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Juice

We store juices for drinking as well as cooking. Most juices come in plastic bottles and function as part of our water storage. Store what your family likes.

We also store juices for baking and canning as well. Bottled lemon juice is called for in many recipes for jam and other home-canned products. Even if you are lucky enough to have fresh lemons, you should always use bottled lemon juice for your canning. This is because the commercially-canned product has a set level of acidity, while the acid levels of fresh lemons can vary widely, and it is critical to have the correct acidity when canning products at home.

Bottled lime juice is called for in desserts, dressings, and many Mexican recipes. We store a few bottles but not many because when TEOTWAWKI hits, refrigerator space in our tiny solar and propane refrigerators will be at a premium. So we also store packets of powdered juices. True Lemon, True Lime, and True Orange are available in many grocery stores and online. They work very well in all the recipes we have tried them in.

Vegetables

Canning Vegetables

We prefer to have all our vegetables as fresh as possible, so we grow all we can in our garden and extend the season as much as possible in both directions. We eat all we can, and what we can’t we can (or freeze or dry).

As with fruits, I’m not going to cover commercially-canned vegetable products. You know what you like. Plan to store at least one can of vegetables for your family per day. Two cans would be better.

Now onto learning something new.

Potatoes- The absolute hands down favorite, with no contest, in this house is canned potatoes. How can this be? I shall explain. Plain ole cut up canned potatoes are not really exciting, and they are kind of a hassle because they have to be peeled first. Also, for making mashed potatoes they don’t have a perfect texture, but if you buy a French fry cutter from Amazon for about $15 (use the blade for large fries) you will get the “Mom (or Dad) of the Year” award. Here’s how:

After receiving your French fry cutter, buy a bag or box of No. 2 size Russet potatoes. These are large potatoes but not the monster size. Scrub the potatoes well, but you do not need to peel them. (When canning, potatoes that are not intended for French fries must be peeled to remove all traces of dirt. Soil is what harbors the botulism spores. However, the French fries are intended to be fried at very high temperatures—350-400 degrees—for several minutes, plenty hot and long enough to render harmless any botulism that may have developed.) Cut your potatoes and carefully place them in a wide mouth quart jar, stacking them as if they were cord wood. Add salt and boiling water and can them per instructions from your Ball Blue Book (reducing the initial boiling time for the potatoes from ten minutes to three minutes).

When you are ready to eat your fries, open the jar and dump the fries into a strainer. Rinse and drain very well to remove any excess starch. Fry them in peanut oil until they are a golden brown. Salt, eat, and sit back and enjoy the multitudinous praises from your family.

Tomatoes- Diced or stewed tomatoes are some of the more popular items for home canning. However, something that most shy away from is making your own tomato sauce. Most object, understandably, to the long cooking times. Here’s how to make the job go a whole lot quicker:

First, wash your tomatoes, core, and cut into very large chunks. Place the tomatoes in plastic containers and freeze. When you have enough frozen tomatoes to make a batch of sauce, the night before your canning session remove your tomatoes from the freezer and thaw them on the counter. Freezing breaks the cell walls of the tomatoes and lets the water escape. Drain off the water, and send the tomato pulp through your juicer or food mill to remove the seeds and skins. Process tomatoes according to your Ball Blue Book. Keep in mind that home-canned tomato sauce, due to being canned in glass jars, has a longer shelf life than commercially canned tomato sauce.

Zucchini- Yes, most people, who wish to preserve zucchini for later, dry or freeze it. So why can it? For one, dried zucchini does not re-hydrate perfectly for using in baked goods. It’s okay, but it’s just a little tough or chewy. Also, there are those who either don’t wish to rely on their freezers in a TEOTWAWKI situation or simply do not have the freezer space. So, if you have the jars available, canning works. Simply shred the zucchini and pack it into your jars. Add the appropriate amount of salt and boiling water and process according to directions in your Ball Blue Book. When ready to bake, drain the zucchini and use as fresh.

Drying Vegetables

Most of us already know that vegetables can be dried quite successfully and then rehydrated in making various soups.

Potatoes- I prefer buying commercially-dried potatoes; I just haven’t been successful making a visually-appealing product, so my time and effort is better spent elsewhere.

Onions- I prefer commercially-dried onions (also available at the LDS Home Storage Center). I can dry onions easily in my dehydrator, but I really don’t want the smell in my trays.

Zucchini- Dried zucchini chips are popular with some for snacking, but I use most of my dried sliced zucchini in soups. I prefer to use shredded or powdered (shredded, dried, and then pulverized in food processor) zucchini. Powdered zucchini can be used to substitute for some of the flour in baking or used to thicken soups.

Freeze-dried Vegetables

Of course, freeze-dried vegetables are a bit more expensive, so in this house we have to limit those to vegetables that just aren’t successfully preserved in other ways. For us, that is mostly broccoli, which just doesn’t work being canned or dried, and some green beans. We really loathe home-canned green beans and aren’t too fond of commercially-canned either.

Spices

The herbs and spices people choose to store and the amounts are going to vary so widely that recommendations cannot realistically be offered. All herbs and spices should be stored in a cool, dry place. Ideally, because the oils in herbs and spices are volatile, they should be vacuum sealed with oxygen absorber packs. If at all possible, store whole herbs and spices and then use a spice grinder. (Whole herbs and spices will retain their flavor much longer than ground ones.)

We take our spices for granted now; they are so easily and relatively cheaply obtained. Historically, however, spices were highly desired commodities and many a sea voyage was launched in hopes of finding new sources and faster means of satisfying the demand. Today, India is the leading exporter of spices, accounting for approximately 85% of the world’s supply. With as crazy as the world is getting, it might be a good idea to stock up now. Also, you may wish to have extra for barter. Spices can be purchased in bulk from online companies.

Pepper- We use black pepper every single day for seasoning meats, vegetables, soups, and stews. A few pounds would be a good idea.

Dry mustard- Believe it or not, mustard is the world’s second most important spice. It is essential in making mayonnaise and an ingredient in many salad dressings. While it can be raised in this country and Canada leads the world in production and export, it would require a lot of manual labor to produce enough mustard to meet a family’s needs. The French consume 1.5 pounds of mustard per year; storing at least one pound per person would not be unreasonable.

Chili powder- This is one of those spices where a little does not go a long ways. My chili recipes all call for at least a tablespoon of chili powder and maybe two, and we’ll be eating a lot of beans. While chilies can be grown and dried in most parts of the U.S., it would still be a good idea to have at least a couple of pounds on hand.

Cumin- Cumin is used in chili, Mexican, and Indian recipes. India produces 70% of the world supply of cumin. We make a lot of chili and Mexican dishes, so I have at least a pound on hand at all times.

Cinnamon- We use a lot of it in cinnamon rolls, cinnamon toast, muffins and other breakfast items, and cookies. It’s also used in smaller amounts in other foods. A couple of pounds would not be unreasonable, and this is one spice that it is better to purchase in the ground form rather than in stick form. Grinding up cinnamon sticks just takes too much effort in a situation where we don’t have the luxury of time. Virtually all the cinnamon in the world comes from Asia and Africa.

Ginger- It’s an essential ingredient in many Asian recipes. It is also an ingredient in dough conditioner, which is used as an aid in baking bread. Again, almost all the ginger in the world is raised in Asia and Africa.

Nutmeg- It’s mostly used in dessert recipes, at least in this house, but much more common in potato dishes and processed meats in Europe. I probably wouldn’t worry about storing much personally, but my husband thinks he will die without it. I think that’s why he keeps bringing home bottles of the stuff. Anyway, according to an article posted at livescience.com, in medieval Europe a pound of nutmeg cost seven fattened oxen and was a more valuable commodity than gold. Maybe they were small oxen, or maybe it was due to the fact that in Elizabethan times nutmeg was believed to ward off the plague. Indonesia and Grenada produce about 95% of the world’s supply.

Herbs- The most important culinary herbs—basil, oregano, parsley, thyme, sage, marjoram, and Dill—can all be grown rather easily and in sufficient quantities to provide for your family. Harvest the leaves when appropriate, wash, dehydrate thoroughly, and store whole leaves in vacuum-sealed jars or bags. If you choose to buy in bulk from an online company, keep in mind that 16 ounces of any herb is going to be a lot, volume-wise, up to four quart jars.

Condiments

Sometimes in life, it’s the little things that make all the difference. How much you store of each depends on what your family eats. This list is provided to help you consider ideas you may not have entertained in the past.

Ketchup- For some people, ketchup is a food group unto itself. I have not yet made ketchup that my family is happy with, so we continue to purchase upper-end ketchup made without high fructose corn syrup. We go through about 32 ounces of ketchup per month.

Mustard, pickle relish, salad dressings- These may be important to you and depend upon your tastes.

Soy sauce- This is very important for Asian cooking, marinades, and Asian salad dressings. I usually have at least a gallon of soy sauce on hand.

Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke, browning sauce– These are used in marinades and gravies and beans dishes.

Salsa- It goes with scrambled eggs in the morning and tortillas and beans in the evening.

Pepper jelly- In addition to the usual reasons you make and store this, it is also a perfect substitute for egg roll dipping sauce. (Yes, we are planning on having egg rolls; we grow the veggies and make the wrappers from scratch.)

Asian condiments- Hoisin sauce, black bean sauce, and some other Asian sauces are really not easily duplicated at home, so consider buying a few bottles.

Meats

While meat should probably be viewed as a nicety rather than an essential, we have made it an essential in this house. My husband is a type-1 diabetic, and as such his insulin will last a whole lot longer if he goes to a no-carbohydrate diet. We could purchase commercially-canned meats, but we really prefer not to for both economic and safety reasons. We buy pigs and sides of beef from a local family and generally use our meat straight from the freezer. However, we always keep a sufficient number of empty mason jars and new lids on hand for canning up all the meat, if the freezer dies or the power goes off indefinitely.

We also always have a good quantity of home-canned meats available. They are so convenient to use in making last-minute meals.

Beef, pork, and chicken are among the easiest items to can. Basically, you pack the raw meat into the jar, add salt, and process according to instructions. See your Ball Blue Book for the step-by-step instructions.

There is, however, more to life than the basic three. Bacon is an essential in this house. I remember one autumn, after harvesting an abundant crop of potatoes, we were having baked potatoes very frequently for dinner. The kids were getting a little tired of them. So I fried up a jar of bacon to use as an additional topping. They were so grateful! And I was more than a little amazed at what a difference it made in them. It was another lesson learned about flavor fatigue.

I can both bacon ends and pieces and bacon strips. Bacon ends and pieces are sold in three- to five-pound packages, usually right next to the regular bacon strips. The packages will contain a lot of pieces of straight meat, a lot of straight fat, and a little that is a mixture of both. I usually can the meat in jars separate from jars of fat. While this fat is not what you would normally want to use for rendering into lard for baking, it is still very valuable. I fry it up and pour off the grease to use later in making tortillas and pan frying a variety of foods. The cracklins are a pretty tasty topping for salads and baked potatoes. The meat is great for adding to soups and beans and for making bacon bits.

Canning Bacon

Bacon strips take more work to can, but having those bacon strips once in a while for breakfast or for some BLTs will be greatly appreciated. You will need wide mouth pint jars and a roll of parchment paper. To prepare bacon strips for canning, first cut them to fit the height of the jar, minus one inch. Cut the parchment paper to the height of the jar plus one inch. Lay the bacon strips side by side down the middle of the parchment paper so that there is one inch of space on either side. Fold both sides of parchment paper over the ends of the bacon. Add more parchment paper as needed, trying to work it in to the preceding parchment and bacon strips to make a continuous roll. Roll it up as you would cinnamon rolls. Make the roll as large as possible while still allowing it to fit in the jar. Regardless of what kind of bacon you are canning, wipe the rims of the jars very carefully with vinegar on a paper towel. Do this at least twice to remove any traces of bacon grease or fat. Process per directions from your Ball Blue Book. Each pint jar will hold almost one pound of bacon.

In my earlier years, after reading that “you can can anything,” I decided to try canning hot dogs. After all, Beanie Weenies are a canned product, so I reasoned hot dogs should work as well. And besides they would be a huge treat for my children. So I bought the hot dogs—high quality hot dogs—and canned a few quarts. I don’t know what the problem was, but the result was truly nasty. The flavor was right, but the texture was horrendous. So I would have to advise against trying to can hot dogs.

Canned Hamburger Logs

One experiment that did work was canning lean hamburger in the shape of small logs to be sliced later and used as hamburger patties. Like bacon strips, you need wide mouth pint jars and some parchment paper. Cut the parchment paper so that it is one inch wider than the height of the jars. Sprinkle ½ teaspoon of salt per pound of meat onto the hamburger and mix to distribute. Shape the raw hamburger into a log one inch shorter than the height of the jars, and just small enough to fit inside the jars. Place the hamburger on the parchment paper, fold in the ends, and roll up your hamburger log. Process per directions from the Ball Blue Book. When you are ready to have hamburgers, place your jar in hot water to soften the fat and remove the log from the jar more easily. Slice patties about ½-inch thick and fry them briefly in bacon grease or butter. Serve with slider sized buns and all the condiments. While fresh hamburgers are always better, the kids all agreed that this would be a very welcome menu item in a TEOTWAWKI situation.

Canned Cat Food “Bones”

As most people know, chickens have hollow bones. What even most preppers don’t realize is that chicken bones can be pressure canned (with water added to the right level in the jar). Pressure canning softens the bones such that even the largest can be easily mashed with a fork. The resulting chicken bone mash is a great food for cats. However, it is too high in protein for dogs. (Too much protein can cause kidney damage.)

Drying/dehydrated

Probably the most desirable dried meat is jerky. We buy carne asada already very thinly sliced and salt both sides and pepper one side and then dry in the dehydrator. Raw chicken and raw pork should not be dehydrated.

The only other meat we regularly dry is what we call hamburger rocks. Basically, ground beef is thoroughly browned. The fat is then rinsed off very well. The cooked and rinsed hamburger is then spread on drying trays to dry. When reconstituted, the hamburger rocks are ready to add to casseroles and sauces.

Freeze-dried Meat

While we do have some stored, we’ve never actually tried them. They have been too expensive for taste-testing. Once opened, the meat must be used within one month.

Smoking and Curing Meat

I can’t speak to these, as I have never done either one. They are on the list of skills to acquire!

Fruits

Fruits were probably the first item I included in my expanded storage, probably because I have such fond memories of my grandmothers. One grandmother always had home-canned peaches and apricots for us. My other grandmother spoiled us with homemade fruit rolls and jams.

Canning Fruit

You already know what’s available from commercially-canned fruits at the store, and you know what you like, so I won’t go into that. However, there are items that are not available in stores that can be bottled at home. The first is bananas. The bananas are simply pureed or run through your juicer. Add a teaspoon of lemon juice per pint, pour into your canning jars, and process in your canner for the appropriate amount of time for your elevation. Why can bananas? Canned bananas can be used in all kinds of homemade desserts and breads and also in smoothies. They add variety to the diet. Bear in mind that heat intensifies the banana flavor, so some don’t like using canned bananas in smoothies. They work perfectly well for banana breads and cakes.

The second more unusual item that I can at home is pineapples. Home-canned pineapple does not have the same taste or texture (though it is quite acceptable) as its commercially-canned counterpart, but it does have one important advantage; it has a much longer shelf-life because it is preserved in glass.

Drying Fruit

As far as dried fruits go, we buy raisins and dried cranberries, but most other fruits are prohibitively expensive and/or entirely unavailable. Dried fruits are a highly desirable component of any food storage program for several reasons. Because most fruits are very high in water content, they lose a lot in weight and size when dehydrated, making the finished product very lightweight and portable. As a result, a whole lot of fruit, when dried, can fit into a canning jar or a small plastic bag.

Be aware that home-dried fruit is in most cases far different from commercially-dried fruit, which also generally has preservatives added. Furthermore, texture is everything with dried fruit. A fruit that is only mediocre when cut into chunks before drying becomes a huge treat when cut into long thin slices before drying. In addition, you must use quality fruit with good flavor, because while sugars will be concentrated in the drying process, the flavor itself will remain the same. So, before purchasing 50 pounds of watermelon to dry, make sure you and your family are going to like the result first.

Watermelon- When I first began drying, I read that fruits, like watermelon and pineapple, were cut into chunks. My dried watermelon chunks had a squash-like flavor to them. It definitely did not possess the candy-like flavor I desired to duplicate. So I tried again. This time I cut the watermelon into long, thin strips, like a fruit roll, about 1”x4”, before drying. The result was perfection.

Pineapple- I had a similar experience with pineapple. While the dried chunks didn’t taste like squash, the texture just wasn’t all that desirable. So I also experimented with cutting the pineapple into strips about the same size as the watermelon strips. This time the result was beyond perfection. Dried pineapple strips are a huge hit with my children, as they have been with the children of all my friends who have tried them. They must be carefully hidden away, or they will all disappear rapidly.

Bananas- Dried bananas are another popular item. Because we also prefer these to be as thin as possible, I put the slicing blade on the food processor and run them through.

Strawberries- While many people leave strawberries whole for drying, the texture is greatly improved if they are very thinly sliced so that they become strawberry chips.

Fruit rolls- However, when it comes to drying strawberries, most children far prefer the true fruit roll version for this fruit. To make fruit rolls, puree the strawberries in a blender. Add corn syrup (Karo syrup does not contain HFCS) to taste. Pour the puree onto dehydrator trays that have been covered with plastic wrap. Spread the puree so that it is about 1/8” thick, and dry until only very slightly tacky. Once dry, I cut it with scissors into 3”x4” sections, roll those up, and store them in plastic. We also make fruit rolls with peaches, nectarines, and plums. (Do not use sugar as the sweetener, as this may result in a very grainy fruit roll. Honey may be used as the sweetener, but the result is that the fruit roll remains a little tacky and it can be difficult to gauge when it is sufficiently dry.)

All dried fruits and fruit rolls must be vacuum-sealed in either bags or canning jars in humid areas or they will take on moisture from the air. In a desert environment, vacuum sealing is not necessary.

Freeze-dried Fruit

Freeze-dried fruits, though comparatively expensive, also have their place in a well-stocked pantry. Blueberries have been designated for our family’s favorite blueberry sour cream pancakes with homemade blueberry syrup. Raspberries have been set aside for raspberry-lemon muffins. However, most of our freeze-dried fruit is intended for making various flavors of instant oatmeal. We combine 8 cups quick oats that have been processed in a blender or food processor for a few seconds, 1 cup dry milk powder, 1 cup sugar, and 2 to 2.5 cups freeze-dried fruit. (I so wish I could comment on using the Harvest Right in-home freeze dryer, but alas, it is still out of our range.)