Category Archives: Food Storage

Food Storage You Tube Playlist

I’ve been lost on You Tube for two days.  I’m such a huge video person and realized (when trying to write out some information about food storage) that my channel was pretty lacking.  So, here it is.  It doesn’t have the entire scope of all the options I think of when considering food storage but I think it’s a good primer.  I know me.  I will be adding to it (unless I actually force myself to get off my rear and get some projects started/completed).

OH!  And I fixed the link (to the side of this post) for my main You Tube channel.

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Old-Fashioned Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

So, do you have canned carrots (or you could use older fresh carrots) that turned to mush and you don’t know what to do with them?  How about make a carrot cake!  I’m also thinking this may be good with canned pumpkin and/or canned sweet potato.

Update: I just made this (muffins instead of cake … baked for 15 to 20 minutes) and they are amazing!  They aren’t spike-your-blood-sugar sweet and so flavorful!  This recipe is a keeper.  I made some changes that I will note here:

  1. Replaced 1/2 cup of the flour with almond flour
  2. Replaced the remaining flour (1 cup) with 1/3 cup of wheat germ (Why?  Because I had some)
  3. Reduced the milk to 1/4 cup due to the excess liquid in my carrots
  4. Reduced the total added sweetener by half (so, 3/4 cup total), then replaced 1/4 cup of the brown sugar with Splenda
  5. Substituted all-spice for the nutmeg (Why?  Because I didn’t have any nutmeg)

Note: I had one quart of thickly cut home canned carrots and ended up with about 1 1/2 cups of mashed carrots.  I adjusted the recipe accordingly.

I may or may not make the frosting but if I do, it will be with mostly Splenda with a bit of powdered sugar (I have come to the conclusion that Splenda tends to get bitter if using a lot … mostly because I kept trying to slip some in hubby’s coffee and he immediately noticed).

http://www.daringgourmet.com/2014/02/18/old-fashioned-carrot-cake-with-cream-cheese-frosting/

For Cake:
½ cup walnuts
1 cup pureed carrots (boil just under a pound of carrots until soft; drain and cool, then puree in a food processor.)
1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1½ cups firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup whole milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
2 teaspoons freshly grated orange zest (be careful to avoid the white pith of the orange, it’s bitter)
½ cup raisins

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Basic Pork or Wild Boar Salami

http://honest-food.net/2014/08/07/basic-salami-recipe/

And one more I’m posting to both blogs. I have always preferred making things from scratch. I love learning new techniques and, if I like them, I keep doing them. If not, well, at least I know how to do it. This is one thing I have not done yet: make my own salami but would love to. I have recipes (if I recall correctly) for bear and elk sausage, also (I’m pretty sure they are here on my Sustainablehome blog). If not, I will find some to share.

Essence of Tomato – ‘Strattu, Estratto, Conserva

http://honest-food.net/2009/09/14/essence-of-tomato-strattu-estratto-conserva/

This one I am actually cross-posting on both blogs (not just sharing). This is not only a fantastic way to preserve tomatoes but also a way to add an intense tomato flavor to any dish (as Hank says, “Think of it as the black hole of the tomato world: It is said that a teaspoon of black hole matter would weigh millions of tons. Similarly, a mere teaspoon of ‘strattu in a soup is the equivalent of adding possibly a dozen tomatoes”) without all of the carbohydrates naturally present in tomatoes.

Homemade Corned Beef

I can’t believe I didn’t post about this!  I made homemade corned beef last year, leaving out the sugar and the pink salt, and it was fantastic!  I thought, well, I could make this, then can it so I know exactly where it came from and what was in it.  I haven’t gotten around to canning this because it usually doesn’t last that long!

Anyway, if you are interested (I wanted to see if I could and I did), here is how I did it:

http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/beef/home_made_corned_beef.html

And here is how to can it (ever since I canned that chicken, I prefer raw canning meats):

http://canninggranny.blogspot.com/2011/05/canning-corned-beef-brisket.html

There you go!  Give it a shot (even if you only do one).  It really wasn’t as difficult as my brain said it would be!

Product Review – Lowrey’s Bacon Curls

LOOK! Low Carb Food Storage Item! These are so tasty!

My Atkins Keto Journey

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My mom is a Dollar Store fanatic.  She’s always shopping at this one or that one and gets all excited when a new one shows up.  We eat very specific foods (as you can imagine) so I don’t really shop at those stores (if we ate nothing but cereal and crackers, we’d save tons of money at those stores).  Anyway, she insisted I try Dollar General (a whole mess of them have popped up all over town).  So I went and look what I found!  I had no idea these things even existed!  It’s pork rinds that you cook in the microwave, like pop corn.  For $1/bag, it couldn’t hurt to try one.

So, after sitting there for about a week, hubby decides it’s time to try them.  He puts it in the microwave (which has always been too small for all things cooked in bags like this) and they…

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Have a Small Space? Grow Vertical!

A friend mentioned that she has a tiny little area to grow any food, so I suggested she grow vertically. I don’t really do this now but may have to since I will be using raised beds this year. I’ve seen so many neat ideas over the past few months that I’m trying to find all the links to share with you (and her). Well, I was going to find a single picture to post here but when I did my Google search (“vertical gardening”) and clicked images I was in awe! There are so many creative ideas out there that I just can’t list them all (so check out the photos yourself here).

This is pretty much what I did when I was growing in containers (I posted pictures of my truck garden in 2011).

And here’s a video with several ideas (that’ pretty much the way the rest of these links are going to be … several ideas in one article):

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/video/8639243-green-expert-nick-federoffs-tips-on-vertical-gardening/

This one demonstrates how to build a growing “wall” (I love links with pictures or video) AND it’s Popular Mechanics!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to-plans/how-to-start-a-vertical-garden#slide-1

Here are two ways to reuse soda bottles:

DIY: Hanging Plastic Bottle Planter

DIY Vertical Gardening

Here are two ways to use shoe hangers:

VERTICAL VEGETABLES: “Grow up” in a small garden and confound the cats!

Turn a Shoe Organizer Into a Vertical Planter

And two ways to reuse pallets:

diy project: recycled pallet vertical garden

Pot hangers (third example down)

This one has a lot of different ideas (and if you look at the bottom of the second link, she has a few more articles about vertical gardening:

Small Garden Design Idea: Maximize Vertical Spaces

How to Design Creative Vertical Gardens

There are several projects on the DIY Network’s website but this one I particularly like, since you can change it around easier:

How to Grow a Vertical Vegetable Garden

Here are their top 10 vertical gardening projects:

http://www.diynetwork.com/topics/vertical-gardening/index.html

And now, for some eye candy! This looks like Pinterest specifically for Home and Garden:

http://happyhouseandgarden.com/categories/12265/vertical-gardening-ideas

Water Storage

I can’t believe I never made a post about water storage (unless I did and just can’t find it).  I will include several links from various sources describing the various methods of water storage and how to ensure the safety of the water.   Of everything we think we “need” to survive in the event of some sort of event, too many do not include water as their number 1 priority.  It’s always food, shelter, clothing, etc. but with all of that, if we do not have access to water (either already clean or have the ability to clean it) we will not survive long enough to enjoy that food and the other supplies we have stored.

The first link I will share is to a water filter that looks like it is by far the best one out there.  It’s to a forum (disclosure here) that I am a moderator/administrator for (you can view this post without being a member) and my dear friend has researched the heck out of this filter. It’s for the water filters made by www.justwater.me.

Survivalistssite Forum: Water filter comparison

There are other links/discussions on the survivalistssite forum discussing water treatment options. Please check them out.

And here’s how to make a *Home Made Berkey Water Filter* which is helpful for those people like me (if there are any others out there because California is so whacky) who are unable to purchase the Big Berkeys due to state regulations. I don’t see why, if you account for flow rate, this setup can’t be used for other brands of large water filters.

Here’s an article from the CDC:

Personal Preparation and Storage of Safe Water

Here’s a simple article from the University of Colorado Extension:

Water Storage

And here’s an even more basic article from the LDS church:

Drinking Water Guidelines

Now, for cisterns, which I think is ultimately be best way to go, if you have the space for them:

This first article is from the University of Florida extension (there’s a link to a .pdf of this article on the upper left side of their web page):

Cisterns To Collect Non-Potable Water For Domestic Use

And this one, by far, is my favorite, since I truly love Mother Earth News:

The Homestead Cistern

So, if you haven’t already begun you water storage project, you have some reading to do. It’s never too late to get started, even if the positive results may not be seen this year (since I do not expect California to get anywhere near the rain that is needed this year).