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
Just hot water bath can.
Most mayo jars I have seen recently are plastic.
Never canned a thing, but if I had, the three most important would be:
Watermelon rind pickles
Spiced peaches
Spiced Crab Apples
Once easily found on store shelves, in today’s world you can’t eat them if you’ve not canned them yourself.
CB, have you found your cookbooks?
A Happy and Prosperous New Year to ALL!
Yes, kind of. I thought she might not be working—else she might be more assertive in spending her own money. During the time that I was a stay at home wife and mother, I negotiated a set amount each month as my household allowance—spent it how I saw fit.
Of course, since hubby hated keeping track of anything, I also took care of his money and bills. LOL
Any way, when you consider the reusing, it’s cheap, and you can take care of bills. Sometimes you can find jars at yard sales etc. She could start small-just one case of pints and can some beef specials. That would be 12 lbs of canned meat.
sadly everything is plastic these days. I think the duke mayonnaise might still be in class. I’ll have to go check in the fridge, I can’t really remember. Yes we will have a hard time even finding jars to reuse. And everything is made to be disposable. When I think of how they survived in the depression, it was so much easier because They were used to fending for themselves as well as the clothing and everything else lasted.
That reminds me, there was something I was making recently that I realized I hadn’t seen in a grocery store in years. Shoot, now with my memory I can’t remember and it will drive me nuts. Yeah things like that disappear, sadly. I guess they don’t sell. If I ever figure it out I’ll let you know
No, I don’t know where that box 190 is. I keep going back into the basement I’m looking again and again. I don’t even know if a corner it could be it. But I sure hope I find it one day instead of that it fell off the truck between California and Tennessee!
I went through my refrigerator last night and the only thing in glass was pickles. Somehow I thought there were a few other items those have become plastic without my noticing.
“Any way, when you consider the reusing, it’s cheap, and you can take care of bills. Sometimes you can find jars at yard sales etc. She could start small-just one case of pints and can some beef specials. That would be 12 lbs of canned meat.”
That’s true, between reusing the jars and Tattler Lids, there is no extra cost. But I wouldn’t recommend she start with the tattlers!
Starting with beef is a good idea. Canned meat is so expensive in the stores, compared to the canned vegetables. I’m not sure why. I think I canned chicken my first time and it just felt so neat to have shelf-stable meat available. It made it easy to have casseroles or whatever when i forgot to take something out of the freezer.
Yep. Meat is now my favorite thing to can. For years, I canned the water bath methods for tomatoes, pickles, etc. -the acidic stuff.
Hubby insisted that we get a pressure canner so we could can green beans. At first, I prepped the stuff and he ran the canner, because I was kinda afraid of it. After the first few times, I started doing it myself.
I like saving money buying lots of meat during sales. I like having it on the shelf ready to eat or prepare a casserole or soup. It also saves electricity-not being stored in freezer, and being cooked quicker under pressure and in large batches.
And the big plus for us old people whose teeth are subpar—it’s much more tender that many other methods.
“I like saving money buying lots of meat during sales. I like having it on the shelf ready to eat or prepare a casserole or soup. It also saves electricity-not being stored in freezer, and being cooked quicker under pressure and in large batches.”
I agree! I just get such a feeling of comfort knowing those little jars are down there if I need them. And we typically have the power go out several times a year, usually not for very long but if it ends up being that way the canned meat will be so much more useful. Actually I had a freezer died once, and I ended up just canning all the meat rather than waste it. I decided after that I would have more canned meat then Frozen. And it’s so easy to use like you said, it’s already cooked and just needs to be added to something. And it is certainly tender!
Now I need to find a good sale on beef. It’s still pretty expensive around here. Although the price does seem to be going down marginally.
Today I opened up two cans of meat that we’re getting kind of old. Ground beef chunks and Italian sausage canned with tomato sauce. So I made some stuffed shells with ricotta and mozzarella, and made the sauce from the combination of the meats. And with the rest of the meats I Whirled them up in a food processor with some Parmesan cheese and an egg to make filling for cannelloni. And then I froze that in portion small enough to just cook three cannelloni. Or maybe they’re manicotti. I think kind canneloni is a desert? The canned Italian sausage, I’m thinking it must have been hot, gave it a great flavor.
I’ll admit to you here but don’t tell anybody else, the date on those cans was 2013. The end of it though! So about six years old. They were fine. I think it’s crazy that some of the FDA rules say it lasts no longer than one year.
I’ll admit to you here but don’t tell anybody else, the date on those cans was 2013. The end of it though! So about six years old. They were fine. I think it’s crazy that some of the FDA rules say it lasts no longer than one year.
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The guidance for commercially canned is that its safe to eat, just not as tasty or maybe nutritious. So ignoring the use by date is usually ok. Except, I find that liquid milk products are too sub par to use very shortly after the use by date-so I don’t stock those anymore—never used them much.
If I need a canned milk product I use the powdered milk to make the recipe substitute in my eating off the grid cookbook.
The newer jars are advertising 18 months now. As long as you watch the seals and contents, there is not reason not to use them later—if you cook it long enough and hot enough before using it, should make it ok anyway.
Straight from the jar without cooking, I like to be a little fresher, but if SHTF, I’d eat some, and if no ill effects, I’d give to the rest of the family.
I’m currently using up chicken from 2014, and meats from 2015. My main project right now is making bone broth to drink with meals twice per day. It is supposed to help with joints, osteoporosis, nails, hair, skin.
That’s great to know, that the food would still be safe. Make sense that it may not remain as tasty or nutritious. Just like anything else. Those jars were my oldest and they somehow escaped my attention. So I put them in a sauce where I boiled the heck out of them. Figured they would be OK that way plus they were covered up with other flavors.
Right now I just have all my jars sitting out on top of super pails. Not in any order. I plan to rearrange the food storage room one day, put in some shelves and actually have a rotation system. And be able to see and touch everything! That’ll be especially good with the tattler lids that sometimes come unsealed.
I have some pails of wheat, rice, beans on dollies in a corner—that way I can roll out one stack to access the other one. L shaped storage space.
We put in floor to ceiling storage shelves along a 12 ft. wall. The other wall is 15 ft. of storage cabinets—the pails are in the corner where these meet.
In the middle of the room is a marcy 3 station weight lifting exercise machine. One wall is floor to ceiling mirror to use during exercise. The other wall is bookshelves with all sorts of books and a 4 foot space to another room—which used to be a ballet/aerobic area, but is now a nap area. All in the basement.
I had it organized, but it needs some additional work—need to double check seals/cans etc. and drag older stuff that may have been over looked to the front.
That sounds like a great set up!
Ballet aerobic area though? Was that the former people that lived there or were you into dance? Our basement came equipped with a hot tub. Inside the basement! Pretty weird location. It was where my kitchen is now. Hubby took all of the 70s cabinets and appliances and made a kitchen in the basement out of them. So I use it for canning Etc. Still hoping we can use the hot tub, maybe outside Thomas eventually.
I think a good topic would be storage areas, where do people store their food. When I was in Bakersfield with no basement, I had food stashed everywhere, and cabinets, under beds, backs of closets. I had to have a spreadsheet to remind myself where was lol.
We had girls and our family/tv room was in the basement. Hubby wanted a weight machine, girls wanted to dance. So he finished up 2 rooms about 12x16 feet each for exercise. Ballet bars and mirrors for the girls and his weight lifting area with mirrors and padded walls for karate/feet chops.
When the girls got married, they were gone for a while. They both got divorced about the same time and moved back home with their kids—also girls.
So we redesigned the Family Room which was huge great space into a kitchen, bathroom, dining area, small bedroom and Combo TV /sleeping area—think studio apartment style with a screen for that. That combo area is about 24 x 13 ft. It is now the family room and computer/office area.
I do my canning downstairs, which is why we added the storage/pantry to the weight room. The Ballet room has bedroom furniture, an easy chair for reading, and a TV/computer also for the grand kids to play on when they visit—I used to babysit them daily.
Only one left now and she’s a Jr. in high school. We still have an unfinished storage area in the basement of 9 x 24 ft. When hubby finishes the new storage/2-car garage area he’s building on our empty lot, all that stuff gets taken out so it can be finished into a better space.
Haven’t decided yet exactly what it will be other than one corner re-inforced for tornado shelter in comfort-maybe or maybe I’ll just make half of it for my clothes closet.
Can’t even hardly get to my clothes for all hubby’s crap he keeps sticking into it—he does have his own closet and took over one of the girls closets-so why does he have to steal mine???? sigh
Just had a thought and don’t know if it’s been covered. If the SHTF, water supply will be cut off without electricity. I already have a Stilton key to open hydrants and public water supplies; but, what about water lines into the home?
How would you drain the lines to capture the water? My main valve is in the basement, below ground level. I also have a ball valve on my hot water heater to capture 75 gallons.
Sounds like you have made wonderful use of your basement! We still have one upstairs bedroom to remodel and then we’ll start on the basement. I can’t wait to get my food storage room all organized.
What kind of things does he store in the closets? Usually it’s us women that take over closets, with clothing. I admit to doing that. When we moved here I went from a new style house and a walk in closet to a 70s house with puny closets. So I have to rotate my summer and winter clothing, in and out of boxes.
Hope you don’t mind, I have absconded with your topic.
We have a whole house generator, that gets fuel from the propane tank. It should last long enough to be able to drain water. We have both well water and city water. But as you pointed out, without electricity we really won’t have any of those.
I wanted property with a water source. Unfortunately big acreage was hard to find around here. So we had to settle. There’s a creek about a mile away, that’s an option. Could use some horses or mules though, will probably end up going back to the old ways of using animal power.
Have a couple water filters, when is the type you use what’s a super pale. Another is the more expensive kind that I got from the LDS store website. Couple hundred dollars+ I think
You reminded me, I have a couple 40 gallon barrels of water in The Smokehouse. Not really a Smokehouse house that’s just what they called it when we bought the place, doesn’t smell smokey at all and I think it doesn’t have enough ventilation.
Do you know if I need to empty and refill those water barrels? They’re just the blue plastic kind. I wonder how long the water in them will stay good.
We have a 1000 gallon tank on a trailer, we would use our portable generator to pump the water in the tank as needed. In a shtf scenario we could build a tower to get pressure and hook the tank into the plumbing.
We have discussed a solar well set up but never actually do it.
Easy. Walk out the front door to the river or put a little container down the well.
At the store last night, there was no cream but that’s usual. What was weird, there was no cat food because a customer had purchased it all with $100 bills. Wondered if he was stocking up for the upcoming Iranian war??
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