Category: Food Storage & Cooking

Home Canning Water-Level Measuring Sticks, by St. Funogas

This is the third in a series of home canning articles dedicated to ways of making your home canning experience easier, quicker, more efficient, and less stressful. My hope is that they’ll add something new to the mix by offering some canning techniques which many home canners may not be aware of. My first two articles in the series were: Uncommon Canning Techniques Canning Tomato Sauce, a New Twist Canner Water-Level Conundrum One of the big frustrations for beginning home canners, and for many veterans as well, is trying to figure out exactly how much water to boil in the …


Alternative Ways to Source Food, by SaraSue

I was thinking how different my shopping habits are now than what they used to be. I used to go grocery shopping once a week, and didn’t think twice about running into a grocery store during the week for something I forgot or ran out of or needed for a new recipe. Now? I rarely go to a grocery store. Last year, I was popping in once every week or two just to grab a gallon of milk or a pound of bacon, but I don’t even do that anymore. Part of the reason is that I stocked up on …


Canning Tomato Sauce With a New Twist, by St. Funogas

I’m always on the lookout for new canning techniques and I enjoy experimenting as well. The method discussed here saves over half of the time and most of the propane is normally used to cook the tomato sauce. It’s also quick enough that it allows me to easily make three batches in a day. With tomatoes being my largest canning crop and having doubled my production this year, this method is even more important to help me avoid spending 50+ hours canning tomatoes over a hot stove in record-breaking heat and drought this year. I should be drinking iced tea …


Food As Currency, by SwampFox

The following is intended as an intellectual exercise. Our nation has been the victim of the slide toward globalism over the last couple of decades. We still retain our independent Dollar, but for how long? The European Union has a unified currency that is a model for the rest of the world. There have been attempts at an Asian currency as well as a North American currency, which was briefly titled the “Amero” and even heralded by a short-lived government website, back around 2007-2008. But there is one thing that unites all humans – the need to eat. My thoughts …


Eight Uncommon Canning Techniques, by St. Funogas

Many of us have been canning for so long that we still have the recipe for that T-rex stew we first canned while trying to figure out the mysteries of pressure canners. Others are just starting out on this fulfilling journey on the joys of home production and the uplifting feelings of self-reliance that come from home canning food for long-term storage that we raised and grew ourselves. I hope some of these techniques can help newbies and veterans alike in this year’s canning projects as you incorporate some of them into your own canning practices. My family did some …


Canning Potatoes, by Patrice Lewis

If you remember, early in May I put up a blog post asking for reader input on canning potatoes. You all came through beautifully in sharing your wisdom.           Well, I just tried canning them myself, and what do you know … they came out very well. Ironically, the day I canned potatoes was a day I had absolutely no interest in canning. Our weather has done a great big celestial 180 degrees this week, and we went from cool and rainy to hot and dry. Who wants to can anything in hot weather? But I …


Food and Treats for Fido, by Mrs. Alaska

In this article, I will describe making your own food and treats for your dogs. Many of these include long-term storage items. Recently, Zero Hedge posted an article that described animal shelters throughout the country as at full capacity because pet owners have brought in their pets at record rates.  The sad reason repeated is inflationary prices for human and pet products.  Fido and Fluffy had to go. I heard the same thing when we recently adopted a dog from the Anchorage, AK pound. Fortunately, there are many pet products that one can made from scratch, often with long storage …


When Hunger Happens, by The Domesticated Ranger

When The Schomer Hits The Fan (WTSHTF) and food becomes very scarce, it won’t take very long before people find themselves quite literally starving. And I don’t mean “starving” the way that teenagers say it! To a teenager, they think they are starving if it’s been more than three hours since they’ve eaten a significant meal. When I refer to starvation, I mean that the body has consumed all of its stores of fat and is now consuming its own muscle mass for energy. I have been there. Back in 1995, I was a student in the US Army’s Ranger …


Homemade Household Products Using Bulk Ingredients, by Mrs. Alaska

When people jokingly refer to Whole Foods as “Whole Paycheck” to indicate the price points, I wonder if they conclude that all organic products and foods have to be expensive. It is indeed more expensive to raise meat on a small homestead than to buy a rotisserie chicken at Costco. But so many pricey organic foods and value – add products are quickly and cheaply made at home. A frugal person can save thousands of dollars per year by combining ingredients for tasty or useful products. Put that cash to other purposes less easily accomplished. In addition, making products from …


Grow Food in Summer That Lasts All Winter – Part 2, by J.T.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) — Cabbage: One cabbage plant only produces one head weighing about two and half pounds. We like coleslaw, cabbage rolls, cooked cabbage with potatoes, and stews with cabbage. One cabbage each week should be sufficient for eating. Like broccoli, cabbage will not survive after year end, so we will plan to harvest only about 8 heads. (I harvested one cabbage in December. It lasted in our refrigerator until it was eaten 8 months later). These plants will need an area 5′ by 6′ of garden space for 8 plants placed 2′ apart …


Grow Food in Summer That Lasts All Winter – Part 1, by J.T.

Gardeners: You can grow crops in your summer garden that will feed your family during the non-growing season. It’s all about the proper timing for starting your seeds and knowing which plants can make it through the winter. When summer comes to an end and you no longer have those wonderful veggies that came from your garden, what are your options? Well, for many of us gardeners, we are at the mercy of shopping for produce at Safeway from November until next year’s summer crop which won’t become available until June or July. Therefore, through winter and spring you will …


Plant-Based Diets For Preppers, by H.E.S.

Intro: I’m 73 years old, pragmatic, conservative on most issues, Purple Heart Vietnam veteran, and a prepper for ten years. That’s me. — After retiring from flying a news helicopter eight years ago, I decided to move to a rural, more prepper-friendly area and subsequently bought an off-grid log home in a very remote area. There is no mail or package delivery, trash pickup, or even cell service up here. Two sides of my property adjoin National Forest. You do get beaucoup more property for your money when you move out of the big city. I’ll admit that I’m a …


Shortages, a 7-Year Food Supply, and Beating Inflation – Part 4, by SaraSue

(Continued from Part 3. This concludes the article.) As discussed previously, I followed two important principles in achieving a 7-year food supply using basic foods. First, let “everything from scratch” be your motto, avoiding processed and genetically modified foods. Second, buy in bulk. These two principles together will contribute to good health and definitely get you ahead of the steep inflation curve. Take the time to read the book, Nourishing Traditions, that I refer to as the “food Bible”. It will help you understand the real nutritional needs (“nutrient dense foods”) of adults and children, give you recipes, and help …


Shortages, a 7-Year Food Supply, and Beating Inflation – Part 3, by SaraSue

(Continued from Part 2.) Food Basics In 6 months, I was able to stock up on basic, healthy, foods for a single person relatively inexpensively. You won’t necessarily have to take what I did and multiply it by the number of people in your household because it depends upon food needs and tastes. I avoid “emergency food supplies”, which are basically either dehydrated or freeze-dried foods at a premium price, because the budget matters to me. I avoid processed foods unless I see an exceptionally good sale, and know that these items will be good for the purposes of bartering …


Shortages, a 7-Year Food Supply, and Beating Inflation – Part 2, by SaraSue

(Continued from Part 1.) For many of us, the following are well-known concepts that we try to implement in our day-to-day living. I share my spin on them. I don’t cover OPSEC in this series because there are individuals with far more security experience than I, who can speak to it. Suffice it to say, I have implemented layers of security. The Basics: Water, Shelter, Tools, Energy, and Food Water: If you live in an urban or suburban area, your sources of water are very limited. However, you can get smart about water storage, storage containers, water filtration, and even …