Hi Everyone,
NOTES:
Although this is specific to an earthquake in the Norwest, I think it’s pretty accurate as far as a major earthquake ANYWHERE.
** You can also go to Find Your Home’s Climate Risks | Risk Factor. You type in your address and they tell you what dangers you should be aware of. My house is “unlikely” to flood in the next 30 years. Whew. And I have an 11.8% chance of being in a fire. So……. now I can sleep at night.
You can get risk information about your community and lists of providers that offer insurance.
** This is a good time to think about alternate cooking resources.
We have a fire pit. AND we have a grate that goes in the pit to hold pans.
We have a BBQ, AND all our propane tanks are full.
We also have a sun oven. I experimented with this last summer. It works VERY well, but it’s like a crock-pot in that it takes a couple of hours to cook a meal.
This is a good time of year to invest in a camp stove, just for emergencies. Look for sales on propane. The canisters have gotten a lot more expensive in the last few years.
Here’s how to make a rocket stove out of concrete blocks
Keep in mind that rocket stoves need sticks or small pieces of wood.
GARDEN HAPPENINGS: Time to feed the garden.
I fed my plants an organic garden fertilizer, a little bit of bone meal, and some compost. At this point, I’ve also sprayed with Safer Soap for aphids, and BT for whatever is eating holes in the beans and potatoes. I have also sprinkled Sluggo Plus for the potato bugs which seem to be the bugs of the year – at least at my house! I’ve noticed a few leaves with leaf miner. This little critter lives between the layers of the leaf, so spraying doesn’t work. You have to cut off that part of the leaf, and throw it in the trash. Don’t let it stay on the plant, the eggs will hatch and then you’ll have an infestation.
LONG TERM PURCHASE: Pasta
Spaghetti, macaroni, lasagna, small shell pasta or ditalini. I don’t use wide egg noodles very much, but sometimes. However, they are bulky and not as easy to store. I poke a hole in the original package and vacuum seal it. I’ve never had any problems with pantry moths or other insects, or discoloration. The oxygen free environment keeps it fresh longer. Same with the lasagna. I just vacuum seal right in the box. You can buy macaroni in #10 cans from your local Home Storage Center. It’s open to the public!
SHORT TERM PURCHASE: Pasta Sauce – 10 jars/cans
Whatever you get, just date the cans and ROTATE!!!
72 HOUR KIT: fruit leather – pick it up at Winco this week for only $.39 each. It will last a LONG time. Try making your own. You can use any frozen fruit, or canned fruit. With canned fruit, you can drain it and keep the liquid to add in if needed. Dump the fruit in a blender and blend away. Add in the juice if you need it a little thinner. Spread it out on a liner and dehydrate until it is super leathery. You don’t want it to be brittle, because you want to roll it up.
If using frozen fruit, you can blend and add a little agave to sweeten it up a bit and thin it out. I prefer this to honey, because it’s a little runnier and is better than regular sugar for blending.
You can even make fruit leather in the oven:
FOOD STORAGE RECIPES:
Mandarin Orange Chicken
from The Prepper’s Cookbook by Tess Pennington
1 TB vegetable oil
2 12.5-oz cans chunk chicken, drained
Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the chicken.
3/4 c. mandarin oranges, undrained
1/4 c. soy sauce
1 TB cornstarch
3/4 tsp prepared yellow mustard
1 TB distilled white vinegar
Whisk together the juice from the oranges with the soy sauce, cornstarch, mustard, and vinegar in a small bowl. set aside.
To the chicken in the skillet add:
1 TB minced onions (fresh or dehydrated)
1/2 c. bell pepper, diced OR 1/3 c. dehydrated bell peppers
Pour the marinade over the chicken in the skillet. Reduce heat to low and allow to simmer. Add the oranges last, cover with a lid, and cook 5 minutes more. Serve over rice.
Alfredo Sauce Mix
(I usually store alfredo sauce in a jar. It does NOT last very long (about a year). But, of course, glass breaks and I wanted a recipe for a dry mix. I actually bought about 10 alfredo sauce mixes at the store. Then I found this one. It looks promising.
1 c. dry milk powder
1/2 c. cornstarch
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 c. parmesan cheese
Whisk and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
To use: 1/2 c. mix, 1 c. milk, 2 TB butter
Heat and whisk to thicken.
Hearty Soup
We had this for dinner on Wednesday.
In a slow cooker:
1 c. chopped carrots (you could use dehydrated carrots, but I had fresh carrots that needed to be used)
1 can dark red kidney beans
1 can cannellini beans
1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
onions (I added about 2 TB of dehydrated onions)
garlic (I used a heaping teaspoon)
basil, Italian seasoning, salt (I used about a tsp of each)
1 jar marinara sauce
3 c. been bouillon
I simmered until about an hour before dinner. I added 1 1/2 c. small shell pasta. (It looked kind of thick, so I added some water for the noodles. I also had about 1/2 bag of frozen corn. I added that. I felt it needed some celery, so that went into the pot)
As with all soups, whatever you have left over can probably go in. I thought it could use some green beans, but there were two cans of beans already, so I left them out.
I simmered for another hour, and served.
Marti Shelley
