In September of 2009, almost a year ago, I did a review over on Amazon for a the 10 1/2-quart All-American Pressure Canner. Thought I would share that short review here also, because I still love my small canner for quick, well, smaller batches. Yes, I still have my 21 1/2-quart and use it, but I have always believed that there is a place for the smaller canners in our kitchens.

My Reivew

This is the second All-American I have (I have #921 - 21 1/2-Qt also), and I love it!

The smaller size means that it sits on top of the stove at all times, ready to be used. While making dinner on the front burners, I often have this canner working on the back burner. After we finally get up from the table (no one ever seems to want to!), depending on what I canned, but usually something that goes for 90 minutes at 10 psi, it is time to take jars out of the canner. There are some steps to do in between, but our table is in the kitchen, so I get up to check on/turn off burner, etc., while still being able to enjoy the wonderful conversation and shananigans going on at the table. Once the canner is cool, it gets a vinegar & soap bath (I have hard water), dried and put on back burner for next load, jars are on a towel ready to cool and seal overnight, and then be put away in the morning while the coffee is perking.

The smaller size means I don’t feel guilty if I don’t have two levels of jars to can (one on top of the other). If I only have 4 pints of picadillo to can, then I only can 4 pints, and no guilt about all that space being wasted. :-)

Don’t get me wrong, I love my 921 also - I would not know what to do without it, but this 910 has just as much place in my kitchen.

I’ve been asked why my site has taken on more of a food and preparedness feel.

Well, my site never really was about just one thing. I’m not about just one thing, I have many interests and I think I have always shared that through my posts. As for photography, I still do that, it is just my main subjects have changed, a little. I still love to go out and take nature images, I just have been keeping them to myself. :o) I don’t think though that being prepared is automatically separate from other things, like weather. To me, when thinking weather, or bad weather actually, the first thing that goes through my mind is, are we prepared? But it is more than that, I want to not only be prepared as best that I can, but to be more self-reliant.

I know, that phrase is bantered around a lot, but think about it… our forefathers (and mothers too!) were mostly self-reliant, at least mine were. They actually lived off the land, so to speak. They canned food, smoked food, dehydrated food, and of course grew food! With all the technology that has been shoved at us to make things ‘easier and faster’, why aren’t we more self-reliant?

The LDS church teaches their members to have at least one year worth of food and supplies ready, in case. I don’t belong to their church, but I have got to tell you, I think that has to be one of the smartest things I have ever heard. Not only do they teach it, but, they teach how to do it, and they help their members be able to do it through distribution centers. Exactly why don’t other churches do that for their members? Sure, it is all well and good to say, you need to do this and then not teach how to do it.

With all the natural disasters (tornadoes, floods, blizzards, hurricanes, etc.) isn’t the smart thing to do is be prepared to the best of our ability? I honestly do not know a whole lot of people who could go out and purchase a years worth of food and supplies in one shot, let alone finding a place to store it, but, what about starting small and trying for 1 month. Then pushing it further, try for 2 months or maybe 3 months at a time. Break it down into a feasible and reasonable size and I bet you can!

But, I don’t have a big yard or even little yard to grow food on! I know that is what you are saying, I can hear you, even from here. Or you happen to live in a place where there are deed restrictions and you aren’t allowed, or you have physical limitations. Whatever. You can still do what you can reasonably do. So, you don’t have an acre to grow on, corn can be grown in containers, so can tomatoes, beans, onions, potatoes and so much more. Well it goes bad and I have no where to store it. Then try canning it and dehydrating it! I kid you not, I fit a 5 pound bag of carrots into a quart sized jar, after I dehydrated them. I was amazed, flabbergasted, in awe! Think about it… by dehydrating, just imagine how much you could store. And canning, whether it is water bath canning or pressure canning, there is just something magical about going to the shelves, pulling off a jar of chili, tomato sauce, stew or soup (or whatever) that you canned, a year ago, and it being absolutely delicious, nutritious, and super fast when you are hungry. Now.

So, you would rather not have to can, dehydrate or wring a chicken neck (and no, I have not done this!), but just want to go to the store and purchase it, well you can still do that. Instead of buying just 1 or 2 cans of whatever, grab three or more, if you can. When you get home, put the 1 or 2 cans into your working pantry and put the other(s) in your storage pantry. Then, the next time you go, again grab 3 (or more) and do the same. Now look in your storage pantry, you now have 2 extras stored (or more). Keep doing this and slowly build up your storage. When your store has sales, stock up, and if you have coupons to use during those sales, well, that is even better!

Growing up I lived down in southern Miami area, and in our utility/laundry room we had one wall that was full of built-in shelves that we used for our pantry. I have to be honest, I never really thought much about it until I didn’t have that space anymore. I look back now and think, wow, we were absolutely lucky to have that, especially when I look at our small cupboard that is our pantry now. Of course, living in Florida, we do not have the option of having a basement, I wish, so I’ve had to get creative.

Closets have extra shelves tucked in, a stand-alone ‘pantry’ with doors was purchased and that sits next to the table just outside of the kitchen. Not only do we not have a nice large kitchen with pantry/storage area, but we also do not have a lot of counter space, nor kitchen cabinets. So, on the side of that stand-alone ‘pantry’ you’ll find hanging my wire canning rack, flour sifter, mesh strainer, thermometer for cooking and more. The top holds a couple of cases of canning jars for when I want to do a quick batch. On the opposite wall on the other side of the table is a stand-alone book shelf, it holds our working pantry of pasta, rice, sugar, mixing bowls, oven sheets, food processor, food storage bags, measuring cups and more. On the side of course we have more items hanging up like different sized bread pans, apple peeler/corer and more. Sure I would love to have everything I use in one area, the kitchen, but I can’t, so I figured out a way to have it work for us.

In our family room, next to the sofa is where the old sub-woofer is, you know the kind, it is as big as a side table. We don’t use it anymore, but sitting on top of it is a case of freeze-dried and dehydrated foods in #10 cans. There is a board on top of that, along with a fabric tablecloth. We use it as a side table. It works!

So, even if you don’t have a basement, or a large pantry, there are places to still store extras, you just need to get creative, as well as remember to rotate out the oldest first. Whenever we bring something in, food-wise, it gets dated. I can’t wait though to get a couple of can organizers, so that I don’t have to manually rotate out the old. If you look over in the sidebar, scroll down to F.Y.I. you will find the organizers. Not expensive and they work, how cool is that!

With all your preparing though, don’t forget non-food items. I know there are a few things that I stock up on, okay, I go overboard on. For instance, toilet paper. That is one item, I never want to be without! Don’t forget the charcoal and/or the gas for your grill, trust me, that grill, when you can’t cook inside because you have no power (and no gas or wood stove) is a lifesaver. You can grill on it, you can take your pots and pans and use it to cook and bake even.

There are a lot of websites, magazines, and books out there about preparedness, so I won’t go into the different items, but start today, even if it is just 1 item.

I am still working toward having my year (and more) storage, I know that I have at least 5 months on hand. Come to think of it, if I had not experimented for 6 months, I would have about 11 months already. However, I did experiment. I did not go grocery shopping for 6 months and used what we had on hand. It was very liberating and taught me more about what we need more of and even about what we can do without so much of.

I know this post is long, and there really is a whole lot more that I could talk about, to be honest, I haven’t even made a small indentation into being prepared, let alone, self-reliant. For now though, I’ll leave you with this thought and question…

Being prepared isn’t just for natural emergencies. What would happen if the business you worked for, closed. Would you have enough extra in storage to feed yourself and your family, until you found a new job?

The other night I was pouring a bag of sugar into the sugar container and noticed a recipe on the side of the bag for ‘Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies’. Funny how we can see things all the time, but not really pay attention. This time, I did.

What else was I to do, but to make cookies at 9 o’clock at night!

As I started to get the ingredients together, I decided to try and make it a little healthier. I mean come on, it’s a sugar cookie, so I can only go for healthier, not healthy. So, I grabbed some hard white winter wheat berries, yet still, I wanted… more. In our kitchen pantry, next to the grain grinder is where I keep the bin for the oats. Click.

Love when that light bulb turns on! Oats!

Okay, we can work with this, whole wheat, oats, farro*, maybe use less sugar, and since I didn’t have any butter thawed, and no cream thawed to make butter, let’s change out the butter called for with shortening. That works, a crunchier cookie!

Quickly grinding some whole wheat, oats and farro together into flour (1 cup wheat berries, 1/2 cup rolled oats and 1/4 cup farro), I grabbed the other ingredients: shortening, whole powdered eggs, salt, vanilla extract and baking powder. Oh, and some water.

The original recipe called for the butter and sugar to be creamed together in a separate bowl, yada, yada, yada. I didn’t have the patience for all that. So, herein lies my ‘healthier’ sugar cookie and how I did it.

*Emmer (Triticum dicoccum) wheat is one of the three hulled wheats known in Italy as farro and is the wheat that is most commonly called farro. It is rich in fiber, protein, magnesium, and vitamins. I have been told that biblical spelt is now correctly identified as emmer wheat, and that spelt (Triticum spelta) wheat was not grown in ancient Israel.

Multi-grain Sugar Cookies

ingredients

• 2 cups flour (fresh ground whole wheat, oats and farro mixed)
• 1/2 cup PLUS 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup shortening (PLUS - 3 tablespoons water - see notes below)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon whole powdered eggs (PLUS 2 tablespoons water)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

directions

• Toss all ingredients into medium sized mixing bowl.
• Using hand-mixer (or use your stand mixer if you want) mix all ingredients for about 5-7 minutes. Mixture will be crumbly.
• Cover and place bowl in refrigerator for about 15 minutes. Scrape dough out of bowl and roll it into 2 equal logs. Wrap and chill for 2 hours. (I use waxed paper to roll mine.)
• Turn oven on to preheat: 350°F
• While oven is heating, slice logs, about 1/4-inch thick. Then gently pat them back into ’rounds’. (Mine all started turning into half-moons from the slicing.) Then I gave them one gentle squish between my palms to flatten them slightly and placed them about an inch apart on Silpat covered baking sheets.
• Bake at 350° for approximately 12 minutes, or until lightly golden (look at the edges, you will start to see that turn first). Let set on tray for 1-2 minutes and then move to cooling rack to cool completely.
• Cookies can be stored in airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. (Here I am guessing that long, because we used shortening instead of butter - but always check yours, if you aren’t sure, don’t eat it!)

Notes:

If you look on your shortening container, you’ll notice the conversion for replacing it for butter, is 1 cup shortening PLUS 6 teaspoons water equals 1 cup butter. Yup, that is teaspoons, not tablespoons.

Now, I’ll be honest, when I read the conversion at time of baking, I swear it said tablespoons, so that is what I based recipe on - needed to replace 1/2 cup butter, so changed it to 1/2 cup shortening and 3 tablespoons water. It wasn’t until 2 days later that I realized my oopsie. That is a big oops, but, I can only assume because of the whole wheat and oat flour (which is denser) that it actually worked out, perfectly. So now my oops, is a, thata girl! :o)

Oh, and another thing, if like me you decide late at night to bake something you’ve never baked before, before you start grabbing all those ingredients you’ll need and starting to grind and mix, read the instructions first. ALL of them. I didn’t until after I ground my wheat and oats and started mixing everything. That is when I noticed that they needed to be chilled. Oops.

I cannot wait to experiment some more with this recipe, maybe try using honey instead of the sugar, or other things. I’ll let you know!

Happy
Independence
Day
America
and
May God Bless Us

Okay, I admit it, I am one of those that swore I would never freeze cooked rice. Well, freezing it maybe, but certainly not eating it after it was frozen. Nasty.

I was wrong.

Whew. There, I said it. Take a note, jot down the date, whatever. -grins-

What made me change my mind? A blog post that I found: http://www.freezerdinner.com/recipes/freezing-rice/. I had first heard of Jenny Stanger, the author of the blog, as well as author of Fabulous Freezer Meals, by way of another author and blog site that I visit, http://everydayfoodstorage.net/ by Crystal Godfrey, they were making pizza!

I figured, why not try the rice again after all these years, maybe, just maybe it might not be as bad as I remembered.

It wasn’t.

When I make rice, I usually make about 4 cups at a time, depending on what we will be using it for that week, and how many people there are. I try not to make more than will be used in that particular week, because I hate the thought of wasting it, if it goes bad. Well, not anymore!

I love the thought of being able to just grab some rice from the freezer, already cooked, and just reheating it. So simple and so good. Sure, the garlic powder that I always add to it may have something to do with it being so good, but you get the gist of it. ;o) My only problem is that I do not heat or reheat in plastic. I don’t care whether plastic bowl or plastic bag, I just can’t do it. So, not a problem, I reheat it in a covered ceramic dish, which keeps all the steam in and makes it just right.

Yup, I have completely turned around my thoughts on it. I have tried to think of what on earth I could have done all those years ago to make the rice, well, yucky. I have no clue. I just remember not liking the texture of the rice. Who knows. All I can say is, thank you Jenny for putting up the post about the rice, because the next day I made 10 cups of cooked rice, and froze it. Figured worse came to worse, dogs would have a great treat to be added to their food if it didn’t turn out. But it did. Fabulously!

I started off putting some into freezer bags, and for larger portions (more people) those work great. But then I got to thinking, which is always dangerous, what about some smaller portions. But what could I put it in? I didn’t want to waste a quart sized bag for a little portion. As I was just kind of staring ‘out’ from the kitchen, my eyes caught onto my mini loaf pan hanging up on the shelves. Hmmm.

That might work. Hmmm. So, off to the shelves I went and grabbed it, as well as grabbing plastic wrap. Laid some wrap into one section of the loaf pan, put some rice in, and then put more, packing it down, wrapped it up and pulled it out, popping it into the deep freezer to test.

Perfect! So, I made quick work of the rest of the rice and now have not only family sized bags of it, but individual portions. Okay, really enough for 2 people, but still a lot smaller than a whole quart bag!

I put all the ‘blocks’ onto a jelly-roll pan, freeze them, and then throw them into a large container in the freezer. Pulled one out yesterday and it was delicious. Maybe there is something to be said for trying things more than once if you don’t like… like cooked spinach. Then again, some things are just better left like nature intended, raw.

Make your life a little easier, why not try to freeze some rice!

I know that I have sorely lacked in updating, and anyone who has read my blog in the last 2 years pretty much knows all the struggles that we have dealt with. Well, we were dealt another one…on Mother’s Day.

My Pappap passed away.

My Pappap, for those who are uninitiated, was my grandfather. But more than that, and I can say this with all due prejudice, one of the best!

This man, with a ready smile and a twinkle in his blue eyes, taught me to fish, to love watching all kinds of movies, to play with my food, to ‘drive’, to be careful when telling ghost stories cuz you yourself might just get the jibbies scared out of you, to enjoy a good fried bologna sandwich with Fresca®, to laugh, to love and so much more.

He also taught me, along with the other 3 great men in my life (my Daddy, my Uncle Art and my Uncle John), what real men are supposed to be like, act like, live like. I mean for heaven’s sake, the man let me sit on his lap when I was little and ‘pluck’ his whiskers from his chin after he got home from work, with my fingernails, and never flinched! Yeah, thinking back on it, ewww, but when I was little, all I knew was that his whiskers tickled when I went to get my hugs and kisses when we saw him.

I’ll have to scan some images into computer, but let me tell ya, I know why my Nanny married the man. Sure, he was great, sure he nice…etc., but, I know the real reason! It was his black hair mixed with bright blue eyes!

There is so much more to tell and maybe one day I will, but for now, my heart is still hurting and I want to keep the rest of my memories to myself. For now.

What does one of the worst days of my life have to do with pancakes?! Well, I’ll tell ya, my Pappap was a great cook, and he taught me that it was okay to play with my food, to experiment if things didn’t work. He, along with my Nanny, also taught me that great things can be made from scratch and not from a box!

Well, about a week ago I was kinda down, not really hungry, but having not eaten for 2 days, decided that I really should, but what?! Thought about pancakes, which I hadn’t had in years. I’ll be honest here, my Mom had a husband in the military, she worked, plus had 4 daughters, our pancakes came courtesy of Bisquick® Baking Mix. Don’t get me wrong, I loved them! But now, I don’t keep it on hand, because I make my biscuits, breads, buns, rolls, etc., from scratch. I love the flavors and it’s better health-wise. But, I hadn’t tried making pancakes. Didn’t even have a pancake recipe that didn’t call for help from a baking mix.

Good Housekeeping to the rescue! Up on the cookbook shelf was one of my Mom’s old cookbook from the 50’s and there inside it, Homemade Pancakes. Awesome! Until I read, how much sugar, how much salt and butter in the mix. Hmmm, I well, I’ve been baking for a couple of years now *smirk*, I’ll just switch things up a little and test it.

I am happy to say that I’ve tested and tweaked and I think came up with a pretty gosh darned good recipe, and it helps in rotating out my food storage! So, I thought I would share it.

In honor of my Pap, here you go…

Homemade Pancakes

• 1/2 C = all-purpose, unbleached, flour
• 3/4 C = whole wheat flour (freshly ground if you can!)
• 2 t = baking powder
• 1 1/2 T = brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 t = salt
• 2 T = powdered whole eggs
• 3 T = powdered milk
• 1/2 t = vanilla extract - I use 1 tsp, cuz I really really like it. :o)
• 1 C = buttermilk (I use the ‘milk’ left over after I make my butter, you can use it or real buttermilk, or, even use powdered buttermilk)
• 1/4 C = warm water

Reminder: C = Cup; t = teaspoon; T = Tablespoon!

• Preheat pan or griddle on medium heat, you’ll know it is ready when drops of cold water dance and skate across it.
• Add all DRY ingredients to a medium sized mixing bowl and grab a whisk. Mix the dry ingredients together.
• Add the vanilla extract, as well as the other liquids. Whisk all together, just until dry ingredients are completely incorporated. Batter should be just slightly thick. If you want thinner batter (thinner pancakes too), then add a little more water or buttermilk.
• Check pan for readiness, then using 1/3 C measuring cup, drop batter onto pan. I usually make 2 at a time. Watch closely, when the edges take on a matte/dry look and bubbles start to pop, flip them once. Do NOT press down the middle when it rises. Let cook another minute or so, check bottom, and then turn out onto waiting warm plate. I usually keep plate in oven, set on warm. Make sure your plate is allowed in oven!
• Add real butter if you want, and then your favorite syrup.
• Only one thing left to do at this point - ENJOY!

This following is the review that I did over on Amazon for the The WonderMill Grain Mill. I have been meaning to upload it here sooner, well, now is the time, since WonderMill has increased the price. And with more people wanting healthier food, well, get it while you can!

WonderMill Grain Mill - Powerful, fast, gets the job done!

Let’s start right with - I LOVE my WonderMill! I also have a hand-grinding mill (Back to Basics) that I have used, but decided to look around for an electric mill, because even though the B2B is great, my hands and arms got tired, quick. Have no fear though, I’ll keep the B2B for when the power is out, or we go camping, it does a great fine grind. So, I did some research, and then I saw and read some comparison tests. Well, I chose the WonderMill.

Just to clear up some things: