Our tomato plants are still growing and producing, and we have far too many cherry and grape tomatoes. They are hard to can because of the skins, so we decided to try and dehydrate them. The experiment was a success. It does take almost 24 hours to dry the big ones in the Excalibur. Brad cut them in half and put them cut side up on the trays and turned it on the vegetable setting.
Once dry they are tiny and very sweet with a lot of tomato flavor, they
will make a good replacement for sun dried tomatoes in recipes and cost
us almost nothing to have. I am going to seal them up in jars with the
food saver jar sealer to add one more layer of preservation.
We are going to have to do a round of canning this weekend again we have another 10-20 lbs of regular tomatoes as well. I think I will start blanching peeling and cutting them up as soon as I have some energy today and just keep them in the fridge until we decide what to make with them this time. I am leaning toward spaghetti sauce or chili mix (no meat) this time.
Preparednesspro.com had a wonderful article on equipment for a prepping kitchen yesterday too - here is a link to that.
http://preparednesspro.com/four-must-have-items-in-your-kitchen/
Makes me want to get a pressure cooker just to try it out! We do not do grains anymore so we don't need the grain mill either. I actually had a nutrimill that I passed on to my dad for his own home grain making. I do have a canner and the food saver with the jar attachment that I love.
Oh and here is a link to a nice easy way to make almond flour for cheaper too! I think for prepping purposes we will have to grind it up and seal it already ground.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IKOXUlXHhg
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Canning Adventures
So we took the plunge and started canning our own food today. Spent some time yesterday snapping 6 bags of green beans that we got from our co-op. Tomatoes have started slowly ripening so we have been picking and saving them for several days now. We got about 8 qt and another 10 pints of green beans and about 7 or 8 pints of home-made salsa. Seems like not much for an 8 hours day of work but it's a start! We will be more efficient now that we know a little more what to do.
We learned that canning takes longer than you would think and having 2 canners will speed things up once we get the gasket and valve replaced on mine (also part of the adventure...why is this thing leaking!?) we can use that along side the one we borrowed from my mom. When something says you need to process it for 30 mins its really 60-90 mins with the heating up, venting, processing time and cooling down. It was also a blessing to have an extra table to set up in the middle of our kitchen floor to hold all the jars we were filling and getting ready. I can't imagine doing this without a dishwasher either, it made the cleaning of the jars so much easier. Next time however we will do the jars before we go to bed as we spent over an hour waiting on the dishwasher to finish so we could start and it put us behind for the day.
When we get a big batch of tomatoes we will can those diced and whole for cooking and soups. We are also going to make some homemade spaghetti sauce with meat and some kind of soup. The salsa sounded so good and the cilantro is coming in fast and the tomatoes were a bit sparse so we figured while we have only a small amount of tomatoes we will just salsa it.
I am going to try and do some canning weekly and experiment to see what we find we like and what tastes good once we crack it open and try it. We will also be getting a beef quarter byt the end of this month so some meat canning is also planned. We actually have enough stew meat now to make some meat soups and maybe some canned stew meat.
Its been fun and I think we will enjoy the food this winter as well as feel more prepared with our food stores.
We learned that canning takes longer than you would think and having 2 canners will speed things up once we get the gasket and valve replaced on mine (also part of the adventure...why is this thing leaking!?) we can use that along side the one we borrowed from my mom. When something says you need to process it for 30 mins its really 60-90 mins with the heating up, venting, processing time and cooling down. It was also a blessing to have an extra table to set up in the middle of our kitchen floor to hold all the jars we were filling and getting ready. I can't imagine doing this without a dishwasher either, it made the cleaning of the jars so much easier. Next time however we will do the jars before we go to bed as we spent over an hour waiting on the dishwasher to finish so we could start and it put us behind for the day.
When we get a big batch of tomatoes we will can those diced and whole for cooking and soups. We are also going to make some homemade spaghetti sauce with meat and some kind of soup. The salsa sounded so good and the cilantro is coming in fast and the tomatoes were a bit sparse so we figured while we have only a small amount of tomatoes we will just salsa it.
I am going to try and do some canning weekly and experiment to see what we find we like and what tastes good once we crack it open and try it. We will also be getting a beef quarter byt the end of this month so some meat canning is also planned. We actually have enough stew meat now to make some meat soups and maybe some canned stew meat.
Its been fun and I think we will enjoy the food this winter as well as feel more prepared with our food stores.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Paleo prepping
As I was laying in bed last night about to fall asleep it dawned on me that the food storage we need to do for my special diet needs and Pierce's is pretty much Paleo with some rice/potatoes/dairy added in. That means we need to focus on dried fruits, nuts, canned meats, dried and canned veges and any kind of raw organic dairy that is storable (which right now is pretty much zero dairy!). Some of this I have been doing, raisins are great in sealed bags and pouches, I food-saver seal up nuts and have a bunch plans to can tomatoes and green beans in the next few weeks.
What we have not been doing is saving any kind of canned meats, I think I will start picking up some kipper snacks and sardines every time I grocery shop and see if I can find any good brands of other kind of canned meats and buy them in bulk at Sam's club. I am also going to explore canning my own meats as well. Its a relief to think this way because I was beginning to think if we didn't store grains and corn my family would starve. And grains and corn make at least 2 of us very sick, so that was a lose/lose proposition.
I also got an inspiration to actually reserve the paloepreppers.com web name so that in the future if I can find some others who are like me (which seems pretty unlikely at this point!) we can have a place to talk about how we non-mainstream eaters can stash away food for emergencies and just to save money in general.
I am reading a really good book on Paleo eating called "Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat" . I actually got it for free as my kindle loaner book (thanks again Steve!) for the month and it is a wonderful instructional book with lots of recipes and idea included. It also has ways to save money, cook all your own food and making the bulk of it in one day to eat for the week, which is kind of how we do things around here already. it is so good I will probably end up buying it to keep. She does keep it a lot lower carb than we can with 2 thin growing children so I will add in my usually dairy and extra fruits and some starch for the kiddos as well, plus some of our cocnut flour goodies that I bake regularly. The book also gave me some really good ideas for stuff to keep on hand preparedness wise as well as just for being able to whip up a fast yummy nutritious meal. All in all if you have a special diet or even if you don't and are just interested in moving toward a more healthy eating style I recommend you check it out.
What we have not been doing is saving any kind of canned meats, I think I will start picking up some kipper snacks and sardines every time I grocery shop and see if I can find any good brands of other kind of canned meats and buy them in bulk at Sam's club. I am also going to explore canning my own meats as well. Its a relief to think this way because I was beginning to think if we didn't store grains and corn my family would starve. And grains and corn make at least 2 of us very sick, so that was a lose/lose proposition.
I also got an inspiration to actually reserve the paloepreppers.com web name so that in the future if I can find some others who are like me (which seems pretty unlikely at this point!) we can have a place to talk about how we non-mainstream eaters can stash away food for emergencies and just to save money in general.
I am reading a really good book on Paleo eating called "Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat" . I actually got it for free as my kindle loaner book (thanks again Steve!) for the month and it is a wonderful instructional book with lots of recipes and idea included. It also has ways to save money, cook all your own food and making the bulk of it in one day to eat for the week, which is kind of how we do things around here already. it is so good I will probably end up buying it to keep. She does keep it a lot lower carb than we can with 2 thin growing children so I will add in my usually dairy and extra fruits and some starch for the kiddos as well, plus some of our cocnut flour goodies that I bake regularly. The book also gave me some really good ideas for stuff to keep on hand preparedness wise as well as just for being able to whip up a fast yummy nutritious meal. All in all if you have a special diet or even if you don't and are just interested in moving toward a more healthy eating style I recommend you check it out.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Dejunking is prepping too!
I am on a mission to get my house organized and de-junked and our prepping stuff more easily accessible. I am spending 15 minutes (or more) a day cleaning out cupboards, organizing supplies and just making things easier for us to grab and go if needed. I am getting back into writing, so I am going to blog daily as an exercise in consistency. Some on this blog and some on my other personal blog that I tend to ramble on with my health issues. Keeping them separate allows me not to bore people to death!
Each day I come across so many reasons to be prepared and so many good ideas that I want to implement. So for now it will be baby steps, 15 minutes of cleaning and writing a day, and learning to dream and have goals again. I am starting a nice list of "wants" for our prepping and everyday life and I am going to save for things that overlap on both lists. My new addition for today is a Sun Oven that Mary Hunt reviewed. I thought that would be a wonderful addition to our home now and for preparedness.
I still feel like I am lacking in community and friends, I spend most every day home alone not really talking to anyone, which is a nasty by-product of being such a hermit for the past few years. Unfortunately, I couldn't choose not to be sick and my illness took all I had leaving me nothing to give anyone, and barely enough to do even the basic care for my family. Mood swings and general crankiness probably chased a few people away as well. As I am climbing out of that health pit I am slowly moving back into the world and craving some companionship and more importantly community or kindred friends to share my time and my life with. Lets hope I can collect some more along the journey.
The garden is going really well, our tomato plants grew absolutely huge for some odd reason, like 6.5 ft tall and 3-4 feet across. We are just starting to pick the ripe ones, but with 10-12 of those enormous plants I am going to be drowning in tomatoes pretty soon. In other news the peppers and spices are also taking off. We already froze up one batch of basil/oregano/garlic seasoning cubes and there is enough basil to do another one of those. I think I may package them up and give them as gifts this Christmas. With our new lower budget I need to get creative for gift giving! It has been a short but productive summer and I feel like I am moving forward for the first time in years.
Each day I come across so many reasons to be prepared and so many good ideas that I want to implement. So for now it will be baby steps, 15 minutes of cleaning and writing a day, and learning to dream and have goals again. I am starting a nice list of "wants" for our prepping and everyday life and I am going to save for things that overlap on both lists. My new addition for today is a Sun Oven that Mary Hunt reviewed. I thought that would be a wonderful addition to our home now and for preparedness.
I still feel like I am lacking in community and friends, I spend most every day home alone not really talking to anyone, which is a nasty by-product of being such a hermit for the past few years. Unfortunately, I couldn't choose not to be sick and my illness took all I had leaving me nothing to give anyone, and barely enough to do even the basic care for my family. Mood swings and general crankiness probably chased a few people away as well. As I am climbing out of that health pit I am slowly moving back into the world and craving some companionship and more importantly community or kindred friends to share my time and my life with. Lets hope I can collect some more along the journey.
The garden is going really well, our tomato plants grew absolutely huge for some odd reason, like 6.5 ft tall and 3-4 feet across. We are just starting to pick the ripe ones, but with 10-12 of those enormous plants I am going to be drowning in tomatoes pretty soon. In other news the peppers and spices are also taking off. We already froze up one batch of basil/oregano/garlic seasoning cubes and there is enough basil to do another one of those. I think I may package them up and give them as gifts this Christmas. With our new lower budget I need to get creative for gift giving! It has been a short but productive summer and I feel like I am moving forward for the first time in years.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Latest News
So, been a while since I blogged, things have been crazy here with health issues, financial changes and in general being busy with the kids and summer.
We have our 3 containers of water filled now. I am slowly stocking up on other necessities, we have sugar, Sugar leaf that I got for a good deal in bulk, some fruit dried, nuts, coconut flour, raisins and other shelf stable stuff that I come across in my shopping journey. We discovered that blueberries make really good fruit leather that needs almost no sugar, we bought 20 lbs and froze about 15 lbs and made the rest into fruit leather. Five lbs of berries makes very little leather! We will need to remember to eat it sparingly.
We are still dealing with the special diet issues and finding ways to store food to eat with no wheat, corn, oats or other grains. I did buy some dried buttermilk and am looking into butter powder although I know that has to be used within 6 months or so. I think the easiest way to use that will be to start cooking with it. Will still rely primarily on frozen food storage, which is good for a few day or until it all starts thawing. I figure if that happens we will have a great big BBQ and cook all the meat we can. we would like to get some kind of portable generator as well, and with that we could actually take a few days to dry everything we have frozen for a bit longer storage.
Our biggest problem right now is that our storage room turned into a complete disaster very quickly and we need to reorganize it again so that I can get in there and keep the food rotated and organized. the nice shelving unit we bought it already full. I think we are a bit of pack rats around here. I am trying to shift that to a prepping type pack rate and get rid of useless stuff we do not need or use. I revamped our plastic storage container cupboard today and actually store all the container with their lids on them, what a difference that makes when we go to grab a bowl or box to put things in! I plan on bullying my husband into tackling the storage room together this week or next weekend.
We are continuing to make survival bracelets, let me know if you want to purchase any we do special orders and have almost every color there is. I prefer them as ankle bracelets so we make those as well.
We have our 3 containers of water filled now. I am slowly stocking up on other necessities, we have sugar, Sugar leaf that I got for a good deal in bulk, some fruit dried, nuts, coconut flour, raisins and other shelf stable stuff that I come across in my shopping journey. We discovered that blueberries make really good fruit leather that needs almost no sugar, we bought 20 lbs and froze about 15 lbs and made the rest into fruit leather. Five lbs of berries makes very little leather! We will need to remember to eat it sparingly.
We are still dealing with the special diet issues and finding ways to store food to eat with no wheat, corn, oats or other grains. I did buy some dried buttermilk and am looking into butter powder although I know that has to be used within 6 months or so. I think the easiest way to use that will be to start cooking with it. Will still rely primarily on frozen food storage, which is good for a few day or until it all starts thawing. I figure if that happens we will have a great big BBQ and cook all the meat we can. we would like to get some kind of portable generator as well, and with that we could actually take a few days to dry everything we have frozen for a bit longer storage.
Our biggest problem right now is that our storage room turned into a complete disaster very quickly and we need to reorganize it again so that I can get in there and keep the food rotated and organized. the nice shelving unit we bought it already full. I think we are a bit of pack rats around here. I am trying to shift that to a prepping type pack rate and get rid of useless stuff we do not need or use. I revamped our plastic storage container cupboard today and actually store all the container with their lids on them, what a difference that makes when we go to grab a bowl or box to put things in! I plan on bullying my husband into tackling the storage room together this week or next weekend.
We are continuing to make survival bracelets, let me know if you want to purchase any we do special orders and have almost every color there is. I prefer them as ankle bracelets so we make those as well.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Focus during storms
So how do you keep focused on prepping during personal storms? Lately things have been stormy, health storms, work storms, financial storms. So many storms that we are drowning in stress, we have found some new friends through these storms, and learned that we have very little of what we need to survive a real emergency crisis that lasts longer than a few days.
During this process I am taking the time to dream, to give myself some strength to get though this time in my life where life sometimes seems pretty disappointing and so completely off the track from my past dreams. Where would we live if we could? What things would we have to help us be better prepared for a famine or a sustained power outage or a tornado that wrecks everything. how woudl our friendships and relationships look? Can we set up a future for our children that is better than the life we are currently struggling in?
So here is a little bit of my dream:
We would live on some land (preferably at least 10 acres) with a water source, some wooded areas and a few acres that are farm-able. There will be a root cellar or a nice basement for food storage. Our house would be designed to be as energy efficient as possible, and easy to keep up with some sort of solar power and a engineered field for a septic system, and well water or some other form of non- city water supply, rain barrels catches etc. Wind power is also an option.
The storage area will be well defensible for our food and emergency water supplies, I prefer that the house be solid and hard to break into - but with the windows needed for energy efficiency we may have to come up with some kind of special shutters for a true disaster. An emergency escape vehicle is a must - Brad wants a Deuce and a half, but in the interests of costs we may have to go a bit smaller than that. I also want a camper trailer of some sort as temporary shelter and for us to use for camping and vacations (something we have not really had in many years). There will be a barn with chickens and perhaps a milk and beef cow for food, maybe even goats instead of cows because they are edible and produce good milk as well and are much hardier and easy to feed.
Our house would be as much off the grid as we can make it and it will be in proximity to a community of people who want to work together and share our lives and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. I feel a need to surround myself with friends and people we can count on in this world today where people are so busy we all end up alone or living just for ourselves. This is the most important part of my vision, the house is negotiable, the land is negotiable, but I really feel a need to be part of a "village" so to speak, with neighbors that are friends as well as family and fellow villagers. I would be able to use my weird backwoods skills for everyday enjoyment and activities as well as possibly to barter or trade for things I can't do. Back to the basics or what life was life before the information and technology age. Not that I mind information and technology, I just think we need to integrate it a little bit better into a more old fashioned approach for keeping people connected and working together.
So anyway this is the start of my vision of the life an home that I want!
During this process I am taking the time to dream, to give myself some strength to get though this time in my life where life sometimes seems pretty disappointing and so completely off the track from my past dreams. Where would we live if we could? What things would we have to help us be better prepared for a famine or a sustained power outage or a tornado that wrecks everything. how woudl our friendships and relationships look? Can we set up a future for our children that is better than the life we are currently struggling in?
So here is a little bit of my dream:
We would live on some land (preferably at least 10 acres) with a water source, some wooded areas and a few acres that are farm-able. There will be a root cellar or a nice basement for food storage. Our house would be designed to be as energy efficient as possible, and easy to keep up with some sort of solar power and a engineered field for a septic system, and well water or some other form of non- city water supply, rain barrels catches etc. Wind power is also an option.
The storage area will be well defensible for our food and emergency water supplies, I prefer that the house be solid and hard to break into - but with the windows needed for energy efficiency we may have to come up with some kind of special shutters for a true disaster. An emergency escape vehicle is a must - Brad wants a Deuce and a half, but in the interests of costs we may have to go a bit smaller than that. I also want a camper trailer of some sort as temporary shelter and for us to use for camping and vacations (something we have not really had in many years). There will be a barn with chickens and perhaps a milk and beef cow for food, maybe even goats instead of cows because they are edible and produce good milk as well and are much hardier and easy to feed.
Our house would be as much off the grid as we can make it and it will be in proximity to a community of people who want to work together and share our lives and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. I feel a need to surround myself with friends and people we can count on in this world today where people are so busy we all end up alone or living just for ourselves. This is the most important part of my vision, the house is negotiable, the land is negotiable, but I really feel a need to be part of a "village" so to speak, with neighbors that are friends as well as family and fellow villagers. I would be able to use my weird backwoods skills for everyday enjoyment and activities as well as possibly to barter or trade for things I can't do. Back to the basics or what life was life before the information and technology age. Not that I mind information and technology, I just think we need to integrate it a little bit better into a more old fashioned approach for keeping people connected and working together.
So anyway this is the start of my vision of the life an home that I want!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Water Storage
Well we finally have one 7 gallon water storage container full - which could be stretched to 72 hours of drinking for the 4 of us, so goal number one complete! We have 3 more containers to fill and a 4th that was stained inside that we filled for non-drinking usage. We are using our R/O filtered water to fill the containers for drinking so it takes a few days to fill up.
We had one short power outage last week with the hail storm that came through here, I was actually a bit calmer about it as we had enough stuff stored for a few days without power. A little peace of mind goes along way and makes for a good mini practice session.
We still need to come up with a better long term solution for water, something to clean it and a place to get more if we need it. There are so many options out there and most are expensive and some are just not very portable or realistic. One thing that I looked at many years ago was a natural clay or stone filter/cooler for drinking water. They are portable and can last for up to 5 years to purify drinking water. It might even be worth learning how to make a water filter from materials on hand. its my next research project.
We had one short power outage last week with the hail storm that came through here, I was actually a bit calmer about it as we had enough stuff stored for a few days without power. A little peace of mind goes along way and makes for a good mini practice session.
We still need to come up with a better long term solution for water, something to clean it and a place to get more if we need it. There are so many options out there and most are expensive and some are just not very portable or realistic. One thing that I looked at many years ago was a natural clay or stone filter/cooler for drinking water. They are portable and can last for up to 5 years to purify drinking water. It might even be worth learning how to make a water filter from materials on hand. its my next research project.
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