Does anywho know of a good, fairly-widely encompassing book on food preservation and storage. I want to learn how they did it back 60-70 yrs (or greater)?
Here’s 4 books I have found useful. The first I think comes real close to directly providing what you want.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, by Carla Emery (1994)
When Technology Fails, A Manual for Self-Reliance & Planetary Survival, by Matthew Stein (2000)]
Cheap Tricks, 100s of ways you can save 1000s of dollars, by Andy Dappen (1992)
The Tightwad Gazette, Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle, by Amy Dacyczyn (1992)
The harvest forum of Gardenweb http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/harvest/ is a great place to go with any questions you have about preserving food. The Ball Blue Book is the small book that gets updated every year or two that many consider the Bible of canning. You don’t really want to preserve everything the way people did 60 years ago because nowadays much of that is considered unsafe.
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving is the big book which has supposedly everything in it. I only do boiling water bath canning so things like jam, salsa, pickled asparagus, fruit sauce, etc., in other words acidic things. We canned something like 287 jars of stuff last year. Some of it goes as gifts, some items are quite prized and specifically asked for by my friends. Cinnamon pear topping is one, and roasted fruit salsa is another. Ate some store bought salsa at a friend’s house Saturday, seemed like ketchup compared to our stuff. Of course we make really great ketchup, too.
In general if you bake your own bread, make your own soup, can your own jam, whatever, you will get a much better product than you get at the store and makes you more self sufficient.
Hanging up your laundry and not using a dryer is another good way to save energy, it is also easier on your clothes so they last longer. One area I could save energy still is if I would drive slower. Somehow I always consider the speed limit to be the LOWEST permissible speed. But we do keep our tires inflated correctly, that helps, too.
One thing that we have been doing is trying to reduce our use of electricity from the coal burning plants. Last year we averaged 23 kWh daily, in April, this year we used 12kWh so we’re headed in the right direction. Now if we didn’t need grow lights to start our peppers and tomatoes we could do better and that’s the challenge. The billing system makes it really easy to see results when you change things. Next will be CFLs for some of my garage fixtures.
Less than a minute after I posted my eletricity went out for 3 hours. Is Big Brother lurking or was it really a tree limb??? Only the Shadow knows.
building material and stuff like that are expensive- neighbor told me about a place that sells gently used and donated new stuff.
The habitat for humanity store.
been there twice-looks like i’ll have to keep going back- selection changes when donations come in, but found a tub surround i like, just have to line up borrowing my buddies truck.
Med. food is pretty decent, my wife makes falafel once in a while
Let’s see, polenta, gazpacho, hummus, there’s a great place in town with vegetarian hoagies, portabello mushrm. burgers, I make quiche, corn chowder, potato soup, breakfast foods like french toast and mushroom omelets, irish soda bread fills me up, homemade pizza, eggplant parm., greek thing called spanikopita
I’d do a search on ‘peasant foods’ as well as vegetarian, probably will use a minimal amount of meat, high end restaurants usually have a couple of these dishes
Is Trader Joe’s in your area, they have a decent selection of stuff and are customer friendly.
Kind of an odd ball thing to go green with but I picked up 5 chickens last spring for educational value for my young duaghters mainly. I keep them in a small coop and they have become decent pets to have around with minimal noise and they only eat a little bit of this cheap corn stuff. The green part is that they make eggs. High quality eggs with no funky hormones, or funk. They are fresh and actually have flavor. The high quality of home grown eggs means the yolks are firmer which makes them easier to pan fry without breaking the yoke.
Every hen lays one egg every day and they only eat a small amount of feed. Something magical in those hens. One egg a day per bird might not sound like much but they add up very fast. More than my family can eat and eggs are a key ingredient to make many of Churchie’s dishes.
Kind of an odd ball thing to go green with but I picked up 5 chickens last spring for educational value for my young duaghters mainly. I keep them in a small coop and they have become decent pets to have around with minimal noise and they only eat a little bit of this cheap corn stuff. The green part is that they make eggs. High quality eggs with no funky hormones, or funk. They are fresh and actually have flavor. The high quality of home grown eggs means the yolks are firmer which makes them easier to pan fry without breaking the yoke.
Every hen lays one egg every day and they only eat a small amount of feed. Something magical in those hens. One egg a day per bird might not sound like much but they add up very fast. More than my family can eat and eggs are a key ingredient to make many of Churchie’s dishes.
Are you in an area where you can let the chickens out of the coop? My mother has a flock of guineas that she lets run around on their own. Little buggers can see a tick from 20 feet away, and they love ‘em. Her annoying yard bugs have gone down since she got those chickens, and she gets eggs to boot. Less corn needed when they are free-range yard birds.
Don’t forget, when the little one asks what’s for dinner, it’s Henny Penny Dumplings!
Now if we didn’t need grow lights to start our peppers and tomatoes we could do better and that’s the challenge. The billing system makes it really easy to see results when you change things.
Have you tried CFLs for starting and vegging plants indoors? They work great and use a fraction of the juice consumed by high pressure sodium or metal halide bulbs and ballasts.
Now if we didn’t need grow lights to start our peppers and tomatoes we could do better and that’s the challenge. The billing system makes it really easy to see results when you change things.
Have you tried CFLs for starting and vegging plants indoors? They work great and use a fraction of the juice consumed by high pressure sodium or metal halide bulbs and ballasts.
We run the old fashion fluorescent 4 ft. bulbs, 35 watts each. Old shop lights. But they do run 24/7 ; it works great and plants don’t get leggy.
I think you’ll get a lot more light for less energy consumption with CFLs. Plus, you can add and unscrew individual bulbs as your plants grow and/or as you move some outside. My impression is that CFL technology is more efficient, lumen per lumen, than the old tube-and-ballast arrangement. In any event, it wouldn’t cost much to find out. Light 24/7 and lots of ventilation is definitely the way to go for the seedlings and young plants.
“Are you in an area where you can let the chickens out of the coop? My mother has a flock of guineas that she lets run around on their own. Little buggers can see a tick from 20 feet away, and they love ‘em. Her annoying yard bugs have gone down since she got those chickens, and she gets eggs to boot. Less corn needed when they are free-range yard birds.
Don’t forget, when the little one asks what’s for dinner, it’s Henny Penny Dumplings!”
We can and do let the chickens loose in the backyard for fun and while cleaning out their coop as much as possible. Someone really needs to be paying attention to keep them out of trouble though. The birds like to kind of roll in the dry dirt and get all coated in dust for bugs or whatever so they do make a mess. Also kicking through flower gardens looking for bugs tears them up. They can fly up and over a 6 foot fence BTW but we find that they never go very far from the coop. Also they will always return as it gets dark. They come when you call them and it is great fun to watch them run in their little herd. Chicken poop is not good to step in.
We really have too many birds for our family but there’s very little chance of eating them with the pet factor. Also the current price of chicken at the store makes it ridiculous to go through the efforts of preparing a bird to eat. The laying hens are not the same breed as meat chickensand aren’t going to be good BBQ chickens either since they are old and tough but in a pinch I will gladly consume them.
Highbeam: that rolling around in the dirt and dust is called a “dust bath”.. believe it or not that is how they clean themselves. We used to have laying hens years ago. Notice how the yolks are a nice orange as opposed to the yellowish ones that are store bought. yum,yum.
Cinnamon pear topping is one, and roasted fruit salsa is another. Ate some store bought salsa at a friend’s house Saturday, seemed like ketchup compared to our stuff. Of course we make really great ketchup, too.
