Posted on 02/26/2018 12:12:20 PM PST by CottonBall
I’ve been missing the vast amount of information on prepping, survival, camping, simple cooking, the old ways of doing just about everything – all the things nw_arizona_granny knew so much about and shared with us, along with numerous other posters with a vast array of skills and knowledge.
We have our various related-threads here, a recipe thread, a gardening thread, and even a prepper thread. They are all great and I don’t mean to take anything away from those and the hard work their owners put in.
But I was missing a place to talk about ALL those things, to get the camaraderie that we used to have on granny’s thread.
I learned how to can on those threads! The pressure canner was not my friend, I thought, but I bought one and stared at it for a month, intimidated. Then I read the directions for another month. But with the help and encouragement of posters on granny’s threads, I jumped in and now have my very own food storage room in the basement with lovely jars of shelf-stable meats, vegetables, and fruit. When we moved, I fashioned my food storage room – and insisted upon having a basement – from what I learned on her threads. Getting started gardening was from her threads. Making my own cleaning products….the list is endless.
So I thought I would take the chance and start another comprehensive prepper thread and see how it goes. I used to have granny’s ping list since I made one of the threads for her, but alas, with numerous computer changes, I cannot find it. So please pass this onto any posters you think might be interested.
We’ll just keep it running until..whenever. Granny created a new thread at 10,000 posts or so. I do like the idea of having ONE thread to go to – because often I cannot find or keep track of the weekly threads. I won’t be posting lots of recipes or tidbits myself – to any mods concerned about the size of this thread. I’d just like a place to chat, post questions, post ideas, make new prepping friends.
Here are granny’s threads, if anyone wants to peruse them:
nw_arizona_granny’s Thread #1
That would be interesting for you to post.
I would appreciate your insight and experience.
I will second that! It would be nice to have that recipe. Who knows, someday we might be making our own soap with lard and ashes from the fireplace. If that’s how you do it. I know I season my cast-iron with lard. It probably doesn’t have to be super good stuff though.
But I hear lard makes wonderful pie crust and tortillas.
Ha. I don’t remember much of it. My hands and arms were sore from wrestling with that butt. My butcher knife had walked off so all I had was carving knives and a couple of chef knives.
I really needed a hatchet style like you see in Chinese movies, and a bone saw. The directions for rendering in the crockpot were on line—they are here some where—I never throw stuff away, but that’s why I can’t find it—if you know what I mean. LOL
I have saved a book and kit on a wish list at Amazon. But really unless SHTF, I never want to try to slice up a whole butt again.
It does. My granny had a restaurant, and her pie chef always used lard-best light and flaky crusts ever.
One year for Christmas, I bought my girls a cookbook for uses of Lard, and a good quality organic pasture raised pork lard—the leaf kind.
I use lard for any recipes that call for shortening.
One is the old family Christmas cookie recipe. The cut out anise cookies.
Here’s the recipe. You can find the Anise OIL in any grocery store in the candy making section. Or at Michael’s for example.
The ammonium carbonate I found both online and at a really little, family run Italian specialty store. They had good stuff for making Italian pastries etc. I printed the recipe as my mom gave it to me but found out that you do not need to scald the milk. I don’t know why she did it. It is heat activated so if you add it to hot milk, it WILL foam greatly.
Anise Christmas cookies 350F 15 – 20 mins Makes 200+ cookies
Scald: 1 Pint milk and let cool to room temperature. Add 1 oz. by weight of ammonium carbonate for baking to the cooled/cold milk and stir well to dissolve all the ammonium carbonate. (Never add ammonium carbonate to hot milk. It will foam!)
Cream together: 4 C lard (or shortening)
2 C sugar
Add and mix well: 6 eggs and 1/4 oz anise OIL (not extract) (The small bottles are 1/8 oz so you’ll need two of them)
Add the milk and ammonium carbonate mixture and mix well.
Add enough pastry flour to make dough stiff and just pull cleanly away from the bowl. It will take almost 5 pounds.
Roll out on floured pastry board or cloth about 1/4 inch thick.
Cut out cookies and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake cookies at 350 for about 15 minutes, or whatever your oven takes for the cookies to become golden around the edges and lightly browned on the bottom. (Depends on your oven. It may take up to 20 minutes. Just check regularly)
Let cool before frosting.
Frosting: 2 TBSP butter
1/4 cup or so of milk
10X sugar
Mix until spreadable but not runny. If it’s too stiff it’s too hard to frost the cookies. Sprinkle with colored sugar.
Just finished reading your TATTLERS JAR LID post.
GREAT write-up - Thanks for taking the time to do such a thorough job.
Nothing better than first hand reports of actual hands on experience.
(I hate it when elitists sniff that it’s just anecdotal evidence)
I bought a dozen TATTLERS to test/practice with some time ago but based on your experiences I’m now thinking of stocking up some more.
But looking at the prices makes my head spin!
Would appreciate knowing if you have price-shopped for TATTLER lids and if so, the best prices + shipping you have found.
People are under the assumption canned tuna is cheap. About the cheapest I can find is 70 cents for 5 oz. Consider that 2.5 oz of that is water. You’re now looking at 2.5 oz of meat for 70 cents or $4.50 per pound.
For the younger crowd, be aware that “small” tuna cans have gone from 7.5 oz to 5 oz. in the past 20 years so you’ll have to make adjustments when using an old recipe. I don’t know the meat to water ratio in older cans so can’t help with that.
Cheaper store brand Spam is about $3/lb. and obviously has more fat than you’d normally have with a ham shank. Of course, you can buy a ham on sale around 79 cents/lb and home can it yourself for less. Yes, the fat and bone needs to be built into the price but that bone can be separated for two pots of beans and the fat can also be used so nothing is a waste. The dog enjoys the fat - sparingly.
Hope everyone boils the Thanksgiving and Christmas turkey carcasses, picks the meat off and froze/canned the stock for future soups or whatever. I usually boil the bones twice and either combine the batches or label them as “strong” and “light”. Same for chicken and other bones.
You’ll never have to buy canned stock.
Keep a container in the freezer to continually drain canned and fresh cooked vegetables for future soups and such. Don’t toss it into the sink or garbage! Again, you’ll never have to buy canned broth. Do the same with the liquids off your pressure cooker and insta pot meals.
The stock cycle - same here.
The freezer is in need of eating down. No matter how you try to use foods from oldest to newest, there’s stuff that hides so cleaning it out (and to save money to pay the property taxes, ugh). Did find a wee package of ham that was slightly freezer burned. Been making soups the past couple months to use older stocks. Christmas will be the ham on sale from last year. Still a long way to go. I get antsy when the freezer and pantry gets low.
This tread reminds me. When making jelly, don’t toss those fruit pits, cores and skins. Cook them down and press the residue pulp through a colander as best you can to make fruit butters.
When making homemade tamales, chill the fat off the cooked pork roast and use that instead of store bought lard. Use any fats you’ve save. FREE!
Also, don’t make those teeny little tamales you see at the store or a restaurant with half the corn husk folded up. Fill those husks up as much as possible and only fold up an inch at the bottom.
No need for a tall pot to steam them in. Just put a steamer rack in the bottom of a large pot and lay them on their sides above the water.
I don’t know whats up with our water but it didn’t like powdered laundry detergent so kept clogging up the pipes because it wouldn’t desolve. Finally had to go with liquid detergent.
Ha, our grocery store’s candy making section consists of chocolate chips here, a couple of very old tiny packages of rancid nuts over there and sugar on another aisle. Never heard of anise oil. It’s rare they have sweetened condensed milk. They haven’t had Karo syrup for 20 years. They probably won’t have marshmallow fluff so grab it in July if you see a jar or two. Had to order molasses online from Walmart.
More for the younger crowd - Chocolate chip bags have decreased their size from 16 oz to 12 oz. so you may have to adjust when using a 20 year old or older recipe.
LOL. I never make tamales. Can’t stand em. Crunchy tacos or taco salad-that’s my go to. But thanks for the tip—in case I have not choice but to make em.
Store bought tamales are totally inedible. Dogs turn up their noses and walk away. Garbage cans would toss them out if they were able. Barf, double barf and triple barf. NEVER EVER buy them. Those made by some lady across town shouldn’t be eaten because you, well, just never know. Those made by yourself would likely be wonderful and can be frozen or canned.
I don’t like most Mexican foods —burritos, tamales, rellenos -etc.
Crunchy beef Tacos, Taco Salad, Chips and nacho cheese, fajitas—but not the soft tortilla, and a big Margarita- That’s pretty much it.
Agree, a taco should only be served with a crunchy cornmeal shell. Again, never ever bought but homemade in your own kitchen. Most restaurant taco meat tastes like what dog food must taste like. Maybe it’s bought flour tortillas that you don’t like.
On Foodnetwork last week, they were showing how to make a fried burrito in a cornmeal rolled shell. Uh, noooo, what they made was a flauta. A fried burrito is a chimichanga with a flour tortilla.
“I get antsy when the freezer and pantry gets low.”
Me too. We’ve been going through all our canned meat without replacing it. I never have found a great sale that made me want to buy in volume. Now I just decided I’d go ahead and buy it at a mediocre sale to replenish our stock, leaving enough jars and storage room in case a really good sale does come along.
I love those old posters, thanks for posting them. It’s sad how quickly we have gone away from this type of life, so that now when I talk about canning anywhere but here, people look at me like I have the strangest hobby.
I’ve heard of the Victory Gardens, but I never heard about Victory canning. But I guess the two go together easily.
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