Kart, How nice to hear from you again. Haven’t seen a post from you in a while. It’s quite a coincidence, as I was just thinking about you this weekend.
TIK, thanks for the ping.
Oshkalboomboom - All of the stuff KART posted is great! One of the other threads had asked about a plan for Nuke or Biological attacks. I posted a link to the LDS manual since it has a great section at the end on that topic. It also is a great little manual for other stuff - only the first few pages deals with some of their history/faith - but skip that if it bothers you.
It also has a month by month plan to get a year’s supply put back - starting with what they consider most important. While I put up most of own stuff, and buy some canned goods on sales.
However, when it came to stocking some things in number 10 cans, I bought them from the LDS online store, because the prices were better than anywhere else-no need to find their cannery, since all the other stuff I could handle on my own.
The exception being milk. I did pick up some Nido from Walmart, but ordered milk from a couple of different places, since the LDS didn’t have milk at that time, and I found some good sales.
In addition, I posted a link to Wendy Dewitts training video on you tube - very enjoyable, funny, and still relevant.
I have a book entitled “Preserving food without freezing or canning” that might be helpful for your friend. However, I must say that my investment in a Pressure canner, Food Dehydrator, and vacuum sealer has more than paid for the investment - I bought cheap equipment too.
The canner I got on sale at Walmart end of season for 60 bucks, and sometimes you can find a used on Ebay for pretty cheap. A cheap dehydrator for about 30 bucks-make sure it has the accessory port attachment area so that you can vacuum seal mason jars. Mine cost about 30 bucks on sale.
A water bath canner can be made out of any stock pot with a lid and deep enough to get about 1.5 - 2 inches of water to cover the jars. You just need to put something in the bottom so that the jars aren’t sitting directly on the pan.
I use the grate that came with my old 5 quart pressure cooker from 1960, and can about 4 jars that way. I’ve read that you can use a towel in the bottom, but have never tried it. Only high acid stuff can be canned this way, but you could pickle all the stuff and then soak it later to get rid of the vinegar.
You cannot preserve meat this way. Meat you can make into jerky by using your oven on low and many other things. Also some stuff can be dried in the sun.
If I had to pick one thing that I use the most - the pressure canner-and I didn’t even think I needed it - Hubby insisted on getting it. After I learned to use it, I love it.
I buy loads of meats on sale and can them. They have the most wonderful taste and more tender than anything I ever cooked even in the crockpot - This meat is edible straight from the can! However, just take this can of meat, a can of mixed veggies, and a can of tomatoes add spices, and you have supper in 10 minutes.
In the summer, I have fresh made chicken salad - not wanting to heat up the kitchen. I highly advise sticking back 10 bucks a month until there’s enough to buy one.
Here’s the links I spoke about:
The Wendy Dewitt video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOLuIApyNPc
(There is a more recent one too - but this is the one with the humor.) There’s a link below the presentation to the blog that has “the book” she refers to.
The LDS Manual:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20859980/LDS%20Preparedness%20Manual.pdf
The LDS on line store:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20859980/LDS%20Preparedness%20Manual.pdf
When the melt down of the market happened in 2008, and the oil prices spiked, I knew that food was going to go up. I had some cash that I was saving for a rainy day, so I stocked up everything that was on sale for several weeks. Buying stuff by the case, with what I estimated we would use in about a year, more for stuff like sugar, and coffee.
We also started a garden, and bought some books on old-time methods. Beyond a year, what to do if the New Madrid Big One hits? Hence the gardening. Vitamin C: We can grow tomatoes, peppers, and Rose Hips-so we planted the Rosa Rugosa which has really big hips, and starting experimenting with tomatoes.
Our climate isn’t too good for growing rice, so I stocked up on that-we don’t eat a lot of it anyway, and I grew winter wheat. We have enough space that we can grow all the wheat we need for a year in the winter, and grow the veggies and stuff in the summer-but we needed a water system for the garden that wouldn’t deplete our well.
And so forth, so as we have stocked up, we have also become a little more self sufficient each year. We were able to stay within our regular budget with out increasing our spending until this year. Inflation finally got us - the 3 year supply of coffee that we bought on sale for half price ran out-and we have to have coffee.
But we are letting the dandelions and wild chickory gorw - roots are coffee substitutes and when we pick our persimmons, we save the seeds as they are another coffee substitute.
All in all, we have vastly improved our diet, because we are eating mostly organic-that we have grown. Cheaper than we could by the pesticide laden stuff-just not always reliable depending on the weather-but we always get a couple of good crops of something and it will last several years, if preserved right.
Good Luck to your friend. Tell her to start by buying the Ball Book of Canning and use any old pot with a lid and some depth, for water bath canning of pickled stuff and high acid stuff. It also gives directions for freezing and dehydrating.
When your friend can, buying a pressure canner-not cooker-is one of the best things to take advantage of big meat sales that happen a couple of times per year. Sometimes I buy stuff and stick it in the freezer, and then can it in the winter time, when I appreciate the extra heat.
That also clears out the freezer for the next summer’s bounty.
Nice summary, greeneyes!