Posted on 11/30/2012 11:17:00 AM PST by Kartographer
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To start things off I opened a jar of rasins I vaccumed pack in March of 2009 to use to do some baking. They were still nice and moist like just out of the box.
I also opened a jar of brown sugar. Other than a few dots of molasses that had accumalated on the coffee filter I used to make sure no sugar was sucked into the vaccum machine it was soft and ready to use.
I am working on an inventory to identify what I might still need in an emergency and sorting food by expiration date to cycle through for use and replacement. I have enough food for my family for an extended period, water for a couple weeks plus the means to obtain and purify more, no need for meds for my family, enough weapons and ammo except that I go through 100+ recreational rounds a day so it always has to be replenished, finances good, and communications almost non-existent. Obviously, I may need to work on communications, but I haven't decided what to get. Otherwise, I'm where I want to be in case of a major disaster such as a hurricane, tornado, blizzard, zombie Apocalypse, earthquake, EMP, or communist seizing power from our White House.
I have a question.
I have a jar that I filled with fresh blueberries, sprinkled a teaspoon of salt over them, and then put on the lid.
They look fine and still fresh, and I wonder if they are safe to eat, they are from 2/7/1999.
Haven’t had any dealing swith blue berries.
ChocoChipCookie?
I got the idea from Backwoods Home, but still, 14 years is a long time for storing fresh blueberries, and I wonder if there is a danger in eating them, there is a couple of inches of juice at the bottom of the jar, which would be salty of course, and there isn’t any mold, but I wonder if there is some health hazard.
Not much going on here right now. Still making plans for my 3-season camp-out if I can’t find a job by spring. I have a water purifier on my christmas list so I can drink from the river. I’m also keeping an eye out for places with wood pallets stacked outside. I don’t have a place to store them right now, but next spring I’m hoping to scrounge enough of them to build a fence. And maybe a temporary roof.
I’m also tinkering with designs for a pedal-powered garden tractor. I don’t really need to till my soil, but it would be handy to have a disker or cultivator attachment to help clear the weeds, and I could definitely use it for snow plowing after my driveway is dug.
I’ve still got squash from my garden lined up on the kitchen table. Last year it kept until February, and probably would have kept longer if I had let it. This year the skin has more knicks and scrapes on it, so we’ll see if it makes it that long.
I did cut one squash for Thanksgiving, it made a great squash crumble. Not quite as good as apple, but then, I’ll be honest, squash is not my favorite flavor in the world.
I can’t remember ever getting this tense about my gardening plans. It’s weird. I find myself going through last year’s seed catalogs over and over for no reason at all.
I dropped dad off for an appointment a couple days ago so paid a visit to the trift store. I was amazed there was nothing “useful” there except a camo print cap which I grabbed (that’s the extent of this week’s preps). The big annual community garage sale a couple months ago was a bust on preps, too. Makes me suspect there are many others out there of the same mind and concerns. High five to dad for completing his set of Foxfire books and getting them on the cheap.
When are the new seed catalogs coming out? Tomatoes here need to be started indoors by Christmas. Except for the yellow plum, I’m done with the varieties I have now so need to get some new ones ordered. I had hoped the local stores were getting in their new seed packages but no such luck so looks like I need to get to ordering some.
Last year the catalogs were out by now, but I sometimes get mine in late December/early January. It varies a lot. I don’t think most seed companies have a strict schedule for them.
I thought they were either very late or since I didn’t order last year that I’d been taken off the list. There’s always online.
I had a new thought on prepping this morning.
I have decided that I will store up any edible that becomes very cheap. For example, there are certain birds that exist in huge numbers here in the winter. Using a ladder trap you can take thousands if there is predation on your crops. Salted, smoked, and dried the birds represent protein that will keep a long time.
If TSHTF, people will not be picky eaters for long.
We have a book on preserving food using salt and other means of perserving it rather than canning or freezing; like people used to have to do before they had the new fangled means of doing it. I don’t know if a teaspoon of salt would preserve fruit adequately or not.
I’m gonna store nuts in the shells; and some roasted coffee beans. I don’t have all that much confidence that I can roast green ones to do much good.
What are the foxfire books?
I have a question (ok, I just realized I had two questions), I hope you can point me in the right direction.
Question 1:
I am looking for airtight/watertight storage containers, and everything I see doesn't look like it is sealable to the degree I want. Even the rubbermaid storage containers I was looking at weren't watertight. Would you recommend where I need to look?
Question 2:
Vacuum sealed jars sound heavy, are there options to vacuum seal bags? I mean that really work? The reason I am asking, is that we have in our family a recipe for the base of a cream soup, all powered ingredients and you just add water (2 cups) and a protein of your choice once you are ready to make the actually soup. I want to do it up in prepared portions and then vacuum seal them for easy use later. I figure I will just print the recipe on big stickers and put in on the packages.
Thanks!
RS
Good link. Found lots of stuff to read too. Thinking that Doom & Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook might be good. My Dad was a paramedic.
After his stroke(he had difficulty speaking), I read a bunch of stuff, and bought a couple of PDRs at the Medical College, so I could better understand and communicate with his doctors.
I think this book might be a good addition to my collection.
Baker’s Creek Seeds is ready to sell their heirloom seeds for 2013, just go to their website-you can also order a catalog.
Would you please consider sharing that family recipe?
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