Guest Post - Seed orders and barren gardens

 

A Warning About Seed Orders and Barren Gardens

By Steven Gregersen

I love it when the seed catalog arrives with the Christmas cards. We used to spend hours drooling over the latest offerings, comparing growing days and zones, resistance to diseases, prices and other data relevant to our location and needs. Although we made our seed orders early we were never in a hurry to receive them because most years we have snow on the ground until at least the end of March. We had plenty of time we thought.

Then one year our languorous affectation was blown completely away! We'd made our normal seed order in early January then waited. Waiting was nothing new to us. In our northern climate we often specified that fruit trees be shipped in the spring after the snow was gone. We usually got our order in parts and we'd never experienced problems in the past. But this time it was different!

That year in particular, after rising fuel prices made everything else expensive a lot of people began gardening to alleviate the skyrocketing price of fresh vegetables. And I mean a LOT of people. Even in our area we met dozens of people who were planting their first garden. We were so thankful that so many were going to experience the joy of eating actual fresh vegetable that we never considered the problems it would cause nationally. At least we didn't until January slipped past, then February, then March, and then April, and we still hadn't received our seed order.

Inquiries were made and each time we were reassured that our order would be shipped "in season." Finally we got our package from the seed company with about half of our order in it. The apology and explanation was short. It seems that they'd underestimated demand and had run out of the seed we'd ordered. They shipped out orders to the warmest places first, expecting to have more seed available for the colder climates but the new seed never materialized. They were sorry for any inconvenience and encouraged us to order the missing items from other suppliers.

To say we were angry would severely understate our emotions at the time. We'd done business with this company for years! Naturally every other seed supplier was also out of the varieties we wanted. Some were out of almost all of their seed. We were relegated to purchasing from the very limited selections at our local merchants and chain stores. What a disaster! Especially when we depend on the garden for most of the food we eat.

But that disaster brought some needed changes in our lives. We now save our own seed instead of depending upon suppliers a thousand or more miles away.

I'm not going into the "how-to's" of seed saving because it would be too lengthy for this type of forum. I just want to sound a warning to those who rely on outside sources. If for some reason you cannot replenish your seed yourself be sure to include instructions to ship your order immediately. Second; try ordering enough extra to save some for the next year. Rotate your stock and make a new order every year and you'll always be a year ahead ... just in case!

If you've never saved your own seed now is a good time to start. By that I mean ordering heirloom and non-hybrid varieties that reproduce themselves. Most seed companies have them and you can also look for seed exchanges in magazines like Grit and The Mother Earth News. Plus, by starting now you'll have time to study and learn the seed-saving process before harvest time.

If, like us, you are striving for self-sufficiency saving your own seed is one more step forward on the road to independence.

Thank you, Steven.

Steven, by the way, is my husband.  He writes for magazines, including Backwoods Home Magazine, Backwoodsman, Back Home Magazine, Fur Fish & Game, Primitive Archer, Traditional Archer, and others.  He has two published books and is working on another.

 

As always, please leave comments or questions below, or by email at

povertyprepping@yahoo.com

Susan

 PS:  There's been a tremendous amount of mail lately and I'm working my way through answering everyone's emails.  Please be patient!



Dehydrating Eggs

Four dozen dehydrated eggs in a quart jar

 

A few years ago I started dehydrating my extra eggs over the spring, summer, and fall.  The main reason I did this was because from about November until March our chickens don't lay eggs up here in the cold north, with our short winter days.  We didn't like having to eat store-bought eggs during the months our chickens got their break from laying.  In the summer we gave eggs away to everyone we could push them off onto, and it seemed a shame to give away so many eggs, then have to pay to buy them in the winter, as well as buying feed for the chickens during those months too.

 

We live off-grid with solar electric power, so putting lights in the chicken coop isn't an option.  Winters are cloudy and the days are short, so we have to conserve electricity during those months. 

 

Dehydrated eggs have the disadvantage that you have to use them as scrambled eggs.  That means no fried eggs in the winter, but lots of really good and creative omelettes!  They can also be used in baking.  I use one tablespoon whole dried egg to 1 tablespoon water, to make one reconstituted egg.

 

You can also separate the eggs and dry the whites and yolks separately.  If you like to bake things that call for egg whites, or to make meringue, you can use the dried whites.  The dried yolks can be reconstituted and cooked for eating, or used in baking.

 

My Nesco dehydrator came with one plastic liner for making fruit leather.  I use it when I dehydrate eggs and I line the other trays with wax paper.  I cut the hole out in the middle so it would sit on the tray, and trimmed the edges with extra so I could bend it up and form a lip around the edge so the egg wouldn't run off the trays.  I'm careful with the wax paper and re-use it for several batches before having to cut fresh wax paper.

 

Each of these trays holds four eggs.  If you have a different dehydrator you can experiment to see how many it holds.  Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk them until the yolks and whites are evenly mixed, if you're dehydrating whole eggs.  With the lined dehydrator tray sitting on the dehydrator, so you won't have to move it after filling the tray, carefully pour egg onto the tray.  Move the bowl around the tray and pour until you have a good covering.  You can use a spoon to further spread it.

 

You don't want it too thick or it'll take a long time to dry. I poured mine about the thickness of a plain chocolate candy bar.  Try to spread it evenly so that you don't have part of the tray finished before the thicker parts.  It won't be perfect, but take a few minutes to spread it as evenly as you can.

 

This is partway through the drying process.  You can see the 'skin' forming on top.  Set your dehydrator to the hottest setting, if you have a temperature control on it.  Mine is 135 degrees.

 

You can dry eggs in the oven on a low setting, but use the absolute lowest temperature setting your oven has.  You don't want to cook the egg, you just want to dry it.

 

If you live in a dry climate you can air-dry the eggs.  Watch them closely and pour them thinly on the trays.  I tried flipping mine partway through once and it was a messy disaster.

It takes my dehydrator about 8 hours to dry four trays of eggs.  When they're done I lift the wax paper off the dehdrator tray and I turn it upside-down over a cake pan.  The dried eggs should peel off without leaving a mess on the wax paper, other than a few crumbs.  If it's still wet and slimey, put it back on the dehydrator tray and dry it longer.

When they're crumbled in the pan they resemble cornflakes.  I broke them into crumbles, then spooned them into the blender to make egg powder.

The finished egg powder is in the bowl.  I later started just packing the crumbles into a jar and crushing them down with a wooden pestle from a mortar and pestle set I have.  When reconstituted, it works just about as well as 'powdering' it in the blender.

 

It doesn't make a dry powder.  It makes a somewhat-greasy powder.  If you have trouble reconstituting it try using different temperatures of water.  It will look grainy when it's reconstituted, but when you cook it, as either scrambled eggs or omelettes, it comes out with an even texture and a bit spongy rather than fluffy.  The taste is the same as fresh eggs.

We take it camping, so I put some in a ziplock bag for that purpose.  This bag in the picture traveled with me on a 1,100 mile bicycle trip in spring and early summer 2010.

Dumped straight out of the trays and before further crumbling the dried eggs look like peanut brittle without the peanuts.

 

The majority of our dried eggs are packed tightly into glass jars and stored in our dark, cool root cellar.  Most summers I dehydrated around 24 dozen to store for winter use.  It's been a big savings and a great way to have 'home-grown' eggs over the winter.

 

If you have comments or questions, please leave them below or email me at:

povertyprepping@yahoo.com

 

Susan

 

Baking Soda

 

A reader, Amanda, pointed this out to me last week: "My dad received the book last night. Read it and loved it. But I think baking soda needs a promotion. Baking soda can be used for dental health and, to me at least, something with a dual purpose is twice as valuable. We can live without shampoo, totally, but I just have this uncanny affection for my teeth...lol"

 

She's right!  I briefly mentioned it in the Poverty Prepping book as just one in a list of minor stock-up items, primarily as an 'ingredient' for cooking with the basic food storage items.  Yet we buy it in bulk bags and use it for a lot of things, and I consider it an essential part of our own storage. 

 

I did a quick search to find lists of uses for baking soday and I came up with dozens of sites; "35 uses for baking soda" "52 uses for baking soda" "18 uses for baking soda", and so on.  So I'm just going to write about how we use it here at our house.  I welcome more ideas from you readers.

 

As Amanda said, it can be used for dental health.  We've used it for tooth brushing at times, and as a mouth rinse when we had tooth aches or mouth sores. 

 

We use it for shampoo.  It works especially good with soft water.  Once our hair is wet we sprinkle about quarter cup of baking soda over our scalp.  It doesn't lather, and you have to be careful to work it all the way in to your scalp.  Sometimes you have to duck your head into the water for a second to get it wetter so you can spread it.  As you rinse it out, work it down through the ends of your hair, if you have long hair.  I started doing this about three years ago, as a way to reduce chemicals in my life, and to save money.

 

We use it for body soap.  It's slightly abrasive, which means it exfoliates the skin.  It leaves the skin soft.  The only 'down' side of using baking soda for hair and skin is that it has no fragrance.  Your hair and skin will just smell like hair and skin, and it can take a little getting used to.  One of my daughters makes soap with things like oatmeal, coconut oil, and green tea in it, so I sometimes use that instead.

 

We use baking soda as laundry soap.  It does a great job cleaning clothes and removing odors.  Again, though, it has no scent.  It was even weirder getting used to clothes that didn't smell like laundry soap.  Even the "unscented" soaps have a scent, and we spend our lives accustomed to that, so clothes that have zero scent are strange to get used to.  We hang ours outside to dry, which helps a little.  The clothes smell like fresh air, sunshine, and pine trees.  I experimented with adding scent to my laundry water.  In the summer I'd pick and throw in a couple handfuls of rose petals.  Sometimes I add a couple drops of vanilla extract.  Probably the weirdest but most pleasant things I've done is to make a strong "tea" of spices, strain it, and pour that in the laundry water.  My favorite is a pickling spice that is heavy on cloves.  I like to pour about half a cup pickling spice tea in my laundry water, and my clothes have a faint scent of cloves and other spices.  Another good one is cinnamon and/or pumpkin pie spices. 

 

We use baking soda to wash dishes, instead of dish soap.  It cleans even the greasiest dishes, it's abrasive action cleans residue off of pans and other dishes, yet it's gentle enough not to scratch the surfaces.  We keep one sink filled with dish water and one with rinse water.  We put white vinegar in the rinse water, and I've never had such sparkling glasses and clean silverware.  I always wash each spoon, fork, and knive separately and thought they were clean, but the baking soda wash and vinegar rinse has our silverware looking "Wow!" clean.

 

I sprinkle baking soda on the counters and stove when I wash them, and I use it to clean the oven.  For baked-on stuff in the oven I lay a soaking-wet dish cloth over it for a while, then remove the wash cloth and sprinkle baking soda on the 'stuff' that needs cleaned off.  About an hour later I come back and clean it up.  Usually it gets everything off.

 

We use baking soda in the water we mop the floor with.  Then I give it a rinse with just water, and a final mopping with white vinegar in the water.  Yep, I end up going over the floor 3 times, but it's quick, it's cheap, it looks nice, and it's chemical-free.

 

I use baking soda to scrub out 'smelly' things, like coolers and the fridge.  I've sprinkled it on our throw rugs and rolled them up for half a day, then shook them out good and hung them on the line for the other half a day.  It keeps them fresh-smelling.  I've done this with sleeping bags before we went camping, to 'freshen' them.

 

My husband uses baking soda to clean the battery terminals in our vehicles.  He mixes a little with water and pours it over the battery posts and cable ends.  It dissolves all that 'crud".

 

We work it into our dog's fur as a 'dry shampoo', then brush her out.  We've sprinkled it on the car seats and floor matts, then vacuumed it out the next day, to deoderize the car.

 

Baking soda usually comes in a small box which, I think, is about a pound.  It's under a dollar.  If you have ( or know someone who does) a Costco card, they sell it in 13.5 lb. bags.  It used to be 14 lb. but I noticed when I took the above picture that it's now 13.5 lbs.  They cost somewhere around $7.  Sam's club might have them too, but they're not in our part of the country, so I don't know for sure.

 

I dump the bag into a 2-gallon air-tight, water-tight bucket.  The bags are heavy plastic and do work okay for storing it without opening it.  I keep a spare 1/4-cup measuring cup in the bucket.

 

Baking soda is a natural substance which is mined in Wyoming and surrounding areas.  For people who live in the inland western mountains and high desert, you can sometimes harvest it from the ground.  It's a white crust on the surface where puddles have dried up, out on the rangeland or in gullies.  Not all of it is baking soda, so test a tiny drop.  It should be slightly salty.  Scrape up a little bit and see if the county extension office will tell you, or take it to an agricultural school and ask. Farther south, in southern Nevada, we found what we thought was heavily concentrated baking soda.  It turned out to be salt!

 

Now it's your turn!  I'd love to hear of other uses.

 

Susan

povertyprepping@yahoo.com

 

 From the mailbox:

Dec. 16, 2012

 

"May I suggest that your husband wipe some Vaseline on the battery terminals. Of course it doesn't have to be the name brand but it will keep them nice and clean. This way he won't accidentally get baking soda in the cells. This is something I learned about 45 years ago or so, when I was but a wee lass and my dear old Dad would let me help him. 

I use vinegar and baking soda to clean the drains."  - Elaine

Dave's Kitchen - Dried Cranberries

 

Dried Cranberries

To dehydrate cranberries they have to be cut or they will just cook and swell up before they dry. I had sliced each berry in half with a knife to fill the first 5 gallon bucket but I got smart and chopped them in a food processor for the second. The picture attached was with the berries ran through the food processor. It really sped up the process.
 

They can be used pretty much the same way as you would use fresh, just soak them in water first. To make cranberry sauce, just put them in a pot of boiling water with sugar and they will cook up great. They have a high pectin content and will form a thick sauce when they cool, just like a fruit jelly. They also make a good tea, just pour boiling water on some in a cup and let it sit for a while and drink hot or add ice and drink it cold - add some sugar if you like.

 

I add them to sweet potatoes when baking them with brown sugar(candied sweet potatoes), add them to the dish dry and they will soak up liquid as they cook. They also go good in pumpkin or sweet potato bread, add them dry and they cook up fine. If you add fresh berries to the batter they will be soft and mushy in the loaf but added dry they do well.

 

My daughter brought in 4 more bags of fresh cranberries yesterday that I haven't done anything with yet. I'm going to slice them and soak them in sugar before I dry them and see what they come out like. That may make a good snack item(if we're lucky), nothing like experimenting to learn something new, huh?

Dry-canning Meat

When you cover meat with broth or water and then run it through your canner, the meat will be tender and juicy.  That's a good thing for most meat.  If you're going to use it in stew, soup, or gravy, it's excellent.  But if you want to use ground meat for things like spaghetti and tacos, it'll leave the meat soggy no matter how much you try to fry the water out of it.

 

When you make hamburger or sausage patties and can them covered with liquid, the burgers will likely crumble as you lift them out of the water.  In our opinion, it also boils the flavor out of the meat.

 

A few years ago I heard about something called  'dry canning', a technique for canning meat.  Now it's the only way I can burgers and ground meat.  Sometimes I can stew chunks and roasts that way too, but they do okay with water or broth over them.

 

Most of our meat-canning starts like this.  It's usually an animal we've raised or hunted.  This particular animal is (was?) a buffalo.  Some people are squeamish about this part of it, but to me it's part of the package of being self-sufficient.  I also like knowing that the meat I ate had a good life, wasn't confined, and didn't spend time in a feedlot being pumped full of anti-biotics or hormones or anything else.  But this post isn't an argument for home-grown or wild meat.

 

Regardless of how you acquire your meat, the first thing to do is prepare it for canning.  In this picture I'm browning ground meat on our woodstove. 

 

While the ground meat was browning I made burger patties out of some of the rest of the meat.  I use a canning lid from a wide-mouth jar as a sizer.  I want the patties to be about the size of the diameter of a wide-mouth jar. 

 

Then I brown them on both sides.

 

Once they're browned I drop them in jars, stacking them until the jar is nearly full. Now that they're browned they've shrunk a little bit and they fit perfectly in the jar. 

 

I don't have many of these jars. They're a short pint with a wide-mouth.  I can fit four nice-sized patties in them, which is just right for my husband and I.  If the kids or grandkids are here, I can use a quart jar of patties, or a couple of jars.  Eight patties fit in a quart.

 

From left to right I've canned burger patties, ground meat, and stew chunks.

 

Even if you don't add any water there is moisture in the meat.  You can see that it has pooled in the bottom of the jars.  This meat had been frozen and thawed before prepping and canning it, so I think it had more moisture.  Sometimes if the meat is exceptionally dry I add about half an inch of water to the jar.  It steams through the meat as it cans and keeps the meat moist.  I canned a batch of dry stew meat with no added water and the top inch or so was dry and somewhat hard.  I had to soak them in water.  So I think a little bit of water helps.

 

Most of the meat we can is lean, so fat isn't an issue.  However, we can bacon and sausage, which can be fatty.  Dry-canning is good for these foods because they're not as likely to boil over as high-fat meat, which can lead to jars not sealing properly.

 

These are browned sausage patties ready to be canned.  I make the sausage patties smaller and fatter, and I put them in regular mouth pints this time.  Generally it's hard to get the meat out of a regular mouth jar, but I was out of wide-mouth jars so I used what I had. Since the patties were smaller, they weren't hard to get out.  I put about 1/2 inch of water in the jars before I canned them, but I didn't need to add salt or anything else.  Sometimes I can a blob of ground sausage instead of patties and use it for sausage gravy with biscuits, but usually I make patties and if I want some for gravy, I crumble them up when I use them.

 

To can bacon I put a piece of wax paper on the counter, then lay the bacon on it, putting the strips side-by-side.  A second piece of wax paper goes over it.

 

 

Now I roll is up.  I cut the strips of bacon in half before I put them on the wax paper so they won't be as long.  You can fold the bundle in half after you roll it up if you don't want to cut the strips.  I shove the wax paper bundle of bacon strips into a jar and can it like that, nothing extra added.  When you go to use it, carefully unroll the wax paper, lift the strips off and into a pan.  They're fully cooked in the canning process, so all you have to do is heat them.  You can eat it right out of the jar, too, if your power is off or if you're camping and don't want to heat it.  It's great on sandwiches or burgers.

 

You can also just shove the bacon in a jar and can it, but you'll never get it apart.  I can some in half-pints and we use them in omelettes, as bacon bits on salads, in stir-frys, or added to homemade baked beans or bean soup.  Without separating them with waxed paper they pretty much crumble into pieces, but they're delcious.

 

You MUST use a pressure canner to safely can meat.

 

Be careful, too, not to over-stuff the jar with meat.  Dense meat, like roasts or chicken breasts, might not reach the very high temperatures needed to kill pathogens in the middle of the meat.  It might be best to can those in broth or water, or cut them in half lengthwise before putting them into the jar, so the piece of meat is smaller and the heat won't have to penetrate as far.

 

Yes, it's okay to leave the bone in chicken breasts when you can them.  You won't fit as many in a jar, but some people prefer them that way.  Same with pork chops or other meat.  It takes up space but it's safe to include bones.

 

When your jars are cool, remove the rings and wash the jar.  If you want to store them with the rings on, dry the jar and ring, and screw the ring back on the jar.  You can store them either way.  Once it's sealed the ring isn't necessary, but the ring can protect the lid from accidental bumps on the rim, which could unseal the jar.

 

 

Canning times and pressure:

 

For beef, pork, venison and all other "meat" meats:

 

90 minutes at 10 lbs. pressure if you're under 3,000' of elevation

90 minutes at 15 lbs. pressure if you're over 3,000' of elevation.

 

 

For chicken and turkey:

 

70 minutes at 10 lbs. pressure if you're under 3,000' of elevation

70 minutes at 15 lbs. pressure if you're over 3,000' of elevation

For fish:

100 minutes at 10 lbs. pressure if you're under 3,000' of elevation

100 minutes at 15 lbs. pressure if you're over 3,000' of elevation
(Some canning guides say 90 minutes)

 

 

Follow the standard canning prodecures of putting the lids in hot water to simmer, etc. 

 

 

Storing canned meat:

 

The best place is cool and dark with a steady temperature.  If you have cabinets in a back room or basement, those are good.  Try to avoid excessive moisture, such as a damp basement or root cellar.  The lids and rings will rust, which could make it hard (or impossible!) to get the rings off.  If the rest gets bad, it could rust through the lid, but that's rare.  A dry root cellar or basement are okay.

 

You can put the jars back in the box they came in, or find a box from the grocery store, and push them under your bed.  Dry-canned meat doesn't have to be protected from freezing.  Meat canned with water or broth can't be allowed to freeze because the liquid will expand and could break the jar.  That's why it's safe to put dry-canned meat in an unheated shed or garage in cold climates.

 

Light is the enemy of fat, and even lean meat has some fat.  That's why it's not a good idea to store them on shelves that are open to light, such as a basement with windows.  If you want to store them there, consider stapling or tacking an old sheet or blanket across the front of the shelves.

 

 

Shelf life

 

Shelf life is tied to how you store it.  In ideal conditions of dry, dark, cool, steady temperatures, and if you've been diligent about safety and following instructions while canning, it's probably safe for 10 to 20 years.  Definitely safe for five years, if you're very sure they were processed the full length of time at the right temperature, and if you're sure the jars really sealed on their own and you didn't get antsy and tap them and the lid popped down but isn't really sealed.

 

If you're unsure, try to use them up within two years.  Take a quick sniff and look it over when you open the jar.  If the flavor is off or you're suspicious about anything, throw it away.  The contents, not the jar.  The jar can be washed and boiled, and reused.  Never, ever, reuse a canning lid, especially for meat.  Some people take a chance when they're canning things like fruit, but it's not recommended.  Don't take a chance on it with meat.

 

I'll be happy to answer questions about anything I neglected to include here, or track down answers if I don't know the answer.

 

Susan

povertyprepping@yahoo.com



We have a website!

Well, sort of...

I just got off the phone with the most wonderful business consultant at godaddy.com.  You can't go wrong with an internet company that will sit and talk with you at length and offer to help with anything you need to build your site.

Let's back up.  When I published "Poverty Prepping" I wanted to make a wesite to go with it so I could provide more information on prepping, especially pertaining to low-budget.  I didn't know anything about making a wesite, so I made this blog instead, since I know how to do a blog. 

Last week, when I discovered the take-off of my own book, I decided I better grab the domain name while I could.  My daughter bought the domain name for me and set up my account with godaddy.  She told me it wasn't much different from making a blog, but that she would help me.  Life got busy with Thanksgiving and the acount sat, untouched. 

This morning, while I was tripping over my 2-year old grandson, a very patient and informative young man called from GoDaddy and talked to me at length about web sites and made suggestions for things that would make it a good site and bring more traffic.  I appreciated his blend of just enough "techi-ness" and just enough "real person" that I understood the things he was saying.

While discussing the basic ideas of Poverty Prepping in relation to what sort of content I would have on the site, it turned out that this man and his wife are preppers.  We had a nice conversation on the subject and I felt even better about our choice of company for hosting our site, besides liking an approachable company that will help people use their service or product.

So, the bottom line is that we're going to be building a website to go with this blog!  It'll be:  http://www.povertyprepping.com.  There's nothing on it at this minute, but hopefully we'll have it started today.  I'll keep you posted.

Susan
povertyprepping@yahoo.com

Dave's Kitchen - Brined Green Beans

When bringing in produce from your garden, there are times when you have more than you can eat but not enough to warrant getting out the tools and utensils out to process it.

Produce can be stored in the fridge until you have enough but but things like Green Beans can spoil if kept more than a few days.

Green Beans can be "Brined" and kept that way for weeks without spoiling.  That can preserve them until enough are gathered to work with.

 

Brined Green Beans

To brine the beans, wash snap, string or cut them like you would
when preparing them to cook or can.

In a crock, cooking pot or other container, put a thin layer of green
beans in, then add a layer of salt and repeat until the container
is full or you run out of beans.  Top with an additional layer of
salt. Cover the container and set it aside.

Fairly quickly the beans will start to "cry" and after a day or
so the beans will be "swimming" in a brine formed by the salt and
liquid that was drawn out. They can be covered and stored this
way for weeks.  Just make sure the level of the liquid
stays above the green beans. If the brine level drops, just add
water.

More beans can be added and layered with salt as they come
in from the garden until the container is full.  Again, just make sure the
level of the liquid stays above the beans.

When you get ready to prepare them for preserving or eating, drain
the brine and soak them in fresh water for several hours or until the
salt leeches out, and process them like fresh beans. They can be
dehydrated, strung to air dry, or canned. Just process them
and treat them like fresh.

Keep in mind that if the beans are left in the brine for too long, they
may start to ferment and become "Pickles". Theres nothing wrong
with Pickled Green Beans but they will need to be treated like pickle
and processed accordingly.

 

 

 The freshly snapped green beans in a bin
layered in salt.

 

 

 The same bin after it has sat overnight, the salt has drawn
the juices out of the beans and formed the brine.


This is not an indefinite long term method of preserving and store
your green beans but is a good process to be familiar with.

 

 

 

I have a fresh email from Dave about the beans:

 

Just a note about the green beans...

We had our Thanksgiving meal and one thing on the menu was Green Beans so I made up a batch of the ones that have been in the brine for about 10 days now. They were every bit as good(and crisp) as if they had been prepared fresh. I soaked them in fresh water overnight then lightly boiled and drained the water again, they cooked up with just enough salt to season them to taste.

 

I am leaving the rest of the batch in the brine to see just how long they will last before they start to pickle.

 

Dave...

 

I hope he'll let us know about the green bean brine-to-pickles process!


Food Storage Cheeseburgers

 

 

This cheeseburger was made entirely out of our food storage.

 

I started canning hamburger patties about five years ago.  My first efforts weren't so good because I still canned meat by covering it with water and leaving headspace.  It left the burgers soggy and tastless.  Then I heard about dry-canning and I've been doing that ever since.

Canned Hamburger Patties

 

I brown the burger patties on both sides, then set them on a platter to cool a bit.  When I form the patties I use a lid from a wide-mouth jar as a sizer so the burgers will be just slightly smaller than the jar after I brown them, but not too big to drop in the jar.  I use wide-mouth jars because it's easy to shake the burger patties out, or to fish them out with a fork if necessary.

Canned cheddar cheese
 

I learned about canning cheese about a year later.  The instructions for that are just a couple posts away from this one on this blog.  When I'm ready to make a cheeseburger I slide the cheese out of the jar and slice off what I'll need.

 

Using my stored flour, sugar, salt, yeast, and oil (or shortening), I make dinner rolls. Some of my tips for storing these items will be at the end of this post.  Right now I want to stick with the cheeseburgers for those who don't need information on how to store these ingredients.
 

 

When the dinner rolls are ready I take however many I need for the meal, and slice them in half, then set them aside.  I open a jar of hamburger patties and pull out the number of patties I need.  The burgers are heated in a pan on the stove.  The burgers in the top of the jar will be drier than those farther down.  If the ones you are using feel a bit too dry, add a little bit of water to the pan. 

 

The burgers are already cooked, so they only need to be heated.  If you have a microwave oven you can heat them in there and skip using the stove.  Just place the burger patties on a paper plate or other microwave-safe dish and heat them in the microwave.  You'll have to experiment with time since all microwaves are different, but I wouldn't give it more than a minute at a time.  30 seconds might be better until you know how much time your own microwave will take.

 

Take the jar of cheese and dip the outside in hot water for a couple of minutes.  Run a knife around the inside of the jar between the cheese and the glass, then using the knife, gently pull the cheese out of the jar.  You don't have to pull it all the way out if you don't want.  You can edge out enough for a cheese slice and cut it off with a knife or cheese slicer, then edge it out a little more and cut another slice.  Or you can pull the whole thing out and slice it.  Simply push the leftover cheese block back into the jar and put the lid back on.
 

 Slicing canned cheese
 

Once the jar of burgers or cheese is open, the leftovers should be stored in the fridge

 

For condiments, I have dried onions from my own garden.  I soften them in water while waiting for the meat to heat.  When they're rehydrated I drain the water and let them air-dry for a few minutes while I slice the cheese.

 

I keep ketchup in my food storage, but if I didn't, I'd take some of the dried tomato slices from this year's garden and put them in the blender to make a powder.  This is assuming there is electricity available to do this, by the way.  If not, you might want to just rehydrate the tomato slices in water and put them on the burger.  But if you can make the tomato powder, then you can add some sugar and vinegar, and water if it's still dry.  Stir it and you have a reasonable imitation of ketchup.

 

I store bottled mustard and the spice jars of dry mustard.  If you only have the dry mustard, add little bit of vinegar or water, or both, and spread it on the bun.

If you don't have pickles stored, adding vinegar to the tomato powder or mustard powder can fool you a little bit, into thinking there's a pickle in there somewhere.

 

Mayo, if you use it on burgers, can be stored in jars, either store-bought or homemade, or you can make it on the spot if you have eggs and the other ingredients. 

 

It's possible to dehydrate lettuce, and I've done it, but mine crumbled when I tried to rehydrate it.  The chickens enjoyed it.

 

If all you have is butter or margarine it'll at least add moisture and flavor to the sandwich.

 

One of our favorite variations to the standard cheeseburger is to lay the bun open face on a plate and place a heated burger on each half.  Pour chili over it, sprinkle with rehydrated onions, and shredded cheese from the block of canned cheese.

 

We have enough solar power now to run a small refrigerator in the summer, but until a few years ago we only had meat or cheese if it was canned.  The exception was in the winter, which is consistently cold enough here that we can keep food in a cooler on the north side of our cabin.  We still disconnect the refrigerator in the fall because of the very short hours of daylight this far north in winter.  The canned meat and cheese has provided us with many good and varied meals. 

 

Canned meat and cheese are great to keep on hand in case you're stranded at home during a bad storm and want something interesting to eat.  Or you can take the meat and cheese with you on a camping trip, and either make or buy buns before you leave, and have a treat in the wilderness.  If you're preparing for long-term disasters it'll give you a nice break from basic storage food like rice, beans, flour, etc.

 

One of my upcoming posts will include pictures and instructions for canning meat.

 

 I store flour and sugar in 2-gallon plastic buckets from a local bakery.  I don't do anything special to it; I just pour the contents of 25-lb. bags into the buckets, then label them with a marker.  Before I discovered this source for buckets I put the bags in a large plastic tote. I taped over the vent holes in the handles with masking tape or duct tape, to keep out bugs.  If it was going to be stored more than a month or two, I also ran tape around where the lid and container came together.  I've also at times put the bag of sugar or flour in a large plastic trash bag if I had to store them under a bed or somewhere similar, but I'm not comfortable with what chemicals may be in or on the trash bags.  Some are treated with pesticides.

 

I set cans of salt inside a 2-gallon bucket and snap the lid on.  That keeps the salt dry, since the cardboard cans it comes in are susceptible to moisture.  I can fit 3 cans on the bottom layer and 4 cans on the top layer.

 

If you have a Food Saver or other vacuum-sealer you can seal the salt in bags, and then place it in the bucket or other storage container. 

 

If I've missed anything, please let me know.  My two-year old grandson has been playing on my lap during most of the writing of this post, so who knows what I might have missed!  :)

 

Susan

povertyprepping@yahoo.com

My book has been pirated

(Inserted note, November 30th, 2012:  The book seems to be gone from Amazon now, but I'll leave this post on here for now.)

A friend sent me a link to this book:

The title is shown on Amazon as,  "Poverty Prepping: Saving for a Rainy Day when you Don't Have Much Today"    

 

Now, how many people would have thought up that title on their own?  It's kind of close to my book, "Poverty Prepping:  How To Stock Up For Tomorrow When You Can't Afford To Eat Today", don't you think?  My book was published 6 months before this one.

 

This book was published by an App mill.  They steal other people's books and publish them with similar titles, and steal sales.  Click on the author's name, which is shown as "Malibu Apps", and you'll find over 100 of these stolen books.  They re-write them enough to avoid plagarism laws.

 

The heartbreaking thing is that I'm just a regular person who wrote this book to help people get started prepping.  My heart is for others like me who have almost nothing to spend beyond our needs for today.  I charged the Amazon minimum of .99 for a kindle book, of which I get 35-cents per sale. 

 

I wasn't planning to buy a vacation home on a tropical Island with my earnings.  I hoped to get new eyeglasses, since my grandson broke the earpiece a couple months ago, and they're still taped with duct tape while I save the money for the exam and glasses.  I hoped to replace some of the preps we've had to eat heavily out of this past couple years during our economic hard times.  Maybe I'd have enough for new tires for my car, a 1996 Jeep Cherokee, and to replace the windshield that has two cracks all the way across it.

 

The world isn't always a fair place.  I'm old enough to know that, but it still hurts when things like this happen.  I have no idea what to do about the pirated similar book, except hope that I can rise above it and keep writing books, keep up this blog, and carry on.

 

Thank you for your support.
Susan

Canning butter and cheese

By request from a reader, here are directions for canning butter.  I've also included directions for canning cheese, after the section on butter.  I appreciate the request.

 

 Canning butter

 

Home-canned butter

 

It's easy to can butter and cheese at home.  It can be done in a water-bath kettle, or any kettle big enough to cover your jars with water.  You need some kind of rack in the bottom to keep the jars slightly elevated, but I've used a cooling rack in the bottom of a kettle, or a rack from the bottom of a roaster pan.  You can use a pressure canner, either with the lid latched and brought to pressure, or just with the lid settled on top.

 

Some people melt the butter first, in a pan, and let it simmer for a while before pouring it in jars.  I set my jars in a pan that has a couple inches of water in it and the stove burner turned low.  Then I slice chunks of butter into the jars.  The heat of the water melts it and I keep adding butter.  I fill the jars to about an inch from the top, to allow for 'head space', which is a space you leave between the product in the jar, and the lid.

 

I found this explanation of head space on a site called http://www.pickyourown.org:

"This space is needed for expansion of food as jars are processed, and for forming vacuums in cooled jars. The extent of expansion is determined by the air content in the food and by the processing temperature. Air expands greatly when heated to high temperatures; the higher the temperature, the greater the expansion. Foods expand less than air when heated. This is why you must leave more headspace when using a pressure canner!"

 

Although it says "when using a pressure canner", I think head space is also needed in water-bath canning, since the air is heated in the jars during that process too.  At any rate, the extra space at the top would prevent boiling over.

 

While I'm letting the butter melt I get a small pan and put the jar lids in it and cover them with water.  I let them simmer on another burner.  What I've always been told is that it softens the rubber strip around the edge of the bottom side of the lid and allows it to seal to the jar.  My mother always simmered hers for at least half an hour, so I have too.  The one time I forgot to get them started and simmered them for just 15 minutes I had quite a few jars in that canner load that didn't seal.  So science aside, I stick with the half hour minimum. 

 

When the jars are filled I lift them out of the pan of water and set them on a towel. I go around and wipe the rims with a clean, damp cloth. Using a fork I fish a lid out of the small pan of water, and touching only the edge of the lid, I place it on the jar. Then I screw a ring on it until it's snug but not over-tight.  This is a picture of the lids and rings, sometimes called caps and bands, or other terms.

I set the jars in my canning kettle, which usually already has hot water simmering in it.  Sometimes I have to use the jar-lifter tongs to put the jars in the water, if the water is too hot.  When all the jars are in I check to see that the water covers the tallest jar by at least an inch.  If it doesn't, I add water. 

 

Now the lid goes on and when it boils, I begin timing.  I've seen directions that say they need to boil for half an hour, for 45 minutes, and for an hour.  I went with the hour, for safety, but butter isn't a dense food once it's melted, so it's probably safe enough to boil it for the shorter time. 

 

When the butter comes out it looks like this.

 

After it's cooled about 15 minutes you need to start picking up the jars, holding them in a hot pad or towel but making sure you can get a good hold on the jar, and tip them upside down and back upright a few times.  The butter has separated during canning and this mixes it back up.  Some people shake their jars but I prefer to tip them over and back upright instead.  I suppose I imagine the butter getting bubbly and frothy-looking if I were to shake it!

 

Pick them up about 10 minutes, and more often if you think it needs it, until it's cool enough that it stops separating as it sits.  When it's cool it'll look like this:

 

As you see in the picture at the top of this post, I use different sizes of jars for butter, but I tend to stick to small jars, such as half-pints and jelly jars.  I have canned butter in jars as big as pints, though.

 

* * * *

 

Canning Cheese

 

 

 

In addition to butter I also can cheese.  The thing I like about canning cheeses is that they return to their original texture and firmness after they cool.  For example, canned cheddar firms back up and can be slid out of the jar and sliced:

 

or shredded:

 

I use jars that have the same size mouth, or opening, as the sides of the jar.  In this picture the cheese was in a half-pint jar.  It uses a regular-mouth lid, but since the jar is so small it looks like a wide-mouth jar, with straight sides.  If I use a pint jar I use a wide-mouth one.  It's easier to get the cheese out of the jar.

 

To remove the cheese from the jar I hold it in a pan or bowl of hot water for a couple minutes.  This softens the cheese where it touches the glass.  Remove the lid and run a knife around the inside of the jar.  Keeping the knife between the cheese and the side of the jar, apply a litttle pressure to the cheese and slide it out with the knife. 

 

When you're done cutting, slicing, or shredding it, push the leftover block of cheese back into the jar.  It's easier to slide it out when you go to use the rest of it later.

 

Mozzarella cheese cans up nicely.  It turns a darker color and is a bit more crumbly as you shred it, but once the pizza or lasagne, or whatever you've made, is done baking, you can't tell the difference.

 

Cream cheese is one of my favorite cheeses to can.  This time of year (November) cream cheese is on sale for a good price at our local store, so I buy several boxes and can them.  Later in the year when cream cheese is twice the price I paid for them, I still have lots of cream cheese.

 

Cream cheese looks pretty after it's canned.  It doesn't darken during canning like other soft, light-colored cheeses.  The texture is the same as a fresh block of cream cheese.

 

I can cheese the same way I do butter.  I set the jars in a couple inches of water, in a pan on the stove over low heat.  It takes longer for it to melt.  One time I crammed the jar full of chunks and canned it without waiting for it to soften or melt, figuring it would melt during canning.  I ended up with jars about 2/3 full.  I also didn't know if I'd allowed enough time for the cheese to melt and then get hot enough for canning.

 

Cheese is denser than butter, so it really does need more time than butter.  I can mine at a full boil for an hour.  Pressure canning is a good option for dense cheese like cheddar and mozzarella.  I haven't tried cheese like pepper jack and provolone, but I plan to do that some time this winter.  I'm watching for a sale.

 

Cheese doesn't separate like butter, so once you remove it from the canner you don't have to do anything to them.  Place them on a towel and let them cool.

 

 

Other dairy products I've canned have had varying results.  Egg nog cans up nicely but darkens a little and separates somewhat.  It needs to be shaken before you drink it.  We can up a jar or two at Christmas time, then in the summer we open them for a surprise treat.  The first year we didn't chill the jar first, and egg nog tastes icky at July room temerature!  Be sure to chill it first! 

 

Milk can be canned but you end up with a product that looks like evaporated milk.  The flavor tastes slightly scorched but is otherwise good.  It, also, tastes better if you chill it before drinking. 

 

If you're a margarine user I would imagine it could be canned the same as butter.  Not knowing how the scientific properties work in the 'healthier' mixes of margarine I'd recommend using only real margarine.  If you're using a heart-healthy variety that says it can be used in baking or melted in cooking, then it would probably do okay for canning.  If you find a really good sale on it, canning might be a money-saving option.

 

I go one better on my canning.  I don't have extra energy costs for canning butter and cheese.  I almost always can it this time of year when it's on sale for the holidays, and here in Montana we're using our woodstove all day to heat our cabin.  Our woodstove has a large flat surface big enough to hold two canner kettles, side by side.  I take advantage of the heat source that would be hot this time of year anyway.  For those of you that heat with wood, you might be able to do that too.

 

If anyone has something they'd like to add to this discussion, please leave a comment here on the blog or email me at: povertyprepping@yahoo.com. 

 

Susan

 

November 20, 2012:  I received a question by anonymous post -

"Can you tell me how long the butter and the rest last as far as shelf life?
Thanks

 

Six months to Five years.

The shelf life, or storage life, of canned butter or cheese depends in part on how you store it.  The most ideal place dark and cool with a steady temperature.  Dark keeps the oils in the butter and other dairy product from oxidizing and becoming 'off-flavor'.  Cool temperatures extend the lives of any canned or dehydrated food, but especially those with a high-fat content.  There's probably a scientific explanation (and maybe someone will share it with us?) for why.  I just know that it does.

 

Steady temperature is easier on the food than a constant cycle of heating and cooling.  Daily temperature fluctuations, such as night time and day time temperatures, are harder on the food than seasonal.  Since canned butter and cheese can be frozen, you could store them in a shed or garage even in a cold climate.  Try to put them near the floor and cover them with old blankets, newspapers, or cardboard to insulate them against fast rises or drops in temperature.

 

I have butter and cheese I canned in 2009 that I'm just now using and it's as fresh tasting as if I just bought it.  It's been stored in dark containers but has been subjected to some temperature fluctuations, mainly seasonal.  If I had stored it in a kitchen cupboard at regular household temperatures, or even worse, in a place where it was exposed to light, I would try to eat it within six months.

 

With optimum storage and proper canning procedures I would say it would be safe to eat for at least five years.  Beyond that I'd inspect the jar carefully before I opened it.  Look for discoloration or mold spots, and make sure the jar is sealed tightly.  To check the seal, tap on the lid.  If it pushes in when you touch it, the jar isn't sealed even if it seems like the lid is tight.  Don't take a chance on eating it if you think it has come unsealed in storage. 

 

Open the jar and smell the contents.  Does it smell like the original fresh product?  If might smell a bit old but that wouldn't mean it's not safe.  If it smells rancid you might want to discard it or mix it with pet or livestock feed.  Some cheese like cheddar can get a white crusty-looking scum around the edges or top of the jar.  This is normal.  It's crystalized fat.  It's safe to eat but you can scoop it off if you prefer.

 

Thank you for the question.  It's something I should have thought of when I wrote the post!

 

 

From the mailbox:

12/09/2012

 

"Thank you for the great instructions on your blog on canning butter. Guess what I finally did today? 12 half pints and 6 pints of butter ready for the pantry (okay, it is a closet that I took over). Woohoo!

Thank you again, I wouldn't have done it if it weren't for your expert tutorial" - Cindi

 

It's always nice to hear from people who try these things!  Thanks for writing to me about it!

 

Susan