Category: Food Storage & Cooking

Growing Kabocha Squash, by Rookie Gardener

Until my retirement in the summer of 2021, I had never grown anything but weeds, which evidently, I’m pretty good at. However, growing anything else was hit and miss, mostly miss. During my working life my wife and I spent a lot of time in Asia. One of the commonly used vegetables often sliced thin, breaded, and deep fried on tempura platters is kabocha squash, also called Japanese pumpkin. Kabocha is a winter squash with a creamy texture. It’s used in many Asian cuisines. We could not bring home seeds but here we found that we could purchase them online …


A Costly Freeze-Drying Prepper Mistake, by Mrs. T.

Doesn’t everyone want a freeze dryer? It feels like the ultimate answer to long-term food storage, your foods, your way, preserved “forever.” Perfect for a nuclear war, another COVID lockdown, or just peace of mind. My family has a lot of food allergies, making it difficult for long long-term food storage solutions. We have never been able to find freeze-dried foods that were a combination of what we eat, and not processed in facilities that process ingredients we’re allergic to. That’s why the freeze dryer seemed like the perfect solution. And honestly, it still is. But not before I learned …


A Three-Year Window or a Three-Month Window?

As an observer of contemporary politics, economics, and emerging threats, I have come to the conclusion that the last three years of Donald John Trump’s second term as President may provide a potential window of opportunity. If we were now living under a Harris-Walz Administration, we would surely be out of time to prepare. I have my doubts about Trump’s sincerity when he talks about scaling back the size and power of government. Alarmingly, the gains of the DOGE project were wiped out by the huge deficit spending included in the recent  “Big, Beautiful Bill”.  But I don’t consider DJT …


Review: Ramen Bae Topping Mix, by Mike in Alaska

DISCLAIMER: I paid out of my own pocket for this food and Ramen Bae did not sponsor this review article in any way. Some folks love Ramen, but others say if you eat it you’ll die a horrible, painful death. Well, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch; bottom line is that as food it’s not the same as say a prime rib dinner. But then it doesn’t need you to take out a second mortgage to buy, either. After all the years I’ve eaten food that some might call questionable, ramen isn’t anywhere near the top of the list …


Scrabble and Prepping – Part 2, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 1.) SCRABBLE IS A MATH GAME Just as Scrabble involves math, have we applied enough math to our prepping? Do we know how long a bar of soap lasts or how many calories we need per year per person in our group? Are we just guessing or have we actually marked a tube of toothpaste with a Sharpie when we begin using it and note the date when it’s finished? Have we at least looked it up somewhere to get a rough idea on how long it will last? Do we know how long it takes for …


Meat and Vegetable Broths, by Mrs. Alaska

Almost any savory dish you cook with water will be tastier if cooked with a vegetable broth or meat broth.  So throughout a week of cooking (and harvesting), I set aside less desirable parts of vegetables and bones to make broth when I have accumulated enough to make a pot or two.  I often time the cooking in advance of making rice, or beans so I can cook those carbohydrates in the broth. Making Vegetable Broth The vegetables for broths can be any and all.  For example, this week, I harvested broccoli heads.  For the broth, I cut up the …


Preparedness Primer for an Uncertain Future – Part 6, by Single Farmer

Editor’s Introductory Note: This young man is prayerfully seeking a wife. He is offering an after-marriage gift of up to $50,000 to whoever introduces him to his bride with $18,000 after their marriage and another $16,000 to the individual who provided the introduction after the first two births of healthy children born to him and his wife, for a total potential gift of $50,000. For further details, see this link to his article posted on July 13th, 2025: My Quest for a Wife: I’m Willing to Move. — (Continued from Part 5. This concludes the article.) Five Hundred Dollar Prepper …


How Do You Define an “Emergency Situation”?, by A.Y.

An emergency, as Webster’s Dictionary defines it, is: “…an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action, or an urgent need for assistance or relief.”  Throughout our lifetimes we may see many types of emergencies not just the Schumer Hits The Fan (SHTF) types of emergencies such as nuclear war or economic collapse that we should be prepared for. I have found that in my life choosing the prepper lifestyle has aided me in many such emergencies.  Once, for instance, I found when I was laid off from work that my preparedness and stringently frugal …


Preps Starter Kits for Reluctant Families – Part 2, by A.F.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Two is one right? In addition to the filter in each kit, a water purifier was included. The difference between the pair is that a filter is uses mechanical or physical means to restrict the passage of solids (dirt or microorganisms) to achieve safety. A purifier in contrast uses chemical or ultra-violet methods to sterilize water. The Aqua Research H2gO purifier uses brine (here it is table salt dissolved in water) electrolysis to generate a concentrated chlorine solution that is mixed into your source water to disinfect it. This is very similar …


DIY Wood-Lined-Steel-Drum Corn Storage, by Thomas Christianson

“Some deer came to the squirrel feeder today,” Kari announced at supper one evening. Kari and I both love deer. Kari loves deer because she thinks that they are pretty. I love deer because I think that they are tasty. As a result, our priorities don’t always coincide. But we do both agree that we like having deer around on the property. It isn’t that I have ever actually shot deer on our property. I just want them nearby in case I get hungry. The squirrel feeder had not always been a squirrel feeder. It was originally a platform that …


An Amish Quantity Shopping Observation, by Richard T.

Recently, as I was waiting for our carts while parked outside of the pickup zone at the warehouse-style grocery store that we shop at our dashcam caught these Amish loading up their purchases. This was a very fascinating 10 minute episode that began before we arrived there. There was a large pickup truck with a hired “English” driver, a large rented cargo trailer and two Amish ladies and one Amish man who worked in a very energetic and organized fashion to load pallets of non-perishable goods into racks and shelving into the trailer. Since I only saw one Amish couple …


Coolfab Flaretop Rocket Stove, by Thomas Christianson

Coolfab is a custom metal-fabrication shop in Zeeland, Michigan. They are putting out some of the most innovative rocket stove designs that I have seen anywhere, at quite reasonable prices. I recently had a chance to test one of Coolfab’s Flaretop stoves. It is a real beast of a rocket stove, with its cooking surface standing 27.5 inches above the ground and weighing in at 52 pounds. The flaring at the top of the stove allows for a respectable 12 by 12-inch cooking surface. This larger surface area enabled me to simultaneously roast hot dogs and boil a half gallon …


Lehman’s Cordless Mason Jar Vacuum Sealer, by Mike in Alaska

I recently bought a Mason Jar vacuum sealer from the Lehman’s Non-Electric store located in Kidron, Ohio. The following is my informal review. Disclaimer: I paid full retail price for this jar sealer. Lehman’s has not paid me or otherwise compensated me, nor do I represent them. I am simply offering to readers of the blog our experience with this product. We have bought many items from Lehman’s over the years, from cast iron products, food, candies, to Aladdin Lamps. The quality of their products is what we call “generational quality”; that is, you can pass their products down to …


Life With Propane Freezers and Refrigerators

Via an e-mail from reader Richard T., I recently had a special request to write an article.  His request: “From a 1975 The Mother Earth News magazine, I found an obscure reference to the Crosley “Icy Ball” refrigerator and a search found it mentioned in a SurvivalBlog article from 2009. I followed the link in the article which led me on to research it some more. Using “Crosley Icy Ball refrigerator” as a search phrase in Youtube I found several short videos on it. I then discovered this was not a lost technology but this is how RV and propane …


Food Prepping With Freezer Bags – Part 3, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.) The Final Answer: How Reliable Are Freezer Bags For Storing Food? The most important questions these experiments were trying to answer is how reliable freezer bags are as a food-storage method? Do they work for the short term? And how well will they work for the long term? Thinner sandwich bags are definitely a bad way to go. Pests had chewed through the plastic in just a few months. Pantry moths in my cupboard also had no trouble chewing through the foil packets of hot chocolate or getting under the lid of …