Chive Cut and Dry

From the garden to the pot, we have been fortunate to have healthy plants.  The little bit of work has paid off in BIG ways.

Are you just planning on bland, non flavored foods?  Or would you prefer some spice in your life?

How about something home grown.

 ~Warning, good soil will make your "home growns" stronger, and more  aromatic.  You may find that you need to use less.~

This bundle of chives was a root cutting from a family members plant.  This is this plants second year.  It is currently growing in a pot.  We allowed it to flower and seed at the first of the year, and then promptly planted the seeds in a planter box for new plants for next year.

We have added miracle grow potting soil, and then, mid summer, a table spoon of miracle grow plant food to the top of the dirt.  (that "teas" in when watering.)

This cutting, pictured above, is the third we've done on this plant this year.  After drying, all three cuttings, have equaled about 4 cups of material.  That may not seem like a lot, however, that is dried material.

The pot this plant lives in is only about 14 inches in diameter, and just sits in the front of the house.  This could be easily grown in an apartment setting on a balcony.   In the past I have had really good success growing herbs in windows that are north facing.  They get plenty of light, and heat from the house.  Other windows have been either to dark or to hot.

***Side note:  If you find that your home dried foods are dark and not very appetizing, you might consider a new dehydrator.  We had this problem, and no matter how often we turned the trays, our foods seemed darker than they should be.  We purchased a new dehydrator...... no more darkened un-appetizing foods.***

This is just one of many edible plants that we grow.  All of them can be adapted for very small spaces.... if your willing to put in the work.

Check out these other great places.  New Survival Skills, Sb Canning, and The Homestead Survival.  They're all great sites, with tips, how to's and essentials for getting ready for the unexpected!

Food Storage Meal

We keep our dried storage, and our spices in 1/2 gallon jars and 5 gallon buckets.  The jars are more for immediate use, while the buckets are for long term storage.

Could you make a meal just with your food storage?

We have a variety of storage ways in our food storage.  From bottled, to home dried, store bought cans, to commercially dried, and prepackaged meals.  This variety gives more choices than the average single storage choice, and also adds water to our storage for cooking, and possibly drinking.

Our family is very much a "throw it together" family.  Some of this, some of that, some spices, and good to go.

I've taught the kids this too.  It has it's advantages, as well as disadvantages.

The biggest advantage?  The kids aren't all that picky about it.  Especially when they are helping to cook it.  It seems that a bit of choice control is more appealing than just me telling them they're going to eat it or else.

There's also the advantage of being able to mix and match.  Missing an ingredient?  No problem with just replace it with this.  Admittedly this is the disadvantage too.  Sometimes ingredients just can't be replaced.

I think for a lot of recipes seasoning's are the key.  Especially in an emergency where you may be eating the same thing over and over again for several days, or even weeks.  Today can be salt and a bit of pepper, tomorrow can be cayenne pepper and a little garlic or onion.

The point is to get out of your own way and make the best of a bad situation.  Food should not add to your stress, it should remove at least some of it.

A well stocked pantry IS key, but what if your just getting started?

So one of recipes that we have done completely from our own food storage is a kind of chicken and rice casserole.  Basically this is what we did...

Ingredients:

home dried mushrooms
white rice
flour
home bottled butter
home bottled chicken
canned green beans
2 cans of chicken broth
and seasoning salt.

(The rice, flour, green beans, and seasoning salt are all part of our storage.  They have either been placed in buckets with oxygen packs, or purchased on the last big sale.  *Remember variety*)

In the casserole dish, (this will need to be adjusted for your dish.  Ours is a larger one approximately 8 x 10 in.  It's a bit more square than the typical rectangle.  Anyway.  in this dish we layered the bottom with rice about an inch deep.  Next a quart bottle of home bottled chicken (this was cubed before we processed it).  A can of commercially processed green beans, water and all.  Add the 2 cans of chicken broth, and then stir in the dish.  Finally add some seasoned salt and pepper.  Or what ever other spices you'd like.  Rosemary is a good one with this dish.

Now for this next part you could just use a couple cans of cream of chicken, or cream of mushroom.  But we didn't have any.  So...

In a sauce pot we poured in, a green bean sized can of water, and about a cup of our dried mushrooms.  Bring to a boil for several minutes until the mushrooms start to soften.

In a separate pan melt butter into flour.  We generally do about a half a stick of butter to about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of flour, depending on how thick we want our gravy base.  Once the butter and flour are mixed evenly, add the mushrooms and water.  Stirring thoroughly.  Season with a bit of salt to taste, and then pour over the top of the rice and chicken.

**Now for the sake of pans, you can do all of the gravy in the same pot.  The thing you run into is the clumping of the flour.  However, as long as it is seasoned and cooked thru, it will be like a dumpling.  (This mostly depends on taste, and convenience.)  There are a couple things you can do to avoid the clumping.  One is to very sparingly sprinkle in the flour until it's all been mixed in.  Adding in a bit at a time helps to reduce the clumping.  Or you can let your mix cool and then add flour.  It's the heat that prevents it from thoroughly mixing.  Or like I mentioned, do the flour and butter together first and then after those are mixed the other ingredients.**

We did the second, adding the butter and flour straight to the water and mushrooms.   We did get a little bit of the dumpling effect, but is was still nummy.

Then we baked it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  Once the 30 minutes was up we pumped the heat up to 375 degrees and 25  minutes.  (We made a check at 20 minutes.)

This is a dish that does not last long in our house.  AND if anything had gone wrong, i.e.; to much salt, not cooked long enough, to dry, we could have easily turned it into a soup.


What have you made lately?

Could you survive on your storage if you had to today?

Kids, Kids, Kids....

Resilient, stressful, happy, disgusting, adorable, menacing....

We could spend days naming all of the words that describe kids at any given moment.  But that's not really the point.

It has been my experience that well raised children have honest parents.  They tend to be labeled at some point with nearly all descriptors because those parents are, well, honest.  We'll work with that world.  :)

Now with that in mind, what have you taken the opportunity to teach your kids lately? 

There are so many amazing things to teach our kids.  Things that will put them far ahead of their peers simply because none of this is being taught anywhere.  Okay, okay, there are a few places teaching this cool stuff, but as parents if we don't at least get them there, we can count those out.

It's the same as sending our kids to school.  We just can not take for granted what they SHOULD be learning, and what they are ACTUALLY learning.....  SO..

Again I ask, what have you taught your kids today?

Maps, first aid, fire starting, cold and hot weather do's and don't's?  How about bugging out, or staying put? Have you planned routes for your kids to get home in case an emergency happens while they are at school, or while they are at other activities?  Do you know what your kids schools emergency plan is?  Do you have a plan set with a carpool parent?

Do your kids know how to find and clean water?  How about trap making?  Cooking skills?

I can hear it now, "But they're too young!"

Of course some of this stuff is going to need to be considered for age.  What good parent wouldn't do that...?  However, there are things that can be taught, and have been taught for centuries to even the very young.  For example, finding water, sheltering in place, and yes even starting a safe fire.  For the purposes of survival, both out doors, and in emergencies, what do you think their odds are with out this knowledge and know how with out you?  

Would you take the time to improve your odds?  Why not theirs?

Make the lessons games.  What kid doesn't love a game?  And try to be patient.  Some kids learn faster than others, and some need repeats.  Some will even fight you.  But it IS your job to get through to them.

I prefer to use education as a safety measure.  If your kid is a good kid, AND you don't have to worry about giving them TOO much information, meaning they're not going to use what they learn for the destruction of human kind, then give them the information you think would benefit them.  (And yes, sometimes we have to give information EVEN WHEN we think they wont handle it... But that's our JOB)

 I want kids to have a fighting chance, not just because they might be lucky, but also because they are prepared.

FIRE for KIDS

First, teach them safety, teach them the rules, and the dangers.  They need to have a clear picture of what CAN happen.

Safety first!  Teach them how to clear the area that they intend to use as a fire pit or place.  Teach them why some places are better for fires than others.  ie; pits rather than open ground, bare dirt rather than grassy areas.  Don't just tell them how to do it.  Do it with them.  Show them with your actions! Do it again and again.

Talk to them about the right and wrong ways to utilize fire.  The right and wrong ways to maintain a fire.  And the right and wrong way to put out a fire.

Show them the different ways to build their kindling and wood.  This site has a great diagram for this.  Wilderness Survival.

Don't forget the three kinds of wood to start and maintain your fire, Tinder, Kindling, and Wood.  Practical Survivor, explains a bit better.

Show them how to build wind breaks and reflector fires and cooking areas.  The Art of Manliness has some great pointers.

Don't forget to teach them what works best for starting fires.  There are the obvious ones.  And then the not so obvious.  This link New Survival Skills, (this one is my favorite), has some great ideas for fire starting.  From cotton balls to batteries.

Finally, teach them how to put out the fire.  Teach them how to make sure it is out, and yes, even to clean up if necessary.  On Smokey Bears site, you can find the best ways for putting out fires.

Education IS the best defense, from the everyday, to the un-expected.

There are many great sites to learn all of this from.  There are also many great Facebook groups and pages that deal with all of this directly in a community of like minded people.  Here are some of my favorites....

New Survival Skills, Wilderness Ready, and Nic's Survival Blog.

Gear Check

When is the last time you went through yours or your kids 72 hr kit(s)?

Have the kids outgrown clothes, or learned some new skills?  Have the kids gotten bigger, and are now able to carry a bit more than they used to?  How about you, have you learned some new things, and just haven't taken the time to get those new idea's into your bag?

Has equipment been upgraded, and now the old stuff needs to be replaced?  

Have you recently added new kids to the flock that need to have their own 72 kits or B.O.B.'s?

When was the last time you went through your B.O.B.?  Have you checked to make sure no filled containers are leaking?  How about anything that may have expired?  Do you keep medications in your 72 hr kit, or your B.O.B.?  Have you checked to make sure they are still viable?

Have you or a family member recently been diagnosed with anything that would put you in a position of needing medications?  Have you remembered to add those new medications to your gear?  

How about a battery check?  How many tools do you have that require batteries?  Do you have extra batteries?  Have you tested them?

Do you have hearing aids, or other medical tools that will require back up batteries, or a place to charge them?  Have you searched, or do you already know how your going to take care of those tools and their batteries?

Are you able to carry your 72 hr kit or B.O.B.?  If you can't drive to a separate location and can't carry your kits, do you have a way to carry them with wheels?  You could consider a deer cart, wagon, bag with wheels, wheel barrel, bike with a trailer, ATV, horseback, other transportation.  

I know it's hard to think that you may have to leave after the fact, but what if you do?  Have you thought about your routes out from where you live, where you work, or where you may be visiting at the time of an emergency?  Have you thought of what you might need to carry, or how far you may need to walk if roads are collapsed, or closed?

Do you have a game plan in case you have to pick up kids from day care, school, or work, in an emergency?  

Have you gone through your kids bags with them?  Do they know why they have a bag for emergencies, and how their gear works?

If you had a test emergency, this very second, would your family be ready to grab their bags and go within five minutes?