Posted on 02/09/2009 12:36:11 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny
Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases along to the consumer. A recent stroll through the camping section of Wal-Mart did give me pause - what kinds of things are prudent to have on hand in the event of a worldwide shortage of food and/or fuel? Survivalist in Training
I’ve been interested in survival stories since I was a kid, which is funny considering I grew up in a city. Maybe that’s why the idea of living off the land appealed to me. My grandfather and I frequently took camping trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway and around the Smoky Mountains. Looking back, some of the best times we had were when we stayed at campgrounds without electricity hookups, because it forced us to use what we had to get by. My grandfather was well-prepared with a camp stove and lanterns (which ran off propane), and when the sun went to bed we usually did along with it. We played cards for entertainment, and in the absence of televisions, games, etc. we shared many great conversations. Survivalist in the Neighborhood
Then there is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s admission that she thought what she supported in Roe vs. Wade was Government control of the reproduction of those we don’t want too many of... Never thought that I would hear it admitted to. (Of course Libs can get away with things like that and nobody seems to mind.)<<<
I have never understood their push for abortions, obama is really behind it and I saw about 10 or more years ago that 62% of the abortions were on African Americans, so they are choosing races to eliminate.
It is that God Complex, “ I am here and the rest can go to hell!!”.
Now how can they produce a new vaccine with testing, approval, evaluation, dose levels, safety and effectiveness studies and production in just 6 months - when most medications take a minimum of 10 years - even minor variations of medications take that long! Delivery starting in October?
Makes me wonder... Do they REALLY know what they are doing?<<<
NO!!!
But the o said he wanted it at once and they gave it to him.
I never took the flu shots, as it did not make sense to take something with unknown contents, to protect you against an unknown disease, that it is unknown if you will catch.
>>> An interesting list, but it sure makes me feel old. <<<
Me too... I was going to order some Chef Boy Ardee Pizza Sauce but they are out of stock...
Borage flowers attract pollinators to the garden
Once again Maria takes us up close to insects at the Compost Demonstration Garden.
In this video she captures honey bees drinking nectar from Borage
flowers.
Building Resilient Cities - UA Magazine no. 22
“Resilient cities are cities that can effectively operate and provide services under
conditions of distress. Resilient cities can better absorb the type of shocks and
stresses as identified above. Rather than focusing on vulnerability, a focus on
resilience means putting emphasis on what can be done by a city or a community itself,
building on existing natural, social, political, human, financial, and physical
capital, while at the same time strengthening its capacities.
“Urban agriculture can play a role in building more resilient cities. Growing food
in cities reduces the dependency on (rural) food supplies, which can easily be affected
by disrupted transport, armed conflicts, droughts or flooding and increasing food
prices.
Aphids on Fava Beans attract beneficial insects
Maria uses her macro lens to close in on our Fava Beans, which are covered in black
aphids. Instead of reporting a bad news story, she points out all the beneficial
insects dining on the aphids and shows us a bucket of ripe beans that survived
despite the pest attack. Later she turned the harvested beans into a delicious Fava
Bean humous.
Rosie Boycott’s grow-your-own food revolution - London, England
Rosie Boycott - career feminist, newspaper supremo and Mayor Boris Johnson’s “Food
Tsar” - is proof you can start gardening at any age.
She was 51 before she picked up a spade. “Six years ago, I’d never grown a single
vegetable,” she laughs.
Like many frazzled Londoners, she thought growing your own was some boring activity
reserved for dullards and oldies with nothing better to do.
Back then her life was
full of smart parties and TV appearances. The first female editor of The Independent
newspapers, she socialised with actors and politicians. In 1998 she became the editor
of the Daily Express. But then in 2001 she lost her job when the paper was acquired
by Richard Desmond.
Two Little Gardeners - 1951 children’s book
Her social circle included the famous and royalty. She dated the then Prince of
Spain, Juan Carlos, and was friends with John Barrymore and his one of wives, Michael
Strange. She was reputed to have had a long term affair with a prominent New York
attorney and with Michael Strang. Her Vinylhaven, Maine retreat was purchased to
be near the attorney, but it became legendary because of Margaret’s touches of
hospitality and humor.
Since there was no electricity on the property, her well served as a refrigerator.
Butter, milk and other perishables could be had simply by pulling up the appropriately
labled rope. She stored wine in the streams, strategically placing bottles to refresh
her guests on hikes around the property.
The Abundance Handbook - A guide to Urban Fruit Harvesting
Abundance harvests trees across the city on industrial waste sites, roadsides, the
grounds of mansions and back yards. We harvest a range of soft fruit, top fruit
and nuts. Over fifty volunteers of all ages and from many different backgrounds
harvest and process the fruit. Fruit is distributed to Surestarts, community groups,
community cafes and individuals across Sheffield.
We receive tip-offs by word of mouth, text and email as to where to find ripe fruit
trees. The greatest journey any fruit travels from tree to mouth is five miles often
by bike and trailer. We have found at least fifty varieties of apples and more than
twenty varieties of pears. We give away hundreds of fruits and lots of freshly pressed
juice. Tree owners are offered the first share of fresh fruit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All these great stories can be found here.
City Farmer News [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102639564044&s=1304&e=0011TQfhDkr3gzkeKUloVnTW1cS2YhV7Q0xzooLFTXwztkGQvBZYwvZRB2qLfNM8BwCx597Bc8FP8XjVw5f34IgHKAZVuQIvI0vHESi-uxX1IlUJvc5chKRVg==]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Levenston
City Farmer - Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture
but they are out of stock...<<<
That we will hear more and more often.
Last week, Walmart did not have Folgers Columbian coffee in stock....
Every month, there is a change in my grocery list.
If it is good and used for years, it will disappear.
Fw: my stock broker’s advice
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 5:50 AM
From:
“BobT”
To:
Undisclosed-Recipient@yahoo.com
I called my stock broker this morning and asked him what I should be buying.
He said “Canned goods and ammunition”
Yeah, I know it is a junk mail forward, but it made me laugh, to see one of the many ways, the “stock up now” message is forwarding.
I can see my Mormon friends smile, as she hit ‘send’ on this one.
granny
>>>Do they REALLY know what they’re doing?<<<
You have to ask?????
About 50-55 years ago the company that makes canned potato sticks put out a product, mostly for the New England states called Clam Sticks, much like potato sticks, only a slightly larger stick and with lots of clam flavor. They were only on the market for 4-5 years, probably due to lack of demand, but hubby and I loved them. My sister was a bookkeeper in a fish market and bought them for us by the case wholesale. Even now, periodically, when I go shopping, hubby will say, “get some of those clam sticks, will ya?”
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm171780.htm
Brookstone Pharmaceuticals Issues a Voluntary Recall of All Lots of BrookstonePharmaceuticals’ Concentrated Acetaminophen Drops
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – July 13, 2009 – Brookstone Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Alpharetta, GA has initiated anationwide voluntary recall of all lots of Concentrated Acetaminophen Drops (NDC#42192-504-16) in 16 ounce (473 ml) bulk containers. This 16oz container is comparableto the size generally used to package regular strength acetaminophen liquid preparations.This aspect of the product coupled with the absence of an integrated dosage deliverydevice is a contributing factor to possible dosing errors, especially inadvertentoverdosing. Brookstone has distributed 344 bottles nationally and has donated 5301bottles to charity for international distribution.
Over dosage of acetaminophen may result in liver toxicity, kidney damage, and blooddisorders. FDA is aware of several medication error reports that document lifethreateningor fatal adverse events in children less than three years of age, due toconfusion associated with the concentrated versus regular strength acetaminophen liquid.Also, in a recent FDA advisory panel, it was recommended that one of the two strengthsof acetaminophen should be removed from the market due to possible confusion whichcould result in overdosing.
Brookstone’s concentrated acetaminophen contains acetaminophen 80 mg/0.8 mL.Regular strength acetaminophen elixir contains 160 mg/5 ml. The firm is recalling itsproduct to the consumer level as a cautionary measure to minimize any confusion andpotential risk to patients from dosing errors.
Brookstone Pharmaceuticals has notified customers that it has voluntarily stoppedmanufacturing and shipping Concentrated Acetaminophen Drops in bulk containers andhas also advised customers (wholesalers and hospitals) to quarantine and hold the productfor return to Brookstone Pharmaceuticals for a full refund. Customers with questionsabout the recall may contact Brookstone Pharmaceuticals, LLC at 1-800-541-4802,option 2. Brookstone has not received any adverse events associated with this product butdue to recent advisory panel concerns, Brookstone has taken voluntary action.
The recalled drops were manufactured by Pharmaceutical Associates, Inc. This recall isbeing conducted with the knowledge of the Food and Drug Administration.
Customers who have this product in their possession should stop using it immediately.Any adverse events that may be related to the use of this product should be reported tothe FDA’s MedWatch Program by phone at 1-800-FDA-1088 or by fax at 1-800-FDA-0178 or by mail at MedWatch, HF-2, FDA, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852-9787.
Page Last Updated: 07/14/2009
Intelligence Note
Prepared by the Internet Crime
Complaint Center (IC3)
July 7, 2009
Fraudsters Continue to Exploit Telecommunication Relay Services
The IC3 continues to receive complaints pertaining to scam
artists abusing Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS)
to defraud U.S. businesses and consumers. Under Title IV of the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA),
all telephone companies must provide TRS for individuals with hearing impairments
or speech impairments.
This IC3 alert is to make the public aware of the continuing abuse of TRS to exploit
U.S. businesses. Recent reports indicate scam artists are
using TRS to exploit auto repair shops. The scam entails the fraudster using TRS
to request services for a vehicle. The fraudster claims the vehicle has to be shipped
to the auto repair business and requests the repairs and shipping fees be charged
to a credit card. Unbeknownst to the business, the credit card is fraudulent
or stolen; however, the charges initially go through without any complications.
The business is then directed to wire the money to the shipper to cover the shipping
costs. It is not until the shipper’s money is wired that the business is notified
of the fraudulent credit card; therefore, the business bears the loss.
A previous PSA titled “NOTORIOUS “RESHIPPER
SCAM” TRANSFORMS” was released on Feb. 9, 2004, covering this exploit.
To view the PSA in its entirety, please visit the following link,
http://www.ic3.gov/media/2004/040209.aspx.
Individuals who receive a communication, such as the one described above, are encouraged
to file a complaint at www.IC3.gov reporting the
incident.
http://www.ic3.gov/media/2009/090707.aspx
Do they REALLY know what they’re doing?
>>>You have to ask?????<<<
LOL - No, but I feel better saying it...
I’ve been eating baked sweet potato fries lately, because I have to watch my potato intake too. Boy, are those good!
This message contains the following:
1. Energizer Wallplate Nightlights Recalled Due to Fire Hazard http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09272.html
2. Rossignol Recalls Cross-Country Boots Due to Fall Hazard http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09273.html
Free - Craft Related:
Frugal Hobbies:
Free samples, not checked out, some of the folks get interesting samples and make a hobby of it.
The best chili powder that I ever used, was a free sample from New Mexico, he sent a couple ounces....
Frugal dog and cat:
Frugal “make money””
Antiques and other useful items, bldg supply, fire wood:
Frugal articles and blogs:
Frugal and Fun:
Interesting:
I’ve been eating baked sweet potato fries lately, because I have to watch my potato intake too. Boy, are those good!<<<
Those do sound good.
Thanks for coming to read and do join in, fine group of folks here.
http://solitaryroad.com/s815.html
[2001 prices, talk about only needing a short memory...granny]
So what are the inexpensive foods? Rice, oatmeal, beans, potatoes,
pasta and homemade bread (flour is cheap). What are the really
expensive foods? The red meats. What are the most healthy
foods? The cheap foods. What are the least healthy foods?
The most expensive foods.
Suppose one had a one cup serving of oatmeal for breakfast, a
peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich for lunch and a one cup
serving of rice, a one cup serving of beans and a one ounce
slice of sourdough bread for dinner every day for a year. What
would his food for the year cost him? Answer: 24 cents per day
or $87.60 per year. And if he thought this was still too much
and wanted to do better, how about the following? Three slices
of toast (i.e. three one-ounce slices of sourdough bread,
toasted) for breakfast, a one cup serving of oatmeal for lunch
and a one cup serving of rice, a one cup serving of beans, and
a large two ounce piece of sourdough bread for the evening meal
every day for a year. This would cost him 16 cents per day or
$58.40 per year. If you used whole wheat bread and brown rice
the diet might not be a bad one. It is probably as good as
many people in the third world live on. And in practice, of
course, you could do a little hunting and fishing, have a small
garden, and supplement it a little.
So how does one minimize the cost of eating? You maximize the
amount of inexpensive foods that you eat and minimize or
eliminate the amount of expensive foods that you eat. You
modify your eating habits, adapt to the cheap foods. You find
recipes that sound appealing that utilize the inexpensive
foods. You have to pay attention to the price of foods, watch
for sales, and buy in quantity at good prices. Most of the
food that my wife and I buy is purchased at a very good sale
price and in quantity. We often combine manufacturer’s coupons
with half price sales to get food at a third of the regular
price and less. Most people pay little attention to the cost
of food and buy whatever they like. They walk down the grocery
aisle and pick up whatever looks good to them, give everything
a try, and don’t worry about the price. The truth is most
packaged and canned foods are relatively expensive. Most junk
food is expensive -— if you want to minimize your cost of
eating stay away from it. Of course you must minimize or
eliminate your consumption of meat, especially red meat. And
it goes without saying that you must eat at home -— eating out
is out of the question.
Now if all this causes one to reflect on the possibility of a
vegetarian diet as a strategy for inexpensive, self-sufficient
living he might be interested in knowing that vegetarians tend
to live eight or ten years longer than meat eaters, have fewer
diseases and health problems, and are in general healthier.
Look into studies of the longevities of vegetarian Seventh Day
Adventists of Loma Linda, California for more information (do
an internet search).
NOTE. The per serving costs in the table above are based on the
following data:
Rice (white). Cost per pound, dry: $.20 One cup of dry rice
weighs 6.9 oz. One cup of dry rice (plus two cups of water)
yields 4 cups of cooked rice. Serving size: One quarter cup
of dry rice or 1 cup of cooked rice. Number of servings per
pound: 9.3 Cost per serving: $.021
Oatmeal (Quick Oats). Cost per 42 oz box: $1.29 (ALDI) Cost
per pound, dry: $.49. One cup of dry oatmeal weighs 2.8 oz.
One half cup of dry oatmeal (plus 1 cup of water) yields 1
cup of cooked oatmeal. Serving size: One half cup of dry
oatmeal or 1 cup of cooked oatmeal. Number of servings per
box: 30 Cost per serving: $.043
Beans (Pinto). Cost per 2 pound bag: $.79 (ALDI) Cost per
pound, dry: $.40 One cup of dry beans weighs 6.0 oz. One
cup of dry beans yields 2.4 cups of cooked beans. Serving
size: .42 cups of dry beans or 1 cup of cooked beans.
Number of servings per bag: 12.7 Cost per serving: $.064
Flour. Cost per 5 pound bag: $.79 (ALDI). Cost per pound:
$.158 One 5 lb bag contains 17.25 cups. Weight of 1 cup:
4.64 oz Cost per cup: $.0456 Serving size: .25 cups
Cost per serving: $.011
Sourdough Bread (homemade). 7.5 cups of flour plus 2.5 cups of
water yield approximately 57.8 ounces of bread. Cost per
pound: $.095. Serving size: 2 oz Cost per serving: $.012
Potatoes (white). Cost per pound: $.129 (ALDI). Serving size:
8 oz Cost per serving: $.065
Macaroni (elbow). Cost per pound, dry (ALDI): $.45 One cup
of dry macaroni weighs about 4 oz. Four ounces ( 1 cup) of
dry macaroni yields 11.6 ounces (or about 2.5 cups) of cooked
macaroni. Serving size: 2.76 oz of dry macaroni or 8 oz of
cooked macaroni. Number of servings per pound: 5.8 Cost
per serving: $.077
Spaghetti. Cost per pound: $.45 (ALDI). Four ounces of dry
spaghetti yields 11.6 ounces of cooked spaghetti. Serving
size: 2.75 oz of dry spaghetti or 8 oz of cooked spaghetti.
Number of servings per pound: 5.8 Cost per serving: $.077
Milk. Cost per gallon (ALDI): $2.19 Serving size: 1 cup
Cost per serving: $.137
Peanut Butter. Cost per 18 oz jar: $.99 Serving size: 2 tbsp
Number of servings in jar: 15 Cost per serving: $.066
Strawberry Jam. Cost per 32 oz jar: $2.29 Serving size: 1
tbsp Number of servings in jar: 45 Cost per serving:
$.051
Grape Jelly. Cost per 32 oz jar: $.99 Serving size: 1 tbsp
Number of servings in jar: 45 Cost per serving: $.022
Raspberry Preserves. Cost per 16 oz jar: $.99 (ALDI) Serving
size: 1 tbsp Number of servings in jar: 22 Cost per
serving: $.045
Bananas. Cost per pound: $.25 (ALDI). Serving size: 8 oz
Cost per serving: $.125
Carrots. Cost per 2 lb bag (ALDI): $.79 Cost per pound:
$.395 Serving size: 2 oz Cost per serving: $.049
Tuna (canned, chunk light). Cost per 6 oz can: $.33 Cost per
pound: $.88 Serving size: 2 oz Cost per serving: $.11
Turkey. Cost per pound (with bone in): $.38 Cost per pound
(no bone): $.76 Serving size: 8 oz Cost per serving: $.38
Chicken leg quarters. Cost per pound (with bone in): $.39
Cost per pound (no bone): $.78 Serving size: 8 oz Cost
per serving: $.39
Ham. Cost per pound (with bone in): $.99 Cost per pound (no
bone): $1.98 Serving size: 8 oz Cost per serving: $.99
Pork Chops. Cost per pound: $1.49 Serving size: 8 oz Cost
per serving: $.75
Ground beef. Cost per pound: $1.49 Serving size: 8 oz Cost
per serving: $.75
Beef roast. Cost per pound: $3.76 Serving size: 8 oz Cost
per serving: $1.88
Sirloin steak. Cost per pound: $4.98 Serving size: 8 oz
Cost per serving: $2.49
The prices used above correspond to the period around March
2001.
[Today, my prescription price was almost $100. more for the month, so we will now have frugal ideas....LOL, granny]
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/29/22137/6511
A lot of people seem to advocate rice as the cheap carb choice, but I find pasta and red sauce to be cheap. There are 5 lbs. boxes of pasta for $3.00 as well as a half gallon of Prego Mushroom for $3.00. That’s lunch for an entire week, for $6.00. Plus you can throw in some chicken or ground beef for a few extra bucks.
What’s good (but not so cheap) and easy to make is chicken and rice casserole. Buy the cheapest chicken thighs you can find (they’ll be frozen and have skin on them) as well as a can of cream of celery, cream of mushroom, and french onion soup (this is where it can get expensive, each of these can be ~$1.00-$1.50.
Now thaw the chicken and cut off the skin. In a bowl mix a cup of uncooked, washed rice along with the three cans of soup, and stir until they’re well mixed. Pour in about 2/3 of the rice/soup mixture into a 9x13 inch pan. Put ~8 thighs in there and dump on the rest of the soup/rice mixture. Sprinkle some paprika on top if you have it. Preheat the oven to 325 or so and let cook for 1.5 hours. Yummy! And enough for two people for two to three meals, depending on how hungry you are. :-)
Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master.
PT Barnum
I went through an entire 4 months eating nothing but TotalTM cereal- seriously. 100% of every vitamin and mineral, so you don’t have to worry about buying any. If I got bored with that, I had a bottle of Tabasco sauce on hand and just dropped some on my tongue- it pretty much kills any desire to eat.
You don’t get to steal all the deficiency. I want some to.
-mrgoat
Am I weird or does this look more like two lunches rather than six?
Also, if you are on a budget, for god’s sake, pepper your own damn steak and debone your own chicken. It’s not rocket science.
I fry up some veggies and whatever in a pan add 2 cups of water when the water starts boiling I drop 2 blocks of the ramen in it and squish it down until it breaks up and keep stirring it around till there is no water left then add some sauce to it, that’s some killer stuff with the right sauce, spicy peanut or satay for example. You can live like a king on that ramen.
The Spanish markets around here have 20 pound bags of rice for $5 365 days a year after you add water that’s like I dunno 459 pounds of rice or something
you have $15 to buy stuff to add to the rice to cover the rest of your month right there. Oh wait this is $20 a week, what a joke! I once lived exclusively on dumpster dived donuts for 3 weeks! Well that and $3 bottles of wine, if “Cold Duck” is considered a wine.
You people are weak! I once experimented with boiled acorns to eat when I was low on funds as some kind of alternative to donuts and popcorn (a large bag of popcorn is also something fill up on unpopped I mean, that pops out to many cubic feet of corn) They were totally horrible btw even after boiling 3 times and draining off the water each time, I guess the indians were onto something with burying them in a basket for 6 months (I heard that somewhere)
Hey, find out if your local church has a pantry, you can get boxes of canned foods for free. It’s pretty easy getting on food stamps, too. $135 a month! I was buying Morningstar Corndogs and $4 loaves of Soynut bread and shit when I had that kinda cash to spend.
First off, you should not boil the water before putting in the rice :) Here are two ways that I cook mine - the first makes it tasty and light, the second makes it fluffy and not too sticky. Before each recipe, wash your rice by rinsing and draining it three times.
Pilaf Rice
Use Basmati or Thai long-grained rice. Makes one serving.
Heat up your cooking pot (I use a small ceramic casserole) on medium-high heat. When hot, put in one tablespoon of olive oil (or whichever type you prefer). Add one cup of rice, cook about 1-2 minutes while stirring until rice grains get a translucent appearance. Add 1 1/4-2 cups water, as rice requires, reduce heat to medium and let simmer until water is absorbed. Stir from time to time, and halfway through, lower the heat again so that the rice won’t burn on the bottom once the water’s been absorbed. When absorbed, remove immediately from the stove.
Rice
Any type, I use short-grained rice. Makes one serving.
After rinsing and draining one cup of rice, add 1 1/4 cups water and place on medium heat. It will take a long time to boil, this is on purpose. Once boiling, if it’s a fast boil, turn down the heat a notch. Let simmer until water is absorbed.
For a variation, use milk, rice or soy milk in place of the water, and once it starts boiling, add 2-3 tablespoons sugar and stir. When finished, put a dash of cinnamon over the top - yummy warm rice dessert, or even a breakfast dish!
Tofu has a fundamental problem. It tastes terrible. Here is how to make it better.
1. Buy the firm stuff only. It should feel like firm rubber. Cut it into 1 cm thick slabs.
2. Squeeze out the water. Tofu is preserved in H2O. Tofu is like a sponge. Water tastes terrible. Squeeze out that water by placing slabs between 2 bread boards and squeezing real hard ... harder than you think ... you should almost destroy the tofu. Let the water run off so the ...
3. Marinate will soak in. Marinate in soy sauce at a minimum. A mixture of soy and sweet chilli sauce is better. Marinate for 2 Hrs at least (1 hr each side) then ...
(if making a stir fry this is where you add to stir fry ... after slicing slab into strips)
4. Deep fry ... kinda ... fry in a half centimeter of hot oil in your pan ... fry each side until it looks browned ... lay on paper towel to absorb oil ... alternately grill if you are a health freak who does not like oil (like my GF). I grill on a cast iron stove top griller (like a pan with ridges like VVVVVV so the tofu gets a blackened stripped look)
5. serve slab as is for a tofu steak (add peanut sauce) or slice thinly for use in soups, salads, on bread etc.
my apartment kitchen became infested with ants.
I know this is a cheap shot (please pardon the cheesy pun) but one of the least expensive routes you could have taken (albeit disgusting for some) would have been to eat the ants in your kitchen. They are very high in protein and they taste reasonably good with certain seasonings or sweeteners (So i have heard.) For your greens if you have grass in your yard, and if it’s spring and summer and or you have some dandelions nearby you could make a nice tossed salad or an interesting juice
Insects as Food for Humans
Grass as food
Srvival tip #6 Eating Dandelions is a good thing.
Just buy oriental noodles (preferably not ramen), random veggies (don’t miss the green onions under any circumstances), soy sauce, wasabi powder, and rooster hot sauce. Stick all except the noodles and green onions in boiling water, turn down and cover to make broth. boil noodles separately. Eat.
—em
OK - if we’re talking about living on a shoestring, think about looking in ur local supermarket’s dumpster. This may at first seem, like, totally gross and disgusting, but bear with me here... When a shop gets a new delivery of food, it has to put it on the shelves, and get rid of the old stock. Even if it’s not out of date and perfectly good. It’s the principle of turnover. A tremendous amount of food gets wasted in this way; when I was totally penniless for a couple of weeks I survived quite comfortably like this; one day we discovered about 20 kgs of ripe, but perfectly good strawberries on the top of the rubbish heap and proceeded to make jam for the next few months. Another time we found 4 huge cartons of chocolate biscuits, still well b4 their use-by date.
Bakeries, too, have to get rid of the bread they don’t sell at the end of the day; check out their rubbish bins for delicious fresh bread, or even better, befriend ur local baker and they may even give u their leftovers at the end of the day.
Also check out restaurants and delicatessens for gourmet delights.
Not only does dumpster diving get u food 4 free, it is helping to eliminate waste and break out of this consumption frenzy that is screwing over the planet.
An identity card is better that no identity at all
Why spend money on getting the chicken tenders? Go out and buy yourself a full chicken, preferably with giblets (usually, and rather unfortunately, found only in frozen chickens here in the UK)
Remove the giblets, then pop the chicken in the oven (covered with a little oil, salt and pepper) in a self baster (or just baste it yourself every 20 mins), cook it at about 190 C for about an hour and a half (for a medium sized chicken, but check cooking guidelines). Take it out when it’s done (Juices run clear in the wing joints when you force a knife in).
Ok, there’s enough meat on a chicken for a good five or six meals if you carve well. And it’s enough for the above recipe twice over. Brown it off if you want, but that might overcook it.
Now the important bit - Chicken stock. Don’t throw away the giblets, bones and skin. After you’ve got all meat off, break the bones up, and chuck them into a big pan. Put in an onion (halved or quartered), a couple of carrots (again halved or quartered), a few herbs to your taste (bayleaves, marjoram and thyme are my favs), and some salt/pepper. Cover with water, and bring the lot to the boil, then simmer for a couple of hours. Drain off the stock, only throwing away all the bits of carrot, bone etc.
You can then use this stock (watered down if you want to make it last a bit longer) as the basis for your food, and for soup. It will freeze, and keep well for a month or longer!).
Soup is easy to make when you’ve got a decent stock. Cube up whatever you’ve got you like (potato and carrots provide a good base), and stick it all in to a pan, with a little oil, and cook it for about 5 mins. Don’t add softer veg right now, as it’ll go all gooey. Slap in some of the Stock (less stock = thicker soup), and bring to the boil. Season, and add a little bit of parprika or chilli powder if you like. Cook for about 15/20 minutes until the veg is soft. Then blitz the lot with a blitzer (or whatever they’re called) to puree the veg. Serve.
My main point is that with a frozen chicken, costing about £4, you can get enough meat to last you ages, and the best tasting stock you can get, to include in any meal you cook. On a budget, this makes a lot more sense than buying cheap chicken joints.
As far as soups go, put in whatever you like in a soup, around the above recipe. It’s extremely simple to do, and is one of the most healthy things you can cook, easily and in bulk, and doesn’t cost much. You get to use up all that veg you might have lying around too, that you don’t think you’ll be able to use before it goes off.
Go and look for a neighborhood store, where Mexicans, Africans and South Americans buy their local food supplies. Buy a huge bag of rice. Buy huge bags of yellow corn meal, used to make instant polenta. Buy from Knorr (and not from anybody else, because they taste usually awful), cube of broth for chicken, fish, beaf and vegetables. Buy cans of pure tomato paste from an original Italian company, like Contadina and buy cans of crushed, pealed tomatoes in the can without any other ingredients. Then buy peanut butter, if possible without extra sugar or salt in it, peanut oil and hot, red pepper.
Buy onions, garlic, green peppers, mushrooms etc., bamboo sprouts the way you like it. If you have money left, get some chicken from a supplier who serves the immigrants from South America (they have better chickens) or catfish (seems to be the cheapest fish in the U.S.) fresh.
Make your daily rice portions in a rice cooker or your daily polenta portion (salt water, may be a bit of margerine or butter, pour corn meal, stir, ready in less of a minute) as your base.
Prepare a tomato (add fresh tomatoes if you can afford it) sauce with your onions, challottes, peppers etc. and cubes of broth of your choice, dependent on the meat or fish you want to add. If you like it hot, buy red pepper from an African supplier. If you have no fish or meat, add peanut butter to the sauce, especially if you like it hot, it’s a good mellow-down add-on with a lot of vitamins in it. If you have meat of fish, just fry it a little in oil and onions etc. and add to the sauce after that. Chicken goes well with peanuts and tomatoes, beef goes well with raw peanuts, cooked in water and then ccrushed (no roasting of peanuts here) and added to the sauce, fish goes well without peanuts, but add mussels, shrimps, crabs, if you are rich enough to afford them. Fish goes well with carrots and bamboo sprouts (or these other sprouts... ).
Enjoy. However poor you are you will never be malnourished if you eat rice or corn with tomatoes and peanut butter. It contains all you need. Add a couple of grapefruits and bananas at times and once in a while you can just eat spinach or other bitter, green leaves in a chicken broth with spices.
All you need are two pots (for those who can’t cook rice, use a rice cooker) and oil. You can cook it on any table-top electrical or gas cooker, cost around $ 30.00 or so. All you need is gas or electricity. If you are so poor that you don’t even have that, buy your gas in a cans. Your food don’t care how poor you are and in what fancy kitchen you can or can’t cook them. And, of course, if you have at least a balconi, grow some green salad there in plant containers (or even potatoes, though American seed potatoes are terrible).
One of the decadencies of American life is that houses have the largest and fanciest unused kitchens and gardens by default. Americans buy coffee in the morning at Starbucks or McDonalds and have breakfast in their cars, eat fast food or sandwiches from the next deli around the corner at work eat pizza or chinese deliveries in the evening and some drink pints of alcohol at night.
I just wonder what they need their kitchens and gardens for. That’s for those who make below $ 35,000.00, if you are in the upper brackets, you become a gourmet cook once a month and invite your friends to use your kitchen with them and show off your “french cuisine” skills... ahh, I should just shut up. And don’t forget spaghetti/pasta with some inexpensive, homemade sauces as well.
[LOL, a page with a few that made me smile, poor students that are surviving, at least some are in England....
There are many links and ideas on the page, I didn’t get them all......granny]
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/4/10/222954/151
Free food. I can now sniff it out from blocks away. Hear the murmur of distant small-talk? There must be “light snacks” nearby. But, what free food lacks in price, it also lacks in variety. Bagels, cookies, cold pizza... finishing off with Ramen when I get home at night. I sought a better way, and I found it.
Through introspection, I’ve found that I judge my food choices by just a few criteria:
* Calories per dollar
* Taste
* Nutritional value
* Preparation time
* Number of discernible ingredients
Noticeably, these are all met by an all-you-can-eat buffet (e.g., dining hall). But, we need an option for home.
Enter the pressure cooker: a popular cooking tool in much of the world, and even with our grandparents, but almost un-heard of by US’ian 20-somethings. It can cook meals in as little as 10% of the time of a normal cooking pot.
A pressure cooker is a strong tightly-enclosed pot with a regulated pressure-release valve. It cooks like a normal pot until the water starts to boil. Then, pressure builds up to a steady-state value of (usually) 15 psi (compared to the surrounding air), which is maintained by the pressure regulator (often, simply a weight placed on a hollow stem on the top of the pressure cooker, which is pushed up by pressure above 15 psi, releasing steam). This is the crucial point: at 15 PSI, water boils at 257 F (125 C), instead of the usual 212 F (100 C). Because most chemical reactions go exponentially with temperature, this small difference leads to drastically reduced cooking times.
There are many pressure cookers on the market. They perform very similarly. Some have weighted pressure regulators, while others are spring-regulated. Some are even electronic. I say: go with a cheap, simple, and reputable one. I got mine from walmart for around $25, and I’ve used it every ~4 days for 2 years. It holds about 6 quarts. You can always trade up from there.
To re-iterate: Here are the benefits of a pressure-cooker
A pressure cooker allows you to cook huge (6 quarts!) quantities of food (cheap food, e.g. bean soup or cheap beef) in a very short time (compared to a slow-cooker, grill, or saucepan). And, it tastes just as good in 1 hour as if you’d spent 8 hours cooking traditionally.
Overall approach, and common ingredients
Pressure cookers are versatile, but they excel at ingredients which are slow to cook. For instance, you could cook raw chicken in 3 minutes instead of 15 minutes, but that’s not my angle. My primary pressure-cooking ingredients are beans (see below), or cheap meats that tenderize upon long cooking: corned beef, beef brisket, and other cheap beef or pork cuts made for slow-cooking. These meats are fatty cuts that disintegrate into loose, tender morsels over time—perfect for pulled-pork sandwiches or juicy pot roasts (you can pour off the fat if it concerns you). As far as vegetables, I stay away from fragile plants like broccoli or peas—they’re better done in a steamer. But, the pressure cooker is great for long jobs like mashed potatoes or cabbage. Alternatively, if I roast a chicken, I’ll throw its remains in the pressure cooker and pulverize the hell out of it for an hour. Strain it, and it makes delicious soup stock. That would take you a day without a pressure cooker.
The approach is this: Add your ingredients, plus ~1/2 inch of water at the bottom (which will boil off). Hit it on “high” until the pressure cooker starts to make noise (first a hissing, then a “taht-taht-taht” rhythmic sound. Once you hear that sound, you are “pressure-cooking”; times in pressure cooking recipes refer to the length of time you hear that sound, not the time since you turned the stove on. Turn it down to medium-medium-low, and let it gently hiss until everything’s cooked. Run cold water over the pressure cooker to stop the cooking and release the pressure (the pressure is released when you hear an abrupt “gurgling” noise), and check for doneness. Most ingredients cook about 5x faster in a pressure cooker than in a simmering pot, though there is some variation.
Bean Soup
This is standard 15-bean soup, great by itself, on crackers, or on toasted bread. Here are my ingedients (it’s flexible, based on what I forgot to get at the store, and what’s on sale.)
1 lb 15-bean soup (or similar).
8 oz bacon, cut to ½”x1/2” squares
~4 oz tomato paste
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 cube chicken boullion
2 large onions
Spices (salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic, thyme, “seasoning salt”)
Water
In pressure cooker, add the bean mix and tomato paste (the tomato paste helps to keep the beans whole while they cook; without it, they tend to split). Add water (~4 cups; I’ve never measured it. Just cover the beans, plus ~2 inches.) Bring to a boil, then cover with lid and pressure regulator, and cook for ~20 minutes.
In separate saucepan or skillet, sautee bacon, onions, and (optionally) garlic. Feel free to keep most of the grease—it’ll still be a pretty healthy meal.
After the beans are cooked for 20 minutes, add the bacon-onion-garlic mix, and add the can (or two) of diced tomatoes. Simmer, stirring well, and taste it. Add salt, pepper, etc., until you’re happy with it. Congrats: You now have an incredibly nutritious (depending on how you prepped it, it may be high in saturated fat, but it’s much better than your normal grad school diet) meal that will give you a good 8 servings, for under $10.
Don’t underestimate the nutrition of this meal: it has tons of vitamins, unbelievable amounts of fiber, a wide range of micronutrients, and (depending on how you deal with the bacon grease) it can be low in fat. Feel free to substitute ham for bacon, ignore the meat altogether, or add interesting new spices.
Cajun Red Beans and Rice
This is a classic Cajun meal, usually served on Mondays, although my preparation is a bit unorthodox (mostly due to the tomato):
1.5 lb small red beans
2 medium onions
1 green pepper
4 stalks celery
~ 1 lb bacon, ham, or other flavorful meat
1-2 cans diced tomatoes or 6 oz. tomato paste (the unconventional part)
Spices (traditionally: garlic, cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper, thyme, sage, rosemary)
6 cups cooked basmati rice (any rice is fine, but I love basmati)
Water
You could spend forever cooking this meal, but this is my method:
1) In the pressure cooker (uncovered), quickly fry the meat, garlic, celery, onions, and green pepper (all finely chopped) to bring out their flavor.
2) When the veggies are translucent and odorous, add the red beans (NOT THE TOMATOES), and water to cover the ingredients plus ~2 inches.
3) Pressure cook as long as you want; I usually go an hour or more. You want to cook the crap out of these ingredients; they will be almost indiscernible. Keep the heat low enough that the ingredients are cooked without burning (you want a bit of hissing, maybe a little gyration of the pressure regulator if it’s the weighted type, but nothing more).
4) When the cooking’s done, mash most of the hardly-recognizable red beans against the side of the pot with a whisk or large spoon. Continue cooking; the mixture will become pasty; mashing the beans gives you the nice pasty consistency, but for visual and textural reasons you’ll want some remaining whole beans.
5) Add the tomatoes, taste, and add seasoning. This dish needs to have some serious zing to it.
Serve on rice. I recommend Basmati—it’s a brilliant strain of rice. All of this dish’s ingredients are cheap, and to top it off, it’s served on rice (one of the cheapest source of calories, unless you’re going to eat cattle corn). But, it’s still very nutritious. I doubt that one could cook a decent stir-fry, no matter how expensive or elaborate, that is more nutritious than red beans and rice.
Other Meals
Mashed Potatoes: Proceed as usual (cut up potatoes into ~eighths, and cover in as much water as possible); but, instead of simmering for 1 to 1.5 hours, just pressure-cook for 20 minutes.
Corned beef: Cut beef brisket (perpendicularly to the grain) at ~1 inch intervals. Pressure cook (with ~ ½ inch water) for 45 minutes. Remove cover; add veggies (cabbage, carrots, potatoes, etc) and simmer for 30 minutes, or pressure cook for about 10 additional minutes.
Pulled pork: Pressure cook (with at least ½ inch water) the cheapest pork roast possible (remove the enclosing “net” if applicable; it’s hard to do afterwards) for about 1.5 hours. Let it cool down, and just massage the meat with your hands. Wash your hands, add a good amount of cheap honey barbecue sauce... you now pulled pork BBQ which will go great on a bun.
Conclusion, and Important Points
My pressure cooker has changed my culinary life—it’s made real, nutritious, great-tasting food possible for me, at nearly the price of Ramen noodles. Here are some final pointers:
* Just do it. Experiment. These meals are cheap enough and fast enough that you don’t need to worry about it.
* Add a splash of lemon juice (tip courtesy of Alton Brown) to recover some of the zest that’s lost with the high temperatures of pressure cooking.
* Don’t be afraid to stop cooking by putting the pressure cooker under cold water quite often, especially when you’re beginning. Better to undercook than overcook—you can cook more, but you can never go back.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2008/1/14/1044/84224
I have dry skin. Heating systems at home, school, and work all conspire with the general dryness of Zone 5 Winter to leave me with a flaky, sensitive epidermis that not only feels papery and prone but, in some areas, cracks or reddens. To combat this I began using, for the first time in my life, commercially available moisturizers like Aloe & Chamomile Advanced Therapy Lotion (St. Ives) and Norwegian Formula Body Moisturizer (Neutrogena). After becoming wary of their exotic additives and unpronounceables, I decided to try making my own in order to ascertain what’s really responsible for rehydrating my skin.
The recipe below is simple and forms the basis of most DIY skin moisturizers; it functions by shielding the skin from dehydrating agents and both attracting and trapping moisture within the skin. I created it after a few tries from some recipes I found online and in a local anarchist hippie zine called Motha Earrrth.
* 4 tbs. beeswax
* 8 tbs. coco butter
* 4 tbs. coconut oil
* 2 tsp. distilled water
Use either a simple double boiler or a Pyrex dish either in a pot of boiling water or on top of a hot plate.
1. Place beeswax in dish and allow it to melt to the consistency of water.
2. Add the distilled water and mix thoroughly.
3. Add the coconut oil and coco butter, stirring continuously until completely mixed with the beeswax and water.
4. Pour into a container and allow it to cool for about an hour before use.
Total time: Seven minutes.
The stark simplicity of this recipe contrasts quite obviously with commercial solutions as it lacks dyes, vitamins, and chemicals. The color of the finished product will be a light tan or beige color depending on the color of the products you used and it should smell vaguely tropical or like a legally-aged but still pubescent girl who just went tanning. I tried this recipe on my face, where it worked well as a lip balm too, and felt results in just a couple days.
After trying this recipe with other oils, I realized that skin moisturizers, lip balm, hair conditioner, and shoe polish all exist along a spectrum and tweaking the amounts and ingredients allow for products appropriate for many household and garden uses. For instance, adding a teaspoon of sesame oil and olive oil each and reducing the beeswax a bit results in an excellent hair care product that one can leave in and style with or rinse out in the shower. Women love to touch my hair.
Upon further experimentation with this basic recipe for skin care use, I decided to fancy it up so it was more like the expensive commercial brands, something I could gift and use to impress attractive lady-friends. This required the purchase of essential oils, which are about US $2-6 per 10mL; one adds just a few drops of the essential oil when mixing. The only guidelines here are the skinhacker’s personal tastes and allergies. I would recommend using garlic or valerian oil in a batch meant for gifting, for example.
My favorites so far have been a catnip/chamomile/lavender/St. John’s wort combo which is nice before bedtime, a chamomile/lemon/mint paste with honey which is an excellent pre-shower facial that leaves the skin full and smooth and smelling incredibly kissable, and a peppermint/ginger combo that mimics my preferred Tom’s of Maine toothpaste flavor and so is excellent for post-shower application. A three-to-one frankincense/sandalwood combination smells of success and sinecure; wear it to interviews and meetings.
Alongside more obvious scents, many skin products contain vitamins; Vitamin E compounds are especially common. Vitamins are of obvious benefit, but few are actually effective when applied externally. Vitamin A, for instance, is a magnitude more effective when taken internally, while the B vitamin complex has absolutely no benefit when applied to the skin. In researching I found that only one Vitamin E compound, alpha tocopherol, is effective topically. I purchase gel cap preparation from discount stores and pop and squeeze it in when mixing the other ingredients. It adds no odor or other side effects but I do feel as if my skin feels tighter and more resilient to inclemency than without.
Another benefit of these natural ingredients is that the product is edible assuming one has not added poisonous ingredients. This means that, if one is bored, one can eat their homemade skin care products. This lends to treating constipation, since coconut oil, among others, induces bowel movements in humans. One can ingest a good amount of moisturizer orally and enjoy its soothing benefits hours later. A batch with some anise oil and high beeswax content can be inserted into the rectum for results much gentler than over-the-counter suppositories.
Taking responsibility for your skin health not only benefits your skin but shows the world that you have invested in yourself, a person just as bright as their expression. Knowing the process behind doing so allows for a subtle, personal tweaking that manufactured skin products just don’t provide. Ordering a scent or cream for a looming romantic appointment is impractical and expensive, but making it at home takes only minutes and costs nothing after you’ve established a small cabinet of ingredients.
Eventually one will find novel uses for their personal products that will allow them to slowly wean themselves away from the horror of consumerist dependence, polishing their life—literally—in the process.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2008/9/28/1315/92538
Humans are omnivorous. Probably the reason we are is that we started out as scavengers before we were hunter/gatherers. Eating ancient and primeval ‘road kill’ must have been nasty enough that some bright ancestor found a pointed stick and jabbed something to death and we tasted fresh meat. That must have gotten old too and so someone else came along and figured out how to prepare and cook meat.
The technique of preparing the perfect steak is quite simple and uncomplicated. It’s an art that has almost been forgotten.
I have gone to the finest restaurant I could afford, spent close to $100 for a steak dinner and still haven’t eaten a steak as good as what follows. The best thing about it is ANYONE can do it, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and it will be the best steak you ever had. Mastering this (even if you are a vegan) will score points and your guests will go home quite satisfied.
Getting the right cut
This is the most important part of the whole process. Unless the supermarket you shop at has a great meat department with full time butchers then find a butchery that the only thing they sell is meat. Make sure the store is neat, clean and smells good. If your nose doesn’t like it neither will your guts.
First, make sure you purchase Angus steak. My favorite cut is rib eye and if you don’t know anything about cuts of meat try this one first. Rib eye is a good first time choice for a number of reasons: It’s tender and very flavorful.
It is important that you get cuts that have lots of “marbling” and white flecks throughout the cut. This marbling is what gives it great flavor. Unfortunately, finding steak with this is not as easy as it used to be so you might need to shop around. Make sure the butcher cuts the rib eye no less than 1.5 inches thick. Two inch thick rib eye steaks are great.
Note: If you can purchase aged rib eye then you have a magnificent piece of meat. This will be more expensive but well worth the money.
Before you cook it
First a word about cleanliness.
As a general rule when cooking with meat of any kind, use bleach to clean your granite counter tops and just about anything that comes in contact with meat at anytime before you start. It doesn’t matter if it is steak or poultry or whatever. Just do it: Your ass and guts will thank you.
Before cooking your steak take it out of the refrigerator and let it warm up to room temperature. You DO NOT want to go directly from the refrigerator and into the pan. Many cooks do this but DON’T be tempted to do it. Warming the raw rib eye should take approx 20-30 minutes at the most. Make sure you keep it covered. If you do not do let the steaks warm up to room temperature, then you will have a ruined steak regardless.
After it has come up to room temperature you will need two things; your favorite cooking oil and pepper that you can hand grind. The cooking oil you want to use is grape seed oil. Something like olive oil will burn and impart an unpleasant flavor to the steak. Don’t use cheap shit.
Coat the steak on both sides with the oil and grind pepper to taste on both sides as well. Put the steak on a platter and get out your favorite stove top grill or cast iron pan...the bigger the better. Do not put any oil in the pan, put it on a burner and get it hot enough to start smoking but no hotter. This is important to do.
Once your pan starts smoking place your steak into the pan on one side. It should sizzle the second it touches the pan. If you don’t hear the sizzle you have screwed up somehow because the pan is not hot enough. What you are wanting to do here is to sear the steak on both sides about 1/8th to 1/4 inch deep on a 1 1/2 inch or thicker steak. In other words, not very deep at all. You want the outside of the steak to be a golden brown. I have done this enough times that I know when to turn the steak by the way it sounds while cooking in the pan. This will take about 10 to 15 minutes depending on your altitude.
Next, (and this is important) take the cooked steaks out of the pan, don’t turn off the burner and place it on a clean platter and let it “rest”. During its resting period it will “bleed” its juices. Let it rest for 5 minutes or less. Then take the those juices that have left the steak and pour them into the pan and mix it with a small amount of balsamic vinegar. Cook this for a minute or so and then pour this over the steak.
Serve the steak!
Sure, you can serve the rib eye with a mung bean or alfalfa sprout salad but for me I serve it with the best burgundy I can find, a baked potato with sour cream and minced green onions. A two inch thick steak with a baked white rose potato is a hearty meal.
Congratulations, you have just cooked the best steak you can eat.
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