Week 46

New 51 Week Storage Ideas Week Forty Six


This is for two (2) people so buy according to your family’s size.

Non-food list:

If you do not have another way to cook this will work.

Charcoal Grill: a small portable one works
Charcoal: 2 to however many bags you want to have on hand
Lighter fluid: 4 bottles or cans


You can also dig a hole in the ground to use the charcoal and wood; stick a grate over or set pans down in it.


Food list:

Wheat: 50 to 100 pounds
Sugar:  50 pounds
Baking Powder: 1 large container or 2 mediums


Recipe:


Norwegian Breakfast Cake

1 egg beaten well
½ cup sugar
¼ cup butter or margarine melted
1½-cup flour
1-teaspoon baking powder
½ cup milk
Mix and pour this in a greased cake pan, sprinkle cinnamon on top and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until done.


What foods do you have in your 72/96-hour kits, also known as B.O.B. (Bug Out Bag)?


Beprepared.com has those food bars that work well. And they last well.
***
I pulled a muscle in my neck yesterday; talk about slowing a person down.

Week Fourty Five

New 51 Week Storage Ideas Week Forty Five


This is for two (2) people so buy according to your family’s size.

Non-food list:

Tarps: 2 to 3 of different sizes
Misc. Electrical tape and bungee cords

Food list:

Bouillon cubes: 1-pound each of beef and chicken
Butter canned: 2 to 4 dried

Recipe:
Honey Taffy
1-cup honey
1-tablespoon butter
1-cup sugar
Boil honey and sugar to a hardball stage (270 degrees) add the butter. Pour onto a buttered platter and cool until it can be handled and pull until glossy shine. Make into a rope and place on wax paper. When it gets brittle break into bite sized pieces and store in a cool dry place.

Clarified butter:


How to Clarify Butter

"Clarifying" is the process of removing milk solids from butterfat, giving you a clear golden fat that can be heated to a higher temperature without burning than whole butter. This, combined with the fact it can be stored without going rancid, has made clarified butter the cooking fat of choice in India and South Asia for hundreds of years.


1. To make 1 cup of clarified butter you'll need 1¼ cup of butter. (You will lose approximately 25% of the original butter's total volume when clarifying.)


2. Place butter in a saucepan over a very low heat. Let the butter melt slowly, do not stir the butter while it is melting.


3. As the butter melts, it will separate into three layers. The top layer is a thin layer of foam, the middle layer contains the bulk of the liquid (weighing in at about 80% of the total), and the bottom layer is where the water and most of the milk solids are. This natural separation is what makes clarifying possible.


4. Skim the foam off the surface of the butter, discard the foam. Be cautious to avoid dipping the ladle into the butterfat while skimming, as the fat should remain intact.


5. At this point, there are two possible methods for removing the butterfat from the water on the bottom of the pan. The method we chose to illustrate is to decant the fat from the water.


6. Carefully and slowly pour the fat into another container. You can see the water underneath the clear yellow butterfat. If you notice any of the water slipping into the fat, you may need to re-decant your new batch of clarified butter. If there is any water in the clarified butter, and you try adding it to a hot pan, the water will immediately boil when it hits the pan, causing the hot clarified butter to splatter out of the pan and potentially burning the cook.


An alternate method for separating the fat from the water is to use a ladle and skim the fat up and out of the pan, making sure not to let any of the water get into the ladle.


Pour your newly clarified butter to a separate container, and discard the water and small amount of remaining milk fat.


7. If the clarified butter sits for a moment, you might notice more foam float to the top; use a spoon to remove this last bit of foam.Allrecipes.com


Evacuation plan:
Do you have one planned out for those at home, work and or school? Have you talked about it and or practiced your plan?
***
We had days of snow and ice. But we are supposed to have 4 or 5 days of nice weather with highs in the 30's. Might melt things back down to the 3 to 4 inch ice layer.

If someone would please comment something it would be nice :).

44th week more snow, sleet, ice and taxes

New 51 Week Storage Ideas Week Forty Four


This is for two (2) people so buy according to your family’s size.

Non-food list:

Wooden spoons: Set of misc. large for stirring
Food scale
Money: See what you have saved and put away for a rainy day each payday, (this will be saved and hidden at home).

Food list:

Canned meats: 8 to 10 cans Roast or ground beef, turkey etc.
Pasta: 10 pounds of pasta like macaroni, flat noodles, spaghetti or other.

Recipe:

Spinach Beef Ravioli
1-½ pounds ground beef
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese or Romano
1 – 21/2 pound can spinach
2 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix the eggs with the ground beef, brown this and add salt and pepper. Then add cheese and simmer 10 minutes. Add the spinach to mixture and let set while preparing the dough.

Dough
5 cups flour
4 to 5 eggs
Mix flour and eggs until elastic and can be rolled. Roll dough on floured surface until quite thin. Cut into two to 3 inch squares depending on the size you like but 1 tablespoon of meat mixture in center of dough and fold over. Press the edges with a fork to seal good. Have a kettle of salted boiling water and drop Ravioli squares into the boiling water. Cook 5 minutes, then drain and cover with cheese and or spaghetti sauce or both.

How are your first aid kit coming along?
***
We got up to snow, sleet and ice. Thank cleared off after a few hours and did some melting but now everything is frozen hard as a rock and it is a real adventure even going up to the chicken coop. 
 
Dave had to fill the coop grain barrels this morning and took the 50 pounds bags up on a plastic sled.  Took him a couple of trips.
 
He put in for a day off for today and worked on our taxes, he has to take a day off here and there or he loses those vacation days.  He is in town tonight for meetings.
 
I have just been knitting socks this week.
 
 
 

Week 43 and snow, ice, sleet

New 51 Week Storage Ideas Week Forty Three


This is for two (2) people so buy according to your family’s size.

Non-food list:

Tooth picks: 2 boxes
Disinfectant: 2 bottles Pine-sol or other and or spray (something I tend to run out of before I realize I am on my last bottle or can)
Dental Floss: 2

Food list:

Fruit cocktail: 8 cans at least 4 of them the large 1-pound cans
Nut meats: 2 one-pound bags or cans of walnuts and or almond or what you like, or one of each.


Recipe:

Lunch Box Cake-Do not have to frost this cake
1/3-cup butter or margarine
1-cup brown sugar
Mix and add:
2 eggs
½ teaspoon salt
Mix then add,
1 one pound can fruit cocktail- do not drain
2 ¼ cups flour
½ cup nutmeats (optional)
½ cup chocolate chips
Grease and flour your 9-x13-cake pan. Bake 350 degrees 35 to 40 minutes or until done.


Emergency:

What do you have for an emergency toilet?

Did you get those 5-gallon buckets? They are sold at the hardware stores works fine with a trash bag inside.


Beprepared.com sells a seat that will go on a 5-gallon bucket.

How is your water storage coming?

You will need water for drinking and cooking and don’t forget washing you; clothes and dishes.

How is your sewing kit coming?
***
We recieved 2 foot of snow in 2 days.
Then last night it warmed to 34 and rained, then dropped and it has been ice, sleet and now it is snowing again.

Looking out our front door

Week 42 and Pickeld Eggs

Woke up with a headache this morning so I tried going back to sleep after Dave left, sorta worked. Headache is better but it was full of tossing and turnng and waking to get another 2 hours of sleep lol.

It is a bit warmer this morning then it was yesterday morning 16 degrees this morning, was 8 deg yesterday.

As I have said before I don't open the chicken coop untill it at least gets to 24 deg. or the waterers just freeze up.

I go out yesterday to open the coop, put more Hay in Fer.'s hay drough and give her a treat of grain.  No Feb. the calf anywhere so I start calling.

I walk out the front barn door and there she is way down in the lower field that is supposedly gated off so she can't get down there. She is standing by the garden fence staring up at me.

Well the little/big minx chewed the rope tie that holds the gate closed and got it open enough so that she could slip through. It is behind the chicken coop down across a field from the barn.

I start heading over and down there to get her and she meets me 2/3's of the way, which I thought was great. She was excited jumping kicking her back legs up in the air. She must have seen me take her bucket to her part of the barn.

Just think of that movie Dantes Peak and when the coffee was brought into the motel and the one scientist and how he started in with capachino, coffee, coffee, coffee but make him 5 to 600 hundred pounds with 4 legs, bouncing up and down and kicking at the same time. That is want Feb. thinks of her grain. (oats and all stock mixed) She turns circles and wants to smell me and this and that and jump and so I head for the gate and she takes off for it and goes through and continues running all the way downt he hill and back up to the barn and inside.

And silly me hadn't planned on being outside that long so my toes and face were cold when I got back in.

A manged to get 5 quarts of pickled beets and eggs pickled together Tuesday.

Sweet Pickled Eggs and Beets combo

2 quarts beets

30 to 38 eggs boiled and shelled (depending on size what will fit in your jars)

In large pot dump in beets juice and all. 

Add 4 cups sugar

Add 5 -6 cups vinegar, I did a combo of white and apple cider.

2 teaspoon pickling spice

1 teaspoon of tumeric

2 teaspoon of mustard seed

2 teaspoon of celery seed

2 teaspoons salt

Bring to a boil.

In a small pan have your canning lids boiled and ready to go. Rings and jars washed and rinsed and waiting.

Put 5 to 6 shelled eggs in each jar. Then scoop out beets from pot and divide into the jars with the eggs. Adding more eggs or beets to fill the jars as needed.  With large ladle scoop and pour hot brine into  your jars to within an inch of the top.

Put on lids and rings and tighten down. Process in steam canner or hot water bath 40 minutes.

Now if you prefer no beets just do boiled eggs or add something like green beans or other things you might like to try in this.

***
New 51 Week Storage Ideas Week Forty Two


This is for two (2) people so buy according to your family’s size.

Non-food list:

5 gallon buckets: 2 at the very least, 1 for washing clothes or other and 1 for waste (sewage wise for toilet) Hard ware stores have multi purpose buckets. ( More buckets are better)
Trash bags: 4 large boxes of large (get as you can) use for inside toilet bucket and other things as needed.

Food list:

Dried Beans: 20 to 30 pounds: You may purchase more as you wish, This can be a verity as before, red, navy, northern, pinto, black etc.
Cheese: 2 cans dried
Apples dried: 4 large packs if possible or in cans

Do you have old dry beans? DO NOT throw them out; they can be used in many ways. Go through them and pick out rocks, bad beans etc.
Old beans can be ground for bean flour to add to everything from soups, breads or as a thickener for casseroles.
And if you are going to try and cook them also try soaking your beans from 3 hours to over night after rinsing.
Lentils and split peas do NOT need soaked.

Recipe:


Dried Apple pie
In a large saucepan mix the following:
4 cups dried apples
3 to 3 ½ cups apple juice (water if you don’t have juice)
Simmer this on low for 15 to 20 minutes.
Add:
1-teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
Roll out you pastry crust for top and bottom, place bottom crust in pie pan.
Put your filling in your pie pan.
Drop tiny bits of butter on top of filling.
Place top crust on and crimp edges together and trim off excess.
Bake 40 to 50 minutes at 400 degrees. Crust should be golden brown. If edges are getting to brown put aluminum foil around edge.

My mom always took the crust trim and put them on a cookie sheet and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and baked 8 to 10 min. for treats for us kids.

Lists and thoughts for the week and great find

Been awake since 4:30 am. I tried to go back to sleep after hubby Dave left but that didnt work.
He built a fire before he left this morning that was really nice. I cooked some eggs on it this morning.

He also grabbed a few dozen eggs to drop off at the young Missionaries today if he can catch them. Today is their day off to wash clothes, do chores, activites etc.

Our poor old cat Tank was down howling by the house by 5:30 (he must have seem the livingroom light) so I let him in to eat and Lizzie dog out so she wouldn't eathis cat food, she just luveeeess cat food.
They are both lying not far from the wood stove sleeping.

The wind outside is blowing hard and we are to expect snow sometime this week. The snow they said we would get over the weekend didn't show up.  Didn't break my heart as Dave had to drive to Spokane WA Friday afternoon and drive home late.

Saturday Dave hauled wood onto the enclosed front porch for the week whle I got ready t go to twon. We had some errands to run, pick up grain for the Chickens etc and it was grandson Xanders birthday (our 4th son Jospeh's boy), a whole 2 years old. We went and joined them after we picked up my new glasses. Hard to believe it had been 4 yrs since gettting my last pair.

Sunday was Church of course and I traveled down to town in our older farm truck, thats my transportation. Dave had left just before 6 am for meetings.

We are getting plenty of eggs and I guess I should go ahead and dry some more this week. It has been awhile since I did that, now to get up the energy for that lol.

Just blend the whites and yolks and pour onto a tray with edges in your dehydrator. Mine has a fan and does a quick good job.

Dave and I are giving talks up at the Orofino Idaho ward at Church next Sunday so I have that to think about and do this week.  We love going up there in the fall for their Lumber Jack days.

They have the Dworshak National Fish Hatchery and the Dworshak Dam, third highest dam in the United States, completed in the early 1970s. They still pan for gold up there by the rivers and creeks aslo.
http://www.orofino.com/



We found an old Rassumsen 4 harness table loom at a second hand store last week, in not to bad a shape and I am trying to find out all I can to be able to operate it. Montana Looms had bought the campany a few years ago but they are now out of business :( . So no getting a how to manuel from them. I thought yeah sure I finally get one and the company is out of business lol.

Here is the turkey broth I canned from the bones and scraps after Christmas.

Week 41 and learning a new skill

It has been warm here for us the past couple of weeks. Day time temperatures in the high 30's into the 40's. A lot of the ice has even melted off, so no more surprises as you walk when there is a skiff of snow to hide that ice.
That will change in a day as we have snow and cooler temps headed in.

We found a used 25 inch weaving length table loom at a second hand store for very little (less then $25.00) so I am going to learn to weave.  It is an old Montana table loom and the company is out of business.  I had wanted to pick a instruction book up on it but thats out as their add says they have nothing in stock and want to sell the business.
I have always wanted to try this but could never afford one.
Wish me luck lol.
***
New 51 Week Storage Ideas Week Forty One


This is for two (2) people so buy according to your family’s size.

Non-food list:

Comfortable hiking or walking boots or shoes
Socks: 6 pair at least good socks, plus 3 pair of warm (wool) socks
Compass: If you or family had to walk cross-country a compass is very needed
Bicycle repair kit: 2, that’s if your have bike for members of the family.

Food list:

Dried milk: 5 to 10 pounds
Instant or dried Potatoes: 5 to 10 pounds

Recipes:

Patatiskorv (Swedish Potato Sausage)
4 and ½ pounds raw potatoes
2 pounds beef
2-½ pound pork
1-tablespoon salt
1-tablespoon pepper
1-tablespoon allspice
2 or 3 onions chopped fine
Grind meat twice, potatoes once. Mix with seasonings and stuff mixture into casings. (You can also fry up without being in casings.) Do not fill casings to full because the mixture expands when boiled. Pierce casings in several places to prevent bursting while cooking. Boil gently 1 hour. These can be kept in brine for some time if kept in a cool place or freeze with out brine.



Preparedness:

Read up on or attend a class on Hypothermia and how to avoid it, CPR or first aid class.