THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Shropshirelass

Lots of interesting answers if you search with 'sugar free baking'. Most include packets of something processed which might become unobtainable.

Has anyone successfully grown Stevia?

I read the Swedish prepping booklet, and also loved the prior announcement that 'all information that resistance is to cease is false.'

[Deleted User]

I think it takes about 6 weeks of being sugar free before your taste buds get used to actually tasting what you are eating and experiencing the natural sugar content in fruit and veg that makes them taste sweet. Then even carrots taste like sweeties! fancy that MAR?

I've just been looking into fruit vinegars and apparently they're very old as an idea and were known as 'FRUIT SHRUBS' in the past a word derived from sherbets which is a corruption of an Arabic word for a drink. They are traditionally diluted with soda water and served with ice and it's very easy to do, you soak the fruit in wine vinegar for anything from 24 hours to 4 weeks until you get the depth of flavour you like and then add in the sugar once you've put the fruit and vinegar through a jelly bag. You have to keep them in the fridge once the sugar is in to stop fermentation. All berries and stone fruits like plums, cherries, apricots etc. can be used as can elderberries and red or blackcurrants which are apparently nice with rosemary in too. I will definitely be having a go at making some this year as the fruit comes into ripeness.

AnimalTribe

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Do you mean dispatching the wounded ones?

The rabbits are either completely dead or completely unharmed. If unharmed, the cat has managed to grab the rabbit by the ruff without doing any damage. The difficulty is getting the cat to let go, so I can release the rabbit into a safe place.

He might be one of the smallest cats I've ever seen, and he likes his tummy rubbed and to be stroked at every given opportunity, except when he's made a catch. I get the rabbit eventually, but his feral beginnings show. it doesn't help that I have 2 other cats that sit waiting to see if they can get in on the act. I'm used to it though - I just have to wait him out. The most manic day ever was when each of the 3 cats brought in a live catch, and were so excited they all let their catches go - a mouse, a rabbit and a crow. I will never to this day understand how the cat got the crow. I rescued the lot though.

Maybe Gizmo's a prepper and he's getting me male and female rabbits I can breed for meat if I needed it. He probably doesn't understand what my vegetarianism means. :rotfl::rotfl:

AnimalTribe

Shropshirelass wrote: »

Has anyone successfully grown Stevia?

Like dND I was thinking about replacements for sugar.

I bought 2 stevia plants last year and thought they had died off. One though is recovering this year, which is a bit of a miracle, as I live on the edge of a windswept moor, that gets more than it's fair share of snow and gales. If it can survive here I imagine it would do well in most places. I bought plants though not seeds.

I tried to grow sugar beet last year but I wasn't very successful. This was probably because I tried to grow it in a tub as my garden is inundated with rabbits. This year I've put up raised beds and rabbit proof fencing, so I'll give the sugar beet another try next year. The seed were easy to get hold of 200 from eBay.

I've also planted angelica to see what that's like. During the war the 2 main sources of sweet things were sugar and purple clover flowers (but they wouldn't replace sugar).

[Deleted User]

A old fashioned aid to using less sugar is to grow some Sweet Cecily in your herb patch and if you put some in with acidy fruit such as rhubarb or gooseberries when you cook it, it reduces the acidity and means you need much less sugar to sweeten it to acceptable levels. It was used lots in wartime when rationing meant there was only a limited amount of sugar available in everyones diet.

[Deleted User]

AnimalTribe wrote: »

The difficulty is getting the cat to let go, so I can release the rabbit into a safe place.

If you've gone to the trouble of trapping the rabbit, why would you then let it go :huh:

GreyQueen

Well, it made me laugh: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/middle-class-couple-forced-to-make-sophies-choice-between-wood-burner-and-suv-20180523173463

AnimalTribe

MrsLW good idea about the sweet cicely I think I will have a go at planting that.

BedsitBob -

Just realised I wasn't clear in an earlier post - I don't trap rabbits - a tiny little cat I own called Gizmo brings them in alive and unharmed, but he won't give them up without a fight. I like fluffy bunnies, and I'm a vegetarian. When the cat brings a live rabbit in I get a lot of pleasure from rescuing the rabbit. My OH can't understand my letting them go either, as they are a nuisance in the garden - but then I'm the one that looks after the garden so I figure it's my call. I would have chosen AnimalCrackers as my user name, but it was already taken.

DigForVictory

Some of my higher paid colleagues have been angst-ing over their woodburners.

Me, recalling chunks of childhood with two storage heaters & a fireplace? There's no angst - as if we don't burn the fallen wood, we'll get very very cold. Plus lessons in logistics, use of sharp tools, storage, planning & all the lovely aerobic exercise (out of breath out of doors) of walking to the various woods & copses, locating the fallen bits, figuring how to carry them (bundles for the little ones, balanced on one shoulder one third of the way along so the tree doesn't drag for the bigger ones), stumping home laden, getting everything over the fence without damaging it, dragging bits to a more open space for sorting & cutting, then either taking a saw or machete or thick-gloves-&-attitude to the wood (depending on thickness & dampness), then stacking it, and bringing considered bits into the cottage to either burn or dry then burn.

These woodburner folk do not get that "warms you several times over" effect as much. Nor practical first aid in a hurry for when the cutting does wrong, or you underestimate how green some wood is & it springs back in your face.

A long time ago, on a dark & stormy night, the transformer blew. Electric light went out, fire carried on & we got lanterns sorted. The South Wales Electricity Generating Board (as it was then) not only turned out two Landrovers of engineers in the wind & rain & lightening, but next morning showed up with a third Landy & power tools. They also trimmed a neighbouring farm's trees so the branches didn't get close to the cables & as the branches fell, us lassies snaffled them & hauled them up the hill, over the fence & into a pile for later sorting. Better than a windfall! Power restored, the engineers were made much of & they asked what this family-on-holiday were going to do with the wood? "Burn it!" sis piped up (in tones of "blinking obvious") "but we'll have to cut it up first." The lovely chaps recalled a small power saw & diced that pile into suitable-for-little-girl pieces before they left. We thought they were wonderful, but that they underestimated us a bit.
It made a lovely change from walking & bending & picking up sticks & digging that bit of baling twine from your picket to tie the bundle though! The things we could do with old feedsacks & a bit of baling twine we learned in part from watching the local farmers & their families. Made us deft at knots as well as a baling loop was only ever so long so if you needed more you had to knot them together. Paracord wasn't commonly available 40 years ago in our area, unless you were with the SAS, and patching a leaking roof with feedsacks wasn't something we saw the local regiment (gods that dates us!) ever do.

Shropshirelass

How many wood burners equal an aircraft's emissions?