Tag Archives: canning

What We Did This Week To Prep 10/19/12

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We started off the week making salsa. After picking all the remaining tomatoes from our garden (red and green), digging up a couple of onions, and picking the last of the cucumbers (because they were there), we set to work cutting everything up. Last year was our first salsa making experience and though it came out pretty good, I wanted to try a new recipe this year. A couple of months ago I had seen a post on The Homestead Fritz – How To Make Great Salsa; there he mentioned that his coworkers described it as, “the best salsa they have ever eaten.” With that recommendation, I decided we’d give it a try. With all six of us cutting stuff up: tomatoes, onions, pepper, jalepenos, garlic, cilantro, and cucumbers (again because we had them, figured it’d make it more chunky) the process went fairly quickly. After everything was mixed together and cooked up, Sarah and I spooned the salsa into the canning jars (we didn’t have pint size so we used quart jars — but with the size of our family those will go quickly). Since Fritz didn’t mention it, we weren’t sure how much it’d make. We followed his recipe (our only addition was the extra cup of cucumbers) and we came out with three quarts of salsa, plus one 1/2 pint jar (that we gave as a gift to friends). Next year we’ll double it (or even triple, we like salsa), and use the pint size jars so we can share more with friends and neighbors.

My good friend, and fellow prepper, Mike recently gave us the book, So Easy To Preserve put out by the Cooperative Extension of The University of Georgia. Since we have very limited canning experience (blackberry jam and salsa last year) it came in handy reminding us of the steps involved in the water bath method. It’s a good reference book that thoroughly covers: canning, pickling, jellies, freezing, and drying.

Inadvertently, you could also call it busy or lazy, we had a small test of our store what your eat (SWYE) food storage. We normally shop every two weeks. Well life got busy, we missed a shopping trip, and we went a full month without grocery shopping. It’s interesting that with our food storage we really didn’t notice it all that much. Sure we were missing the items that have shorter shelf lives: fresh fruit, most fresh vegetables (though we were able to add some from our garden), and milk. Since we’re not big milk drinkers we’d just mix up some of the powdered stuff when we needed to add it to a recipe. Another item we would have been out of is eggs, but we have a local farm source that we get them from regularly so we didn’t go without. It was interesting how uninterrupted our daily food supply was; between our SWYE pantry and our deep freezer we had plenty. It’s nice to know that if we HAD to go that long it wouldn’t be an issue at all; that alone gives us a certain feeling of safety and confidence.

I’m happy to announce our fourth (and most likely final) regular blog contributor, Nick. Nick is a general contractor and a prepper who specializes in “Sustainable Improvements, Repairs, and Installations“. He will be posting the fourth Wednesday of each month (starting next week, October 24th), focusing on what we can do to make our homes more sustainable and keep them in good repair — from a prepper perspective. I’ve now completed one of my goals for my second year of blogging, to have a guest contributor for each week:

  • Week 1 – Rural Relations with Josh
  • Week 2 – Sarah’s View
  • Week 3 – Momma Bear
  • Week 4 – Nick

These four share really good, and varied, perspectives–different than I’m able to provide–that I believe will add value to both my blog and the prepper community. For more information about each of them, and a list of the posts they’ve written, there’s a link to Guest Contributors in the top right hand portion of the Home page.

Finally, I want to congratulate two of my closest prepper friends on additions to their families. From our prepper coffee group, both Mike and Rick had newborn sons this month! They’re both great dads who I know will raise their kids up to be “properly” educated, self-sufficient, and independent.

What did you do?

 

Momma Bear’s July Preps

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The end of June brought northern Virginia and lower Maryland a serious, and very sudden, storm that resulted in more than a week without power to over a million homes. While we were not personally without power, there were food and ice shortages at some neighborhood stores as supply chains were rerouted or disrupted. It was a great opportunity to talk to our family about heat related illnesses and to review what we would have done for more than a week without A/C in 100+ degree weather. While we have a fireplace to stay warm during cold weather power outages, staying cool in the summer is much harder without power. We are now considering getting a generator, in part, to run a small window A/C unit. We’re also considering some solar battery chargers to power electronic devices. The least expensive option, which we will probably do first, is to get an inverter for our automobile outlets so that we could charge our cell phones and laptops. I think we are going to plan a “power outage drill” weekend in the fall. It will be an opportunity to see if our planning is really living up to our needs.

The biggest weakness we found in our preparations was that simple drinking water is not always enough when the emergency/disaster is during a heat wave. In a long-term, high heat situation–especially during strenuous activity–a Gatorade-type drink is recommended to replace the electrolytes that are lost. So we have added that to our LTS list (diluting it to half strength which is a better ratio for the body, and helps avoid stomach aches and cramping). You can make your own electrolyte oral rehydration solution. Into a quart/liter of water add: 3 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon table salt and 1/4 teaspoon potassium chloride (bought as salt substitute, e.g. Morton Salt Substitute or Nu-salt) (note: if you don’t have access to potassium chloride double the amount of table salt to 1 teaspoon). Overall though our home is pretty well prepared for a week or more without power. We continue to stock up on alternative cooking fuels (charcoal, propane, butane, and sterno), as well as foods that require minimal cooking, and comfort foods.

After six years out of the country, we have recently purchased fishing gear and licenses (still searching for the perfect boat though). Although none of us are overly experienced fishermen we have begun/resumed fishing — though at this point it’s catch and release. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, the types of fish we have here are quite a bit different from what we are used to so it’s all about practice. Bass and catfish are the most common and they require larger hooks and stronger line than what we use for trout back home. We are fortunate to live near a number of lakes, and the Potomac River, so there is ample opportunity to practice.

My tomatoes are also growing like gangbusters; I picked one yesterday that is over a pound. This past weekend I canned my first batch of ketchup. It is a little on the gourmet side for flavor (meaning the grownups like it but the kids don’t). Next up for canning is fire roasted tomato salsa. My husband, who is quite the city boy, has been blown away by the idea that we are storing food that we actually grew ourselves, and from which I have harvested seeds for next year’s garden. Like Sarah, I have kept a garden journal to keep track of what is and isn’t working. We are already looking forward to next year to try a few different vegetables and probably more containers since our sunny spots are not necessarily gardenable otherwise. We are working as best we can with what we have.

How is your summer going? What are you canning or storing?

(Monday: Building In Redundancies In Case You Aren’t Available)