November in Review and December Preps

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and have your Christmas preparations well under way. I am about 3/4 of the way done with my Christmas shopping, though I avoided the complete madness of Black Friday. Hubby Dear and I stayed at home in our pajamas and did our shopping online. We may not have bought any waffle irons for $2, but we stayed safe and sane, thank you very much!

November in  review:

1. Gardening

• We planted 1 lb of garlic cloves and mulched heavily over the top. Hopefully they will survive the winter depredations of field mice and emerge in the spring. We cleaned up all the garden debris and have everything clean and ready for spring plantings. 
• We finalized our plans for a survival orchard and planted three pecan trees. 
• Hubby Dear went through his garden journal and tallied up the final harvest totals. We learned a lot this year and I'll be sharing this information with you in a future post. 
• We have a tentative plan for next year's garden. We're expanding our garden yet again, which means we'll be building yet more square foot boxes. 

Finally! Some cauliflower! The heads were small but very tasty.

2. Food Storage

• I processed the pumpkins we grew in our garden into puree and froze it in 1 cup batches. Although I was initially disappointed with the flavor of the puree, I used it as a substitute for butternut squash in a pasta recipe I make regularly and it worked just fine. 
• I experimented with bouillon cubes and a vegan substitute for chicken broth. 
• I bought another couple of bucket of oats and wheat as well as more clarified butter from Emergency Essentials. I also bought 50 lb of sugar and packed it in a mylar bag and bucket myself. 
• I took advantage of holiday sales and stocked up on baking ingredients like chocolate chips and vanilla extract. 

I hope this captures some of the beauty of this particularly pretty sunset, despite my lack of camera skills! 

December Preps:

• My major goal this month is to finalize my year's supply of long term food storage items. I need to go over our inventory and see if there are gaps. I think we are complete other than in dry milk.
• I need to pre-order my chicks to be delivered in March! 
• My Christmas present to myself is the mack daddy chicken coop that will be delivered in January. I can't wait to share it with you all. 

That's it for me. Are you gifting yourself or others with any preparedness items? If so, please share in the comments. 

Some Not-So-Sweet News About Honey

Honey is a major part of most food storage plans and for good reason. It is versatile, has a very long storage life, and is a compact source of a lot of calories. (It sounds funny to think of a time when the fact that something has a lot of calories would be a good thing, doesn't it?) The LDS church recommends that each family store 3 lb of honey per adult and 1 lb per child.

I came to the conclusion that we need to store much more than the recommended amount of honey for our family. The main reason is because I prefer to use honey as the sweetener when I make bread from my stored wheat. I calculated how much honey it would take to make bread for a year and that led me to the amount I have stored - around 45 pounds. (Check out my post on what types of sugar I have in my food storage if you missed it the first time around.)

With that much honey hanging around, it isn't surprising that this article posted on Facebook caught my attention:

Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn't Honey

If you read through the article, you'll find that Food Safety News tested massive amounts of honey from all over the country. They bought honey at the places the average citizen is likely to frequent - grocery stores, warehouse clubs, and even the individual serving packets found at fast food restaurants. The vast majority of the samples didn't have even a trace of pollen. 

You might be wondering why the absence of pollen is a problem. There are several reasons to be concerned. First of all, to quote the Food Safety News article, "In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that's been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn't honey." Comparing natural honey with pollen to ultra-filtered honey without pollen reminds me of the differences between dark chocolate and white chocolate. Both dark and white chocolates are sweet products that contain parts of the cacao plant, but white chocolate is missing the cocoa solids of real chocolate. The cocoa solids are what provide that delicious, chocolate-y flavor I depend on to make it through my some of the traumatic moments in my harried life. White chocolate is OK, but it definitely is not the same. Following this analogy, why would I choose to buy honey that was missing all the good stuff?

Next, the pollen in honey is what provides all those wonderful health benefits to those who consume it. It also gives each type of honey (ie. clover, tupelo, etc.) a distinctive taste. It is pollen that keeps honey from being just another sugar syrup.

The last thing pollen does for honey is give scientists a way to track where the honey originated. Without the pollen, a honey distributor can mix together honeys from different regions or nations and it will all pretty much taste the same. That cheerful plastic bear hiding in your pantry might very well contain honey from China. Chinese honey is NOT something you want to have as part of your diet. It is common for Chinese honey to contain dangerous antibiotics that are banned in the USA or to be diluted with corn syrup. As the article relates, Chinese honey is making its way into the US in massive amounts and the government isn't trying to stop it.

I have been buying my honey in 5 lb bottles at Sam's Club. No more! That honey is on the list of pollen-free honeys cited in the article. I'm going to look for a local source of honey and may get into beekeeping myself someday. It may be a bit more expensive and require some effort to find local, less-processed honey, but at least I'll know it will be chock full of pollen and poison-free!


Read more about Chinese honey here. 

Review of Tattler Reusable Canning Lids PLUS My Best Blackberry Jam Recipe

Last month I bought 6 dozen Tattler reusable canning lids. I finally had a chance to put them to the test last week.




The typical canning lids available everywhere cannot be used more than once. They also contain BPA, which has been shown to be a health hazard. Not only are Tattler lids reusable almost indefinitely, but they also are BPA free. I was eager to give them a shot.

Each canning lid consists of a rigid plastic lid and a flexible rubber ring. The rubber ring takes the place of the sealing compound. You must also use metal canning lid rings but they are NOT included with the Tattler lids.

The procedure for using the lids is a little different. It is easy, but it definitely takes some getting used to.

1. Scald the lids and rings. Keep hot while you prepare your product.




2. Place the rubber ring on the lid and center the lid on your canning jar.




3. Barely screw on the metal ring. Make sure the canning lid is centered on the jar, then hold the lid down with one finger as you tighten the metal ring.




4. Once the ring is tight, unscrew it by 1/4 inch to allow for venting during processing.




5. Process the jars according to your recipe directions.




6. Once you have removed the jars from the cannner, carefully tighten the ring completely.

The trickest part of the procedure is tightening the ring after processing. The jars are extremely hot and even though I was using a pot holder, I still managed to burn my fingers.

So, do these lids work? After processing several jars of blackberry jam both with standard and Tattler lids, I would have to say yes. My first batch of 8 jars, all using Tattler lids, yielded three that failed to seal. I have never had a jar fail to seal in all my years of canning, and so I was really disappointed. However, I have learned from sad experience that if a product has received rave reviews and I have issues with it, it is more than likely operator error! I decided to try again.

My second batch of jam had 5 jars with standard lids and three with Tattlers. All the Tattlers sealed and two of the standard lids didn't seal. In my third batch, one of the standard lids didn't seal. I think the problem is more me than the canning lids! I'm thinking that maybe I didn't clean the rims and threads well enough before I put the lids on.

All in all, if you do a lot of canning, I think Tattler lids are well worth the investment. They are more expensive initially, but last practically forever. From a preparedness standpoint, they are essential. From an environmental and health perspective, they are great, too. I recommend them.

Here's the recipe I used to put the Tattler through its paces. It is my favorite rendition of blackberry jam. I prefer to crush my berries with a food mill so I can control the amount of seeds that end up in the finished product.


Blackberry Jam

Blackberries to yield 4 c. crushed - read directions below. I find it takes me about 50 oz. of berries.
7 c. sugar
1/2 t. unsalted butter (this will help reduce foaming)
1-3 oz. pouch liquid pectin

Process blackberries through a food mill fitted with a berry screen. Run the pulp through the mill twice to extract the maximum amount of juice. Measure out 3 c. of juice and add 1 c. of the pulp back to yield 4 cups total.

(Note: If you do not have a food mill, you can just crush berries with a potato masher. Your jam will have more seeds and texture, but it will taste just fine.)

In a large saucepan, combine blackberries, sugar, and butter. Over medium-low heat, heat the mixture until the sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly. Increase heat to medium-high and bring mixture to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Stir in the pectin and boil for one minute. Stir, stir, stir! Remove pan from the heat and skim off any foam.

Allow jam to cool 5 minutes, gently stirring a few times. This will help keep the juice and fruit evenly distributed in the finished product. Ladle the jam into hot jars, maintaining 1/4 inch headspace. Add your lids and process the jam for 10 minutes in a 200 degree water bath.

Yield - About 8 half-pint jars

Staying Sweet: Sugar as part of your Food Storage Plan

Sugar is one of the "no-nos" of the typical American diet. If refined sugar is supposed to be so bad for you and have very little nutritional value, why should you have sugar as part of your food storage?

Lots of reasons!

First, you need at least a bit of sugar for most types of baking and many items that you can (jams, jellies, pickles, etc.). If you are cooking exclusively from food storage, you need to have all of the basic building blocks available to you. Like it or not, sugar is part of that.

Not only is sugar an essential in many made-from-scratch items, but sugar is also something that is difficult to make on your own. Unless you have a bee hive or sugar cane field and processing equipment, you need to store it. If you look back to the time of the pioneers, they treasured sugar because it wasn't always readily available. Store it today, because tomorrow it might be unavailable or ridiculously expensive.

Speaking of ridiculously expensive, we all know that food storage is a way to fight inflation. Stored properly, white sugar and honey will last practically forever. If you buy sugar at today's prices, you are guaranteed to save money since food prices are continuing to rise. 

Lastly, sugar can be a useful addition to your first aid kit. Really! Check this out regarding the uses of white sugar and this link about honey. Some people report success in treating their allergies by ingesting locally-produced honey. Hubby Dear encourages his patients to use honey instead of cough syrups and cough suppressants, though it is important to remember to never give honey to babies under the age of one.

Now that I've sold you on storing sugar, what should you be storing and in what quantities? If you look at the LDS Food Storage Calculator, you'll notice that it suggests that you store a wide variety of sugars.

For a year's worth of food storage, you need:

3 lb honey per adult, 1 lb per child*
40 lb white sugar per adult, 20 lb per child
3 lb brown sugar per adult, 1 lb per child
1 lb molasses per adult or child
3 lb corn syrup per adult, 1 lb per child
3 lb jams per adult, 1 lb per child
6 lb powdered drink mix per adult, 3 lb per child
1 lb flavored gelatin per adult or child

*A child is defined as age 6 and younger in this calculator

The addition of Jello and corn syrup to this list perplexed me at first. The Jello began to make a bit more sense after I read somewhere that Utah is the number one consumer of Jello and it is even the official state snack. The food storage guidelines were drawn not only for cataclysmic emergencies but also for everyday eating. If Jello or corn syrup is part of your regular diet, by all means store it.

I decided to use the LDS quantities as a guide for how much to store total, but to personalize it for our family.

• We do not eat Jello or corn syrup, so I'm not storing that.
• We do, however, use a lot of real maple syrup. Maple syrup has a decent shelf life; the jugs I buy have expiration dates 2-3 years in the future. We'll easily rotate through them before they approach the expiration dates.
• According to the calculator, our family needs 12 lb of brown sugar. We use more brown sugar than that, so I'm storing more. I repack the sugar in quart mason jars (a 2 lb package will fit in a quart jar) and vacuum seal it with my FoodSaver. You can also mix a bit of molasses into white sugar to make brown sugar.
• We are also storing much more honey than "required". Our favorite bread recipe uses honey as a sweetener and honey is probably better for you than regular white sugar. Honey has an amazing shelf life. If it crystallizes, gently warm it and it will become liquid again.
• The best thing about storing white sugar is that it lasts forever. Store it in an air-tight container but SKIP the oxygen absorbers!
• I'm following the recommendations for molasses, jams, and powdered drink mix. Although we don't normally consume Tang or other powdered drink mixes, they are essential to our food storage plan. First of all, they are an excellent source of Vitamin C, something that we are short on. Second, drink mixes can go a long way toward making stored water more palatable.

What types of sugar are you storing and in what quantities?