Preparedness for when

nuatha

sb44 wrote: »

Just did a stock check and I only have 4 jars, thought I had 8 for some reason, must be because we haven't tried them yet, so will be buying mostly cans.

A lot of the ready to eat meals in bags are quite expensive so will be avoiding those.

And the quality isn't up to the cans, so far.

You say about not keeping stocks of things that aren't part of your regular diet. If that were the case in our household I wouldn't have anything in!

I used to make more than 75% of everything we ate from scratch, unfortunately life and health issues have just about reversed that balance lately. As mentioned I'm planning to add pressure canning to my repertoire, in order to have non freezer dependant long term storage of my own cooking - presuming life settles to a less exhausting pace.

We hardly ever eat any canned food. I may get the odd tin of tuna, corned beef in winter to make a hash and maybe a tin of the chicken in white sauce as a last minute meal idea (perhaps 4 cans of that over the year!).

Shippams chicken in white sauce used to be a cupboard staple for toasted sandwiches (probably once every two or three months). The main reason I keep a range of ready prepared foods in the diet even when I'm at my best and on top of the catering is that a sudden shift to an unfamiliar diet can bring a range of problems on its own. (That and Herself enjoys several ready meal type items).

Looking at the main stocks I've realised I'm light on treat foods and particularly deserts - given these are major morale boosters I need to address this.

Frugalsod

nuatha wrote: »

I'm seriously considering going down the pressure canning route, in particular because the retort packaging is now available for home use.
I also need to review stocks to include more vegetarian options.

I think that canning has a lot to offer. You can have a much wider range of food stocks and things that are not normally available. The only downside is glass breaks but is reusable so once you have a set of jars you really do not need anything else. It makes a lot of sense if you have access to lots of crops that need preserving. I did see a documentary about an Italian village with very high average age where they all made their own sauces from the local tomato crop. Everything was stored in preserving jars, rows and rows of the stuff. If you are trying to maintain a low additive diet it does seem to be the way to go.

moneyistooshorttomention

GreyQueen wrote: »

MTSTM, spinach beet would be a good one, planted in clumps. It's a hardy perennial and doesn't look particularly edible. And chard. I noted from a novel set in a futuristic world that the natives had hidden their cultivated areas to avoid exposing their settlements to observation from the air. Examples were planting things in small irregular clumps and dispersing them among non-edible plants. Bit like hiding the cannabis plants in the field of something else, I guess.

The traditional cottage garden mixed veg with flowers and fruits. My burgeoning blackcurrant bush is up to its eyebrows in a mixed flowerbed of marigolds, common fumitory and small sunflowers and misc annual plants. Nearly all the fruit is hidden. Lots of people don't recognise fruit bushes and the blackcurrants, both red and black, plus raspberries are a bit furtive with the placing of the fruit on the stem anyway.

I'm actually quite a fan of spinach beet and chard personally and find them very useful - the "I need a bit of greens for dinner. I know...." and out into the garden and cut off a bit and bingo a few minutes later:). So I've been growing them anyway and find they are relatively troublefree. Must get some more sorted...

Blackcurrants are en route to getting planted (all being well I can buy some at this time of year as we know....) and I've got my eye on some more unusual fruits as well. No problem with any surplus blackcurrants - into the freezer with them in tubs.

Definitely thinking along those sort of lines...

EDIT; What I'm not quite sure about with said spinach beet and chard is that I know they are perennial - so have seen them "keep going" for some time, but now they've gone to seed, then I'm wondering what happens to them from here on in? That is - are they perennial courtesy of seeds dropping off and some young baby plants start appearing (errr....and probably get removed by me thinking they are weeds) or do I cut the stalk right right down and the exact plant "comes good" again itself?

Doveling

Nuatha - glad your Mil is doing well.

Been up since four, dog wanted to go out. Now he's snoring in his basket but I couldn't get back to sleep. The ironing is calling again and I am studiously ignoring it (again :rotfl:).

A few more jobs to do on the house then shouldn't be any further outlay for a few years other than decorating.
Home contents in good condition and linens well stocked.:)

A greenhouse is next on my list but I need to do some research. We have been offered a small chicken coop and run. Big enough for 3 hens or a few bantys, Not sure if I want to keep hens again though.

Thanks for all your suggestions. Some fruiting bushes would be good.
Is it very wrong of me to want a stash of Estee Lauder and Clinique as well? (Could go on Christmas list)

Our strawberries are still green!
More coffee needed.

moneyistooshorttomention

Here....don't like to speak too soon <whispers> but "Have they gone yet?" - ie those foreign spammers that have been plaguing the Forum for some days now with their regular churning-out of spam in Chinese/Korean/whatever....

I've just done a quick check on their favourite sub-forums and cant spot them anywhere today...

Did seem logical to me that maybe the Forum could be programmed to reject any posts in a foreign language and I duly suggested it. I'm no techie...so I don't know if that's possible...but just presume it is?? Wonder if MSE has managed to block the little darlings out at last and if that's how they did it?

Thinks...nuatha will probably be along soon and might know...

EDIT: Speaking of matters foreign - and I've had an email from my Californian friend (ie the one I was concerned about courtesy of looming water problems there) and.....with one bound she was out....She told me that things have just fallen into place remarkably, with all "ducks in a row" and everything working out perfectly and she's sold her place/bought another one elsewhere and is on the move very soon now. Positively envious of how fast American housebuying can move compared to our cumbersome set-up...

Well...that was my personal good news to start the day with.....as I've been sitting there steadily getting more and more concerned about the bottom likely to drop out of things (including their localised house market) any day now in California. So - yay!

dannie

Hello Frugalsod,

Please would you let me know about the documentary regarding the "Italian village". Wondering if it is still available to watch? Thanks.

moneyistooshorttomention

dannie wrote: »

Hello Frugalsod,

Please would you let me know about the documentary regarding the "Italian village". Wondering if it is still available to watch? Thanks.

Don't know if this is them - its similar anyways...in book form

"Preserving food without freezing or canning - traditional techniques using salt, oil, sugar, alcohol, vinegar, drying, cold storage, and lactic fermentation" by the Gardeners & Farmers of Terre Vivante.

I like the book/had it a while now/planning on getting my act together to try it all out once I'm fully up-and-running in the garden.

EDIT; Yep...its still for sale on Amazon and there is a fair-size extract from the book up there.

Quick google reveals a few Youtube clips about Terre Vivante - all in French. Found a website for them - ditto...its in French. Think FrugalSod might have been watching a French documentary there....I'm afraid I've forgotten much of my schoolgirl French...whoops! They've got a Facebook page too - which could be worked through a bit laboriously, as there is a "translate" button there by a lot of stuff.

ivyleaf

Frugalsod wrote: »

I use the glass blender to make home made baileys, cold soups bases.

The metal blender for soups, great for using up left overs.

The food processor for grating cheese when lazy. Making peanut butter and also oat meal biscuits. Soon home made nutella and possibly butter. Pasta base. Breaking biscuits for banoffee pie base.

The main bowl for making cakes, bread, pizza bases. Whipping cream for banoffee pie topping.

Mincer for making mice from whole meat. Soon will look start chorizo and sausages.

Rasper for grating parmesan, slicer for cutting veg.

Pasta maker for pasta, from pasta base.

Multimill for crunchy peanut butter, mayonnaise but not successfully yet. Chopping small quantities of ingredients.

No wonder you're happy with your investment I hadn't realised you had "all the extras" and was wondering how you could do all these things with just the bowl mixer

I have a food processor which came with a blender, and recently acquired a K£nwood Prospero stand mixer - we haven't room for a full-sized one, and my Dualit hand mixer became too heavy for me to use - it started to hurt my wrist as it was quite heavy, so it's been passed on to our daughter as it should be heavy-handed-husband-proof

moneyistooshorttomention

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Here....don't like to speak too soon <whispers> but "Have they gone yet?" - ie those foreign spammers that have been plaguing the Forum for some days now with their regular churning-out of spam in Chinese/Korean/whatever....

I've just done a quick check on their favourite sub-forums and cant spot them anywhere today...

Did seem logical to me that maybe the Forum could be programmed to reject any posts in a foreign language and I duly suggested it. I'm no techie...so I don't know if that's possible...but just presume it is?? Wonder if MSE has managed to block the little darlings out at last and if that's how they did it?

Thinks...nuatha will probably be along soon and might know...

!

Darn. Spoke too soon - just spotted one of them put a post up at 8.53am today....:(

EDIT: Just spotted the second one of them has just started up again - duly reported

nuatha

Frugalsod wrote: »

I think that canning has a lot to offer. You can have a much wider range of food stocks and things that are not normally available. The only downside is glass breaks but is reusable so once you have a set of jars you really do not need anything else. It makes a lot of sense if you have access to lots of crops that need preserving. I did see a documentary about an Italian village with very high average age where they all made their own sauces from the local tomato crop. Everything was stored in preserving jars, rows and rows of the stuff. If you are trying to maintain a low additive diet it does seem to be the way to go.

It is possible to can in tin cans, I've no idea of whether its still feasible (as in the tubes and bases still being available) but even with my dislike of glass for storage I have an even greater dislike of botulism.
The only consumable is the rubber seals if you use glass topped Kilner style jars. If you use the metal lidded parfait style jars then the metal lids are single use only. I do have some Kilner jars that have seen over 50 years service.

Doveling wrote: »

Nuatha - glad your Mil is doing well.

Thank you.

Is it very wrong of me to want a stash of Estee Lauder and Clinique as well? (Could go on Christmas list)

Essential morale supplies.
Its perfectly possible to survive on compact survival bars - but it shouldn't be about survival at all costs, I'd far rather thrive and make the best of it and morale boosting is a very important part of that.