THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

pineapple

mardatha wrote: »

I do accept that it's different down south, I was being very parochial there, sorry

Personally I welcome a bit of Tuscany weather here in Cumbria. People live in hot climes all year round and the sky doesn't fall in.
In fact I won't mind if my corner of Cumbria becomes Tuscany year on year. Thanks to my thick stone walls and stone flagged floors, it never gets too hot indoors.
It's the bigger issue that I find troublesome. If the drought that is now affecting so many countries is a sign of changing weather patterns (for whatever reason), some regions may become inhabitable leading to food shortages/price rises, political instability and worse. One way or another we will all be affected. But meanwhile where's the G&T?

ziggy2004

I am happy with our 22/23 degrees here and don't need it any warmer. We had the paddling pool out yesterday so very happy children.

Someone handed me a bag full of clothes for baby this morning which is fab! As we were not having anymore after nr 3 I passed all the clothes on ( oops)

I also tried a new banana bread recipe yesterday which was a hit ( bananas are going off faster than they can eat them which is something that never happens in my house)

DigForVictory

Family cooperated with a Costco trip!
The Max addiction must be more vicious than I thought. I was Not Permitted to buy more Spam, but the olive oil, balsamic vinegar & so forth? They were hopping from sampling station to sampling station as if unfed all day & then flattened a big pizza between the three of them. In this heat!? Again, startlingly absent as I loaded the car, but there at unloading (every chap wants to know there's enough loo roll. Plus where the extras are.)
Another time, with fewer folk, I'll take the metal fuel cans - under 1.20 a litre!

Cappella

Cappella said

Dig For Victory said:
Quote:
but strawberry jam is dashed hard to hoard - the blighters keep eating it. Suggestions?! I did think of relabelling it but the chaps are not daft.
I used to store all delicious/tempting treat foods in the tea towel drawer covered with tea towels. I made sure there were tea towels in the kitchen, but it was the ONLY drawer my two never voluntarily opened Not a handy tip if you have a dish washer though sadly.

DigForVictory

Evil snicker - but my lot both know where the teatowels are and what they are supposed to be used for - no dishwasher here despite there being 5 of us.

Other locations pondered with great curiosity but the amount of jam I need to hide/hoard versus the plausible amount of female paperwork doesn't quite add up. If only kilner did something that looked plausibly like a washing up liquid container - although they'd rumble that too unless the genuine wul was kept properly supplied..

Sudden splodge of inspiration - stacked in a brewery vat, packed in red wine at the gentle bubble. Not one of my chaps would go near it! (Mind, what would happen as they smelt this odd whiff from each innocently sluiced jamjar? And I'd Never be able to enter it at the WI... As they'd sniff & identify "Wilko red wine kit" and I'd be toast twice over. Still, makes a great base for mulled wine at Christmas. Just explaining it at other seasons...)

Currently sweltering gently, awaiting the thunderstorms *please* so I have a chance of seeing the lunar eclipse. Right now the reddest thing around is me - I've been to the gym again & am thus filled with joy & endorphins but the rest of the evidence is washed or in the laundry pile.


Oh - yes - further thought (migod the novelty) - Mrs LW, if you were to consider treating yourself and your new kitchen, could I suggest the Dualit 4 slice toaster (£150 at Costco) which is very nearly bombproof & you can replace the elements almost like Lego so you a have a splendid toaster for *decades* - but I may be preaching to the converted. I love it as a buy-it-once thing.

Cappella

DfV - Ah
How about the very large wide necked kilnerjars. Stack the jam jars inside then infill with red lentils?
Or bury them in bird food? We have a huge tub of chicken food in the shed and I've hidden many presents in that in the past as Christmas has approached and the present hunts began.

ziggy2004

Can you box the jam jars in with the spare toilet paper stash ( or get a spare toilet paper stash separate from the normal stash)

I hide my spare chocolate behind the flour - no one but me ever uses the flour

DigForVictory

I find that since they are all so tall and the fridge is under the counter, they tend not to look at what is on the top shelf unless it is right at the front. So I can keep chocolate stashed, tucked behind a bag of greens (which are clearly Good For You and thus scrupulously avoided)

I fear the volume of jam would trigger the query as to why did I have 40 jars of lentils... And with my luck a hungry lad would research quick lentil dishes & then blow my cover.

Loo roll is vulnerable - one brisk dose of noro & anything hidden would be revealed, but it occurs to me that I could keep my empty boxes of tea filled with jars & the assumption would be that they were just tea, until someone elected to be Helpful. [Sadly, pretty good odds.]

I may just dig a hole & bury them. Or stash then in an old compost sack, padded with compost. The metal lids are a risk though. I need to figure away to play their quirks & height against their ravenous curiosity!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

GreyQueen wrote: »

In my job, the environmental health line is busy busy busy now as people are reporting hot & cold running insects indoors. Really good time, if you can bear the heat, to get into your storage areas and check things out.


Re pantry pests, I've not had the pleasure myself but have seen weevils in flour at Mum's and a pal who is something of a gourmet cook used to keep his speciality flours all in their opened packets with the tops rolled down in a wall cupboard.


:eek: Until the inevitable happened and some purchase introduced insects and they went through the lot like billy-o.


Re storing dry foodstuffs in plastic, just to mention that mice are perfectly capable of chewing through even heavy-duty placcy containers. Have seen it in Nan's pantry when they went through a very tough container in order to get cooking chocolate. Only metal or glass is actually mouse-proof. Also, a pal with an older property in the country favours glass jars with rubber gaskets as several species of pantry beetle are small enough to walk themselves into a screw-top jar by strolling around the thread.


Jo Jo, totally agree with you about praising the cat for mousing. the parental cats are about 14 now but will still catch mice and even take down juvenile rats. They seem have a non-aggression pact with the squirrels, tho; I think those are just too fast and athletic for the old ladies to bother chasing.:rotfl:


I have been running down my stocks with intention to restock with new tins and jars. something which is work in progress. I am going to use tinned pulses because many have inconvenient soaking and cooking times and we could be in a pickle if there is little fuel to cook with; my camping stove would have to be used cagily. I do have about 20 butane cylinders for that.


I also have the cookset for the kelly kettle but have not played with that bit yet, it's on my autumn things-to-do (once the drought has broken, of course).

In a previous life, I had a little butane stove that the ex purchased for a camping trip, along with four butane canisters. All lived happily on top of a cupboard until one day, I smelled something a bit strange.

A prolonged investigation of the kitchen and a sudden hissing noise revealed that one of the canisters had sprung a leak from nowhere and had been letting gas out to the point of being almost empty. Not great in the same room as the boiler and a gas oven.

All were hoyed out of the window (literally) and I will never use gas cylinders again. There's a reason why most councils have banned the use of calor and paraffin heaters in their properties - and I think I found out exactly why.:eek:

**************
This week has been all about sorting and cleaning the kitchen as a result of the Pestilence.

It's been darned hard work, too, in this heat. But I do feel a bit of pride at the neat shelf of glass jars (IKEA ones, mostly, as, like others, I'll be darned if I'm spending a tenner on something with a name embossed into the glass - the large ones for flour and lentils, the smaller ones for various beans - and, for fans of Bagpuss, I made a point of placing Breadcrumbs and Butterbeans next to one another (perhaps I should have another for chocolate biscuits?).

The trouble with glass jars is the transportation of them home. It's 'only' a mile away, but that's a long, heavy walk to the public transport and at least one change before walking from the bus stop.

I am nearly out of tealights and candles, though. So I should make the effort soon - prepping is all very well until somebody gets the idea of being romantic and you come home to find half your stock has been artfully arranged over the place and set alight.


ETA: Would jam jars not fit perfectly behind the kickboards of a kitchen unit?

GreyQueen

I have a lot of those french jars but I have got lucky on about 3-4 occasions have had multi-item purchases at charity shops. I hear what you say about weight, tho, nearly killed myself getting the beggars home.


Funny how one doesn't take the wally-trolley out on all trips and thus have rolling power for spontaneous jar purchases.


We had some thundery showers just after dark last night (missed the blood moon, dammit) and another very light shower this morning, just enough to lay the dust.


Speaking of sust, I haven't got any carpets and have to say (no offence to the carpetted majority) that I think they're pretty gross in terms of harbouring dirt, dust and gawd-knows-what. They also off-gas chemicals if made from artificial materials/ backing and even if made from pure wool (moth retardants etc).


I've stuck with the gen-u-whine 1970s council Marle y tiles in my flat, although if I wasn't ground-floor, I guess I'd consider carpets as a neighbourly service to anyone living underneath me.