Preparedness for when

maryb

It's just I've heard that you need to have enough airflow all round for the dough to rise evenly. Mine is on the floor but it's sufficiently far away from the wall to allow the lid to open without the hinges catching and that seems OK for me, my bricks are always down to bad yeast, occasionally bad flour (Tesco bread flour never seems to work for me but Lidl's is brill)

GreyQueen

BigMummaF, I was chortling when I heard about the zombie apocalypse hacking incident. And thought someone should've collected the names of the people who thought it was real. So's they could be deregistered as voters on grounds of extreme gullibility.

We haven't any snow but it's absolutely blinking perishing. There are some curiously-bereft brass monkeys outside.

I made a terrible mistake today and went out without my beloved trapper hat...........wah! Shan't be doing that again in a hurry, my poor bonce was chilled, despite the mane sitting atop it.

Been speculating as to why my Mr T still has its Everyday Value lasagna and spadhetti bolognese on the shelves when the meeja insists they've been withdrawn on account of alleged horsiness. Mebbe they think we're so dense hereabout, we won't notice. Dream on...........

Pineapple, I am a non-breadmaker breadmaker, too. Use dried yeast and knead once and have no problems. Someone gave me a BM last year but it was the size of a footstool, I don't like the taint of BM bread and I freecycled it to a lady who was feeding a family and was very happy to recieve it. I figure I have bowls, an over, baking sheets and loaf tins and don't need to have specialised equipment in a dollhouse like this flat.

2tonsils, that sounds seriously-scary weather. Keep safe and hope your shoulder continues to mend. Right, tea is required and perhaps a heartening bowl of soup from the cache.

ETA Noticed that there a trays of 12 x 500 ml bottled waters in the Land of the Pound at the moment, should anyone be after such things.

pineapple

Re breadmaking we are possibly a dying species GreyQueen.
Weatherwise nothing dramatic hereabouts. Yes it snowed all day but in a half hearted soggy couple of inches sort of way and then it started raining.... Me and the collie went out in our matching Yeti gear and it was so mild we felt rather stupid. Well I did - I think the collie is secretly rather proud of her red bomber jacket with the go faster stripes....
Weather is supposed to turn quite mild for the weekend. Indeed I am reliably informed that it will be like the Yorkshire Riviera here. Well one can dream. :rotfl:
Must try to resist the lure of the garden centre (sadly this is Pineapple's version of Fatal Attraction) - the seed potatoes are in!

westcoastscot

I make mine the old-fashioned way too using yeast you have to start in warm water. We need a couple of loaves a day so i make bread a couple of times a week, although i bake other stuff each day

Hollyberry

boultdj wrote: »

They wer'nt welsh sheep GQ!, they were a mixed bag of swaedale and the little horned jacob's that seem to be popular here in the midland's.

Do you count mad peacock's as poultry? Seeing as I'v been chased by them, give me geese any day.

Hollyberry, by Flash do you mean the dam?

It was Flash in Staffordshire, said to be the highest village in England. It's not much more than a tiny village and a pub (with another pub and the highest shop in England just outside the border), and gets snowed in pretty often in winter. It was quite bleak on the day we went there (just because we could), and I could see that you'd need to be pretty self-sufficient and well organised to live up there.

Mind you, with predatory sheep like that, you could just send them out rustling for food!

siegemode

Hi just caught up ! When I was in my early teens I used to make all the bread loaves and rolls once a fortnight and they went in the big chest freezer along with chelsea buns, fruit platts and various cakes. I loved baking and still do. About 6 mths ago after oh complaining about the quality of bread I suggested we start baking our own again. Out came the panny and alas after a half dozen disasters it was put away for jam making only and we decided to go traditional. have problems with my hands and wrists so oh took over and now its most deffinitely his thing. He hates the idea of dried yeast although I have some as back up. Doves is half price on Ocado. We get fresh yeast from Toscos, I chat the young guy up and he gives me a nice big block for a penny. When I get home I divide it into oz portions, wrap in cling film and it keeps for up to 4 wks in the fridge. Best flour we have found is marriages organic, not the cheapest I know but still cheaper than buying bread.

Still no snow here or rain, just cold damp and murky. Roll on the better weather, sunshine would be good for a start. Have promised ourselves a trip to the coast and a bag of chips as soon as we get a better weather day.

In the meantime really need to sort out a shtf bag. everything is all over the house and if we needed to vacate in a hurry it would be hopeless.

Got the box set of survivors last tuesday and had watched all 38 episodes by friday night. Really enjoyed it as did oh who hadn't seen it first time round. Certainly food for thought and some great ideas. Havn't been able to get it out of my head since, especially the rats and packs of dogs. It makes you realise that without the knowledge and old skills you wouldn't last long, not forgetting some form of protection and the ability to hunt and forage.
I told my stpd about it and she reckoned her and her mates would know how to defend themselves due to playing certain games on the xbox, when asked how they would survive regards food, raid a shop was her reply. Sure she thinks I am crackers but as she can barely cook it doesn't bode well. I guess its perhaps a generation thing. They seem more concerned with the latest gadget or phone and its all about the present with no thought of the future. Maybe I'm just turning into a grumpy old woman, but I do worry what will become of us as things get more difficult.

pineapple

siegemode wrote: »

Hi just caught up ! When I was in my early teens I used to make all the bread loaves and rolls once a fortnight and they went in the big chest freezer along with chelsea buns, fruit platts and various cakes. I loved baking and still do. About 6 mths ago after oh complaining about the quality of bread I suggested we start baking our own again.

A 90 year old told me how her mother used to send her to the corner shop every other day for a few 'stone' of flour. The same lady told how they made rag rugs from cast offs, then the rug was recycled through the house as it got worn.
Me I was brought up with plain cooking (but at least it was cooking from scratch) and the infamous Bero book. You can get reprints of the old ones I believe and I might invest ).
How far we have come since the era of the 90 year old - and not all good.
Did anyone see the start of that new series 'People like Us' filmed in a deprived area of Manchester?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/10/bbc-people-like-us-poverty-reality
My how the producers must have searched for people who fulfill every single stereotype of the northern chav
That said I do realise 'people like that' exist. The producers must have sent up thanks to God when they got footage of a couple eagerly watching an episode of Jeremy Kyle. Jeremy Kyle being entertained by Jeremy Kyle - oh the irony of it! But when it got to the woman living on benefit (and the odd spot of shoplifting) who has to have designer gear for her kid, I got so cross I had to switch off! :mad:

Happy Valentines Day to any other singletons out there. You are permitted to put a brick through your TV if you get tired of the incessant hearts and flowers coverage... :rotfl:

vanoonoo

morning all - still plodding on with the house move so very much diverted to other things - apologies - but love, luck and dry feet to you all! Vx

GreyQueen

siegemode, perhaps the young person hasn't ever seen lorries bearing the logos of the supermarket chains plying the highways of Blighty. It may be that she thinks that supermarkets miraculously self-reload overnight. Groceries can be streamed via broadband, I'm sure.

I'm middling-cynical and have often wondered whether the careful removal of useful skills from the curriculum to be replaced with useless versions (witness the death of cooking and the rise of food technology) is part of a cunning plan to render the nation incompetant and reliant on bought-in products and services.

But perhaps I'm getting a bit "tin hat" in my middle age.

I suspect that people raised on some of the current crop of games would devolve into looters quite handily, but there comes a point when, if we faced a Survivors-type scenario, ther would be nothing edible left to loot. So, those who hadn't thought about homesteading or had thought, and weren't prepared for the hard graft, would face an uncomfortable and hungry future.

Which would quite possibly involve attempting to rob homesteaders, who could well be armed and unwilling to be robbed. Going out for dinner might be the last thing a looter ever did.

Part of my job is to book repairs on houses and I am astonished at how utterly hysterical some people become at the prospect of a very minor disruption to the normal running of their homes.

I'm talking about able-bodied people totally freaking out because hot water won't come out of the bath tap and we won't be fixing it for a couple of days. Comes out of the basin hot tap, comes out of the kitchen hot tap, basin is beside the bath tub, you could bail from one to the other, y'know? Or go a couple of days with a strip-wash.

I stagger to think how these drama kings and queens would cope with the total cessation of the water supply, or power being off for days. They are very vulnerable to upsets because they have always lived in a world of plenty and ease, this is their normal, and anything else is unimaginable.

I grew up in homes without c.h. and bathrooms and that's normal to me, although I prefer not to rough it, I do know how to dig latrines and maintain hygiene without flushing loos. Rather not exercise those skills, but they are there if needed.

pineapple

GreyQueen wrote: »

I'm middling-cynical and have often wondered whether the careful removal of useful skills from the curriculum to be replaced with useless versions (witness the death of cooking and the rise of food technology) is part of a cunning plan to render the nation incompetant and reliant on bought-in products and services.

But was it always 'useful'? Our school 'cookery' in the 60s was baking. We never made a proper meal - maybe that was considered the preserve of parents (how quaint and old fashioned). No we made things like swiss roll ..... Also, possibly because it's easier to take back a few cakes and biscuits, as evidence of ones prowess, that a dish of stew and dumplings
Something tells me - if TSSH the F - having made a swiss roll will not greatly help...