Electrolyte Home Recipe
This recent disaster in Haiti has got me thinking. One of the big problems in natural disasters is lack of simple medical care. Electrolyte drinks are needed to replace fluids after diarrhea, vomiting and certain injuries.
Here is a simple recipe :
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Half and Half Substitute
Save money with this less expensive substitute. If you have any left over, pop it into the freezer to use later.
4 1/2 teaspoons melted butter
1 cup milk (minus a little, see directions below)
Put the melted butter into a cup measure and, when cooled, add enough milk to make one cup.
~Heather in the Kitchen
Sweet Potato Fries
Sweet Potatoes contain a lot of health benefits. I was not a real fan of sweet potato until my wife made them into fries. Now this a good eats! I asked her to send over the recipe, so I hope you enjoy!
Sweet Potato Fries
Looking for another way to get those great nutrients into your kids, or even yourself and use your sweet potatoes at the same time? Try these Sweet Potato Fries. They are super easy and very yummy. Experiment with different seasonings and see what you come up with. You can also try cinnamon and sugar for a healthy treat.
Preheat oven to 500*. Wash sweet potatoes. Cut into 1/2 to 3/4 inch sticks. Place in bowl. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Stir. Pour onto baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, turning once half way through.
Note: Do not use dark pan.
~Heather in the Kitchen
Thrive Food Storage Breakfast Casserole
Shelf Reliance is your premier source for food storage, emergency preparedness supplies, and informational tools. Featuring freeze dried foods, food rotation systems (food storage shelves), and our revolutionary calculators for food storage and emergency kits, Shelf Reliance offers the tools you’ll need to create a comprehensive, customized emergency preparedness plan. To see the entire recipe, click on the “more info” link above this text. 8 eggs 1/2 cup Thrive Bacon TVP 1 cup grated Cheese …
Sharpen Your Peeler with a Paring Knife
Most people don’t realize that their peelers get dull over time. Most people also dont know that you can sharpen them with a simple paring knife. With a simple metal to metal action shown in the video you can sharpen you peelers so they are much more user friendly. Once I saw the video, I tried it and noticed an obvious difference.
This also works for your cheese graters or any other metal blade in your kitchen. Give it a try, you will notice a difference.
Pick up a paring knife from a discount store for about a dollar so you dont mess up a good one.
Got any knife sharpening tips? Post up in the comments section.
No Eggs? No problem!
Have you ever been out of eggs in the middle of making some cookies or other favorite recipe? Well, no need to fret. If the recipe only calls for 1 or 2 eggs, you can just add a few tablespoons of water or milk. You can easily substitute common items you have on hand from the pantry also.
For each egg, substitute one of the following:
As a binder:
1/4 cup apple sauce or mashed banana
As leavening agent:
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 3 tablespoons cold water
~Heather in the Kitchen
Here is a recipe to make your own Borden’s Sweetened Condensed Milk:Your Favorite Books on Self Sufficiency, Prepardness, and Basic Homestead Skills!
In descending order of frequency, the 78 readers that responded to my latest survey recommended the following non-fiction books on preparedness, self-sufficiency, and practical skills:
The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery (Far and away the most often-mentioned book. This book is an absolute “must” for every well-prepared family!)
The Foxfire Book series (in 11 volumes, but IMHO, the first five are the best)
Where There Is No Dentist
“Rawles on Retreats and Relocation”
Making the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook
The “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course
Crisis Preparedness Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Home Storage and Physical Survival
Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times by Steve Solomon
Tappan on Survival
Boston’s Gun Bible
Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners
Survival Guns
Boy Scouts Handbook: The First Edition, 1911 (Most readers recommend getting pre-1970 editions.)
All New Square Foot Gardening
When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency
Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition
Preparedness Now!: An Emergency Survival Guide (Expanded and Revised Edition)
Putting Food By
First Aid (American Red Cross Handbook) Responding To Emergencies
Making the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook
Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearney (Available for free download.)
Cookin’ with Home Storage
Special thanks to
NO Drip Popsicles
If you hate the mess popsicles make when your kids eat them, these are for you! And, they are inexpensive too! The magic is the gelatin in the Jello. Isn’t Jello great! Good luck keeping them in stock!
Jello Popsicles
1 (3 ounce) package Jello, any flavor
1 (.14 ounce) package unsweetened Kool-Aid
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar
2 cups boiling water
2 cups cold water
Dissolve Jello, Kool-Aid, and sugar in boiling water. Add cold water and stir. Pour mixture into ice cube trays or popsicle molds. Insert sticks. (You can wait until mixture is partially frozen to insert sticks if using ice cube trays. The trick is to just remember.) Freeze until firm, about 2-3 hours. Makes 20-24 pops if using ice cube tray. Enjoy!
~Heather in the Kitchen
Mason Jar Cake
There may be a time when your food storage is all you have to live on. That does not mean you should just live on beans and rice. While everything is still normal in your world why not prepare your food storage with some food you might enjoy. So for our recent Family Home Evening project we showed our kids how to prepare a cake in a mason jar. This can be stored for two years or more, havent tried it beyond that.
Mason Jar Cake
- 1 Large can (24 oz.) of apple sauce. Or 3 cups of peeled and chopped apples.
- 3 eggs (borrowed from our new chickens!)
- 1 cup of canola oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 3 cups flour (all purpose)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon allspice
- 1 cup raisins or chopped dates
- 1 1/2 cups chopped nuts (almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, etc) .I used pecans.
Pre- heat oven to 325 degrees F.
Mix all the wet ingredients first. Then add dry ingredients and mix. Take 4 Quart size jars, or 8 pint size jars if have small family, grease and flour. Fill jars 2/3 full with batter and bake at 325 for 50-60(for quarts). Maybe cook 30 min for pints. Bring to boil a small pot of water to prepare your lids. Place lids in boiling water and turn stove off. Remove from oven and place on a towel ONE JAR AT A TIME. Wipe rim of jar clean, and place one lid on. Tighten it down with ring. Repeat until all jars are sealed. While they cool, the lids will “ping” indicated a sealed jar. Date and label the jars. Be sure to store in a cool, dark pThat is it! Simple and fast. Please only use this as a base, and feel free to change it up. You could add fruit, chocolate, and anything else you can think of.
ENJOY!
Bread Tails, Yuck! Homemade Breadcrumbs, Yum!
Normally I am not a wasteful person. But a man has to draw the line somewhere! I hate eating the tail ends from a loaf of bread. My wife is always on me about that. I refuse to eat them. “Give them to the kids!” I plead!
So my wife went on a mission to find a way to keep them out of the garbage. I think its a great idea! She let them sit out for a while and then threw them into her food processor. Out came bread crumbs that she added to her can of existing bread crumbs. She says you can use a blender as well.
Bread crumbs can be used on chicken or pork, extending meat loaf, my wife’s famous egg plant parmeson, or even fried green tomatoes!
There you have it, I was saved! No more bread tails for me, EVER! Thank you honey, you are the best!
Savings found in Powdered Milk
I figured out how to save milk money by substituting powdered milk in recipes. Growing up we always drank powdered milk. I don’t like it and refuse to drink it or require my children to drink it. However, powdered milk is part of our years supply of food storage and I needed to know what to do with it. I understand the importance of using our food storage so our bodies will adjust to it and also to keep it rotated. We tried some different ways to incorporate the milk powder into our diet, with no consistency in the methods. One thing we did was to whip up a quart of it in the blender and mix it half and half with store bought milk. It tasted fine but was a hassle. I didn’t want something time consuming or that requires much effort to keep track of, but simple.
We were buying 4 gallons of milk every week for our family at between $2.50 and $3.00 a gallon. If you do the math, that is $10.00 to $12.00 a week just on milk! I learned that adding the milk powder to the dry ingredients in my recipes and then adding water where it calls for milk, I got the same great product at a cheaper cost. I love pancakes so we eat them often. We make triple batches when we make them. That is 3 cups of milk every time. This simple substitution is what I do to keep the cost down. This tip works great for bread, cakes, muffins, and anything else you can think of. One of the great things about powdered milk is you can add more or less milk powder depending on what you like. I use about 3/4 cup powder for 3 cups water. I say “about” because I don’t measure exactly. The typical milk recipe calls for 3/4 cup milk powder to 4 quarts warm water. ~Heather in the Kitchen
Tin Can Ice Cream
Found this recipe on making Tin Can Ice Cream and thought you guys might enjoy. We sure did!!Yum!
Tin-Can Ice Cream
By Juliana Lewis
For this recipe, you will need two sturdy cans with tight-fitting lids. One will need to hold about a quart (liter) and fit inside the other with space all around it. In Steps 1 and 3, secure each lid to its can with duct tape, if available.
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup whipping cream
nuts, fruit in small pieces, and/or your favorite flavoring
crushed ice
rock salt
1. Pour all the ingredients into the smaller can, mix, put the lid on securely, and place this can into the larger one.
2. Pack crushed ice around the small can until it fills the bigger can.
3. Pour at least 3/4 cup of rock salt evenly over the ice, then put the can lid on securely.
4. Roll the can around on a hard surface for at least 10 minutes. (A mild game of keep away might be a fun way of doing this—but be sure the lids stay on tight!)
5. Open the cans, removing the smaller one to make sure no salt or ice gets into it. The mixture should be frozen around the edges. Scrape it away from the sides with a table knife, and mix it into the part that’s still liquid.
6. If it’s well frozen, dig in! If not, reseal the smaller can, put it in the larger can again, pack more ice and salt around it, reseal the larger can, and roll it around a few minutes more. Repeat Steps 5 and 6, if necessary. Serves four.
Skunk Odor Removal Recipe
I spotted our dog hanging out in some brush. About the time I was getting ready to call him he comes running out coughing, slobbering, and shaking. I knew that it wasn’t good and about 3 seconds later and nice breeze confirmed it! OOOff. Man dog you stink! In the 4 weeks we have been here he has found just about everything except a skunk. I guess it was only a matter of time. Surprised it took that long actually.
Luckily I have some past experience with wildlife, so I had a recipe filed away to remove the odor. Only one little problem, I never actually used the recipe. So here we go, time to put my advice to practice and see how it works.
Skunk Odor Removal Recipe
Ingredients:
-
- Scope Mouth Wash
- Hydrogen Peroxide
- Baking Soda
- Dawn Dish Soap
Directions:
- Fill spray bottle with “Scope” Mouth Wash and spray animal twice over. Let “Scope” set for 10 minutes.
- Pour hydrogen peroxide on animal. Avoid contact with eyes
- Apply baking soda and “Dawn”, lather, and rinse.
- Rinse after soaking/scrubbing for at least 20 minutes.
There you have it. After he dried off, no skunk smell for about 24 hours. After that we got a VERY faint smell if are now was right on his fur. But he is back to wagging his tail and acting like he owns the place!