooker/Canner is on sale for $279.99; it's MSRP is $384.00

Since I'd been planning on buying most of these items either this month or next month, I bought mostly sale items this month (saving myself $37.00).

I'm really looking forward to trying the Whole Egg Powder in my baking. I usually eat the eggs in my fridge, so I'm often out of eggs when I get a hankering to bake on a Sunday night. Also, once I get some Shortening Powder and can make my own pancake/biscuit mix, and other mixes.

Dehydrated Hashbrown Potatoes review

2009-07-15T17:54:00.000-07:00

I made hashbrowns from the dehydrated hashbrown potatoes I got from Emergency Essentials, and I couldn't have been happier with them.

They were super easy to make. I just measured out the potatoes and put them into boiling water with a little bit of salt. I let them boil until tender, only a minute or two. Then I drained them and put them in a frying pan to fry while I cooked my eggs. This was so much easier than parboiling potatoes, grating them, then frying them.

The hashbrowns were very tasty. I couldn't tell the difference between them and hashbrowns cooked directly from potatoes.

These potatoes would be great in a casserole or breakfast skillet (like they serve at Sharri's).

In short, I highly recommend these to anyone who likes hashbrowns.

My wood-burning stove

2009-07-10T23:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of my wood-burning stove, when it was first installed.

This is the stove I cooked on when the power was out.

The grill-looking thing on top is supposed to direct warm air out into the room. I'm not sure it works as advertised. And it takes up room that could have been used for cooking. I think it was a waste. But over all I'm very happy with the stove. It really puts out the heat!

Pictures from the December 2008 snow event

2009-07-10T23:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of the road outside my house.

And here's a picture of my truck covered in snow.

Why I have a link to TrailCooking.com

2009-07-10T22:44:00.000-07:00

You may be wondering why I include a link to www.trailcooking.com. After all, it's a blog/website devoted to freezer-bag cooking, for campers and hikers, not food storage.

Well, it was the freezer-bag cooking that got me interested in dehydrating my own foods, and creating freezer-bag meals for my 72-hour emergency kit (now my 2-week emergency kit).

You see, I've had to delve into my 72-hour kit each December for the last three years, and it was getting pricey to keep replenishing it with freeze-dried meals (although they were very good). At the time I found the website, it was called Freezer-bag Cooking, but is now TrailCooking.com.

What were the emergencies we've had the last 3 Decembers?

December 2006 we had a heck of a wind storm that knocked out power to our area, and was followed by several days of very cold weather. The night-time temps were in the teens, and the daytime temps weren't a lot warmer. My power was out for 3 days. I spent that time feeding wood into the wood-burning stove, and cooking over sterno. So I used my freeze-dried food because it was quicker to cook than "real" food.

December 2007 our town flooded. I don't live in town, and my house didn't flood. But the power company's substation is in town, and it flooded and the power went out for days. Although my house wasn't flooded, all the roads into and out of the area were flooded, and I couldn't go anywhere. The road into town was flooded, so I couldn't get in to the local grocery store, but that was flooded, too, so it didn't matter that I couldn't get to it. Again, I heated the house with the wood-burning stove and cooked my freeze-dried meals with sterno.

December 2008 we had a massive--for us--snowstorm. We got snow almost every day for 2 weeks. At one time I had 17 inches of snow in my front yard. Now, there are lots of people who live in places where this is nothing. But we just don't get that much snow and we aren't prepared for it. We don't have the resources to deal with it. Our local police were being driven around by the National Guard in their Hummers. They said it was the only way they could get around. The power was out at my house for a couple days, then it came on for a couple days, then it was out for a couple days, then it came on for a couple days, then it went out again. Again, I heated the house with wood, and cooked my freeze-dried meals on sterno. But I was also melting snow in pots on the wood stove and realized that I could get water up to boiling. So I started cooking oatmeal on the wood stove. But I still went though all my freeze-dried food. Again.

So I started looking for an alternative to freeze-dried food. Something that would still be quick to fix, taste good, but be cheaper. That's how I found Freezer-bag Cooking. I've learned a lot from Sarah's website, and from there learned more about dehydrating foods.

I've cooked and dehydrated beans, brown rice, vegetables, and Farm House Rice Pilaf--a packaged rice and seasonings item similar to Rice-a-Roni but without the Roni. The nice thing about having the food cooked and dehydrated is that I can rehydrate exactly as much as I need at any one time, so no food goes to waste. And I can rehydrate using Sarah's techniques from Freezer-bag Cooking, so it's quick and easy.

First attempt at Potato Casserole

2009-07-10T22:14:00.000-07:00

Although I received my Emergency Essentials order a week ago, I didn't get a change to experiment with the potato casserole I've been thinking of until Wednesday night. Here's what I did.

I put 2 cups of dehydrated potato slices into a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Then I added 1 cup of freeze-dried broccoli, 1/4 cup bacon flavored TVP, and 3 Tbsp cheese blend powder shaken up with 1 cup of water. And I sprinkled in a little salt and put the dish, covered, into a 35o-degree oven for 40 minutes.

When I looked at it, the food was all rehydrated and tender, but the sauce was watery. So I added 1 Tbs white bean flour, shaken in a little water, and put back into the oven for 4 minutes (the bean flour needs to cook for 3 minutes). It thickened up the sauce nicely.

So...what did it taste like? Well, it was good, but a little tasteless. I should have added more salt, and probably more cheese blend powder. Next time, I might add some onions, too, and maybe some chicken broth. But it was good. The potatoes and broccoli were very good--I couldn't tell they'd been dried and rehydrated.

The bacon-flavored TVP was interesting. I put it in at the beginning, and was a little concerned it'd be soggy. In fact, it looked and tasted more like little bits of ham than bacon. That's fine, ham is good with potatoes, broccoli, and cheese. Next time, I might try saving it 'til the end and sprinkling it on top.

All in all, it was a good experiment. I had it for dinner Wednesday, for lunch on Thursday, and I'll finish it tonight.

Shelf Reliance

2009-07-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

After Shelf Reliance posted a comment to my last post, I had to go check out their website, http://www.shelfreliance.com/. Like Emergency Essentials, they have food in #10 cans, recipes, and other survival products, as well as several informative articles. But they had some other things, too, that are really cool.

http://www.shelfreliance.com/ sells food storage shelves that look really awesome. They look fully customizable. They have units that are designed to make it easy to put your new purchases behind the older ones, so you use the oldest ones first. They work like a pop-can dispenser in the refrigerator, in that you put the cans in at the top, and they roll around to the bottom where you take them out. It looks like they have sizes for #10 cans, #2 cans, and for tuna-sized cans. And they have shelf units that pull out so you can easily see what you have stored in the back. I REALLY want these shelves, so I'll have to save up for them.

http://www.shelfreliance.com/ also has a food storage purchasing program called Thrive Q. It helps you set up a plan: how much of which kinds of food to purchase, how much to spend per month, and when to send the monthly shipments. It looks great. You can adjust your plan at any time, suspend it for a month if you need to, anything you want.

I haven't purchased anything from shelf reliance yet. But I intent to in the future.

I believe it's important to get survival and food storage information from several different sources, and http://www.shelfreliance.com/ is one of the sources I'll use from now on.

My Second Order from Emergency Essentials

2009-07-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

I placed my second order from Emergency Essentials last night.

My strategy for increasing my food storage is to buy a few things every month (more than I eat), and learn to cook with them as I get them. This should gradually increase the amount of food I have stored as well my proficiency in cooking with it.

This time I ordered a can each of freeze-dried hash brown potatoes, sliced potatoes, broccoli, and sliced strawberries. I also ordered a pound each of powdered chicken-flavored broth and onion powder. And I got some more seasoning jars and a book on cooking with home storage.

I'm looking forward to using the sliced potatoes and broccoli to make a casserole with the bacon-flavored TVP and cheese powder I got last time. And I can use the hash brown potatoes to make quick and easy hash browns to go with my scrambled eggs with bacon-flavored TVP and dehydrated veggies.

I'll use the seasoning jars for the broth and onion powders. I already have carrot and tomato powders in the seasoning jars I got last time. And I plan to make celery powder out of dehydrated celery, and some other powders, too. So I need lots of jars.

Now I'm going to have to organize my pantry so I have room for all this food!

Review of Provident Pantry's Bacon Flavored TVP

2009-07-01T01:11:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure what to expect when I opened the can of Provident Pantry's Bacon Flavored Textured Vegetable Protein. The pieces were little nuggets about the size of Rice Krispies. The flavor wasn't exactly like bacon, and was somewhat overpowering when I sniffed the can (well, it was a big can!).

One of my favorite breakfasts is scrambled eggs with chopped bacon, onions, green peppers, and celery, along with homemade biscuits with butter and honey. Hmmm. I'm making myself hungry.

So I decided to try making the eggs with the Bacon Flavored TVP, and dried onions and celery. And it turned out pretty darn good. OK, not as good as if I'd used real bacon and fresh veggies. But it was certainly a good substitute for when I don't have the fresh ingredients on hand.

Next I want to try making a potato, bacon, broccoli casserole with dehydrated potatoes, freeze-dried broccoli, and the Bacon Flavored TVP. But I'll have to wait for me next order from Emergency Essentials to arrive.

Review of Dehydrated Refried Beans

2009-07-01T00:58:00.000-07:00

I've used the Provident Pantry Dehydrated Refried Beans I got from Emergency Essentials several times now.

I was not really impressed the first time I tried them. I simply re-hydrated them to use as a dip for tortilla chips, as I often do with canned refried beans. But the flavor was stronger then the canned beans I usually eat. And I didn't like the texture. It seemed like maybe there were a lot of tough bean skins in them.

But after I tried them a few more times I realized that those "tough bean skins" were not actually bean skins. They were little chips of the beans that hadn't been re-hydrated properly.

Once I realized this, I realized that I needed to use more water to re-hydrate than the instructions said to use. Now the texture is much better. And now that I've gotten used to the stronger flavor, I like that, too.

What I really like is that I can re-hydrate as much or as little as I want, so I don't waste any.

One of the things I like about eating at Mexican restaurants is that they always include sides of refried beans and Spanish rice with shredded cheese on top. So one night last week I decided to make some at home. I re-hydrated the beans, making sure I did it properly. And I re-hydrated some brown rice I'd dehydrated with a little bit of tomato powder and some salt and seasonings (I think I used Italian seasoning). Then I sprinkled some shredded cheese over the top of the rice and the beans, popped it into the microwave to melt the cheese, and had wonderful Spanish rice and refried beans. Yum!

So...the verdict? Once you learn how to use these beans they are really good.

All Those Gadgets Were a Bad Idea

2009-06-11T02:40:00.000-07:00

Now that I added all those gadgets the other day, I'm getting rid of most of them. They were cute. They were fun. But they take too long to load when I'm on a slow dial-up connection.

Ah well.

The Kale Was Terrible!

2009-06-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

I tried my dehydrated kale the other night, and it was terrible.

I'd come home from work late, and was too tired to fix a real meal. So I decided to make a quick soup out of some of the things I've been dehydrating. I got 1/2 cup of my cooked-and-dehydrated navy beans and 1/2 cup of my cooked-and-dehydrated brown rice. I added some dehydrated carrots, celery, and green pepper. Then I added some of the kale and some herbs and spices and some chicken stock. Then I added boiling water and let it rehydrate everything.

The first few spoonfuls weren't bad. But then I noticed my mouth felt funny. And then I remembered than when I blanched the kale there was a greasy residue in my pot. That greasy residue was now in my mouth. I tried to eat some more, but it just got worse. So I ended up throwing the soup away. And the rest of the kale.

So I guess this is a good example of why you should try your emergency foods before an emergency.

I Added Some Gadgets

2009-06-03T23:05:00.000-07:00

I added some gadgets to this blog, so take a look around the page. There are some quotations and weird facts on the bottom of the page. And there are several gadgets along the right side, too.

The Cool Clouds picture will change every time you refresh your web browser. I left it near the top of the page so you don't have to keep scrolling to see it if you refresh.

The Weather always starts at New York. I've tried to enter Vernonia's zip code, but it won't save it. Of course, you can enter your own zip code to see your current weather.

You can refine the posts visible in your window by using the Blog Archive gadget. Click "2009" to see all this year's posts. Or click on "June" to see just this month's posts.

Right now the Favorite Links gadget just has links to gardening and preparedness websites. I'll be adding more later. I'm hoping to find a way to categorize the links. Stay tuned...

Thoughts on the Cranberry Leather

2009-06-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about the Cranberry Leather that I threw away last week. I think the problem was that the flavor was just way too strong. I think if cranberries were mixed with applesauce the leather would be a lot better. So I'm going to try that when cranberries are available again in the fall.

My Emergency Essentials Order Arrived Today

2009-06-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

My Emergency Essentials order arrived today. I ordered a #10 can each of Dehydrated Refried Beans, Cheese Blend, Artificially Flavored Imitation Bacon Bits Textured Vegetable Protein, and Tomato Powder. I also ordered a Bean cookbook and 3 8-oz spice jars.

I'm really excited to try the refried beans. I usually buy them in #2 cans at the grocery store. But I often waste some of it because I just can't eat that much at once. So I like the idea of using the dehydrated stuff. I can mix up just as much as I need.

I'm concerned that I won't be able to use all the food in each can before it deteriorates. But I thought I'd make a cover out of folded Glad wrap to put over the top surface of what's left in the can. That should keep out at least some of the moisture and oxygen then gets into the can when I open it.

I'm planning to use the Tomato Powder to make Spanish Rice (among other things). When I'm eating at a Mexican restaurant I always like to mix my rice into my beans. So this should work well with the re-hydrated beans. And I can make a cheese sauce with the cheese powder to put over the top.

I'm also looking forward to using the Bacon TVP and Cheese Blend with potatoes and broccoli to make a cheesy potato casserole. Yum!

Emergency Essentials

2009-06-03T21:51:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I placed a small order from Emergency Essentials: http://beprepared.com/

They have a lot of dehydrated and freeze-dried foods. They carry several of the Mountain House meals, as well as Provident Pantry foods (their own brand). They have an awesome variety of fruits and vegetables, grains and legumes, and meats and meat substitutes. They also carry other preparedness supplies

The foods come in several different options. Most everything is available in #10 cans. Some of the Mountain House meals come in 2-serving pouches. And some staples, such as beans and whole grains, come in 6-lb "Superpails" with metallized bags. The pails and bags are also available separately.

Once of the things I like about Emergency Essentials is that they have lots of recipes using their products. If, for example, you're looking at their Dehydrated Whole Eggs, you can click on "Related Recipes" and get a list of recipes using their whole egg powder.

When I first visited the website, the prices seemed a little high to me. $22.95 for freeze-dried whole blueberries. But when you consider how much you get in that #10 can--80% of a gallon--and what it would cost to get the food and dry it yourself--the price seems really reasonable.

They also have several articles on storing foods and other emergency preparedness topics.

All in all, it's a good website to browse around.

The dehydrated kale turned out great: nice and crispy.

2009-06-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

I wasn’t sure how long to blanch it. The directions for most of the vegetables in my dehydrator book say to blanch for a couple minutes or “until the color changes.” So I thought that’s what I’d do. But the color turned to dark green as soon as I dropped the snipped leaves into the boiling water. So I left them for a couple minutes then took them out. The kale wasn’t cooked, but that’s OK because it will cook when I use it

The blanched kale was a soggy green mass—like cooked spinach. I wasn’t about to try pulling out individual pieces, so I just spread globs of kale around on the mesh screens for my dehydrator. And it dried very well.

It’ll go well in soups and stews.

Time To Harvest The Kale

2009-05-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

I find myself in an unusual situation: I have a tubfull of mature kale, and nothing to do with them. So I think I'll pick them on Saturday and dehydrate them.

I usually plant kale in the early spring along with my spinach and lettuce mix. And them I mix the young, tender leaves in with my lettuce and spinach salads. But this year my spinach and lettuce didn't come up. Even a second planting of them is yielding only 5 spinach plants. So now I have a whiskey-barrel tub full of kale and no salad to put them in.

I know you can steam kale and eat it like spinach, but I'm not that crazy about cooked spinach. However, I will sometimes snip the kale or spinach into little strips and put them into stew or scrambled eggs.

So I think after I pick all the mature leaves tomorrow, I'll snip them, blanch them, and dehydrate them. Then I can add them to soups, stews, eggs, or whatever.

More Irises opening

2009-05-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

This morning when I took Firenzi outside, I noticed that another new iris has opened its first blossom: Mexican Holiday. The description on Schreiner's website says that it has "brassy gold standards and rich maroon falls." I thought the falls looked more plum than maroon. It's beautiful, though.

Here's a link to it's picture:
http://www.schreinersgardens.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SIGO&Product_Code=102125

I planted several new irises last year, and it's a lot of fun seeing how closely the blossoms match the pictures in the catalog.

Cranberry Fruit Leather

2009-05-28T22:49:00.000-07:00

I tried making Cranberry Leather last weekend. And this morning I finally gave trying to get it dry. It just doesn't want to dry all the way. It's still slightly tacky on top.

I had 3 bags of frozen cranberries left over from last winter, so I decided to try making Cranberry Leather. I thought I'd follow the same procedure I used for my Rhubarb Leather.

But it just didn't turn out as well. Maybe I put too much sugar in it. Maybe I added to much water. I tried rolling it up this morning, even though it's still tacky, and it made a nice roll. But I'm not crazy about the flavor.

Hmmm, maybe I don't like cranberries as much as rhubarb. Ah well.

Spring/Early Summer Flowers Blooming

2009-05-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

This morning I noticed that my first California Poppy is blooming.

My first Iris of the year is open too: Passion and Purity. You can see a picture of it on Schreiner's website: http://tinyurl.com/knfszc.

I really like the amoenas. They're the Irises with white standards and darker falls. I'm going to have to find out how to pronounce "amoena."

I just planted this particular Iris last year, so I'm happy to see it doing so well.

I Really Like Rhubarb

2009-05-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I decided to try the Rhubarb Leather recipe in Mary Bell’s Complete Dehydrator Cookbook. I was thrilled with the results—even though I didn’t exactly follow the recipe. I filled up the four leather trays in my dehydrator, and had enough sauce left over to stuff myself on. It was wonderful!

It has that tangy rhubarb flavor, but sweetened just enough with the brown sugar.

So, here's what I did...

I have a couple really productive rhubarb plants out back, so I picked a big armload of rhubarb. I brought them inside and cut off the leaves to put in the compost. You do know not to eat rhubarb leaves, don’t you? They’re poisonous. My dog, Firenzi, was disappointed that he didn’t get to eat the leaves, as I normally give him all the trimmings when I’m fixing something from the garden.

After washing the rhubarb and cutting off the bottom of each stalk, I cut the remainder of each stalk into roughly 1-in pieces. The pieces took up about ¾ of my 4.5-quart stock pot. I covered them with water, added a pinch of salt, and set them on the stove to come to a boil. They were just starting to boil when I poked them with a fork, and they were tender. So I decided that they were cooked enough.

I poured off the water (I shouldn’t have put so much water in), and pureed the cooked rhubarb in batches in the blender. When it was all pureed, I added brown sugar and cinnamon to taste, then spread the sauce on my four leather trays.

I don’t remember how long it took to dehydrate the leather, but it was just perfect--no longer tacky, but soft enough to roll up. So I rolled up the four sheets and cut them into bite sized pieces.

I tried not to eat them too fast, so I made them last a week. They were so good. Now I think I need to plant more rhubarb—I definitely want to make more of this leather!

Welcome and Introduction

2009-05-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to the DragonRanch Inn blog. Thanks for dropping in.

This blog will contain notes of my experiments, projects, successes, and failures for my various endeavors. I’m slowly building a food forest, using permaculture techniques. I’ve been learning and experimenting with dehydrating food. I garden, make soap, and make things out of concrete. I make beaded jewelry, too, but I probably won’t post much about that.

I hope that people doing similar things will find my posts helpful and interesting. And I hope that people will comment on them with more tips, questions, and such.