Review: The Prepper's Cookbook

I was browsing through Amazon.com the other day and came across a new book that intrigued me -The Prepper's Cookbook: Essential Prepping Foods and Recipes to Deliciously Survive Any Disaster. 

Weirdly, I was contacted by the book's publisher the very next day and was offered a copy of the book to review. (Please note my review policy and disclaimer at the end of this post.)

The Prepper's Cookbookby Rockridge Press is available as either a print or an e-book. To me, a kindle is what you do to start a fire, so needless to say, I got the print edition.

This book is not exactly what I expected. I thought from the title that the book would mainly be recipes that utilize food storage; there is some of that, but not as much as you would think. The book is divided into four sections: Preparing Your Supplies and Food Stores, Water-Bath and Pressure Canning , Drying and Storing Your Food, and Quick and Easy Prepper Recipes.

The information included in the first section is very basic. You will not get a lot of guidance on what food you should be storing. The author seems focused on short-term emergencies and recommends that you keep 3 days to a week's worth of food for each family member. I did like the chapter that discussed various powerless cooking options.  The contents of the canning and dehydrating sections will be found (and in greater depth, at that) in any canning/preserving cookbook. It quickly covers canning jam, pickles, fruit, vegetables and meat, as well as drying fruit, vegetables, and jerky.

The Quick and Easy Prepper Recipes section reminds me of a Girl Scout camping cookbook. The recipes are mainly prepared in a Dutch Oven and rely on home-canned produce and meat. These recipes would work well in a short-term emergency or camping trip. The recipe for Apple Fritters perplexed me because it contained absolutely no apples; I know lots of us store dried apples, so that would be an easy ingredient to incorporate. Other than a bit of dried milk and eggs, you will not find recipes that use much of the food that you are storing if you follow the LDS recommendations (wheat, dried beans, etc.).

If you are just starting and need guidance on the first steps toward becoming prepared, I would recommend the book Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient when the Unexpected Happens instead. If you'd like recipes that use traditional food storage, Cookin' with Home Storage or the Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook will better serve your purpose. The Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving has a wider array of information on home canning and freezing and I haven't found a book on dehydration to beat Preserve It Naturally , the manual that came with my Excalibur Dehydrator.

In summary,The Preppers Cookbook is not horrible, but probably not worth purchasing unless you have to have every prepper-themed book on the market. Borrow this one from the library.

Disclaimer: I was contacted by Callisto Media and sent a free copy of The Prepper's Cookbook. As always, I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own.

A Healthy, Paleo-Friendly Food Option for Your Bug-Out Bag

I've been eating Paleo-style for the last couple of months and I have noticed great changes in my health. My digestive system is working well, my aches and pains are greatly diminished, and I've lost 15 lbs.

One of the challenges of a Paleo lifestyle for the preparedness-minded is that so many food storage staples are no-nos. I'm still working on replacements for a lot of the key foods, but I do have a great item I can recommend for your short-term food storage, particularly for bug-out bags (BOB).

A PaleoKit from Steve's Original

A PaleoKit is a vacuum-sealed package full of nutritious goodness. I am not a big beef jerky aficionado, but I really like this and consume the jerky, nuts, and dried berries with gusto. I eat at least one of these PaleoKits per week as a meal replacement. They come in several sizes: small (snack size), large (meal size), and even a 1,006 calorie MRE option. They are compact and can easily fit in a glove compartment, purse, or BOB.

I have tried both the original and the grass-fed versions of the PaleoKit. I hate to say it, but I prefer the original PaleoKit; the grass-fed beef jerky is quite tough and requires an extraordinary amount of chewing. The jerky in the original PaleoKits I've eaten has been quite tender.

The other thing to keep in mind about the PaleoKit is that it only has a shelf life of 5-6 months. That's because the food is very minimally processed and has no preservatives. The very thing that makes the PaleoKit great for health-conscious preppers works against it as a long term food storage item.

The ingredients list of a Grass Fed PaleoKit 

You could make your own version of a PaleoKit by vacuum-sealing jerky, nuts, and dried fruit in a FoodSaver bag. It would be cheaper for you to make it yourself, but at least where I live, it would be a challenge to find jerky without a bunch of junky preservatives. 

Another item I can endorse from Steve's Original is the PaleoKrunch grain-free granola bar. I have tried both the original and Espresso flavors and they are delicious! They are a great, healthy snack option with about a 6 month storage life. 

You can buy PaleoKits and PaleoKrunch bars directly from Steve's Original here. 

Do you have any healthy food items in your bug-out bags? If so, I'd love to hear your ideas. 

January has been "Prep-uary" at our Place

We've been very busy this month with prepping-related projects.

• Hubby Dear and I cleaned and organized our storage room. It had collected a lot of odds and ends and, frankly, it was becoming a bit of a dump. I inventoried our long-term food storage and came up with a long list of items I need to buy. We've used some things that we need to replace. According to the food storage calculators, our family now consists of four adults and two children (children 7 and up are "adults" for food storage purposes), which means that I also need to increase the amount of food we store in general. 

Once we cleared out the clutter, it became apparent that we had used A LOT
of our food storage and never replaced it.

We also have a lot of canned goods that need to be eaten and restocked. Rotate, rotate, rotate! 

We still have some of the onions we grew last year left. They are stored in cheap pantyhose, which works
pretty well to keep them fresh and mold-free. You'll notice that a few of them have sprouted, though!

• Because of some health concerns that I have, I started following a Paleo diet back in December. I no longer eat grains, legumes, dairy, refined sugars, or refined fats. In other words, I can't eat most of our food storage! I hope that this way of eating will help resolve some of the problems I have as a result of chronic inflammation in my body, but it does provide a challenge to store food that meets the criteria of my diet. I'm brainstorming a list of Paleo-friendly foods to add to our storage and this is what I've come up with so far:  sprouting seeds, canned coconut milk, coconut oil, lard, nuts in the shell, and canned tuna and salmon. Anyone else out there who is both Paleo and a prepper? I'm curious to see how you handle this dilemma. 

• As I was organizing my storage room, I decided that my vintage, 1940s-era water bath canner had finally bit the dust. It is just too rusty and decrepit to use any more. Identical products on Amazon.com had very poor reviews - I guess they don't make granite ware like they used to - so I invested in a Victorio Stainless Steel Multi Use Canner.  This product can be used as either a water bath canner or steam canner and seems really sturdy. I've never steam canned before - have any of you? 

RIP, vintage water bath canner. You gave me (and others) years of good service.

• Hubby Dear and I ordered our seeds for the spring and bought the components of our DIY seed starting set-up. I am excited to share with you our plans for the year in an upcoming post. It won't be long before we'll be sowing broccoli, cauliflower, and kale indoors. 

Seeds, glorious seeds! So much promise is inside these packets. 

• I bought an assortment of homesteading books. Let's see if you can guess what kinds of things I am researching by a few of the titles: Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening, Keeping A Family Cow, and The Backyard Goat: An Introductory Guide to Keeping and Enjoying Pet Goats.

• Some friends of ours are downsizing due to job loss and health challenges. We bought a generator and some other homesteading paraphernalia from them, which served to help both of our families out. 

Our "new" 5500 W generator.

I did the math, and this generator will run one of our refrigerators and the furnace fan and that's it. It is definitely not a total solution to a long-term power outage, but it is a start. Now I need to stockpile some gas tanks, gasoline, and Sta-Bil.

Have you been celebrating "Prep-uary" at your house? Tell me what you've accomplished so far in 2013. :) 

2012 in Review and 2013 Goals

Happy New Year, y'all! I hope everyone had a blessed holiday season.

Unfortunately, I was either busy or sick for much of 2012 and so my posting here wasn't as regular as I would have liked. Nevertheless, I managed to make progress on my preparedness goals. Here's the list of goals I had last January. I didn't accomplish everything, but I'm not unhappy.

In 2012 I :

• Upgraded our bug-out bags 

• Added a bit to our first aid supplies. This is definitely an area where we fall short. I will admit to being a wee bit complacent about first aid since Hubby Dear is a medical professional. I need to improve. 

• Expanded our garden and learned some hard lessons during a very poor growing season. Our area of the country experienced the hottest year on record as well as one of the driest, so our garden was far less than stellar. 

Delicious heirloom fruit and vegetables

• We added to the orchard we established in 2011. We planted apples, blueberries, pears, and an almond tree. I learned a lot about organic orcharding from an amazing book, The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way. I immediately started implementing the principles from the book and saw an amazing amount of growth in our existing and new fruit trees. I can't recommend that book enough. 

• I planted comfrey in our orchard area. It's part of the whole holistic orchard deal, but the bonus is that it is also a medicinal herb. I learned about permaculture and now have plans to have a bunch of medicinal perennials growing among the trees in the orchard. 

• My favorite item on the list (and new obsession) is poultry. We started raising chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Having livestock was a big stretch for two former city kids like Hubby Dear and myself, but we have really enjoyed the journey. We started off with chicks and poults from hatcheries and ventured into hatching eggs with an incubator. Our chickens gave us 1,645 eggs in 2012; the ducks provided 124.  

Some of our ducklings

• Related to that last one, we butchered our first animals. It was so rewarding to grow our own meat and butchering is definitely a worthy skill for any prepper. 

• All the manure that started appearing on our property provided the impetus for us to begin composting. 

• Managed to keep our strawberries alive! We won't have to re-plant this year. I am hopeful that we will have a generous crop next spring. 

• Another success: I learned all about sprouting, an easy way to grow fresh, nutritious greens all year 'round.

• My success with sprouting for people encouraged me to grow wheat grass for my birds. It took a couple of tries (and a horrible infestation of fruit flies), but I finally got the hang of it.  I'm also proud of the black oil sunflower seeds we grew for the chickens. 

A Peredovik black oil sunflower

• I survived pneumonia. That should count for something, right? 

• I stocked up on reusable Tattler canning lids. I used them for all the canning I did and I finally got the hang of using them. They are a little different than standard metal canning lids, but once you get it, you won't go back. 

For 2013, I remain focused on building up our homestead. One reason is that I just like doing it. I love puttering around the garden and taking care of my birds. I have expanded into breeding poultry for pleasure and profit, so that also takes up a lot of my time and energy.

The other reason that my preps are centered on homesteading is that I feel it is quite necessary. The shenanigans in DC regarding the so-called Fiscal Cliff made me sick to my stomach, but I hope that it will serve as a wake-up call to many. I fear that our country is in an irreversible decline and our prosperous American lifestyle is in serious jeopardy. In short, I think we're screwed. I feel that being as self-sufficient as possible will be incredibly valuable in the days ahead. You might not live on 5 acres in the country like I do, but I hope you are thinking about things you can do to help your family weather whatever storm may come.

With that said, here are my goals for 2013:

The north half of our garden, May 2012

1. Continue to add to our orchard. We have peach, nectarine, cherry, and plum trees ordered for the spring. We'll plant more peach, apple, and apricot trees in the fall. Here's the master plan for our orchard if you haven't seen it. 
2. Expand our garden again and try some new varieties and methods of cultivation. 
3. Try new types of pest control in the garden. We garden organically, but haven't ventured much into companion plantings to attract beneficial insects. That is a priority for me this year. We will also experiment with row covers to flummox the evil squash bug that has plagued us in the past.  
4. We tried starting seeds indoor last year. We had mixed results, mainly due to lack of sunlight. We are building an easy DIY seed starting kit that should really help out. 
5. Water storage is a huge issue for any prepper and the horrible drought we are in has really brought it to my attention. I hope to get rain barrels installed and may experiment with using greywater. 
6. First aid - the perennial topic for me. I've got to get going here. 
7. Food storage - I need to take inventory of what we have used up and refill as necessary. I will be canning and dehydrating the produce of our garden and herb garden. 

So that's me. What about you? What do you have planned for 2013? 

Misadventures in Sprouting Wheat Grass

When I decided to embrace my inner hippy and get into sprouting, my main motivation was to give my poultry fresh greens all year round. The fact that sprouting seeds are a fabulous addition to our food storage was secondary. Pretty much everything is secondary to my chickens and ducks these days!  Sorry family. ;) 

Once I proved that the Victorio 4-Tray Seed Sprouter made sprouting ridiculously easy, I wanted to try and grow massive quantities of greens for my birds the lazy way. Here's a bit of a recap and the end result of that experiment.

Soaking the wheat 

The first step is to soak the wheat for about eight hours. I used a cup of the same hard white wheat that I regularly bake with. 

Day 1 

I spread the wheat seed evenly among the four trays of the sprouter and watered it three times a day.  

Day 2 

It was about day two when I started to notice a rather distinct odor wafting through my house. Since I have four children, weird odors are par for the course, but this was something different. It was sour, almost cheesy. My wheat was beginning to ferment! I tried to rinse and drain the trays thoroughly and more often, but it didn't seem to help much.

Day 3

On day three it became obvious that the wheat wasn't going to grow into the neat little green carpet of my dreams. The alfalfa and vegetable seeds I had sprouted formed a neat little mat of roots that held everything in place by day three. In contrast, the wheat dislodged itself with every watering and smelled a bit like sweaty gym socks. I proceeded on.   

Day 4 - More of the same

Day 5

Five days was as long as I could stand the stinky goat cheese smell in my kitchen. The sprouts were between 1-2 inches long. I rinsed them really well and gave them to the birds. They gulped them down with gusto. 

Obviously, this method will sprout wheat, but is unsuitable for producing a true wheat grass that you can get several cuttings from. I guess the experts were right, the know-it-alls!  

I'm going to buy a few cheap pieces of hardware and then give it another shot and report back. If you can't stand the suspense, watch this video from Sprout People to see how wheat grass is really supposed to be grown. 

Sprouting 101 for Survival (and Poultry Feed!)

Boy, am I glad to be back and posting after that really annoying pneumonia thing. I'm finally at about 99% of my normal chipper self. I have to use an inhaler some evenings because I start wheezing right before bedtime, but other than that, I'm good. :)

Back to your regularly scheduled blog.
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"Wanted! A vegetable that will grow in any climate, will rival meat in nutritive value, will mature in 3 to 5 days, may be planted any day of the year, will require neither soil nor sunshine, will rival tomatoes in Vitamin C, will be free of waste in preparation and can be cooked with little fuel and as quickly as a ... chop."

Dr.  Clive M. McCay

Professor of Nutrition, Cornell University

Dr. Mccay wrote these words during World War II, a time when our nation was desperate to find ways to provide sustenance for both our boys overseas and the home front. His experiments found that if you take soybeans and sprout them, their vitamin content increases dramatically. Vitamin A increased 300% compared to the unsprouted seeds, Vitamin C a whopping 500-600%. Best of all, sprouting was quick and easy to do, requiring far fewer inputs than traditional farming.

Sprouts are an extremely valuable addition to your food storage. Sprouting seeds take up very little space and yet can yield a large volume of fresh food. According to this article, one pound of alfalfa seeds can yield between 10-14 pounds of sprouts. In addition to their large amounts of vitamins, Alfalfa sprouts are about 4% protein. Many of us store large amounts of powdered milk to help meet our protein needs and yet milk is only 3.3% protein. And can you imagine how wonderful those fresh greens would taste to a palate that was subsisting on canned and stored  foods?

Types of sprouts

I keep mentioning alfalfa sprouts, simply because that is the sprout that many of us are familiar with. There is a whole world of sprouts out there beyond alfalfa, however, and a variety of textures and tastes. There are literally one hundred different types of seeds that people sprout and all have their fans and detractors. Some sprouts are bold and spicy, others are mild. Before you buy mass quantities of sprouting seeds, you might consider purchasing a variety pack of seeds and seeing what type you and your family enjoy. This is a pretty good sampler that will give you an idea as to what your taste in sprouts is.

Storage of sprouting seeds

According to the sproutpeople.org website, if you store your sprouting seeds at 55-70 degrees and at 70% or less humidity, they will have anywhere from a 1-5 year shelf life, depending on the type of seed. Alfalfa lasts 4 years,  most beans will last 5 years, and grains last between 2-3 years. Check out this helpful page for a complete listing of sprouting seed shelf lives.

That's not very long in the grand scheme of food storage, is it? The good news is that if you freeze your seeds, shelf life will be increased around four to five times. My plan is to stock up on sprouting seeds and store them in hard plastic containers in the freezer. As their date of expiration approaches, I will sprout them and either eat them myself or feed them to my poultry. Sprouts make Grade A poultry food, which is a big bonus to me since our poultry operation continues to expand! (I'm now up to 29 hungry chickens, turkeys, and ducks, though that number will change soon when we butcher our first turkey. Stay tuned for that blog post, unless you are squeamish or an animal rights activist.)

How to sprout seeds for eating

If you have a brown thumb when it comes to gardening, have no worries. Sprouting is incredibly easy! Add a little water and the seeds do most of the work. You will need a container that will hold the seeds and allow you to rinse the seeds and let the water drain out. For just a few dollars, you can purchase a sprouting strainer lid that will fit on the top of a canning jar you probably already have. You can also buy a bit more elaborate setup that will make your job even easier.

I bought the Victorio VKP1014 4-Tray Kitchen Seed Sprouter.

The Victorio VKP1014 4-Tray Kitchen Seed Sprouter

It consists of four growing trays that nest on top of each other. It is really compact and doesn't take up a whole lot of counter space.

Each tray has little grooves in it that help channel the water

The kit came with a small packet of alfalfa seeds. It only takes 1/2 tablespoon of seeds per tray. You can stagger your harvest of sprouts by planting the trays on consecutive days.

The water drains through each tray and collects in the bottom reservoir 

All you have to do is pour 2 cups of water into the top tray 2-3 times per day. The water drains through the trays and keeps the seeds optimally moist for germination. It didn't take long before my seeds started sprouting.

Day One

Day Two. They look a little alarming at this stage! 

Day Three

Day Four

I only allowed my sprouts to grow for four days before I harvested them. They were delicious, far more crunchy and delicate in flavor than store-bought sprouts. I cannot emphasize enough how EASY this is. If you are a gardening drop-out, or if you live in a place where you can't have an outdoor garden, you should definitely try sprouting.

My next experiment in sprouting is growing wheat grass for my poultry. My birds enjoyed massive amounts of greens and produce from my garden this summer, but now that the first frost has occurred my garden is pretty much dead. Enter sprouts! My goal is to sprout enough greens so that my chickens and ducks can have fresh greenery every day.  

Soaking the wheat

I took 1/2 cup of wheat from the supply that I grind for our bread. If you are sprouting grains only for livestock, it would certainly be cheaper to buy feed-quality whole grains from a feed store or co-op, but this is what I had on hand. Large seeds like wheat must be soaked for 8-12 hours before you start sprouting them.

After eight hours had elapsed, I drained the wheat, divided it among the four trays of my sprouter, and watered it as described above.

Wheat Day 1: Can you see it beginning to germinate?

It wasn't long before tiny little wheat roots began to be visible. The usual method is to start wheat off in a sprouter and then to plant the sprouted seeds in some sort of planting medium. I like the convenience of my sprouter so much that I am going to see what kind of results I get from keeping them there. I'll keep you posted.  :)


References:

• International Sprout Grower's Association  http://www.isga-sprouts.org/history.htm
• Sproutpeople  http://www.sproutpeople.org
• A link to the sprouter I use  Victorio VKP1014 4-Tray Kitchen Seed Sprouter

Any other sprouters out there? What kind of sprouting seeds do you keep as part of your food storage? 

Using Your Food Storage: The Little House Cookbook

One of the fun things we did on our mini-vacation to southwest Missouri was visit Laura Ingalls Wilder's house.

Laura Ingalls Wilder House
Mansfield, MO

It was a treat to tour the home Laura lived in when she wrote her famous "Little House" series of books. I was an obsessive fan of the "Little House" books as a child and only slightly less obsessive as an adult.

Needless to say I spent more than I probably should have in the museum bookstore. In my bag of Laura-themed paraphernalia, I came away with this.

The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories

I've always wanted to know how to prepare the foods mentioned in the books and all the iconic recipes are there. Now, however, I read The Little House Cookbook through the lens of preparedness and realized just how useful this it is.

• The meals are simple, using staples from food storage, game from hunting, or produce from the garden. How do you make hasty pudding, jackrabbit stew, or stewed dried fruit? Now I know. One thing I appreciate is how simple all the recipes are. They use just a few ingredients and many of them come straight from our food storage. This is ideal from a preparedness point of view. 

• Many of the meals were originally cooked over an open fire or fireplace. The recipes have been adapted to modern cooking appliances, but they could easily be turned back to the originals in a grid down or camping scenario. Just make sure you have the appropriate cast iron cookware. 

• How about making things we usually buy? This book gives recipes for making vinegar from apple cores, rendering lard, and crafting hard cheese.   

This cookbook is so much fun for a Laura fan and it proved that I can find prepping related items anywhere, even on vacation!

Using Your Food Storage: Black Bean Burgers

When a Facebook friend of mine raved about the easy bean burgers she had made for dinner this week, I knew I had to get the recipe. It's kind of strange since I am such a lover of red meat, but I really like bean burgers. I don't make them very often because all my recipes are rather time consuming. My friend's version, however, is quick, easy, and just so happens to use a food storage staple, vital wheat gluten.

Vital wheat gluten is the most important ingredient you can add to 100% whole wheat bread to help it turn into a fluffy, delicate loaf instead of a dense brick. It can also be used to make faux meat ("wheat meat", a.k.a. seitan), though I've never done that before. Vital wheat gluten  has a shelf life of 7-10 years, making it a good candidate for your long term food storage.

I made this recipe on a weeknight and it was indeed as quick and easy as my friend claimed. There was a delicious contrast between the crispy exterior and creamy inside of the bean burger. A burger that is healthy, delicious, and uses items I always keep in my food storage? I'm sold!

Bean burger and sweet potato fries. Yum!

Black Bean Burgers (Recipe adapted from Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook)

1-15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed (OR about 1-2/3 c. cooked black beans [2/3 c. dry])
1 t. chili powder
1/2 t. cumin
Salt to taste
1/4 c. water
1 T. tomato paste (OR tomato powder reconstituted according to package directions)
1/4 c. finely chopped cilantro (OR substitute another herb to your taste)
2 cloves of garlic, minced (OR 1/4-1/2 t. garlic powder)
1/2 small onion, grated (OR 1-2 T. dried onion, rehydrated and then finely chopped)
1/2 c. vital wheat gluten
1/2 c. dry bread crumbs
Olive Oil
Buns

Mash the beans with a fork or potato masher in a mixing bowl. It's OK to have a few chunky bits. Add the chili powder, cumin, salt, water, tomato paste, cilantro, garlic, and onion and mix.

Add the gluten and bread crumbs, kneading with your hands until everything is well-mixed. Divide the mixture into six pieces and form into 1/2" thick patties.

Preheat a skillet over medium heat. Add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Cook the patties in batches (don't crowd them in the skillet) until brown, about 3-5 minutes. Flip the patties and cook the other side. Serve on buns. I like mine with mayonnaise and jalapeno mustard. :)