Butter Rationing and a Sunday Treat

I have started to become paranoid about running out of butter.  I love butter.  I love it on my bread, especially when the bread is warm and fresh out of the oven.  I love it on my pancakes.  I love to make grilled tuna and grilled cheese, both of which require butter.  I also love it to make eggs in toast (Kimball calls them circle eggs) as pictured below.  Not to mention a long and varied list of sweet things which require butter.  I love butter.

And I only have 5 pounds in the freezer with one extra cube sitting out begging to be used.  It was about three weeks ago that I bought 8 pounds at Costco.  That means in 3 weeks we have used nearly 3 pounds!  At that rate I only have 5 more weeks of butter usage.  I'm beginning to freak out.  What will I do without butter?  That means the butter rationing begins now.  Only two cubes a week, people.  That's it.  No  more.  That gives me 10 weeks of butter with a little to spare.  I just might be able to make it.

So, today when Bryce wanted a Sunday evening treat, we needed one that did not require butter.  We found this recipe for chocolate chip muffins.  We skipped the coffee and added extra milk.  Bryce also threw in some almond extract.  They really hit the spot.  Best part?  They didn't call for any butter.  I'm totally having butter on my toast in the morning.

What We Ate for Dinner: Elk

Bryce's brother is a hunter.  As a result we get a lot of elk meat.  Tonight I made this recipe from the Pioneer Woman (one of my favorite food bloggers).  I used elk in place of beef, dried onions in place of the green and frozen peas  in place of the snow peas.  We all snarfed it down.  I did take a picture of it, but Bryce told me that it didn't look very appetizing.  (Food photography is not something I am good at.)  So, here is the pretty one by PW.

I know this isn't very food storagy.  But it's what I had on hand. 

Self-Reliant Skills

You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, 

computer hacking skills... 

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. 

--Napoleon Dynamite

Disasters are not the time to acquire the skills necessary for survival, and not just for survival but for happy living.  Here is a list of skills (in no particular order) that we can work on now so that when we need them we are not scrambling.

• bread making
• canning--both water bath and pressure canning
• hunting, trapping
• solar cooking
• dehydrating
• emergency response training
• yogurt making
• cheese making
• fuel making, like bio-diesel
• gardening
• pruning
• car maintenance and repair
• water purification
• communication, like ham radio or Morse code
• sprouting
• root cellaring
• curing and smoking meat
• sewing
• knitting, crocheting 
• laundering and drying clothes without a washer/dryer
• first aid, CPR
• fishing
• soap making
• fire building
• animal husbandry
• cloth diapering

I am sure that there are more that would be helpful in the event of a disaster.  Any skill that we take the time to learn now, will only serve us better later.  So, there you go folks, lean a new skill and make your life happy.

What We Ate for Dinner: Home Canned Soup

Once upon a time there was a crazy lady (that's me) who got a pressure canner for Christmas in 2007.  She was bound and determined to use her pressure canner as soon as possible.  Her best friend, Fiona, was kind enough to make a bacon and bean soup with her.  Fast forward two years, two months and thirteen days later . . . that's what we had for dinner.  We also had bread sticks and leftover cheese sauce.

I should note that if you home can, food should ideally be consumed within one year.  However, so long as there are no signs that the food has spoiled it can be eaten safely.  If the seal is broken or bulging or the food smells bad it should be thrown away immediately.  Botulism is bad.  Don't risk it.

Food Storage Recipe: Homemade Granola

Like so many things that are made at home, this homemade granola is better than anything you can buy at the store.  A lot of that comes from the fact that you can make granola the way you like it.  Dried fruit, nuts and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg are just a few ways to make this your own.  Best part?  All the ingredients come from food storage.  Ok, the real best part is eating it.  I can't wait to put it on this yogurt.

Here is how I like it:

8 c. rolled oats

3 c. Rice Krispies

1 c. sliced almonds

1/2 c. flax seed

1 c. brown sugar

3/4 c. oil

1 c. honey

3 T. vanilla

kosher salt

1.  Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2.  Heat the wet ingredients (and spices, if you are going to add them--like 1/2 t. cinnamon) in a pot until they boil, then boil for one minute.  Careful that you have a pot big enough, when it boils it expands a lot.
3.  Pour syrup from the pot onto the dry ingredients and mix until everything is evenly coated.
4.  Pour granola on two greased cookie sheets and bake for 30 minutes at 300 degrees.
5.  After you take it out, sprinkle with kosher salt.
6.  Let it cool a bit before you place it in a container.  Kimball has a hard time waiting.  This is a favorite treat at our house.

Week 1 Roundup: What we ran out of

Eating without going to the store for a week is not that big of a deal.  Most of us have probably survived that.  I've just got 11 more weeks of the same.

Here is what I ran out of:

• Ice cream.  This makes Bryce want to own a milk cow and an ice cream maker.
• Dill pickles.  Bryce does not consider this a deprivation, but I love them on tuna.  I do, however, have some sweet ones that will have to work.  Note to self: can some dill pickles.  Better yet, plant some cucumbers!
• Canola oil.  This is potentially our biggest disaster because we need oil to make bread.  I do have some peanut oil and olive oil, but I also have a generous mother-in-law who has already offered to replenish our supply.  I imagine our families will also come to the rescue in case of real disasters.
• Parmesan cheese.  I don't know what to do about this one.  I don't even have any of the powdered stuff on hand.
• Prenatal vitamins.  I still take these because I'm nursing.  I have some one-a-day women's which will get me by, but prenatals are something we women of childbearing years should have on hand.
• Canned pineapple.  I used my last can on the beans Wednesday night.  I don't store a ton of canned fruit because we don't eat a lot, but now that we won't have as much fresh fruit, I'm reconsidering my storage priorities.  Kimball loves fruit.

I have a feeling that as the weeks go by, this list will get longer.

UPDATE:  In retrospect, I realized I should have included the following:

• Bananas.  Poor Kimball, he asks for one nearly every morning.
• Lettuce
• Red bell pepper
• Italian Sausage.  I used this here.
• Sour Cream

What We Ate for Dinner: Leftovers

They were tasty.

Vanilla Syrup, The cure for the common powdered milk

In some things I have failed as a parent.  My 2 and a half year old will not drink milk without some form of sugar in it.  Be it powdered or otherwise, I am doomed to provide something sweet so he will get his calcium. Lecture me if you want.  I'm just here to share his favorite mix-in (and mine!)--vanilla syrup.

1.  Get yourself some vanilla beans.  I got mine on eBay before my grocery abstinence began.

2.  Add 2 cups sugar for every cup of water to a big pot.  (For this batch I did 8 cups sugar and 4 cups water, which somehow came out to 9 cups of syrup).

3.  For each cup of sugar slice open a vanilla bean and scrape out the tiny seeds.  You know, the little black specks in vanilla bean ice cream.  Add both the scrapings and the pods to the pot.

4.  Heat until all the sugar is melted.

5.  Pour into sterile canning jars, add some beans so they can keep infusing, wipe rims, put on lids and bands.

6.  Water bath for 20 minutes.

There you have it.  Yummy vanilla syrup.  And yes, I did can quarts of the stuff.  In addition to adding it to milk, it's great on pancakes!

What We Ate for Dinner: Beans

Thanks to my friend Chef Tess, I was able to make a meatless meal that was delicious: Polynesian Style Sweet and Sour White Beans.  The only changes I made: I used 3 cans of great northern beans, I used frozen green bell pepper and some red bell pepper left over from a salad, I used 1/4 cup jalapeño jelly (thanks, Jill) and 1/4 c. peach jam and I used 1/2 can pineapple chunks (Kimball had the other half for a snack).  Oh, and I didn't have any fresh cilantro or cabbage for the top.  Shocker.  Instead I found a can of chow mein noodles in my mom's basement.  I helped myself.  Bryce liked the added crunch.

I include one of Chef Tess's pictures because her's are prettier than mine.

Make your own fruit on the bottom yogurt parfaits

As promised the yogurt post:

1.  Heat milk to 185 degrees.  Best part--you can use powdered milk.  Hey, throw in some extra powder, it just adds protein.  Now, you don't need to do it in a jar like this one; it is just supposed to reduce the chance that you'll burn the milk.  If you decide to do it like my picture, use a deeper pan.  This took FOREVER to reach 183 and then it got stuck.  I ended up using a different pan to heat the milk anyway. 

2.  Prepare your jars with jam on the bottom.  Here I have raspberry and peach. There are supposed to be 6, but 2 are broken and I haven't replaced them.  So the odd man out in the middle doesn't get jam.  He is for more starter so I can do this again.

3.  Cool the milk is a water bath to 110.  Don't let it fall below 90 or your yogurt might not set up.  Stir in your active cultures (i.e. the yogurt you bought when you weren't supposed to).

4.  Pour milk into the prepared containers and let incubate for about 10 hours.  The yogurt maker is handy because you don't have to rig anything up.  But it's not necessary.  For some ideas on other methods check out this and/or this.

The jam on the bottom is just plain yummy.  I gave some to Bryce for breakfast today and Kimball ate half of it before Bryce could even taste it.  Toddlers think it always tastes better from Daddy's plate.  They are probably right. 

Now I just need some homemade granola.  You can bet I will be posting that soon.