Wild Spinach vs. poisonous Nightshades…113Pine nuts vs. pine needle tea & apricot pits…114Plantain vs. lilies…115Sorrel vs. bitter dock…116Prickly lettuce & Angelica, vs. hogweed & Virginia Creeper…117Chickweed vs. Japanese spurge…118Ground ivy & mustard greens…118Sow thistle vs. Mexican poppy…119Wild onion vs. lookalike bulbs…120
SHOPPING LIST…113-115
MENU…116
POTATOES
KETCHUP
The ingredients in these recipes reflect the prophet’s advice to store food without going into debt, so these meals are simple instead of gourmet, but taste-tested to the family’s approval. Except for a 3-month supply of easy-to-eat foods, the accompanying shopping list is based on supplies that support the growth of your own garden, like soybeans, which you grow, and calcium sulfate/gypsum, a tofu coagulant, as opposed to ready-made textured vegetable protein, which is likely to be consumed quickly, with no long-term availability for calcium and protein once it’s gone. Other ingredients are Kool-Aid packets to flavor your rhubarb and spaghetti squash pies (mock cherry and berry pie), vitamin C powder as a low-priced gluten substitute for baking bread, and ground-up rice to replace pricey egg powder as a binder.
Mix: ½ C sugar ½ t. onion powder 1 T corn starch pinch salt
Stir in: 1 8-oz can tomato sauce (with home-grown dried tomatoes, add more salt, sugar, onion, and garlic)1 1/2 T apple cider vinegar
BAKED POTATOES
You can substitute plain yogurt for unsweetened lemonade powder. Kefir is a grain that gets fermented in milk or water, and it produces healthy bacterial cultures. These grains or cultures can be purchased online, either for water kefir or milk-based. You can have drinkable yogurt on an indefinite, long-term basis by adding milk to your culture every day, draining it through a non-metallic sieve the next day, and replenishing the milk. Just make sure if using powdered milk, that your water inside the milk has sat out for 24 hours, to evaporate the bleach, which tends to kill the kefir culture.
Wash and prick with fork: 5 large potatoes
There are several ways to bake a potato:
a) Toss them into some hot ashes and wait one hour, dusting them off afterwards.b) Place inside Dutch oven sitting in a shallow hole in the ground, with hot charcoal briquettes underneath, and also on top of the covered lid. Cover the top with dirt for insulation.c) Bake in solar oven. It may take five hours.
Mix:
¼ C milk powder1 t. salt
¼ t. unsweetened lemonade powderpinch pepper
Whisk in: 1 C water
Split baked potatoes open, filling each potato with 2T of lemon-milk mixture. At first it will seem like too much liquid, but when potato is thoroughly mashed, it will have the approximate flavor and consistency of a baked potato with salt, butter, and sour cream. Don’t forget to mash in and eat the skin, which is full of vitamins.
FRENCH FRIES (for leftover baked potatoes)
We’re all aware that we should avoid uncooked potatoes. They have alkaloids which attack the nervous system, causing confusion and muscle weakness. This is the reason for keeping potatoes covered while growing, because exposure to sunlight can cause greening of the skin, heightening the (poisonous) solanine content, concentrated nearest to its skin. I recommend buying the film to convert yourhttp://www.ebay.com/itm/SOLAR-DEATH-RAY-COOKER-TV-DISH-MIRROR-FILM-KIT-/330534571557 satellite dish into a parabolic (bowl-shaped mirror)cooker; it’s less than $40 with shipping, but without this, you can improvise a cooktop with a heavy piece of plastic (pliable, not stiff), anchoring each of the four sides to pull it tightly flat, like you would a quilt in a quilting frame. The higher up it is, the hotter your cooktop will be. Pour enough water onto the stretched plastic in order for it to slide down and fill the middle. (It will automatically slide to the middle.) The water will coagulate into lens shape, and the sunlight that filters through it will concentrate into a beam of heated light. It works best with noonday, overhead sunlight, but you can filter the beam through a plastic bottle of water or magnifying glass to get a more concentrated beam of heat, taking care to remove the water when finished, to prevent unintended fire. Take a look at this youtube site. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljiTNRiLh-o
Cut 4 baked and cooled potatoes into French fries (skin on, due to added nutrients and fiber). Saute in 3 T butter-flavored shortening until crisped/browned.
Seed potatoes are not chemically treated, so they’ll grow better than potatoes from the grocery store. The Red Pontiac is available at Cal Ranch and takes 60-80 days till harvest. Plant 12” deep in loose soil, after danger of frost is past. If potato has sprouted, poke sprout through the top of the soil. If potato is large, quarter it, making sure 2 eyes are in each quarter. Cover with several inches of dirt, continuing to do so as bulbs start to surface. If you cover them with 12” of dirt in the beginning, they don’t get hot enough to grow, but if they don’t get covered, their skin starts to green. Green skin is not food and can give you a stomachache.
Plant potatoes in the hottest place, away from shadowy fences. Sometimes I lay out black plastic, cutting holes and inserting sprouted potatoes. If I could plant them in the middle of the road, I’d borrow dirt from under my shade tree.
The leafy plant above the ground will flower, then start to turn yellow. Harvest then. Lay potatoes out for 2 weeks to cure, then store in cool (not freezing) place where they can breathe. It will not hurt when they spontaneously sprout. Potatoes will be fine to eat into springtime; of course you know to remove sprouts before eating. Save the smallest to replant.
Mix:
¾ c + 2 t whole wheat flour2 t. salt
Knead in:
4 C baked, peeled, mashed potatoes2 T white bean flour¼ C water
Divide dough into 8 pieces and roll into thin cylinders, cutting off bite-sized pieces. Drop pieces into boiling water, one after the next, a dozen or two at a time. When pasta floats to the top, remove with slotted spoon.
POTATO PATTIES (like tater tots without the deep-fry, for leftover baked potatoes)
Whether rototilling for potatoes or anything else, be sure to add stabilizer to the gasoline so it keeps working next season. Stabilizer is available in the automotive section.
Grate 6 medium baked potatoes
Mix with:
3 T whole wheat flour1 T white bean flour1 1/2 t. salt1/4 C water
Melt ½ T butter-flavored shortening into large, non-stick frying pan. Form balls and flatten between hands. Fry 4 at a time in pan, flipping as they brown. Melt another ½-T shortening into pan before adding the next 4, etc.
Serve with ketchup (see ketchup recipes under Potatoes heading).
POTATO SALAD
Crop rotation helps prevent diseased produce by redistributing nutrients needed by each plant type. Potatoes in particular have been responsible for diseased soil preceding famine because a few potatoes will rot underground. They are best planted with tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and onion.
The soil that grew potatoes and tomatoes should shift to growing corn the following season. After corn grows 6” tall, squash seeds can be squeezed between rows to save space. The higher corn stalks can anchor the younger squash vines, so don‘t start squash indoors.
Switch corn soil to the cabbage family (cauliflower, broccoli, celery, beets, carrots) and the rest of your squash-type veggies: cucumber & melons. To avoid fungus, don‘t crowd the squash-types. Since the cabbage family likes an earlier planting in cooler weather, it can sometimes be cleared out before the cucumbers, melons, and squash, which like warmer weather, and get planted after the danger of frost is over.
Cabbage and squash give way to legumes (peas, green beans, peanuts, soybeans, black- pinto- and white beans), wanting an uncluttered space: grass-free, weed-free. This info was obtained from ehow.com: “How to Guide for Rotating Crops in the Vegetable Garden.”
In general, manure is usually worked into the soil in the fall. For high-alkaline soil like Utah’s, mixing lime or wood ash into the manure is not generally recommended. Avoid manure in the spring. Instead, provide composted plant matter (like grass trimmings-turned-mulch), for added nutrients.
Mix:
1 3/4 t. salt1 t. dry mustard powder1 t. onion powder1 t. garlic powder1 t. pepper
Stir into:
2/3 C plain, unsweetened yogurt or mayonnaise & pickle juiceCoat 8 large potatoes, peeled, chopped, and boiled (baked & peeled works, too) w/yogurtStir in 1 regular-sized can drained olives.If desired, garnish with dill seed and green onions.
POTATO SOUP
Save the potato peels to make potato chips.
Sauté in water:
3 medium onions, chopped
7 ½ C waterStir in and heat: 3 large celery stalks, chopped
7 medium potatoes, peeled & chopped1 1/3 C milk powder 1 ½ t. thyme¾ t. oregano¾ t. pepper½ t. garlic½ t. salt3 t. chicken bouillon
Whisk in: corn starch blend (¼ C corn starch dissolved in 2/3 C water)
SCALLOPED POTATOES
These are more work than baked potatoes, so if you’re busy with small children, consider making baked potatoes instead of these au gratins or anything else like potato salad, potato soup, mashed potatoes, etc.
Mix:
¾ C white bean flour1 T salt5 ½ t. chicken bouillon (or 5 ½ cubes, crumbled)3 t. sugar1 ½ t. onion powder¼ t. + 1/8 t. pepper1/8 t. mustard powder1/8 t. paprika3 pinches unsweetened lemonade powder
With fork, cut in:
2 T butter-flavored shortening
Whisk in:
1 ¾ C water
Grease Dutch oven bottom and sides, halfway up, with ½ T butter-flavored shortening.
Peel and slice thinly, 9 large potatoes.
Layer slices in pan, pouring liquid to slightly cover potatoes.
Sprinkle top with paprika.
Cover and bake until tender (about an hour @350 in conventional oven).
Soups and Main Dishes
BAKED BEANS
When you run out of ketchup, try making BBQ beans instead. Don’t bother substituting tomato sauce for ketchup in this recipe, because it just doesn’t work.
Pressure cook 2 3/4 C dry pinto beans in 2 1/2 quarts water until soft, 30-40 minutes. If beans are too hard, add 1/4 t. baking soda to bean water to soften beans more quickly. For added nutrition, beans can be soaked a day or two ahead, draining/rinsing every 24 hours, until barely sprouted.
Add:
2 C ketchup1 1/2 T molasses1 C sugar2 t. garlic powder1 t. onion powder1 t. dry mustard1/2 t. pepper1/2 t. clovessalt to taste Bake in covered Dutch oven for several hours.
BARBEQUE BEANS
Save time by using a pressure cooker to boil beans for 40 minutes instead of standard method of boiling 5 hours, but be careful. One time I absentmindedly removed the lid before depressurization, and the boiling water exploded in my face.
In 2 1/2 quarts water, pressure cook 2 3/4 C pinto beans, 30-40 minutes. Drain and add:
1 1/2 c water6 T tomato powder(you can sun-dry garden tomatoes during 3-month season, then crush)1 1/2 C sugar2 T molasses1/3 C + 1 T vinegar2 t. onion powder2 t. garlic powder2 t. dry mustard2 t. Worcestershire sauce1/4 t. clovessalt to taste
Heat through.
BBQ CHICKEN SANDWICHES (without ammo, do tamales instead to conserve meat)
We are used to eating foods already fortified with vitamins, such as breakfast cereal, plus taking multi-vitamins to make up the difference. When you run out of multi-vitamins, keep in mind that even though raisins and spinach are good sources of iron, the iron is more easily absorbed by your body through meat, so when you run out of tuna or canned chicken, ammo is an important alternative. Having meat during times of scarcity, such as springtime/growing season, is especially critical.
Mix:
10 cans lightly drained tuna2 T + 1 ½ t. chicken base1 C BBQ sauce (see BBQ Beans recipe if you don’t have BBQ sauce)
Spread whole wheat bread slices with mayonnaise, for sandwiches.
BEAN SOUR CREAM SOUP
Here’s one way to get sour cream. For most people, it’s not practical, but just in case, here’s one sour cream-based recipe. Mix ½ C cream with ½ C milk, shaking together with ¼ C white vinegar, letting it sit out a day or two until it thickens. (Deanna Duke, “Supereasy Homemade Cream Cheese and Sour Cream,” @MotherEarthNews.com, 10/31/2008) Your ancestors made it by leaving raw milk cream out for several days at room temperature, covering loosely to let a little air in. Be aware that unpasteurized milk can harbor unwanted bacteria that can make you sick, although it also contains healthy probiotics. Also, the sour cream won’t hold up as stiffly, because you haven’t added extra gelatins and thickeners. (“How to Make Sour Cream from Raw Milk,” by Sarah Tennant, May 18, 2010, @www.untrainedhousewife.com)
40 minutes at pressure, boil 2 ¾ C pinto beans. After draining and rinsing, mash together with:
2 2/3 C water2 C sour cream (no yogurt substitute)2 cans tomato sauce5 chicken bouillon cubes2 t. cumin1 1/8 t. sugar¾ t. onion powder½ t. parsley flakes¼ t. garlic powder¼ t. pepperpinch cayennesalt to taste
BURRITO CASSEROLE
Don't dry-ice beans. They can harden so much that it will take boiling with ½ t. baking soda to soften. If your beans have bug problems, you can stir a cup of diatomaceous earth into your 5-gallon bucket of beans.
Boil in pressure cooker until soft: 1 C pinto beansWhile beans cook, prepare a dozen corn tortillas, a batch of mozzarella cheese, and some salsa (see below). Drain and rinse beans after 40 minutes of the rocker becoming pressurized.
Using potato masher, mash beans, mixing with:
2 8-oz. cans tomato sauce1 T chili powder1 t. salt (add more salt, sugar, garlic, onion when using tomato powder)½ t. cumin¼ t. onion powder1/8 t. garlic powder
In a casserole dish, line the bottom with tortillas, tearing to fit as needed. Spread a layer of beans on top of the tortillas, then a layer of salsa, crumbling cheese on top of salsa. Spread a second layer of tortillas, beans, salsa, and cheese, repeating a third time until tortillas, beans, salsa, and cheese are gone. Cover and heat through.
Salsa: Chopped tomatoes, onion, garlic, cilantro, salt, cayenne pepper. (I like to add a small pinch of lemon-lime Kool-Aid for a zestier flavor. A tiny amount goes a long way, so be careful not to add too much.)
CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP
Small, pea-sized dumplings can also be substituted; just refer to a dumpling recipe from your favorite cookbook.
Begin boiling 2 C finely chopped vegetable of choice, i.e., carrots/celery, etc.
Meanwhile, mix:
3 ¼ C whole wheat flour¼ C white bean flour1/2 t. salt
Cut in:
1 T shortening
Knead in:
1/3 C + 1 T water
(Pasta should somewhat hard and less gooey than potato pasta)
Roll into long strings 1/8" thick; cut into 1/4" pieces. Boil 1 1/2 C at a time in boiling vegetables until noodles float to the top; then remove with slotted spoon. When finished, add desired amount of chicken bouillon (1 t./C water), and any more water if desired. Salt to taste.
15
CHICK PEA PATTIES 1 (short-term storage from canned garbanzo beans)
Popular in the Middle East, this high-protein patty can be fried in a little oil, much like a pancake, and served with ketchup or fry sauce. It can be served as a hamburger, or in pita bread with lettuce, cucumbers, and ranch sauce. Thin patties are the key to this non-deep-fry recipe, fried by the tablespoon and smaller than a pancake.
Drain, rinse, and mash:
2 15-oz cans garbanzo beans (chick peas)
Add:
1 1/2 T cumin1 1/2 t. salt2 t. corn starch2 t. parsley flakes1/2 t. onion powder1/2 t. garlic powder1/2 t. baking soda1/4 t. turmeric1/4 t. pepper 1 T vinegar
Form thin patties. Using a little shortening at a time, fry patties on both sides. Serve with ketchup or fry sauce.
CHICK PEA PATTIES 2 (long-term storage from gardened, dried garbanzos/chick peas)
The easiest way to dry your gardened chick peas (from WaltonFeed) or gardened beans like pintos, is to let them dry on the vine. Allow 120 days till harvest.
Mix:
3 C garbanzo bean flour3 t. parsley flakes*2 ¼ t. salt1 ½ t. cumin
1 ½ t. garlic powder¾ t. unsweetened lemonade powder¾ t. onion powder
¾ t. coriander½ t. baking soda½ t. pepper
Knead in:
1 C finely grated yellow crookneck squash or zucchini**½ C water1 T vinegar
In non-stick pan, fry by the tablespoon, flattening slightly in 1 T butter-flavored shortening per batch.
*For flavor variation, try substituting cilantro, green onion, or dill. Can be served with plain yogurt, mayo, and dill, inside pita bread.
**In the absence of vegetables to add, like grated carrots or mashed peas, reduce salt to 2 t., add 1 C water instead of ½ C water, and pour like a pancake.
CHILI 1 (3-month supply)
Since tomato sauce tends to interact with the can within a couple years, I only keep a 3-month supply of it.
Chili can be served with nutmeg milk. A sprinkle of nutmeg flavored with a spoonful of honey and a drop of vanilla, can help like Bean-o. Or, soak beans overnight/until they barely begin to sprout. Pressure cooking works, too.
Boil in pressure cooker 30-40 minutes until soft: 5 C pinto beans
(Don’t remove lid to stir while boiling; no need to stir; boiling water will explode in your face unless you cool covered pan in water first, to depressurize lid.)
Drain and rinse.
Meanwhile, mix together:
2 crumbled chicken bouillon cubes or 2 t. bouillon powder10 cans 8-oz tomato sauce (with tomato powder, increase salt & water)4 T beef bouillon1 t. celery seed6 T chili powder2 T cumin4 t. paprika4 t. oregano4 t. sugar2 t. cloves1 t. allspice½ t. onion powder¼ t. cayenne peppersalt to taste
Stir above sauce into softened, drained beans.
CHILI 2 (long-term supply)
I store several dozen boxes of tomato bouillon because it’s less than a dollar a box in the Mexican section of my local Wal-Mart. This is the same basic recipe as above, except tomato bouillon doesn’t absorb the spicy flavors like tomato sauce, so the spices are reduced. It also helps to mash the chili some, with a potato masher after it’s done.
Boil until soft: 5 C pintos
Meanwhile, boil until soft: 1 ½ C noodles
Drain, rinse, and mix together, adding:
3 tomato bouillon cubes, crumbled into 2 C water1 crumbled chicken bouillon cube or 1 t. chicken bouillon3 T beef bouillon3 T sugar4 T chili powder1 ½ T cumin3 t. paprika3 t. oregano½ t. celery seed¼ t. cloves¼ t. allspice½ t. onion powderPinch cayenne pepperSalt to taste
CATTAIL CHOWDER by Karen Kraczewski @the3foragers.blogspot.com If you’re allergic to pollen, this stuff can make you sneeze before it’s cooked. Cattail pollen is used by the Chinese to stop excessive bleeding, but the green pulpy “hot dog” is also used to bring on menstruation, so some women avoid it altogether while pregnant. I personally don’t, because there are dozens of other emmenagogues higher on the list, like ginger, parsley, basil, oregano, cinnamon, cumin, Rosemary, celery, sage, and pomegranates, and I never eat them in large quantities, anyway. These are not abortifacients--plants used by native women attempting abortion. I haven’t found any studies correlating miscarriage with any of these foods, but you have to make your own decisions. Cattail chowder is kind of like asparagus soup.
Saute 1 med onion; stir in ¼ C flour until it dissolves into the onion butter; stir in 2 C vegetable broth & 2 C milk. Stirring constantly, boil vegetables 15 minutes: 2 C diced potatoes, 2 C stripped cattail pollen, 1 chopped celery stalk, ½ diced red pepper, 5 bay leaves, salt & pepper to taste.
CATTAIL CASSEROLE by Euell Gibbons in Stalking the Wild Asparagus. New York: David McKay Co, Inc, 1962.
Mix: 2 C cattail pollen, 1 C bread crumbs, ½ C milk, salt & pepper to taste, 1 egg. Bake in casserole dish, about 25 minutes in conventional oven, (about 350).
(Below, L) You have to get out early in the spring to tap the starchy pollen out of the yellow flower tip, into a bag, to substitute for 30% flour in pancakes and biscuits. But if you miss it, the green “hot dog” directly underneath, can be snipped off intact, boiled and eaten with salt and butter, like a mini-corn on the cob or artichoke heart. (The inner stem—see center pic--is a fibrous non-edible, like the cob of the corn.) The key is to harvest B4 green “hot dog” turns brown. (L) Image by hungerandthirstforlife.blogspot.com
(Center) Directly below yellow tip is green “hot dog”, which tastes a bit like broccoli or artichoke heart. Is eaten like corn on the cob, is used in soups/stews,. Harvest this lower green seed pod pulp before “hot dog” turns brown. (R) Also, the mature seeds found in the brown “hot dogs” are sometimes fed to chickens.
CLAM CHOWDER for leftover soy grits after making stir-fry tofu
People often mistake poison iris for cattail early in the spring before the emergent cattail “hot dogs” can be pinpointed, because this is when the “cucumbery” cattail stalk base emerges—see (L) picture below. If the stalk is not encased in a sheath made of leaves (2nd pic below shows leafy sheath of edible cattail), don’t eat it: it’s probably wild iris. If the stalk stings or numbs your tongue, it is probably wild iris. Fall is the best time to collect cattail roots because they will be starchier than other times. Cover with water and boil: 2 C chopped cattail stalk base 1 ½ C chopped cattail roots, center fiber removed 1 bay leaf
While cattail boils, mix separately: 2/3 C milk powder ½ t. pepper 1/8 t. thyme1 ½ T parsley flakes ½ t. celery seed ¾ t. onion powder ¼ t. garlic powder
Before vegetables are finished, make soy grit noodles. (see Soy Grit Noodles) When vegetables are soft, don’t drain. Whisk milk powder-herbs into softened cattails/liquid until milk powder lumps are dissolved. Add soy grit noodles and boil 5-6 minutes until noodles are done. Remove bay leaf, adding either 2 T butter-flavored shortening or 1 C nondairy creamer. Salt to taste. 3 rd pic below: Poison!
Image by ildedibles.alimar.me Image by flickr.com Image by ontariowildflower.com Image by eattheweeds.com, “Wild Flours”
(L) Tender stalks at the base taste like cucumber. Eat raw from the bottom, peeling back the leaves as you move up the stalk. If it stings or numbs your tongue, you’re eating poisonous iris stalk, often growing right next to cattails. (2) Cattail stalks emerge from a sheath made of gray-green/blue-green leaves; (3) iris stalks have no sheath, and are yellow-green. (R) To pull roots, peel back leaves from center stalk, then pull center stalks straight up. Can be harvested all year, except when ground is frozen. Root system promotes regrowth when picked. Peel black skin off, separating core from outer starchy section. Bake core until black; grind & use like Pero or Postum. Outer starch has fishy flavor conducive to clam chowder. To tame the flavor, it can be soaked--starch falls to the bottom & can be dried out, ground, and used like corn starch to thicken soups, etc.
HUMMUS 1 (fast & easy from a can)
Fast and Easy Hummus is for your 3-month supply; the Hummus Long-Term Storage Version is for your own, home-grown garbanzo beans, which are offered in bulk through WaltonFeed.com. You can treat dried chickpeas just like seeds for planting.
Drain without rinsing: 4 15-oz. cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
Pour into bowl with: 2 T + 1 t. cumin 3 t. garlic powder 1 t. unsweetened lemonade powder
Mash/puree. Spread hummus onto Corn Tortillas, or eat with veggies and sauce in pita bread.
HUMMUS 2 (Long-Term Storage Version)
Like wheat and beans, chick peas can also be sprouted in water for added nutrients.
Boil in pressure cooker, 3 ½ C dried chick peas, at least 45 minutes, until softened. (Garbanzos are harder than beans, and take longer to soften.) Puree/mash drained peas, reserving liquid. Mix mashed peas with:
1 3/4 t. unsweetened lemonade powder4 T cumin2 T garlic powder
salt to tasteamount of reserved liquid to desired moisture
Serve inside prepared pita bread with cucumbers and Ranch dressing, or mix into rice and vegetables.
LASAGNA
I recommend buying the boxed lasagna mix at Wal-Mart for your 3-month easy-to-eat supply because it‘s inexpensive and less work, making a batch of cottage cheese to add to it for more protein (see cottage cheese recipe at the bottom of this page). Here‘s the long-term recipe: nothing fancy, but hearty and good.
*See Potato Pasta or Whole wheat pasta recipe if you need noodles. (For added protein, you can substitute 1 T bean flour for 1 T wheat flour in pasta mix, for each C flour. To save time, skip boiling noodles in water; cut pasta dough for boiling in lasagna sauce.)
In saucepan, stir together:
2 C milk powder1 C tomato powder or 7 cans tomato sauce, omitting 3 C water below¼ C sugar1 1/2 T salt (reduce salt if using tomato sauce)4 t. garlic powder4 t. basil4 t. dried parsley4 t. beef base3 t. onion powder2 t. oregano1 t. black pepper
Stir in and heat to boiling: 4 C water uncooked pasta
Milk will begin curdling into white, cheesy dots in sauce. Keep stirring until pasta is cooked through. Remove from heat and stir in ½ t. baking soda.
* If using dry pasta, it needs to be cooked in water, not tomato sauce.
Cottage Cheese (for boxed lasagna)--In pan, heat 1 gallon water. Whisk in 2 ¾ C milk powder. Heat to almost boiling, removing from heat. Stir in ¾ C vinegar. Cool to lukewarm. Strain through cheesecloth or pillowcase. (Strained liquid whey cannot be saved to make ricotta cheese, as the all the albumin protein has already been separated by the acid in the vinegar. With hard cheeses requiring rennet, whey can be used to make ricotta, since some albumin protein remains in the whey runoff.) Don’t mix in the salt until you taste the boxed lasagna: it’s pretty salty.
For other recipes, to make queso fresco cheese, or a hardened, crumbly version of cottage cheese, press liquid out of cottage cheese, kneading in salt to taste
MINESTRONE SOUP
For a creamier soup, you can grate in some acorn squash. It is a natural soup thickener.
Boil in pressure cooker, under pressure about 30 minutes:
1 ½ C pinto beans
Remove and open after depressurized, draining and rinsing.
In big non-stick pot, sauté in water:
1 small onion, chopped7 chopped celery stalks or 3 C chopped, skinned watermelon rind5 finely chopped garlic cloves3/4 t. chicken bouillon¾ C water, added slowly as needed during sautéing
When vegetables are wilted, pour them into large stock pot, stirring in:
7 ½ C water1 ¼ C uncooked elbow macaroni2 ½ C skinned watermelon rind, chopped2 medium chopped yellow summer crookneck squashes, unpeeled5 large, chopped tomatoes3 T chicken bouillon1 T + ¾ t. salt
Remove from heat when vegetables and noodles are tender.
Optional: Top each serving bowl with crumbled Queso Fresco Cheese. (See Lasagna recipe for instructions.)
ONION SOUP
Tastes good with cheese and croutons or bagel chips.
Have an extra quart of water ready near your cook top before you begin. Use a big non-stick pot instead of a frying pan. When you sauté in water, you only add a couple spoonfuls of water at a time, so you’re not just boiling the onions. Watch carefully as the water runs out, to add more and avoid burning. If you accidentally add too much water at a time, don’t worry; it will evaporate fast.
With spatula, sauté in water:
8 large onions (my first pick is yellow and red, then green, but any will do)2 t. salt
When onions become caramelized (about 20 minutes), and pan is almost dry, add:
16 C water¼ C chicken bouillon (4 T)2 T parsley flakes2 T salt4 t. beef bouillon1 t. pepper¼ t. paprika¼ t. thyme
½ C vinegar2 T Worcestershire sauce
Crumble a batch of salted queso fresco cheese into the soup. (see Lasagna recipe)
Put a handful of bagel chips or croutons into each serving bowl.
PIZZA
If you buy rennet to make cheese separately from tomato sauce, make sure it is powdered and not liquid, to avoid spoilage when stored without refrigeration. Without rennet, you make up powdered milk, adding ½ the amount of water usually added to make up milk, stirring it into the pizza sauce. The milk will curdle into a sort of cheese, which you can strain out of the pizza sauce and spread onto the crust, as a tomato-ey cheese goo.
Dissolve: 1 1/2 C water1 T yeast1 t. sugar¼ t. vitamin C powder
Add: 1/4 t. basil oregano
parsley flakes1/8 t. garlic powder
thyme rosemary
pinch of pepper cayenne
1 1/2 t. salt1 T butter-flavored shortening
Knead in: 4 C whole wheat flour
Roll/press onto greased cookie sheet with sides.
Let rise. Poke holes in uncooked crust with fork, to keep crust from bubbling up. Spread 2 T pizza sauce over uncooked crust, sprinkling grated mozzarella cheese on top.
(Conventionally, bake 5 minutes over high heat (500); remove from oven and reduce heat (425), adding 2 T sauce + cheese, baking until melted.)
Pizza Sauce
1 8-oz can tomato sauce 1 t. basil¾ t. oregano½ t. garlic powder¼ t. paprika1/8 t. sugar
PUMPKIN SOUP
When you collect seeds, some will be damaged by the knife you used to cut open the squash. Others will not be fat and mature enough to plant, so save the rejects for stir-fried veggies n’ tofu. They will provide trace amounts of vitamins, protein, and fat.
In saucepan, mix:
3 T milk powder2 T chicken bouillon1 1/2 t. salt1/2 t. parsley flakes1/2 t. pepper1/4 t. onion powder1/4 t. garlic powder1/4 t. thyme1/4 t. paprikapinch nutmeg
Stir in:
4 C mashed pumpkin6 1/2 C water
Heat through.
PUPUSAS
This cheese- or bean-filled corn patty reminds me of grilled cheese sandwiches, and tastes good dipped in tomato soup.
Knead together: Scant 4 ½ C masa flour, ¾ t. salt, 2 1/2 C water
Make about 2 dozen thin patties, filling each with a tablespoon of refried beans. Fold dough around beans, tearing off excess dough on edges. Fry on greased, non-stick surface, pushing patties down firmly with spatula for flat, even cooking. Flip and cook like a pancake when patties are lightly browned.
Dip in tomato soup.
RICE AND PASTA
I store white rice even though it's not as healthy as brown rice. The outer shell of brown rice has oils that go rancid quickly. When you run out of rice, you can use quinoa or amaranth.
Lightly toast the following by sautéing in water (this is your first time; keep about 2 C water ready, pouring in a few tablespoons at a time. If you accidentally pour in too much, don‘t worry because it will evaporate fast.
1 ½ C broken spaghetti4 ½ C uncooked rice2 t. onion powder1 1/2 t. celery seed1 ½ t. garlic powder1 ½ t. thyme1/3 C parsley flakes¼ C chicken bouillon
Add:
6 C water
Boil.Reduce heat, simmering 20 minutes covered.
Salt to taste.
SPAGHETTI
If you don’t have meat, adding white bean flour to the pasta can add protein. Whey or milk powder can be added to the tomato sauce, available at Honeyvillegrains.com. Homemade tofu can be sautéed in, as well.
In saucepan, heat:
14 cans 8-oz. tomato 3 t. garlic powder¼ C sugar3 t. onion powder4 t. basil4 t. dried parsley2 t. oregano1 t. black pepper4 t. beef base½ t. baking soda
Mix with hot pasta. (See Pasta recipes.)
SPAGHETTI-OHS
Vinegar is not only good for making spaghettios; it has beneficial health properties in an active, everlasting culture, which you can either make from scratch (see Vinegar recipe), or from feeding an already-prepared live culture from the health food store, with non-chlorinated water and starchy leftovers like potato peels or apple cores. To make your own non-chlorinated water, let tap water sit uncovered for 24 hours, to evaporate trace amounts of chlorine. Or, in case of emergency, if you’ve added ¼ t. bleach powder to a 50-gal. barrel of water, remove cap from barrel for 24 hours to evaporate chlorine.
Some people drink a mixture of 1 T uncooked, homemade vinegar with 1 C water, once daily, to help supply healthy probiotics for the intestinal tract.
Prepare either 3 C dry elbow macaroni by boiling and draining, or prepare Wheat Pasta or Potato Pasta.
Heat with Sauce:
1 T + 2 t. salt1 C milk powder½ t. ea: oregano, basil, onion powder, and garlic powder¼ C apple cider vinegar6 C water8 cans 8-oz. tomato sauce
SPLIT PEA SOUP
Even though pressure cooking works faster for beans and legumes, it’s not a good idea for split peas, as they will disintegrate and explode out the hole on top. Soak overnight and then it only takes 40 minutes to boil.
Simmer in plain water until soft:
7 C split peas
By now, they may be a little mushy; it may not be practical to drain.
Add:
8 ½ t. chicken bouillonHeaping ¼ t. celery seed½ t. onion powder1 ½ t. saltScant ¾ t. pepperScant ¼ t. marjoram
Stir in up to 5 2/3 C water as needed.
Heat through.
STIR-FRY
Veggies that usually get steamed and buttered can be put into a stir-fry, like cauliflower, broccoli, and squash, to conserve butter, which is hard to get in an emergency. Don’t forget the watermelon rind, cutting off the green outer skin. We are used to having pre-packaged foods with vitamin supplements added to them, but in an emergency, we have to grab all the vitamins we can get. We think of these rinds as garbage, but they contain vitamins A, B-6, C, magnesium and potassium, and are especially healthy for pregnant women, for preventing swelling. http://www.watermelonrind.com/watermelon-rind-nutrition-and-pregnancy.html
Corn on the cob, fresh pea pods, cucumber and celery—these make good finger foods or salad extenders.
Tomatoes and green beans can be canned if you store extra canning lids.
Spinach, chard, and beet greens can be dried in the sun for soups and stews, which you’ll need in the springtime.
Beets and turnips, carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes, can be buried several feet under, surviving into springtime when you’re waiting for crops to grow.
Prepare Pasta, either potato pasta or wheat pasta.Marinate a batch of chopped tofu in soy sauce.
Saute:
4 C skinned watermelon rinds1 C chopped broccoli1 C chopped cauliflower4 C chopped cabbageTofu, added last
Add soy sauce to taste, with an optional sprinkle of powdered ginger.
Top with salsa, crumbled queso fresco cheese, and lettuce As an alternate method of preparation, the Indians cooked this by wrapping the patties in the ears of corn to retain moisture, then baking it on hot rocks, without frying in oil. If you don’t have fresh, green ears of corn, the dried ears can be soaked in hot water.
Boil until corn sticks to sides of pan :
4 1/3 C corn meal3 ¾ t. seasoned salt1 T sugar1 ½ t. salt2 ½ t. corn starch1/8 t. cayenne pepper3 C water
Form flat, thin pancakes and fry in 1 T shortening at a time.
TAMALES
You can make your tuna last longer by using your tuna in tamales instead of BBQ sandwiches. Instead of putting the tuna in BBQ sauce, you add chicken bouillon to the tuna and let it marinate before draining off the oil and reserving it for the tamale dough. By itself, the tuna will taste over-salty, but the finished product will be ok.
Without draining, mix 5 cans of tuna in oil into a glass bowl, stirring in:
1 T chicken bouillon1 small onion, chopped super-fine1 large, mild chili pepper, de-seeded and finely chopped (green or red)1 drained can olives, chopped
Cover and marinate 45 minutes. Meanwhile, heat pan of water and soak 2 dozen large, dried corn husks. Put weight on top to keep firmly submerged in water.
Also, finely chop, boiling: 2 large, peeled beets 5 large carrots 1 C dried spinach/chard/beet tops
Drain vegetables when tender. Drain oil from marinating tuna, cutting tuna oil into:2 C masa flour premixed with 1 t. baking powderStir in: 1 C waterStir tuna mixture into boiled vegetables, adding salt to taste.Line bottom 2/3 of each corn husk with masa dough, half an inch thick, plopping 1 T tuna mixture into the middle of each piece of dough. Roll together and tie end pieces of corn husks over exposed portions, with rubber band or string. Heat through.
TOFU
Tofu is coagulated soy milk curds. Even though there are untreated soy products available like textured vegetable protein (TVP), soy milk, and energy bars, they are often supplemented with extra vitamins because of their tendency to block the body’s ability to absorb calcium and iron, and other vitamins, too. Soy beans were not introduced as a food in Asia until this process took place. I recommend ordering several pounds of terra alba (gypsum or calcium sulfate) at culturesforhealth.com, in place of apple cider, nigari, and Epsom salt coagulants, to obtain a higher calcium yield. Info fromhttp://www.lafujimama.com/2009/09/how-to-make-tofu-no-fancy-equipment/ .
A) Soy Milk
Grind into flour (don’t worry if flour isn’t superfine): 1 1/3 C soy beans Boil 2 qts water. Remove from heat, whisking in soy flour until lumps are dissolved.
Strain through sieve about 3 times, scooping out the soy grits each time.
Pour a 4th time, through a pillowcase or lint-free cloth, massaging the liquid out. It takes about 15 minutes to strain through cloth. Wring out excess liquid. Scrape remaining soy grits out of cloth, into the rest of the grits, about 2 C. Set to the side. After it cools to (warm) room temperature, you can ferment into C) Soy Grits on p.36. Meanwhile, make tofu out of remaining soy milk on p.35.
1)Heat soy milk in large pan until boiling, constantly scraping bottom of pan with spatula to avoid burning. Liquid will be very foamy. Remove from heat.
2) Stir in 1 C water, premixed with 1 T gypsum (terra alba or calcium sulfate) stirred in.
3) Cover pan for 15 minutes.
4)1st strain thru colander; 2nd strain thru lint-free cloth or pillowcase, squeezing out excess liquid until tofu is chunky and somewhat dry.
5)Press tofu into mold; cover & refrigerate until needed. Although most recipes recommend draining the tofu in a specially weighted press, I personally find that squeezing out the excess liquid through a pillowcase is easier.
C) Soy Grits (for clam chowder noodles)
Although tempeh is a more obvious product to make from soy grits, its starter culture only has a 6-month shelf life, and even though more tempeh can be fermented out of the prior batch, it will eventually peter out. The average person can’t produce more tempeh starter culture, but it’s easy to keep a kefir culture going indefinitely. I got this idea from wildfermentation.com under Fermented okara, by contributor campfiredan on 7/22/09, who adds boiled wheat berries for texture, and gluten to hold it together, steaming it for an hour into “soysage” before frying in spices like below. Cattail starch might be an acceptable substitute for gluten in a clam chowder-based “soysage”, but my recipe, below, makes noodles.
You’ll have app. 2 C soybean mush strained out of the soy milk. Thoroughly mix ½ C kefir milk/yogurt into mush and keep in warm glass jar for 2 days to ferment, reducing excess phytic acid to become more digestible. Keep lid slightly ajar to provide kefir culture oxygen. After 36-48 hours’ fermentation, knead in the following to the kefir mush, to turn into high-protein noodles for clam chowder:
1 T + 1 t. salt1 T sage2 1/8 t. garlic powder½ t. allspice¼ t. pepper¼ t. cayenne pepper1/8 t. thyme
Roll dough into ¼” cylinders, slicing into noodles every ¼ “. Squeeze the center of each noodle between the index finger and thumb. The indentation helps it cook more evenly in the middle. Boil noodles in clam chowder.
TOMATO SOUP
At Mr. Brown’s Blogspot, you’ll see how to make starter cups for your tomato seeds, out of newspaper. You wrap cut paper around a real cup, molding the shape into place, then removing the cup. They say cardboard toilet paper tubes and egg cartons work, too. http://mrbrownthumb.blogspot.com/2007/03/seed-starting-pots-from-newspaper.html Mix:
3 cans 8-oz. tomato sauce (if using homemade canned tomatoes, add extra salt, sugar, onion, and garlic, if you have not yet done so, boiling them down to a thicker consistency)1/3 C milk powder whisked into 1 C water
Heat in order to whisk out milk lumps.
VEGETABLE BEEF SOUP
My 11 year-old son invented this recipe, and it fits well into my 3-month storage.
Mix and heat:
1/3 C dry milk powder2 t. beef base (bouillon)2 cans mixed vegetables, juice included1 1/2 C water
Breads & Grains
BAKING POWDER
You are more likely to run out of baking powder than baking soda, which is why this recipe is included, plus there‘s a recipe for vinegar so you can keep baking. You don’t have to worry about switching from baking powder to baking soda, because I’ve already inserted the amount you’ll need into your recipes (except lemon filling), even when the baking powder is removed. The main thing to remember is not to add too much baking soda, because it makes your breads and cakes taste like aluminum. Half a teaspoon works for an average-size recipe, like a recipe for pancakes in your favorite cookbook. Doubling the recipe, I’d add just ¾ t. baking soda; once in a while, I add a whole teaspoon, but only when the flavors in the recipe mask the baking soda, like in a chocolate dish, or something with lots of cloves, cinnamon, and allspice. Baking soda and vinegar combined, produce carbon dioxide, a gas that lifts the batter or dough while baking; the corn starch dries out the mix enough for lift to take place. Careful not to overdo corn starch; I usually skip it because sometimes it steals away flavor due to high absorption. I make sure to stir a little diatomaceous earth into stored corn starch to avoid bugs.
Mix:
1/2 t. baking soda 3/4 t. corn starch or rice flour 1 T apple cider vinegar
BAGELS
Vitamin C powder is available for only a few dollars a pound at Herbalcom.com, but don't order until you're ready to get the rest of your bulk herbs. Vitamin C has a natural glutenizing effect on bread dough, making it softer and more pliable, but is less expensive than gluten, available at Herbalcom.com. But don’t plan on gaining extra C from cooked vitamin C, as the heating process destroys some of the powdered vitamin. (In its natural form, such as in fruits and vegetables, it is less susceptible to heat damage.
Mix:
2 T yeast1 T sugar¼ t. Vitamin C powder3 C + 2 T warm water2 ¾ t. salt1 ½ C raisins
Stir in/knead:
8 1/3 C whole wheat flour
Knead 5 minutes. Dough will feel slightly grainy. Don't add more water; bagels will absorb moisture when boiled.
Divide dough into 25 equal portions and roll into rod shapes, to fit better on cookie sheet. Let rise.
Boil each bagel 2 minutes, turning every few seconds to prevent sogginess.
Bake on greased, covered cookie sheet in solar oven until tops begin to brown.
BAGEL CHIPS
You can afford your kefir starter culture by buying less yeast. Only buy 1 lb. of yeast because a kefir culture can leaven bread.
Prepare bagels. Cool. Slice ¼” pieces.
Saute in batches, ½ T butter-flavored shortening at a time.
Sprinkle with garlic salt.
BISCUITS
It helps to conserve wheat with the substitution of a little corn meal in the place of some of the wheat flour, as wheat is harder to grow than corn. You’re likely to run out of wheat much faster than corn.
Mix:
2 C whole wheat flour3 T milk powder2 t. baking powder1/2 t. salt1/2 t. baking soda
Cut in with fork:
2 T butter-flavored shortening
Stir in:
1/2 C + 1-2 T water, as needed1 T vinegar
Knead over lightly floured board until dough doesn't stick to hands.
Roll 1/2" thick over lightly floured surface; cut biscuit rounds with small canning lid.
Bake on lightly greased cookie sheet in solar oven, covering with dark, inverted cookie sheet to trap heat.
CINNAMON BREAD STICKS
You can adapt these to monkey bread instead, digging a shallow hole in the ground, about the size of your Dutch oven, to build a fire inside. Place an oven rack on the ground above the hole, where you can lay your Dutch oven. Shape 15-20 balls from the dough, rolling first in melted shortening, and rolling again in cinnamon sugar.
If you have charcoal, you can line the bottom of the hole with it. Place Dutch oven in hole with lid on. Put some more hot charcoal on top of lid, then cover with dirt for insulation. Or, try it with hot rocks first heated in a cook-fire. Save leftover ashes for making hominy/nixtamal.
Dissolve: 1 1/2 C water1 T yeast1 t. sugar¼ t. vitamin C powder1 ½ t. salt
Knead in: 4 C whole wheat flour
Roll/press onto greased cookie sheet with sides.Let rise. Poke holes in uncooked crust with fork, to keep crust from bubbling up.
Cover with another cookie sheet (make sure it’s dark).
Let rise in warm place.
Bake, covered, in solar oven until dough is cooked through. (Conventionally, bake 5 minutes over high heat (500);
Whisk together 5 minutes:
Spread Butter Mixture:
1 T water1 T butter-flavored shortening1/8 t. sugarPinch salt
Sprinkle on 2 T cinnamon-sugar. (1/4 t. cinnamon, 1 3/4 T sugar)
Slice into sticks.
PAN BREAD
For variation, add cinnamon-sugar to the top, with raisins in the dough. It tends to be bland without the added flavor of cinnamon, garlic, etc.
Mix:
3 1/3 C all-purpose flour½ C corn meal1/4 C white bean flour1/2 t. baking soda
Add:
1/2 C water1 T vinegar
Knead on lightly floured board, then roll into circle, about the size of your biggest frying pan. Mark large X across the bread. (Irish soda bread is easier to pull apart this way.)
Grease frying pan with 1 T butter-flavored shortening. When pan is hot, place round in pan and cover, covering and cooking at medium heat about 5 minutes. Turn and cover, cooking 5 more minutes.
Spread 1 T butter-flavored shortening on top, whisked 5 minutes into 1 T water, with 1/8 t. sugar. Sprinkle with garlic salt.
(ORIGINAL) CORN BREAD
During the 3-month growing period when squash is unavailable, substitute a can of creamed corn. Since corn bread is a year-round staple, here are some rough estimates to help you substitute whatever’s available. Banana Squash--decrease water to 1/3 C; Summer Yellow-Neck--decrease water to ¼ C; Zucchini--decrease water to ¾ C.
1 ½ C corn meal1 ½ C whole wheat flour1/3 C sugar (my top pick is banana or sweet meat because you can omit sugar)4 ½ t. rice flour3 ¾ t. baking powder1 ½ t. salt1 t. baking soda
Stir in:
1 ¾ C finely grated sweet meat or butternut squash1 T vinegar
Grease bottom and sides of Dutch oven, halfway up, with ½ T butter-flavored shortening. Spread batter across the bottom.
Grease underside of Dutch oven lid with the following mixture:
1/8 t. salt1/8 t. sugar1 T butter-flavored shortening whisked 5 minutes into 1 T water
Place greased lid on Dutch oven, baking in solar oven until toothpick comes out clean. (Conventionally, 450°, 25-30 minutes.)
CORN BREAD (gluten free)
Looks and tastes just like your average corn bread, only holds together better for peanut butter or jam.
Mix:
2 C corn meal2 C masa flour1/3 C milk powder¼ C sugar3 t. baking powder½ t. baking soda1 ½ t. salt1 ½ t. corn starch
Stir in:
3 C water1 T vinegar
Spread on bottom and sides of iron skillet:
1 T butter-flavored shortening
Pour in batter and spread Butter Mix on underside of Dutch oven lid.
1 T butter-flavored shortening1 T water 1/8 t. sugar1/8 t. salt
Cover and bake on cook top.
CORN MUSH
When you shuck your corn, save some of the green ears surrounding the silky strands. You can dry them and bake tamales in them another time. The easiest way to dry field corn is to let it dry on the ear, removing kernels when dry. Corn has more servings per cup than any other grain: about 5 servings per cup.
In saucepan, mix:
2 ½ C corn meal1 T + scant ½ t. salt2 ½ qts. water
Make sure to mix corn meal into water before heating. Heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat when mush begins to spatter.
CORN CRUNCHERS (LIKE CORN NUTS)
When I first began storing yellow dent corn (the larger granules of corn, meant for grinding into grain), I knew I wanted to put the cost savings into herbs and medicines for my family, but I didn’t know I could order prescription meds from non-U.S. pharmacies, like Canadian online pharmacies. They’re oftentimes more expensive than drugs sold in the United States, but this is where my budget is spent. As I’ve contemplated the “at least a year’s supply” statement made repeatedly by the current prophets and general authorities, I’ve prayerfully considered my own family’s specific needs, and decided that when it comes to medicine, I’m unwilling to have less than a 3-4 year supply of the things I’d be in jeopardy without. There are other products that I can produce in the garden, like St. John’s Wort for calm mood, and skullcap for headaches and swelling.
Soak a handful of whole, untreated field corn for 3 days. Dry thoroughly and deep-fry. Kernels will float to the top when finished.
CORN TORTILLAS
For variation, mix in 1 T finely minced jalapeno.
Knead together 5 minutes, until dough no longer sticks to hands:
3 1/8 C masa harina flour1 t. salt2 ¼ C water
Cover dough, resting it 1 hour.
Divide into 30 balls.
Roll into tortillas.
Cook on ungreased, non-stick skillet, 30 seconds on each side.
For bendable tortillas, lightly grease skillet.
CREAM OF WHEAT (Red Wheat)
For thousands of years, wheat and other grains have been feeding the masses without the modern convenience of tractors. If you have to grow it, here’s how our ancestors did it, according to one old-time farmer who used horses instead of tractors (my dad): Till large plot of ground. Use rakes to dig 2"-deep trenches in which to sprinkle the wheat. Water the field several times over the course of the summer if it is dry outside. Harvest when mature wheat has dried, using sickles, scissors, or knives. Throw the wheat on a hard floor and sanitize shoe bottoms. Have a group of people walk on the wheat all day, sweeping away the remaining chaff. With winter wheat (church wheat is spring, not winter), it’s easier, if you live in a sunny, Southern climate where late spring frost is not a factor:
Plant in the fall. If grass begins growing, it will die off through the winter. In the spring it will begin growing again, and does not need to be watered, ready for harvest by July. Note: before planting wheat, test each bucket's growth potential. When a moist sample of wheat will not sprout in a sunlit, somewhat airy jar for a couple of days, don't plant it. See Wheat Grass for more detailed instructions on sprouting wheat.
Boil 7 minutes:
4 2/3 C cracked/coarsely ground red wheat (white wheat is too grainy)10 ½ C water
Remove wheat from heat, stirring in:
1/3 C white bean flour1 1/3 C honey¾ t. molasses¾ t. salt¾ t. vanilla
High in fiber; don’t eat more than 1/3 C at a time.
CRESCENT ROLLS
This recipe will take up at least 2 cookie sheets, so start early in the day. If that’s too stressful, do dinner rolls.
Dissolve: 1 ½ T yeast2 T sugar1/4 t. vitamin C powder2 C water
In separate bowl, combine:
6 2/3 C whole wheat flour 3 t. salt
Cut in 2/3 C finely grated carrots
Combine yeast mix with flour-carrot mix.
Divide into 6 pieces. Roll into 14" circles. Slice 8 pie shapes into each circle. Roll each wedge towards the tip, pinching the tip to the roll. Bend into half-moon shape. Let rise on greased cookie sheet with sides. Invert 2nd (dark) cookie sheet and cover, baking in solar oven until tops brown. (Conventionally, bake 15-18 minutes at 350)
DINNER ROLLS
Available from the Church cannery are white beans, which create a complete protein in any wheat bread recipe. I substitute 1/3 C white bean flour for 1/3 C wheat flour in 1 cup of flour. The hand grinder, available from the Church cannery, is what you’ll need. Be sure to rotate the handle backwards every few turns to spur the beans through. When you’re done, take off the handle and remove grinder from board, shaking and tapping to loosen and extract what's left inside. Don’t dump the remains back into the flour because there will be a couple of unground beans left, which I wouldn't want to put into the current batch of dough.
Dissolve:
2 2/3 C water1 ¾ T yeast1/4 t. sugar1/4 t. vitamin C powder2 1/2 t. salt
Knead in:
7 C whole wheat flour
Form small balls and place side-by-side in greased cookie sheet with sides. Let rise till double. Invert 2nd cookie sheet (dark) and cover. Bake until tops are golden brown (30 minutes @350, conventionally). Turn upside down to empty pan; cool on room-temperature oven rack.
ENGLISH MUFFINS
As you experiment with adding white bean flour to breads and pasta, keep in mind that it works best in wheat-based foods, as opposed to corn-based breads. Corn cakes, corn bread, corn sticks, corn pone, and corn tortillas are a less desirable way to incorporate bean protein than English muffins, wheat bread, crescent rolls, or pasta.
Dissolve:
2 C warm water¼ t. vitamin C powder2 T yeast
Add:
2 ½ t. salt 8 1/3 C whole wheat flour
Knead. Roll ½” thick. Cut circles with wide-mouth canning ring. Let rise until double on baking sheet. Saute both sides in frying pan; (400°, 12 minutes conventionally) serve with
Honey-Butter:
1 C honey3 T butter-flavored shorteningPinch salt
When you run out of honey, you can mix powdered sugar with shortening, for mock honey-butter, but locally grown honey, uncooked, is my first pick because it contains local bee pollen, inoculating you against seasonal allergies.
FRENCH TOAST (for dried-out, hardened bread)
The protein in this recipe comes from white bean flour in your whole wheat bread, instead of buying the more expensive egg powder. I found a good idea from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious cookbook, dipping the bread in squash. Tastes good!
Bake ahead: 1 acorn squash
Prepare powdered milk mixture:
1/3 C milk powder½ C baked acorn squash, mashed1 ½ C water1/2 t. nutmeg
Dipping quickly, coat both sides of sliced bread in milk mixture. Fry.
Rub cooked pieces with several drops of milk, then dust with powdered sugar.
GARLIC BREAD STICKS
Having a 3-month supply, like corn meal, flour, and creamed corn, makes it possible to plant grains and other foods so there’s enough to eat if there’s a shortage. Marion G. Romney said, “We will see the day when we live on what we produce.” (Conference Reports, April 1975, p. 165)
Dissolve:
1 ½ C water¼ t. sugar¼ t. vitamin C powder1 t. salt
Stir in and knead:
4 C whole wheat flour
Roll into ¼” rectangle on lightly floured board and cut out sticks with pizza cutter.
Let rise on greased cookie sheet.
Bake until firm. (In conventional oven, 12-14 minutes @350)
Brush with 2 T butter-flavored shortening. Sprinkle with garlic salt.
(Quick) GRITS short-term storage
In large pot, mix:
3 1/8 C grits¾ C milk powder3 T powdered coffee creamer1 ½ t. salt½ t. pepper
Stir in 1 gallon + 2 ¾ C water2 ½ T butter-flavored shortening
Boil quick grits about 15 minutes, stirring until tender.
Remove from heat, stirring in 3 ½ T butter-flavored shortening.
(old-fashioned) GRITS long-term
Grits are available in various bulk amounts at WaltonFeed.com under Grain: Cracked Cereal. They will take about an hour to boil. For quick grits, check near the cream of wheat at Wal-Mart. Make sure to thoroughly stir in 1 C diatomaceous earth per 6-gallon bucket of grits, to avoid Indian Meal Moth invasion, which is impervious to oxygen deprivation.
An alternative to the hour and 15 minute cook time for old-fashioned grits, is to finely grind the dried hominy into flour, turning the mixture into pancakes. Don’t make them as thin as wheat pancakes, because the center needs to cook through. You may want to decrease salt according to taste.
Coarsely grind dried nixtamal (unsalted hominy) kernels into grits.
In large saucepan, stir together:
11 C cold water3 C grits2 ¼ t. salt
Heat, scraping the bottom with spatula to prevent burning. Old-fashioned grits usually take 1 hour and 15 minutes to cook through.
Dot each serving with Butter Mixture:
Whisk 5 minutes:
3 T butter-flavored shortening 3 T water½ t. salt¼ t. sugar
HOE CAKES (based on HillbillyHousewife.com)
There is a slightly different taste to home-ground corn because the tip has not been removed, but the taste difference is very slight, and it’s still good.
Mix:
2 C corn meal1 t. salt2 ½ C boiled water
Make patties out of the corn meal mixture, frying on both sides, in shortening. Top with Syrup.
Boil:
1 C sugar1 C water¼ t. butter-flavored shorteningpinch salt
Remove from heat.
Stir in: 1 t. vanilla 1/8 t. strawberry Kool-Aid
Hoe Cakes with butter and powdered sugar
HOMINY (Nixtamal)
B-3/Niacin is the most important reason for hominy. All over the Americas, native cultures remained healthy because of their age-old conversion of corn into nixtamal, in which the hull or outer skin covering was chemically removed with a lye base most often found in ashes. When newcomers adopted corn, disease ran rampant because they weren't nixtamalizing any of their corn. In the early 1800s, a disease called Pellagra killed over 100,000 Americans in the South, but, after the nutritional issues became apparent, native American dishes were then adopted, the most famous of which is Southern grits.
Initial warning signs for Pellagra are depression, anxiety, and insomnia, combined with skin rash wherever there is pressure or sunlight, as well as anorexia and weight loss, pain in joints and skeleton. Symptoms can be fully reversed if caught within a few weeks, by eating peanuts, and foods containing nixtamalized corn, such as corn tortillas, pupusas, tamales, grits, and hominy, as these foods provide niacin, especially in the absence of meat, eggs, and milk.
Scoop wood ash into a pitcher and sift through screen. Measure 6 C sifted ash into large, non-aluminum cook pot to prevent interaction between lye and aluminum. Pour 6 C dry field corn into ash pot. Cover with water and boil 3 hours, adjusting solar cooker bowl every so often to point the light at the pan. Stir occasionally and replenish water to cover corn when it boils down. In that time frame, the skin of the corn will loosen, and the little black tip of the corn will pop off. (Hardwood ash will only take an hour.) Drain and rinse, rubbing corn between your fingers to rub off skin of corn. Don’t worry if you don’t get every single piece, as long as the corn is well-rinsed from the chemicals. Measure out the amount you want for tonight’s dinner of hominy, salting to taste. Dry unused kernels on cleaned screen, for later use in pupusas, grits, corn tortillas, and tamales.
A Hominy Recipe
1 ½ C hominy1 ½ C cooked kidney beans or other beans of choice1 T olive oilGarlic salt to taste
JALAPENO CRUNCH BREAD
You can feed your chickens the squash pulp as a deworming agent.
Mix:
3 C corn meal1 C whole wheat flour2 T corn starch2 T rice flour4 t. baking powder2 t. salt½ t. baking soda
With fork, mix in:
3 C finely grated butternut squash (During initial 3 months, use a can of creamed corn instead)1/3 C finely diced jalapeno, seeds removed (canned or fresh)
Stir in:
3 C water2 T vinegar
Grease bottom and sides of Dutch oven with ½ T butter-flavored shortening.
Grease inside of lid with Butter Mixture:
1 T butter-flavored shortening whisked 5 minutes into1 T water1/8 t. salt1/8 t. sugar
Pour jalapeno batter into Dutch oven, covering and baking until inserted toothpick comes out cleanly.
OAT CEREAL
You can substitute honey in the place of brown sugar, keeping in mind that babies under 2 shouldn’t have raw honey.
With fork, stir together thoroughly:
2/3 C sugar2/3 C brown sugar3 ½ C dry milk powder1 t. strawberry Kool-Aid
Stir in:
12 C dry rolled oats
Pour ½ C water into each bowl of cereal and stir together.
Makes 2 dozen servings.
OATMEAL (PORRIDGE)
My preference is the addition of a little butter to my oatmeal, but survival requires extending the life of oil and shortening. While survival doesn’t require much oil intake, it is dangerous to run out completely. You can freeze a bag of bird seed-type sunflower seeds from the pet section of Macey’s, to grow in an emergency. It’s higher in oil than regular sunflower seeds, but it takes a press to extract the oil. A hand-cranked machine for about $150 online is most affordable when a group of neighbors can buy together. To extract oil, run sunflower seeds (you don’t need to shell them) through the press by the handful, while hand-cranking.
In large saucepan, stir together:
4 ¼ C rolled oats1 ¾ C milk powder
Stir in:
8 C water
Stirring constantly, heat until mixture turns into mush.
Stir in:
3/4 C honey3/4 t. salt2 t. vanilla2/3 C water
Serve immediately.
PANCAKES
The reason for shortening in food storage recipes is shelf life. Oil can go rancid within months, whereas shortening can last 10 years if kept cool. You can even freeze your oils if you want. I’ve frozen oil and peanut butter without freezer burn, several years at a time.
Mix:
2 ¾ C whole wheat flour1 C white bean flour1/4 C sugar3 t. baking powder1 ¾ t. salt1/2 t. baking soda
Add:
4 2/3 C water1 T vinegar
Fry in non-stick pan, greasing pan with butter-flavored shortening between batches.
Pancake Syrup
Boil, stirring constantly until thickened.
1 C sugar¾ C water¼ t. butter-flavored shortening
Stir in:
¼ t. unsweetened strawberry Kool-Aid1 t. vanilla
PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES
Several types of bread are included for various situations. If no oven is available, there's Pan Bread. In the absence of oil, potato bread or corn tortillas can also be made in a non-stick pan. If a solar oven is available, whole wheat bread can be baked during the brightest part of the day. There’s also a gluten-free corn bread. You can also grind oatmeal (before it’s cooked) and make it into pancakes, which can be used like bread.
JamIf your jam gets all used up, here's a recipe my 12 year-old helped me create. Due to low acid content, it’s not for canning, and it can’t sit out for days without refrigeration.
Heat and stir until boiled down:
2 C peeled, finely shredded zucchini2/3 C sugar1/4 t. strawberry Kool-Aid powder1/4 t. lemon Kool-Aid powder1/4 t. Watermelon Kiwi Kool-Aid powder1/4 t. corn starch
My 9 year-old wouldn’t eat apricot jam, so he started adding this to each prepared bottle before eating:
1/4 t. lemon Kool-Aid powder1/4 t. grape Kool-Aid powder1/4 t. fruit punch Kool-Aid powder1/4 t. Watermelon Kiwi powder (only available under Kool-Aid brand)
Growing Peanuts Available online, Tennessee Red Valencias need fewer days until harvest--about 100--and grow in many types of soil. They need to be planted outside when there is no more danger of frost.
Dig 8"-deep trench, planting 12" apart. Use care in peeling the shells off the raw peanuts before planting, because breaking the red skin will make peanuts not grow.
Poke an indentation in the softened soil and place peanut in. Cover with 4" dirt. Then, when peanut pods start to break the surface, cover again with dirt. You'll do this a couple of times through the summer until they're ready. Peel, bake, grind, and salt. Some of the oil will float to the top, which can be used for cooking. Of course, save some uncooked peanut pods to plant next year. Peanuts save lives because they are digestible by starving people, unlike wheat. Combined with sugar, milk powder, and vitamins, starving people recover more quickly than with atmit (oats, oil, sugar, milk, vitamins), the gruel used in the past in places like Ethiopia.
PITA BREAD & PITA CHIPS
Required in this recipe, oil was also necessary for the wise and foolish virgins. The only difference between the two groups of women, was that the foolish virgins failed to consider the consequences of being unprepared. When we rationalize, we assume someone else can rescue us, and I’m sure my neighbors and friends would want to help. However, if an emergency is so dire that we have to live “off what we produce,” my neighbors would be scrambling not only to help their immediate family members, but they would be expected to offer help to their extended family, like grandkids and so forth. To me, following the prophet is preferable to watching my kids go hungry.
Dissolve:
1 ½ t. yeast1 ½ t. salt1 t. sugar¼ t. vitamin C powder
Stir in: 3 C whole wheat flour
Roll into rectangle the size of cookie sheet with sides. Let rise in greased cookie sheet, until double.
Cover with inverted, dark cookie sheet the same size.
Bake in solar oven.
Cut out 25 pieces. Bread will be puffy; slice open one end of each piece to insert hummus, cucumbers, and Ranch dressing.
*For PITA CHIPS, decrease salt to 1/2 t. Don’t slice open after baking. Instead, rub top and bottom with 1 T each of butter-flavored shortening, sprinkling on garlic salt. Cut bread into bite-sized triangles, then sauté in hot pan.
POPPED AMARANTH
This can get kinda messy, so it needs to be popped outside in a large wok or Dutch oven. Your sand will start out white, but turn black from the heat. Don’t add amaranth until sand is really hot. Sand can be used over and over again. Remember, the sand is not dirty because the heat sterilizes it
Amaranth seed comes in a variety of colors—red, black, etc., and even in their wild form, they are just as nutritious. The reason I suggested the golden giant is because its tan seeds taste less gritty than some of the wilder varieties.
An old Mexican recipe is to mix in honey after popping, shaping into blocks like Rice Krispy treats.
Soak amaranth grains 8-24 hours, draining and rinsing, throwing out water.
Heat at least 1 qt. sand in large cook pot.While sand heats up, soak several cups of amaranth in water. If intent is to eat like popcorn, amaranth can be soaked in saltwater to add flavor. Amaranth can drip-dry in colander, but no need to dry it off. When sand is really hot, put a handful of amaranth onto hot sand. Stir sand continuously while amaranth begins to puff, less than a minute. Using thick hot pad, scoop up sand and puffed amaranth through metal colander. Sand will fall out the bottom, while amaranth stays in colander.
Popcorn can be popped in the same manner.
Popcorn and amaranth can also be cooked in a covered, oiled pan, making sure to tip the pan back and forth for even distribution of heat.
Popped amaranth by yumuniverse.com
(SOURDOUGH) PRETZEL STICKS
It has been estimated that approximately 1/10 of church members are currently storing food. When I stopped thinking of preparedness in terms of food, and began thinking in terms of the lives of family and friends, I became more successful at food storage. Vaughn J. Featherstone (Gen Conf Apr. 1976) said that we should not concern ourselves with such silly questions as to whether we would share. He quoted the bible: “Greater love hath no man than he should lay down his life for his friends.” He said, “I could not possibly eat food and see my neighbors starving.” Economical staples, like grains and legumes, can be planted for a shared harvest, whereas costlier meals involving a lot of canned meats, freeze-dried foods, and specialty proteins, cannot be harvested for increased sharing.
Mix:
12 C whole wheat flour ½ C dry milk powder2 ¾ T salt
Stir in:
4 ¼ C water1 ½ C vinegar
Knead.
Divide into 25 balls.
Roll each ball into 12" rods and place on greased cookie sheet (½ T butter-fl. shortening) in pencil-shape rather than pretzel-shaped to fit better on cookie sheet in solar oven.
Bake covered by 2nd dark cookie sheet.
SPOON BREAD (gluten-free)
When corn starch sits on my shelf for a while, it sometimes attracts bugs. Mixing a spoonful of diatomaceous earth into the corn starch helps curb the problem, but the reason you shouldn’t dust your fruit blossoms every 2 weeks with it is because it not only kills the nest eggs of the bugs that will hatch inside your fruit, but it will also kill helpful bugs, like bees. As for human consumption, it’s healthy stuff, providing trace minerals you need anyway.
In saucepan, stir together:
1 C corn meal3 T milk powder3 T white bean flour1 t. salt1 t. sugar1 t. baking powder
With fork, cut in:
1 T butter-flavored shortening
Stir in:
3 1/4 C water
Stirring constantly, heat just until boiling. Stir in ¼ t. baking soda and 1 T vinegar. Pour into casserole dish greased on all sides with 1 t. butter-flavored shortening, baking until inserted toothpick comes out dry, about 45-50 minutes in 375° conventional oven. Serve with butter.
STUFFING
Vinegar is an essential ingredient in this recipe and many others; don’t forget to keep an eye on apples this summer, as they are the main ingredient for making your own vinegar. Chopped, whole crabapples work just as well as apple cores and peels. See Vinegar recipe.
2 C corn meal2 C whole wheat flour2 t. baking powder2 t. salt1 t. baking soda
Stir in and knead together on board coated with corn meal:
2/3 C + 3 T water½ C vinegar
Grease cookie sheet.
Roll dough ¼” thick onto board coated with corn meal.
With canning lid ring, cut out circular-shaped biscuits, placing them on cookie sheet.
Cover with 2nd cookie sheet (dark) and bake in solar oven until firm. Biscuits will harden as they cool. Break/crumble biscuits. Meanwhile, heat the following mixture in saucepan:
4 ¼ t. onion powder1 ¼ T parsley flakes1 ¾ t. chicken bouillon¾ t. garlic salt¼ t. sage1/8 t. + pinch lemon pepper
2 C + 1 T water3 T butter-flavored shortening
Remove from heat. All at once, pour in crumbled biscuits, stirring until moistened.
WAFFLES
If you happen to have a camper's waffle iron, here's a treat you can toast over a cook fire.
Mix:
2 C whole wheat flour1/3 C milk powder1 T sugar½ t. baking soda¾ t. salt
With a fork, cut in:
¼ C butter-flavored shortening
Stir in:
1 2/3 C water1 C finely grated zucchini1 T vinegar
WHEAT TORTILLAS
Springtime is traditionally when indigenous subsistence farmers typically experience hunger. Grains and longer-lasting vegetables like beets, onions, and carrots, are essential. By digging several feet under, you can prepare your own root cellar to store garden-grown veggies. I’ve included a “berry” spaghetti squash recipe in the springtime menu with this in mind, as winter squash keeps better than summer squash.
Mix:
2 C warm water 3 ¾ C corn meal2 t. salt
Set to the side.
Finely grate:
1 ½ C carrots
Cut into carrot mixture:
3 ¾ C whole wheat flour
Fold corn meal water into whole wheat flour mixture, kneading together. Form golf-sized balls and roll into thin rounds. Cook on ungreased non-stick pan, flipping when brown dots appear.
WHOLE WHEAT BREAD
To collect yellow-neck, zucchini, and cucumber seeds, let some of them get overripe on the vine, until their skins harden. Seeds will be mature then, and can be removed. When removing thick skins off tough squash skin, avoid using potato peelers, as they can bend and break. Consider using thick skin as a handle when grating squash, instead.
2 1/2 T yeast3 T sugar1/4 t. vitamin C powder 1 1/3 C warm water
Stir in:
3 ¾ t. salt3 C finely grated yellow-neck summer squash Knead in:
10 C whole wheat flour
Grease bottom & sides of cookie sheet with ½ T butter-flavored shortening.Put in dough, spreading Butter Mixture under inverted dark pan covering it:
1/8 t. salt1/8 t. sugar1 T water whisked into 1 T butter-flavored shortening
Let rise.Bake until inserted toothpick comes out cleanly.
Conventional oven: bake @300°, between 45 and 60 minutes.
WHEAT PASTA
You can substitute 1/3 C white bean flour for 1/3 C wheat flour for added protein.
Mix:
7 C whole wheat flour1 t. salt
Cut in:
2 T shortening
Knead in:
2/3 C + 2 T water
(Pasta should somewhat hard and less gooey than potato pasta)
Roll into long strings 1/8" thick; cut into 1/4" pieces. Boil 1 1/2 C at a time until noodles float to the top, then remove with slotted spoon.
Salad
CABBAGE SALAD
In a standard lettuce salad, we often add grated carrots, cabbage, and spinach. Quinoa and amaranth leaves can be thrown in, too. The reason it’s ok to eat spinach, quinoa, and amaranth leaves raw, is that we don’t eat them in bulk amounts. When eating a lot of them, they should be boiled and rinsed, with the water thrown out, because of the phenol, oxalates, nitrates, and saponin.
In salad bowl, stir together:
½ t. unsweetened lemonade powder¼ C sugar
Stir in:
5 T water
Pour in:
8 C chopped, uncooked cabbage
Stir together.
ITALIAN DRESSING Adapted from allrecipes.com.
Food storage is the difference between something as small as celery seed vs. celery salt. The price difference is minimal, but by buying a pound of seed instead of salt, (available at herbalcom.com), you can plant the seeds for more celery. Storing water is the difference between buying 2-liter bottles of soda vs. canned soda. The bottles can be reused to store water, but don’t add chlorine to tap water, as it’s already treated.
Mix:
1/8 t. garlic salt1/8 t. onion powder1/4 t. sugar1/4 t. oregano1/8 t. pepper
1/8 t. thyme1/8 t. basil1/8 t. parsley flakes1/8 t. celery seed1 1/2 t. vinegar
2 t. oil3/4 t. waterSalt to taste
FROG EYE SALAD
To cut costs and improve nutrition, I substituted amaranth seed, which you can grow, to deliver you more fat, protein, and fiber than the traditional acini de pepe pasta. Also, I’m enjoying the self-set puddings available now. I don’t know all the brands, but the ordinary Wal-Mart brand puddings are now such that you whisk the pudding until the lumps are out, letting it sit 5 minutes until set.
Soak 8-24 hours in large nonstick pan: 2 C amaranth seeds, draining and rinsing through fine sieve
Cover and boil in 5 C water, 20-25 minutes. Remove from heat.
Make pudding, stirring together: 2/3 C milk powder 1 box instant pudding 1/8 t. lemonade powder Water to equal 2 C liquid when combined with juice of extra well-drained 20-oz can crushed pineapple juice of extra well-drained 15-oz can mandarin oranges Stir fruit into amaranth. When cool, stir in: 1 C coconut 1 C mini marshmallows Crushed pineapple Mandarin oranges Pudding
WHEAT GRASS
You can chew this if no other vegetables are available. Although it does not have all the vitamins of a completely balanced diet, it can save your life, especially when fresh greens are scarce. Just don't swallow the grass, as it contains plant cellulose, which humans can’t digest.
1) Soak overnight: 1/4 C wheat2) Rinse thoroughly and drain. Place in cup. Cover to retain moisture.3) In 24 hours: rinse, drain, place in cup, and cover.4) Same as #35) Line shallow dish with scrap material to hold water. Spread one layer of wheat on it, then water. Cover.6) In 24 hours, water. Cover.7) Same as #68) Same as #7 (grass will be pushing cover up)9) Cut grass. Don't wash it, as that will wash away the B-12. I’ve never bought a manual wheat grass juicer, but I understand Wal-Mart carries them. Juice tastes good mixed into canned pineapple juice. (got that tip from the David Christopher—thanks, David!)
Desserts
(SOUR) APPLE CRISP
It’s less expensive to store flavorings needed to make the foods you produce in your garden, like salt and cinnamon, rather than buying expensive, freeze-dried foods you will run out of. You can substitute vanilla sugar when your liquid vanilla runs out. Madagascar/Bourbon beans are available at Vanilla Products USA (http://stores.ebay.com/Vanilla-Products-USA ). Slit open bean pods lengthwise and let dry out. Grind and store in airtight bag w/out refrigeration, mixing small amounts of powder into sugar. It’s more pungeant after sitting a month.
Grease bottom and sides of Dutch oven that has a lid, with ½ T butter-flavored shortening. Evenly grease underside of lid, all over, with 1 ½ T butter-flavored shortening. (Shortening will drip onto surface of apple crisp as it heats.) Layer 10 C underripe apples, peeled, thinly sliced apples in dish.
Mix the following with sour apples:
1 1/3 C sugar ¾ C whole wheat flour1 t. baking powder1 t. rice flour¾ t. baking soda, cutting in:1 T vinegar
Sprinkle Cinnamon-Sugar Mixture on top:
3 T sugar½ t. cinnamon
On underside of lid, spread butter mixture:
1 T water1 T butter-flavored shortening1/8 t. sugarPinch salt
Cover and bake until apples are fallen and tender, or 55 minutes@325, in conventional oven.Top with Cream Syrup, shaking
together:¼ C sugar¼ C powdered coffee creamerPinch salt
Supplement oil intake with a large bottle of powdered creamer for each person. You don’t need the expensive dried, whipped topping; the main ingredients of coffee creamer are the same basic ingredients of frozen whipped topping, and anyway, getting through an emergency requires a ton of basic food, not small amounts of fancy food.
Slice large, uncooked spaghetti squash lengthwise, scraping out seeds and pulp. Coarsely grate 8 Cups. Mix in:
2 ½ T rice flour2 C sugar 2 t. unsweetened Blastin’ Berry Cherry Kool-AidScant ¼ t. unsweetened lemonade powder
Grease Dutch oven with 1 t. butter-flavored shortening.
Pour Upside-Down Pie Crust*** over the top:
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour1 1/2 T sugar2 t. baking powder3/4 t. salt
2 T shortening, cut in with fork
1 C water
Bake until top crust firms and squash is mostly tender but slightly crunchy like berry seeds.
Pour a spoonful of Cream Syrup over each serving.¼ C nondairy creamer powder¼ C sugarPinch salt2/3 C water¼ t. vanillaNote: My favorite flavor is the above Blastin’ Berry Cherry, but for occasional variation, I mix up a blueberry substitute: 1 ½ t. grape Kool-Aid powder & ½ t. Mixed Berry Kool-Aid powder instead of Blastin' Berry Cherry, adding in the same amount of lemonade powder above. Wal-Mart carries their grape and lemon brand for about 12 cents; Mixed Berry and Blastin’ Berry Cherry is available through Kool-Aid brand. ***Check out the easy, crunchy crust in the Cherry Cobbler recipe that you can swap out for this one, for a special occasion.
B R E A D P U D D I N G
Here’s a dessert based on your own sugar beet syrup, providing you with extra calories in the springtime, Modern conveniences like cars and running water, have led to lighter eating, but in a prolonged emergency, your body uses up more starchy carbs. I’d rather put my money into a handful of sugar beet seeds than expensive cheese powders or canned meats because I can’t replenish them like grains and gardened vegetables. Although it’s not necessary for survival, having sugar over a prolonged period makes it possible to eat many more foods; plus it helps sustain general morale when there’s a variety of foods to eat. To extract the sugar from a sugar beet, you grate it and boil it in a full pan of water. Keep boiling down the liquid, removing grated beets towards the end, straining them through a pillowcase for their remaining juices. Cool liquid slightly (so it doesn’t melt the plastic mold) and pour into ice cube trays. Let dry. When you’re ready to use it, boil it in a small amount of water, for rehydration. Before the mass production, this is how early Americans generally got their sugar. We think of sugar as something that makes us hungrier, due to the extra vitamins and minerals required by your body to process it, but in its natural form, whether in fruits or beets, it has vitamins and minerals.
In small, nonstick saucepan, cover and heat without water about 6 beet syrup cubes (about ¾ C) for app. 1-2 minutes, uncovering and rotating with spatula for a couple more minutes, so as not to burn. When cubes are hot, dump them onto a cutting board, chopping and smashing with serrated knife. Sugar won’t be perfectly granulated; there will be crystals too. (Heating the sugar softens it enough to grate or chop it.) Even though you would dissolve the sugar in or water for some desserts, like caramel popcorn, a syrup would make it harder to stir in the milk powder without lumping.
Mix very thoroughly: Chopped beet sugar ½ C milk powder ¼ t. nutmegWhisk in: 2 ½-3 C water Handful of dried fruit, i.e., raisins, apples, prunes, etc.With potato masher, mash in thoroughly:9-12 C stale bread crumbs (dried out home-baked, less; moister store-bought, more)¼ C chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)Pour over each serving, Cream Syrup: (vanilla sugar reduced for flavor)1 T sugar ¼ C nondairy creamer powder Pinch salt
(mint) BROWNIES
If you decide to grow mint, put it in a pot so it doesn’t take over your yard. But if you hate mint, skip this recipe because it doesn’t work without the mint, due to the reduced fat.
Mix together:
2/3 C whole wheat flour2 C sugar2/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder2/3 C grated zucchini squash (don’t substitute summer yellow-neck)1 ½ T rice flour1 t. salt5 crushed hard-candy mints
Stir in:
2 T water1/2 C butter-flavored shortening1 ½ t. vanilla
Bake in greased Dutch oven, covered. (25 min. @325° in conventional oven) Finished product should be bubbly and gooey until it cools outside the oven; toothpick test won’t work.
CHERRY COBBLER
Rhubarb leaves are toxic: don’t eat. Grab a few rhubarb roots at Wal-Mart, and by cutting off the flower and leaving a few stalks, the rhubarb can grow back every April. Don’t cut stalks in the Fall, as the leaves are needed to help the plant regenerate the next season. Don’t worry if stalks are green instead of red. To share, you can give a few of the roots away, for someone else to plant.
½ C sugar3 C whole wheat flour1 C uncooked oats¼ C rice flour1 t. baking soda½ t. salt
Stir in:
½ C water2 T vinegar
Grease Dutch oven with ½ T butter-flavored shortening.
Press 2 C of flour-oat mixture into the bottom and spread evenly.
Fill pan with 16 C chopped rhubarb stalks
Sprinkle 4 C sugar mixed with 2 t. cherry Kool-Aid powder over rhubarb.
Dot the top with remaining flour-oat mixture. For 5 minutes, whisk together Butter Mixture:
1 T butter-flavored shortening1 T water1/8 t. sugar1/8 t. salt
Grease underside of lid with butter mixture.Cover and bake until top looks toasted. (In conventional oven, 25 minutes @375)Drizzle Cream Syrup over the top of each serving: ¼ C sugar¼ C non-dairy creamerPinch salt2/3 C water¼ t. vanilla
CHOCOLATE/VANILLA PUDDING
From a box: This is less expensive than from scratch.
Just follow the directions, but don’t go to the trouble of mixing the milk powder out of water beforehand because the milk will clump. Simply mix pudding packet into 2/3 C milk powder, then add water and whisk out lumps.
CHOCOLATE WHITE CAKE
Whether you’re making cake or anything else, you need water. At the hardware store, we found water barrels with detachable tops, to collect rain water more easily than in empty juice containers. These dog water feeders have a wide mouth and catch water much better than the more expensive blue barrels. To sanitize untreated water, pour it through a pillow case and add ¼ t. bleach powder to your 55-gal. drum. Cover 24 hours, then uncover lid another 24 hours for bleach to evaporate. Why not pour in regular bleach? It’s filled with fabric brighteners, and when stored on your shelf, will leach out the bleach over time, rendering it useless.
Stir together:
1 pkg. white cake mix1 T rice flour
With fork, cut in:
2 C finely grated yellow crookneck squash
Grease Dutch oven with ½ T butter-flavored shortening.
Spread batter in bottom of pan.
In empty white cake batter bowl, mix 1 pkg. chocolate cake mix,
1 T rice flour2 C finely grated yellow crookneck
Spread over white cake batter.
Cover and bake in solar oven until inserted toothpick comes out cleanly.
(optional) Sprinkle ¼ C powdered sugar on top.
CHURROS
This is a big hit with the kids and their friends. To conserve oil, I bake instead of deep-frying, with an end-result of sweet, crunchy cinnamon.
Mix:
3 1/3 C whole wheat flour3 T sugar1 ½ t. salt
Cut in: ½ T butter-flavored shortening
Knead in:
1 C + 1 T water
Divide dough into 8 equal pieces.
Rubbing between both hands, roll each piece into 18” cylinder.
Slice 3 sticks of equal length out of each long cylinder.
Bake at 375° for 15 minutes, on lightly greased cookie sheet.
Cool slightly; shake in large, airtight bag with 2 ½ T melted, butter-flavored shortening.
Shake together in airtight bag with cinnamon-sugar (2/3 C sugar, 2 t. cinnamon).
CINNAMON ROLLS
Here’s a Christmas morning treat. Mashed carrots included, this is somewhat labor-intensive, so if you have small children, cinnamon bread sticks might be easier.
Dissolve:
¼ t. sugar¾ t. vitamin C powder1 T salt1 T corn starch2 ½ T yeast3 C warm water
Stir in: ¾ C mashed carrotsKnead in: 10 C whole wheat flour
Divide dough in half and roll out 2 rectangles on lightly floured board, 15” X 20” each.
Spread over each rectangle: 2 T butter-flavored shortening, leaving ½ inch margin on all sides, free of shortening.
Mix together: 1 C sugar 1 T cinnamon
Sprinkle ½ of cinnamon-sugar over each rectangle, smoothing it down with the back of a spoon.
In a lengthwise direction, roll each rectangle into a tight cylinder, sealing the edges by pinching them together. Prepare cookie sheet with sides, spreading on bottom and sides:
1/3 C butter-flavored shorteningSprinkle over bottom of pan: 1/3 C sugar
Slice each cylinder into 12 pieces, placing face-up on prepared cookie sheet. Let rise until double. Bake (350°) 30 min. or until inserted toothpick comes out cleanly. Glaze:
Mix: 2 T shortening 2 T water ¾ C powdered sugar 1 T vanilla
COOKIE DOUGH
Here’s a recipe with a no-bake option. If you’re out of chocolate chips, you can substitute 5 hard candy mints, crushed. They are less expensive than mint extract and will last longer. They are available in 1-lb. packages at the Dollar Tree. If you decide to grow mint, put it in a pot, and not in the yard, as it will spread everywhere, and you’ll never be able to uproot it.
(No-Bake Cookie Dough)
Mix:
2 pkgs. chocolate cake mix1 C chocolate chips3 t. rice flour2/3 C oil½ C water
(Baked Cookies)
Mix:
1 1/2 t. rice flour1 pkg. chocolate cake mix½ C chocolate chips½ C oil¼ C water
Bake by teaspoons on lightly greased cookie sheet. Cover cookie sheet with a dark cookie sheet that has sides. (Conventionally, 37 5°, about 8 minutes)
FLAN
Reading through Vaughn J. Featherstone’s talk of 1976, the general message was to live providently, love your neighbors, have some savings, stay out of debt, and he suggested various ideas that might help, like growing a garden, raising chickens or rabbits, etc. Just in case you have chickens, here’s a recipe with eggs. Below, preparing a sample-sized flan. (Your flan will fill the mold; if your solar oven doesn’t give you results quickly enough, you can pour the pudding into a pie pan instead, covering it with foil.
Heat ¾ C sugar beet cubes (about 6) in small nonstick pan over low heat, covering for 1 minute, then shifting around with spatula to prevent burning for another minute or two, until cubes are hot. Dump cubes onto cutting board and begin slicing them into pieces, alternating between crushing with the back of the knife. Sugar won’t be perfectly crushed; there will be some crystals mixed in.
In mold, mix Pudding very thoroughly: Scant 1 C milk powder ¼ t. cinnamon 1/8 t. cloves All but 2 T crushed sugar
Mixing in again, very thoroughly:
5 eggs
Whisk in 2 ¾ C water until lumps are gone and only sugar crystals remain.
Place mold inside Dutch oven, pouring ¼ C water between mold and Dutch oven. Cover and bake (350° for 1 hour, conventionally) until firm; the top will look like shriveled-up skin. Top each serving with remaining 2 T crushed sugar.
FRUIT CRUMBLE
A large can of fruit cocktail works just as well as a quart of canned fruit. Don't drain the liquid; the sugar and liquid add moisture and sweetening, even if the fruit cocktail is in natural, no-sugar-added juices.
Pour 1 qt. undrained, canned fruit (not mandarin oranges) into Dutch oven greased with 1 t. butter-flavored shortening.
Dump 1 box yellow cake mix powder on top. Spread cake mix powder evenly over canned fruit, without stirring in.
In small dish, whisk Butter Mixture together 5 minutes:
1 T water 1 T butter-flavored shortening1/8 t. sugarPinch salt
Grease underside of Dutch oven lid with butter mixture.
Cover and bake in solar oven until top is partly crumbly, partly sticking together, and fruit mixture is gooey like a cooked apple pie. (about 12 minutes in microwave, subbing plastic wrap 4 foil)
Top with Cream Syrup:
¼ C sugar¼ C non-dairy coffee creamer powderPinch salt
2/3 C water¼ t. vanilla
FUDGE MACAROONS
The best way to store coconut is in the freezer.
Heat in saucepan:
1/2 C water1/4 C butter-flavored shortening1 1/2 C sugar
Mix separately and add, after sugar is dissolved:
2 1/4 C uncooked oatmeal1 C flaked coconut1/2 C baking cocoa3 T milk powder
Stir constantly for 3 minutes.
Remove from heat.
Stir in:
1 t. vanilla
Lightly grease a cookie sheet. Spoon cookie mix by the tablespoon onto cookie sheet and let cool 20 minutes.
GINGERSNAP CAKE
Crusty like a cookie, moist inside like cake, gingersnap bread is also good with walnuts (optional).
Mix:
2 1/3 C whole wheat flour1/3 C sugar 1 T corn starch 1 t. rice flour1 t. baking powder1 t. nutmeg½ t. baking soda½ t. salt1/8 t. cinnamon1/8 t. ginger
With fork, cut in:
2 T butter-flavored shortening
Stir in:
1 C grated banana squash (I haven’t tried grated carrots yet, but since this is served in the spring, I’m guessing you’d add 1 extra tablespoon of molasses, adding 2 T water.)½ C molasses½ C chopped walnuts (optional)1 T vinegar
Grease Dutch oven with ½ T butter-flavored shortening. Pour in batter and bake until toothpick comes out cleanly. (conventional oven 350, 18-20 minutes)
Top with Cream Syrup:
¼ C sugar¼ C nondairy creamer powderPinch salt
2/3 C water¼ t. vanilla
JELLO
Here’s your standard Jello salad. If you happen to have an oak tree, you can add additional fat, protein, and vitamins to your diet by washing the tannin out of the acorns. The Indians spread the acorns out in the sun to dry, making it easier to pop the shells off. Grinding the acorns into flour, they rinsed out the bitter, tan-colored tannin with water, over and over, until the water ran clear and the mush was not bitter. (You can put the flour in a pillowcase during the rinsing process.) They spread the lumps of acorn flour out to dry, then mixed half flour, half acorn flour, into pancakes.
Drain large can fruit cocktail, pouring juice into 2-C measuring cup. Add enough water to measure 2 C liquid. Boil 2 boxes Jello in liquid, according to instructions on box. Pour Jello into casserole dish, adding fruit cocktail. Let Jello set for several hours, topping with 2 C marshmallows.
JELLY DONUTS
Dissolve: 1 ½ T yeast3 T sugar
¼ t. vitamin C powder2 T milk powder
2 t. salt½ C water
In separate container, cut in with fork: 2 T butter-flavored shortening6 C whole wheat flour
Stir yeast water into flour-shortening mix, adding: 1 t. vinegar2 ¼ C water
Knead. Roll into 1/4" thick rectangle, slicing it into 2 dozen squares. Loosen dough from counter, then leave to rise until double. Fry each side in ½ T butter-flavored shortening, until lightly browned. Slice open scones and fill, dusting outsides with powdered sugar:
"Apple Pie" Filling Mix in saucepan: 2 C sugar4 T corn starch2 T cinnamon1 t. nutmeg1 t. lemonade powder
Add: 7 C unpeeled, finely grated zucchiniStirring constantly, heat until sticky.
LEMON COBBLER
Yellow winter squash is pretty uncommon and you probably won’t have access to it, but Pat happened to give me some, so this recipe is for the seeds I have. It’s a yellow oval and forms a hardened crust around the outside, not to be confused with spaghetti squash. Maybe somebody out there knows more than I do, and could tell me more. I’ve only cooked this once, so there might be some tweaking needed.
Grate 2 large yellow winter squashes.
Soak 5 minutes, then heat to almost boiling:
3 t. unflavored gelatin 3/4 C water
Set to the side, mixing separately:
2 C sugar2/3 C milk powder¼ C minute tapioca1 ½ T unsweetened lemonade powder4 t. corn starch
Add to gelatin mixture.Stir in grated squash.
Pour into greased cookie sheet with sides, pouring batter on top:
1 ¼ C whole wheat flour1 C sugar1 t. baking powder1 t. rice flour1/3 C water
Cover with same-size, dark cookie sheet.Bake until firm. (Conventionally, bake uncovered 40 minutes at 425.)Pour a spoonful of Cream Syrup over each serving:
¼ C non-dairy creamer powder¼ C sugarPinch salt
2/3 C water¼ t. vanilla
LEMON ROLLS You can double the recipe and turn this into a simple sheet cake instead, topped with lemon filling. (Don’t double the lemon filling.) Grease pan well. A nice Easter dessert, so don’t use up your all-purpose flour; save it for special occasions like this.
1 1/8 C all-purpose flour¾ C sugar1 ½ t. baking powder1 t. rice flour¼ t. salt1 1/8 C water1 t. vanilla
Use large cookie sheet with sides. With waxed paper/parchment paper/aluminum foil, line the bottom, leaving several inches extra on each end, in order to grasp cake more easily after baking. Grease liner and sides of cookie sheet with 1 ½ T butter-flavored shortening . Grease especially well on edges of liner within pan. Do not use less shortening, because cake is very sticky, difficult to peel off of liner.Bake (12 minutes @375° in conventional oven) in solar oven, covered by same-size, dark cookie sheet.While cake is baking, sprinkle low-lint dish towel with 1/3 C powdered sugar, through small sieve, in the size and shape of cake. Also, prepare Lemon Sauce (see below)Remove cake from oven when inserted toothpick comes out almost cleanly, to avoid burning the edges.Immediately remove cake from pan by inverting onto powdered sugar dish cloth, without peeling off cake liner.Starting from one of the short ends, roll up cake around dish towel and liner. Placing on wire rack, let cool 30-45 minutes. Unroll, peeling off liner. Sometimes it helps to use a greased table knife to scrape as you peel. Spread Lemon Sauce all over the surface, then roll back into shape, sprinkling remaining powdered sugar back on from the towel. Will crack slightly because real eggs were not used, but still tastes good. Slice off pieces of roll and serve.
Lemon Sauce
1 C sugar3 T rice flour¾ t. unsweetened lemonade powder¼ t. + 1/8 t. salt
Set to the side for later.Stirring constantly, boil 10 minutes, until white flecks turn clear:
3 T minute tapioca1 ½ C waterWhisk in set-aside sugar-lemonade mix, stirring out lumps.
(24-hour) PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE CAKE
This cake has a quick prep time, even though it needs to sit out about 24 hours after baking, for all the flavors to absorb.
1 ½ C whole wheat flour ½ C unsweetened baking cocoa powder1 C sugar 2 ½ T milk powder3 t. baking powder 1 t. baking soda
Stir in: 1/3 C finely grated squash, any variety
Separately, mix peanut butter crumble mixture in Dutch oven: 1 1/3 C sugar 2/3 C peanut butter
Stir batter into peanut butter, barely stirring through, so “crumbs” remain intact.Pour 2 C water over mixed batter. Don’t stir. Cover & bake until toothpick comes out cleanly through cake portion.Chill thoroughly. Cake will be gooey.
Pour over the top of the cake batter in pan. Do not stir. Cover Dutch oven and bake until batter begins to pull away from sides of pan. (350, 35 minutes in conventional oven) When ready to serve, shake together Cream Syrup ingredients:
¼ C sugar pinch salt¼ C non-dairy coffee creamer ¼ t. vanilla2/3 C water
PINEAPPLE UPSIDE- DOWN CAKE
This springtime recipe is based on canned pineapple, which can help you get through until your crops arrive. Potato flakes, canned pineapple, mandarin oranges in frogeye salad, raisins, dried apples, tuna, and even ammo, can help, too. Also, to save money, you can substitute a small can of pineapple juice for canned pineapple, poured over zucchini/yellowneck squash.
Drain well, 1 20-oz. can pineapple.
In separate container, mix: 2 boxes yellow cake mix 6 t. rice flourCut in:
1 finely grated yellowneck squashStir in: pineapple juice, reserving 1 T pineapple juice for later 1 C water
In the bottom of Dutch oven, mash together and spread:
1/2 C brown sugar1 T butter-flavored shortening1 T pineapple juice
Lightly grease sides of cake pan, too.
Spread ¾ C finely grated yellow crookneck on the bottom.Layer pineapple slices on top of squash.
Pour cake mix over sugared squash & pineapple.
Bake and cool (about 50 minutes at 350° in conventional oven).
Serve with Cream Syrup poured over each serving:
¼ C sugar¼ C powdered non-dairy creamerPinch salt
2/3 C water¼ t. vanilla
POPCORN
I use a large, old wok.
Heat large pan outside, with about 2 quarts sand inside. When sand is hot, stir in a handful of popcorn soaked in saltwater. (Doesn’t need to be soaked long; it just coats salt on popcorn.) Stir sand constantly while popcorn pops, then scoop up sand- popcorn mix into colander. Sand falls out the bottom; popcorn can be thrown into a bowl.
If desired, make caramel popcorn:
Dissolve in small nonstick pan:
½ C sugar beet cubes (about 4)1 C water1 T butter-flavored shortening
Coat popcorn with caramel.
PUMPKIN CAKE
Sweet meat squash is a lesser-known source of sugar. Big as a pumpkin, with lots of sweet, orange meat, it has about 3X less fluid than banana. To save squash seeds, separate them from the pulp and rinse in metal sieve, rubbing seeds against sides and bottom of sieve, to rub off excess. Dry on tray or screen for 2-3 weeks, until thin film of clear flakes comes off when seeds are rubbed between fingers.
You can eat this in the springtime if you bury some of your winter squash several feet under. Be careful not to hit water and gas lines. A dryer squash that stores well for this cake is butternut, as opposed to pumpkin, which has a lot more moisture.
Blend: 3 C whole wheat flour 1 1/8 C sugar 1 T rice flour 1 t. baking powder 1 t. baking soda 1 t. salt 1 ¼ t. cinnamon ¾ t. nutmeg
With fork, cut in: 2 T butter-flavored shortening
Stir in: 6 C coarsely grated sweet meat squash 1 T vinegar ¾ C raisins (optional) ½ C chopped walnuts (optional)
Pour into Dutch oven greased with ½ T butter-flavored shortening. Cover and bake in solar oven until top is firm to the touch. Cake will be dense and moist.
Glaze (optional): 1/3 C milk powder ¼ C powdered sugar 3 T sugar 2 T unsweetened baking cocoa powder 5 T unsweetened coconut milk*
You can substitute coconut milk with thickened Yogurt , straining it overnight in a cloth-lined sieve In the morning, you can stir in a pinch of salt to make a mock cream cheese spread. (Deanna Duke, “Supereasy Homemade Cream Cheese and Sour Cream,” @MotherEarthNews.com, 10/31/2008)
PUMPKIN COBBLER
Old-timers used to bake their pumpkin pie with banana squash, since it’s sweeter than pumpkin. Then they stored the leftovers in their wheat, like refrigeration. When it’s hot outside, another method is to put 2 clay pots, one inside the other, about the size of a potted, indoor tree. Line the inside of the larger pot with mud, then insert the 2nd clay pot. Inner pot can be filled with foods that need to be kept cold. Cover the top with a damp towel. When mud dries, you can wet it down with water again.
Mix:
12 C coarsely grated banana squash Cut squash in half lengthwise, scraping out seeds & pulp. 1 1/3 C sugar3 T rice flour1 t. salt½ t. cinnamon½ t. nutmeg
Grease bottom & sides of Dutch oven with ½ T butter-flavored shortening, pouring in squash mix.
Spread pre-mixed Cobbler on top; cover and bake until squash is tender (90 min@350, conventional oven).
1 ¼ C whole wheat flour1 C sugar 1 t. baking powder1 t. rice flour1/3 C water
Pour a spoonful of Cream Syrup over each serving:
¼ C non-dairy cream powder¼ C sugarPinch salt
2/3 C water¼ t. vanilla
PUMPKIN PUDDING
Every recipe is about food, but storage is about families. What your children will need most desperately is medicine. We take for granted a stocked pharmacy and mail-order herbs, but what would you have ahead in case of an emergency? An emergency bag is one of your most important resources, so that even if anyone has to evacuate, the children will have medicine. Blankets are another important item for evacuation. If I ever had to evacuate in an emergency, I’d bring all my blankets, lining the seats with them if I had to travel light.
Mix:
1 C whole wheat flour¾ C milk powder2 C + 1 T sugar2 T rice flour1/4 t. baking powder1/8 t. soda1/4 t. salt1 t. cinnamon1/2 t. cloves 1/2 t. nutmeg½ t. allspice
Cut in: 4 C coarsely grated sweet meat or banana squash
For sweet meat squash, stir in 6 2/3 C water.For banana squash, stir in 2 ¼ C water.
Heat through in saucepan until squash is tender.
Remove from heat, stirring in: 2 T vanilla
PUMPKIN SCONES
Although soy flour works as an inexpensive substitute for eggs in baking, I use rice flour because some studies suggest that untreated soy (tofu is treated) can block essential digestive enzymatic action within the body, and could possibly stunt growth and cause other maladies, because it blocks the body‘s absorption of many vitamins.
Dough: Dissolve
4 1/2 t. yeast1 T sugar2 1/3 C water
Mix separately:
6 C whole wheat flour2 T sugar2 t. salt1 T rice flour1/4 t. vitamin C powder
With fork, cut in: 2 T butter-flavored shortening
Stir in: Yeast water
Add: 1 T vinegar
Knead. Roll into 1/4" thick rectangle, slicing it into 2 dozen squares. Loosen dough from counter, then leave to rise until double. Fry each side in ½ T butter-flavored shortening until lightly browned.
Fill with Pumpkin Scone Filling (prepare while dough rises)
Grate 6 C banana squash into saucepan, adding ¼ t. molassesIn separate bowl, stir together, then add to squash, stirring over medium heat till thick:3 T rice flour ½ t. salt¾ C + 2 T sugar ½ t. nutmeg½ C milk powder ½ t. cinnamon¼ C nondairy coffee cream powder ¼ t. cloves
Remove from heat, stirring in:
2 t. vanilla
RICE PUDDING Based on Feb 1991 “Nonfat Dry Milk” by Charlotte Brennand PhD through Utah State University’s Extension
If you’re using up already cooked rice, here’s an alternative: In bowl, mix dry ingredients: 1/3 C sugar, ¾ C dry milk powder, ¼ t. salt, ¼ t. cinnamon, 1/8 t. nutmeg. Whisk in 3/4 C water & 1 t. molasses, adding 3 T raisins. Heat through to pudding consistency. Remove from heat, adding ½ t. vanilla.
To substitute amaranth seeds for rice, soak 8-24 hours to dislodge harmful resins and prevent burning. Dispose of water and rinse through fine sieve. Use 3 C water to each cup of amaranth, covering and boiling 20-25 minutes in the ¾ t. salt to preserve rice-like texture, removing from heat and leaving covered 5 minutes. Then heat other ingredients into amaranth to finish pudding, reducing the 4 ½ C water to ¾ C.
Boiled quinoa has a 1:2 ratio with water. If substituting quinoa for rice, rinse thoroughly, rubbing vigorously against fine sieve to remove harmful resins. Soak 5 minutes in water; otherwise it will burn. Drain and throw out the water, adding 4 ½ C fresh water to the 2 ¼ C quinoa, with the spices, salt, and raisins, adding a pinch of orange Kool-Aid powder and 1/8 t. cloves. Cover and boil 15 minutes, removing from heat for 5 more minutes. (still covered) Add milk powder, sugar, ¾ C water & molasses, stirring and heating to desired consistency. Add 1 t. vanilla.
In saucepan, cover and boil over low heat for 20 minutes:
2 ¼ C dry rice1/3 C raisins
¾ t. salt¾ t. cinnamon
¼ t. nutmeg4 ½ C water
Do not stir or remove lid.
While rice boils, mix in separate bowl: 1 ½ C dry milk powder 2/3 C sugar
Whisk into milk-sugar until lumps are mostly gone: 1 ½ C water 2 t. molasses
When rice is soft, pour sweetened milk into boiled rice, stirring over heat until pudding consistency is reached. Remove from heat, stirring in: 1 t. vanilla
Dr. Brennand had another fun recipe that I’m modifying slightly, for Whipped Topping: In ice-cold bowl, using an ice-cold whisk, vigorously stir: ½ C ice-cold water ½ C sugar, premixed with ½ C milk powder & (pinch lemonade powder)
STICKY CAKE
With lemon jelly on the bottom, there’s no need for frosting on the top.
Mix:
5 C whole wheat flour3 ½ C sugar2 T rice flour3 t. baking soda1 ½ t. salt1 ½ t. unsweetened lemonade powder
With fork, cut in:
3 T butter-flavored shortening
Pour 1 T vinegar into a measuring cup, filling the rest of the way with water, to the 2 2/3 C mark, vinegar included. Pour vinegar water into the flour-sugar mix.
Add:
3 C coarsely grated zucchini2 t. vanilla
Grease Dutch oven with ½ T butter-flavored shortening. Pour in batter, covering with lid and baking until toothpick comes out cleanly. (350°, 40 min. in conventional oven)
Let cake sit for 90 minutes, until jelly condenses at the bottom of the cake.
SWEET POTATO CRUMBLE
I like to substitute sweet meat squash* for sweet potato crumble so I can eat the plain, baked sweet potato for lunch. Here’s the squash version: 2 ¼ C flour, ¾ C sugar, 1 ½ t. salt; cut in 2 T butter-flavored shortening; pour over squash mixture without stirring it into squash mixture: 12 C coarsely grated sweet meat squash, 1 ½ t. cinnamon, ½ C sugar, pouring 1 C water over squash, not stirring. Grease inside of Dutch oven lid with Butter Mixture: ½ t. sugar, pinch salt, 1 T water, 1 T butter-flavored shortening.
Peel and grate 8 sweet potatoes, mixing in Cinnamon-Sugar:
¾ C sugar1 ½ t. cinnamon
Grease Dutch oven with ½ T butter-flavored shortening.
Layer sweet potatoes in Dutch oven.
Pour 1 C water over sweet potatoes, without stirring in.
Separately, mix Crumble:
2 ¼ C whole wheat flour2 C sugar (if using the white-fleshed O’Henry sweet potato, cut crumble sugar to 2/3 C) 1 ½ t. salt
Sprinkle over sweet potatoes, without stirring.
Spread underside of casserole lid with Butter Mixture:
1/8 t. sugar1/8 t. salt
1 T water1 T butter-flavored shortening
Cover and bake until sweet potatoes are tender.
*Pretty much any winter squash will work…pumpkin, butternut, spaghetti, etc.
HOW TO GROW SWEET POTATOES
My top pick for Northern-grown sweet potatoes is the O'Henry variety, because it's only 100 days to harvest--and its disease-resistant flesh is already sweet and delicious when baked, without extra salt, butter, or sugar. However, as with all potatoes, leave them in the ground as long as possible, for added size.
To plant: *Around Mother's Day, when soil is frost-free, slice the sweet potato in half, lengthwise. Place in 8" mound of fertilized soil taken from garden plot where other plants grew the year before, like grass. Space 12" apart in the hottest place possible, like the street.
After vines cover the ground, weeding is not usually necessary. When vines mature early in the season, they will touch the soil and form new plants w/new tubers. When season gets late (early July), pinch off upper 12" of new vine growths, in the spot where vine breaks off easily when pulled backwards (like breaking off fresh asparagus). Place ends of pinched-off vines in jar of water. This will not slow the growth of the sweet potato tubers already in the ground, as new vines are not ever needed for existing tubers. When roots form in the jars of water, remove newly formed plants and place in potting soil, keeping warm and moist. New sweet potato tubers will form. Continue growing these indoors because fall will come before maturity, and the resulting tubers can be saved for next spring's planting.
At harvest time in the outside garden, dig out mature sweet potato tubers immediately following first frost. Throw mature leaves into a salad, or steam like spinach. If you have chickens or rabbits, they can eat the vines. Cure for 10 days at 85, storing thereafter in cool, dark place (55-60°). Warning: While sweet potato leaves are edible, regular potato leaves are poisonous.
Hint: As with all garden vegetables, rotate crop. Sweet potatoes need prior plant matter in their soil. Sprouts can be purchased at Henryfields.com, and grow faster in a hot environment.
Sweet Potato leaves are edible. Image by Wellcorps.com
TAPIOCA PUDDING
If you can order pearl tapioca at BulkFoods.com, it will provide more calcium than instant tapioca. It takes longer to tenderize, so you can soak overnight. If you’re able to get some coconut milk and sweetened, condensed milk to add calories, here’s a recipe for you. Otherwise, just follow the recipe on your box of instant tapioca.
To substitute amaranth seeds for tapioca, soak them 8-24 hours to dislodge harmful resins, throwing out the water and rinsing in fine sieve. Boil 1cup of amaranth in 5 C milk for runny consistency desired in tapioca pudding.
To substitute quinoa seeds, it’s better to use my quinoa pudding recipe found under rice pudding, due to its slightly bitter flavor, which is really yummy in a Mexican-style pudding reminiscent of their uniquely flavored bread pudding.
Cover with water and soak overnight:
2 ½ C pearl tapioca
Stirring constantly, simmer 7 minutes:
1 13.5 oz. can coconut milk1 can sweetened, condensed milk3 ½ C water½ t. salt
Remove from heat.
Stir in:
1 C sugar mixed with 2/3 C milk powder4 t. cinnamon1/8 t. unsweetened lemonade powder1 T vanilla
Chill thoroughly.
ZUCCHINI BREAD
Yellow-neck summer squash also works. Grate yellow-neck coarsely instead of finely; decrease water to ¼ Cup. Also, beyond initial 3-month supply, plan to substitute hominy flour for rice flour, to conserve rice stores.
Mix:
3 C whole wheat flour1 1/3 C sugar3 t. cinnamon2 t. rice flour1 t. salt½ t. nutmeg1/2 t. baking soda
With fork, cut in:
2 T butter-flavored shortening
Stir in:
3 C unpeeled, finely grated zucchini1 C water1 T vanilla1 T vinegar1 C chopped walnuts (optional)
Grease Dutch oven with ½ T butter-flavored shortening. Pour in batter and cover. Bake until firm. No need to grease underside of lid.
(Conventional oven: 30-40 minutes @350)
CHEESE & YOGURT
COTTAGE CHEESE
In pan, heat 1 gallon water. Whisk in 2 ¾ C milk powder. Heat to almost boiling, removing from heat. Stir in ¾ C vinegar. Cool to lukewarm. Strain through cheesecloth or pillowcase. (Strained liquid whey cannot be saved to make ricotta cheese, as the all the albumin protein has already been separated by the acid in the vinegar. With hard cheeses requiring rennet, whey can be used to make ricotta, since some albumin protein remains in the whey runoff.) Don’t mix in the salt until you taste the boxed lasagna: it’s pretty salty.
QUESO FRESCO CHEESE (is a hardened, crumbly version of cottage cheese)
After making cottage cheese, press liquid out of cottage cheese, kneading in salt to taste.
MOZZARELLA (without gloves, you’ll get stung by stinging nettle)
If you buy rennet powder, get it in tablet form, not liquid, which can go bad without refrigeration. Keep the tablets in a cool place, and they can last three years on the shelf. Also, citric acid is inexpensively priced by the pound through Herbalcom.com. For the same money, my personal preference for rennet is a packet of 100 stinging nettle seeds, available at eGardenSeed.com, because the leaves can double as spinach, after making the rennet. Here’s how to extract rennet from the stinging nettle leaves. Wearing thick gloves, gather a pound of stinging nettle leaves. Cover with water in large saucepan. Boil, reducing heat to a simmer for 30 minutes. Pour water and leaves through colander, squeezing out as much green juice as possible, capturing it in another container. Use ½ C green juice instead of ½ rennet tablet. Keep remaining green juice cold. Now that leaves are cooked, they are no longer prickly and can be eaten like spinach. After using ½ C green juice to make mozzarella cheese, you can save the leftover mozzarella cheese liquid to make ricotta cheese. (see ricotta cheese recipe)
In a small bowl, dissolve 1/2 tablet rennet in 1 T water.In another small bowl, dissolve 2 t. citric acid and 1/2 t. calcium chloride in 2 T water.In large stock pot, whisk 3 C milk powder into enough water to make 1 gallon. Heat, scraping the bottom with spatula to prevent burning.While milk heats, add dissolved citric acid and calcium chloride.When milk is almost starting to boil (i.e., bubbles begin forming around edges of pan), add dissolved rennet.Curds will begin to form, separating from whey.Strain through fine sieve or colander, pressing excess liquid out with large spoon. Reheat curds for 2 minutes by placing in empty glass bowl within shallow baking dish that has hot whey in it. Strain 2nd time. Reheat again for 1 minute; strain 3rd time. Reheat again, straining 4th time.Knead 1 t. salt into cheese, 2-3 minutes until cheese sticks together and is shiny.
Stinging Nettle. Image by Mydirttime.com
Monterrey Jack Variation: Substitute buttermilk for milk. Your great-grandparents made it the old-fashioned way, leaving a cup of raw milk out for a few days until it firmed up. Then a cup of (raw not required this time) milk was stirred in. This mixture sat again until firming up. This process was repeated a 3rd or 4th time. Pretty soon, buttermilk would form. Buttermilk is what’s used instead of fresh milk in the making of Monterrey Jack cheese, except the cheese needs a month to sit or “cure”, for a finished product. Save out some buttermilk as a culture starter in another batch of sour milk.
RICOTTA CHEESE (doesn’t work using leftover whey from cottage or queso fresco)
Whether you’re boiling water to make cheese or anything else, my top recommendation for emergency cooking is a $40 ebay purchase of reflective strips at this website. If your home has a satellite dish on the roof, it can be detached. You need a spray bottle of baby shampoo to paste the pre-cut strips into the bowl, working out the creases and bubbles as you go. When it dries, the water disappears, and the other chemicals hold the shiny strips in place. Goggles can help you avoid sun burn to the retina as you aim the sunlight towards your makeshift cooktop or oven, but there are also ways to make do, for example, with a window screen from your car, twisting it around a Dutch oven to catch the sun’s rays. It takes about 5 hours to cook a meal this way, and you have to reposition the whole apparatus as the sun moves across the sky.
Save whey (leftover liquid) from making mozzarella cheese.Almost boil whey in stainless steel pan with solid bottom; foam will appear.Remove from heat; do not stir. Curds will form on top or bottom of liquid.Strain through a pillowcase.Place curd in sieve for 2-3 hours to finish draining.Knead in salt to taste.Ricotta Cheese recipe taken from wikihow.com.
DRINKABLE ORANGE YOGURT
Kefir is a tapioca-like grain harvested in the Middle East, with probiotic properties that promote healthy intestinal flora. Sometimes it's available on the web for about $30.00 a spoonful, and it's more affordable when neighbors go in together on it. Soaked 16 hours in milk, these cottage cheese-looking globs reproduce into more curds that can be shared from neighbor to neighbor, and will never need rinsing or refrigeration. Strain the milk daily, returning the kefir curds to their original glass jar, slightly uncovered, pouring some more milk over them. The strained milk needs no refrigeration either, as it continues to ferment during the day before it has all been drunk. There is also a non-milk type of kefir available, as well. When I go out of town and can't tend to the microbial culture, I cover and soak it in water instead of milk, storing it in the fridge. This temporarily curtails growth, keeping the culture alive. Even though it smells and tastes funny, my family says the following recipe tastes like an orange vanilla ice cream popsicle, with a hint of carbonation.
Soak overnight in glass jar, unrefrigerated, with: 1 T dry kefir granules, or 2 T wet "globs" in 1 qt. non-chlorinated water (warm ok; hot will kill the culture; also, to get non-chlorinated water, let uncovered tap water sit out for 24 hours.)
Around noon the next day, pour the kefir milk-yogurt through a non-metallic strainer, into a bowl.Rinse jar.
Dump remaining white curds from the strainer, back into the jar, pouring in new milk (if powdered milk, make sure water in it is non-chlorinated) and fermenting another day.
To make Orange Yogurt, mix:
kefir curds1 qt. milk (rice milk, soy milk, and almond milk also work)2 T sugar1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. unsweetened orange Kool-Aid
Note: Not only do kefir curds reproduce, but the drinkable yogurt/milk also reproduces. You can keep the milk thickening for a week by saving half of the thickened milk and adding fresh milk to it daily. Another way to build healthy intestinal cultures, although less tasty, is to drink a tablespoon of homemade vinegar in a cup of water, every day.
When fresh fruits and vegetables are not available, you can drink this with a meal, to enhance absorption of iron. Calcium, oxalic acid, phosphovitins, polyphenols, and phytate, are found in most foods—fruits, vegetables, grains, eggs, milk, tofu, chocolate, and tree nuts—and can block the body’s absorption of iron, but not to worry, because many fruits and vegetables also contain vitamin C, helping you absorb naturally occurring iron. You probably eat tomatoes and cucumbers on your salad. They have vitamin C, helping you absorb the iron found in in your green leafies. A baked potato can give you vitamin C, or making BBQ beans in the winter, when there’s less fresh produce available, will give you C from your dried or canned tomatoes.
My kids invented an orange peel drink, rich in vitamins A, C, calcium, folic acid, potassium, and some trace elements. You can mix it into Dr. Christopher’s calcium tea: horsetail (shave grass), nettle leaf, oat straw, and lobelia. You can buy some of these by the pound at herbalcom.com, or buy seeds.
You can blend leftover orange peels and freeze them. It’s ok to dry them too, but even after you run out of orange peels, substitute them for vitamin C. Most vitamin C that you buy is synthetically made, and not naturally occurring, like in a rose hip, for example, and so most vitamin C tablets have magnesium added, so your body can absorb the synthetically generated C. Herbalcom’s bag of vitamin C is not premixed with magnesium, so if you run out of orange peels and substitute ascorbic acid in this drink, you’ll need to eat a piece of wheat bread, or snack on some roasted pumpkin seeds with it, to provide the magnesium needed to absorb the C. Even though you’re already adding vitamin C powder to your bread, it cooks out because synthetic vitamin C cooks out when heated, unlike naturally occurring C in orange peel and tomatoes, for example, so I’ve included recipes with canned tomato sauce to put some up for winter and spring, when you may be low in vitamin C. Info obtained from http://www.livestrong.com/article/284339-foods-that-inhibit-iron-absorption/
Mix: A spoonful of orange peel zest or a pinch of vitamin C Lemon-lime Kool-Aid powder, to taste honey or juice—canned fruit has leftover juice which works, too Water (I like to blend it all up with ice)
One other tip: you might make rose hip tea for vitamin C, but if eating a whole rose hip, spit out the seeds like you would a pear or apple.
The salt in this drink helps replace lost electrolytes. Most of the time, it’s best to stock up on iodized salt, which provides more health benefits than non-iodized salt. However, it’s helpful to have one carton of non-iodized salt, in order to make nasal rinse. You boil a teaspoon of non-iodized salt in a cup of water, let it cool, and then pour it into your empty saline spray bottle. This helps you avoid nasal infections, even when medicine may be limited. It’s ok for smaller children to breathe in the saline steam if they’re unable to apply the nasal spray.
2 qts. Water½ C sugar or honey¼ t. baking soda½ pkt. Kool-Aid¼ t. salt
DEODORANT (1greengeneration.elementsintime.com, “How to Make Your Own Deodorant”)
You can make your scented deodorant last longer by using this recipe during the cool months, reserving your scented deodorant for the summer.
Shake together in jar:
6 T corn starch1 T baking soda
Apply a little powder on makeup brush. Lightly dust underarms.
FERTILIZER
You’ve buried fecal waste in the ground when camping and hunting. Never do this near your home or garden, or near a water source.
Liquid waste is usually sterile, but solid waste is not. Never let solid waste touch the ground. It can seep into the water table or infect your garden.
Lay boards or a crate on bricks, off the ground, lined w/grass and other yard waste. This is where to dispose of solid waste, covering with ashes, yard and kitchen waste. It’s better not to mix liquid waste with it because it can cause the solid waste to liquefy and seep into the ground. However, liquid waste can help in the decomposition process of leaves and straw.
Don’t put fecal waste near the garden. Your waste crate should be fairly odor-free. After 1 year of use, another site should be started, and the original site should be left alone for an additional year, for complete decomposition, which will turn into fertilizer. At this point, the manure needs to be rained on in a well-drained place not near the garden, to release the salts you don’t need to add to your garden. This 2-year process can be reduced with the introduction of worms.
Earthworms can turn kitchen scraps and yard trimmings into compost more quickly. They are available at online worm farms for about $20/lb. They need warmth to live. Some people drill holes in the sides and bottom of a trash barrel, where the worms can eat ordinary kitchen waste—carrot/potato peels, etc. A tray underneath the barrel can catch the worms’ liquid waste.
Black soldier fly larvae reduce fecal waste quickly, reducing pathogenic disease-carriers. Two books—The Humanure Handbook, and Liquid Gold—have more specific information.
LAUNDRY
Clothes pins and clothes line are a good storage idea.
Without the use of a washing machine, you can put dirty clothes in a bucket, slicing a small hole in the center of the lid, just large enough for a toilet plunger handle to fit through. Add soapy water to clothing inside bucket, close the lid and plunge. Rinse and hang to dry.
CLEANING SOLUTION
Here is an old-time vinegar solution.
½ C vinegar½ gal water¼ C baking soda
SOAP (make hand soap from bar soap)
When I buy soap, or any other storage item, I try to buy one extra bar, one extra can, or one extra carton. I do this because Gordon B. Hinckley asked that we store food, fuel, and medicine for our family, bishop, and neighbors.
Boil in non-aluminum pan (lye in soap can corrode aluminum):
1 bar Ivory soap (has fewer additives for other uses, like washing dishes)3 quarts water
Whisk through to break up soap as it dissolves into water.
Remove from heat and cool long enough to prevent melting plastic soap dispensers.
Add ¼ t. rubbing alcohol.
Pour into dispensers. Liquid soap will thicken overnight as it continues to cool.
SOAP FROM SCRATCH
Store at least 3 dozen bars of soap because it requires fat to make soap from scratch. The following is an excerpt from Paul Matteoni, “How to Make Soap from Ashes,” 1972, in Mother Earth News.
“To make lye in the kitchen, boil the ashes from a hardwood fire (soft woods are too resinous to mix with fat) in a little soft water, rain water is best, for about half an hour. Allow the ashes to settle to the bottom of the pan and then skim the liquid lye off the top. You can do this daily and when you've got enough of the weak solution, start the soap making process by boiling the liquid down until it'll float an egg. One word of caution: DO NOT use aluminum dishes or pots. The lye will eat right through `em!
“Now put that meat fat, left-over cooking lard and vegetable oil into a kettle not over half full, and heat the whole mess until all the liquid has been rendered out of the solid scraps. While it's still hot, add this clean grease to the bubbling lye and continue to boil the mixture—stirring all the while—until it reaches the consistency of thick corn meal mush.
“You should have a wooden box two inches high, three inches wide and six inches long handy. This is the mold for one bar. If you're making more soap, use a larger box and cut the hardened finished product into convenient chunks. Cover the bottom of the box with waxed paper or grease to keep the soap from sticking, pour in the mushy mixture and let it cool. You've got yourself some backwoods soft soap!”
VINEGAR
Due to its probiotics, people have traditionally drunk a daily teaspoon of raw vinegar in a cup of water to curb arthritis and profuse bleeding, and occasionally to stem diarrhea, 5-6X/day. Current research does not necessarily substantiate this, but it does link 2 t. vinegar in a glass of water at night to reduced blood sugar in the morning for diabetics, and to lowering blood pressure and cholesterol in rats. People who eat oil-vinegar salad dressing 5X/wk seem to have better heart health. However, it has also been linked to reduced bone mineral density and reduced potassium in the blood. It’s also a good germ killer if you run out of hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol, mixing 1 t. vinegar with ½ C water. “Apple Cider Vinegar,” obtained from Web MD http://www.webmd.com/diet/apple-cider-vinegar
Set 3 C tap water out uncovered, 24 hours to evaporate the bleach.Fill jar halfway with apple peels & cores, or with chopped crabapples.Add ¼ C sugar, filling the jar with the 3 C warm, non-chlorinated water.Stir and cover with cheesecloth. Stir daily for a week. Remove peels and cores, letting culture ferment for another 2 weeks. The gray mother culture will form on top, which can be used to start another culture. When vinegar tastes strong enough, it’s ready to be used.
Note: The sugar makes the process go more quickly, but in the absence of sugar, just ferment as described above, waiting a month or two for desired results. Also, if you don’t have apples, you can substitute raw potato peels or starchy squash peels, etc. The apple in vinegar is not a requirement for leavening baking powder cakes and breads; any kind of vinegar will work.
POISONOUS LOOK-ALIKESAll over the world where there is hunger, there is food poisoning, because people go foraging for food when there is none readily available. This is not a comprehensive list of poisonous look-alikes, as there are whole books dedicated to the subject, but this is intended for you to see how easy it is to mistake one wild plant for another. Personally check with someone who knows, before trying something you’re not 110% sure of. Keep in mind that poisonous lookalikes can be growing right next to the edible food you find. I realize only 10% of church members store food, and that is why these look-alikes have been included.
If you have to decide whether a plant is edible, tear it open and rub it on your arm. If no rash results, rub it on the inside of your lip. If you don’t react, chew it cooked, without swallowing. With no reaction, swallow one piece, waiting 8 hours before you eat anything else, in order to gauge a reaction. A lot of work? Your life is worth that. (info from livingafield.com)
Did you know? Radish greens are edible. Image by ehow.com
WILD SPINACH VS. POISONOUS NIGHTSHADES
Above 2 left images by blog.chestnutherbs.com. Above 3rd image by farmersdaughterct.com. Above 4th image by fleursgourmandes.com.
Above images by www.flowers.goodpages.co.ukBelow images by www.omafra.gov.on.ca
Nightshade (above) will either have green and black berries with various-colored blossoms, sometimes having hairy stems and leaves. Above 4 pictures not wild spinach; they are nightshades and poisonous.Image by pantrygardenherbs.com
You’ve heard that the laetrile in apricot pits can help cure cancer. More often, people end up in the emergency room, even after ingesting the less bitter pits, due to cyanide poisoning, which can cause fatigue, vomiting, diarrhea, and even death. Don’t risk eating them, not even in small amounts. Also, it’s important to avoid apple and pear seeds, plum pits, etc.
PINE NEEDLE TEA
You’ve heard of pine needle tea, how it saved the lives of Jacques Cartier’s (1534) explorers in Canada, dying of scurvy in the winter, due to lack of vitamin C. Here are some basic facts. Pine needles are high in vitamin C, and also have isocupressic acid. The ponderosa pine, with three long needles per pod, has such concentrated distributions of it, that it causes sickness, miscarriage, infertility, and death in cattle who ingest it. The boiling point of isocupressic acid is 850° F, so it won’t boil out, even in a pressure cooker, which can only reach 250° F, max. Arapahoe women drank ponderosa pine needle tea to induce abortions. Australian Pine and the yew are especially poisonous.
All PINE NUTS, on the other hand, are always safe. To extract them, first dry cones thoroughly. Then turn them upside-down and smack them against a hard surface to dislodge them, shaking them loose. You can cut into the pine cones with shears if needed. High in fatty omega 3s, they are packed with vitamins, including C.
Images by waywardspark.com.
PLANTAIN VS. LILIES
Above 3 pictures are healthy plantain; it subs as spinach in salad or cooked.Carefully break open stem base to make sure plantain has 5 parallel veins. Poultice stops bleeding or itching, inflammation; has antiseptic qualities & omega 3s. Above info & images from livingafield.com. (Below image by plantsmanscorner.co.uk)
Above 2 pics: Poisonous lilies; compare picture 3 of plantains to this (L) poisonous lily.
SORREL VS. BITTER DOCK
Both pictures above are sorrel (healthy). Images by myparkphotos.com and healthyhomegardening.com
There are different varieties of sorrel; the 3-leaf heart pattern and the fish shape are most recognizable. Leaves add a lemony tang to salads and soups. Don’t overeat; oxalic acid can lead to stomachache; however, it does boil out with heat.
Image by science.halleyhosting.com Image by ecotrope.opb.org Image by flickr.com Above 3 pictures are a poisonous lookalike: BITTER DOCK
PRICKLY LETTUCE, ANGELICA, VS. HOGWEED & VIRGINIA CREEPER
(Above) Young leaves—edible—less Virginia Creeper—5 leaves clustered. Blue berries
bitter in prickly lettuce; stem is milky were peeled & boiled by Indians to remove oxalic acid
& reddish. (Most milky plants are but the berries are considered poisonous. The leaves have
poisonous, except this) daphide crystals that can irritate the skin like poison ivy.
www.survival.org.au, Image by carolinanature.com
“Bush-Tucker Plant Food—Edible Weeds”
Hogweed (above, L)Image by invasiveplantsmi.org Angelica (above, R) Edible. Image by marthastewart.com
Purple-red stem, can grow 15’ tall, usuallypoisonous.
(L) Chickweed (healthy) is hairy. (R) Japanese Spurge is poisonous.
Image by wildmanstevebrill.com Image by topicalinfo.org
Image by greenprophet.com
Poisonous spurge on the left, healthy chickweed on the right. Notice how spurge on the left, leafs out on the top of the stem; chickweed on the right has viney branches throughout, and has hairs, too.
GROUND IVY (L) AND MUSTARD GREENS (R)
Image by Davesgarden.com Image by myweb.loras.edu
Both of the above are edible. Ground ivy has a mildly minty flavor.
SOW THISTLE VS. THE MEXICAN POPPY Image at squidoo.com, “Sow Thistles—A Nutritious, Edible Weed”
Image from Survival.or.au
(L, R Above—Healthy) Sow thistle leaves are eaten in peasant cultures worldwide; the stems can be peeled and eaten, although they might taste better in soup. Leaves are sometimes prickly, sometimes not, depending on variety.
This dangerous look-alike is the Mexican poppy. From Flickr.com.
WILD ONION VS. OTHER BULBS
Both images above: Not wild onion; notice uniform height, the not-hollow blades of grass on the right; also doesn’t smell like onion.
Above image is wild onion; hollow blade, smells like onion. Images & info by foodunderfoot.com, “Onion Grass & non-edible Look-Alike,” Apr. 25, 2009.
PURSLANE VS. SPURGE
(L) Image copyrighted by Ronald Calhoun, 2004-2012 (R) Image by briggsandstratton.com
(L) Purslane (healthy) leaves, stalks, and flowers have a lemon-peppery spinach flavor, traditionally used in hummus, chick pea patties, and potato salad. Purslane is slightly dense, almost sweet and sour tasting. It is shiny. Its poisonous look-alike is spurge, right. Spurge has a milky sap when you break it open. Notice the leaves growing on either side of the stem, as opposed to the purslane, whose leaf pattern forms a flower shape. Don’t eat unless you know.
CLOVER VS. CROWN VETCH
(Left) Clover leaves, flowers & seeds add protein to soup. Image by malag.aes.oregonstate.edu
(Right) Clover in left inset, Crown Vetch in right inset, which is poisonous. Notice crown vetch leaves are pointy, growing side-to-side. Crown vetch can grow right next to clover. “AWild Herb Comparison red clover and Crown Vetch”, May 28, 2011, by Merlin Seeley, www.examiner.com.
RainyDayFoods.com1 #10 can beef bouillon1 #10 can chicken bouillon1 50# bag yellow dent corn20 lbs quick grits2 ½ gal molasses25 lbs chick peas25 lbs whole peas25 lbs soy beans
SEEDS (Most American Seed Co/Dollar Tree seeds are seed-producing heirlooms, except multi-colored bell pepper, Hybrid Cucumber, and beefsteak tomato. Their cherry tomato looks like heirloom seed; if in doubt, Roma tomato seed, in any brand, is probably heirloom, whose seeds can be saved for replanting after picking the tomatoes.)
SPA SHOP 3 containers powdered bleach (optional—water can be boiled)
*If you want to store more economically, try the vegetable powders at herbalcom.com, i.e., carrots, beets, etc, which you can put a little of into pasta noodles or bread.
**French dressing spoils slower than Ranch if you’re without refrigeration, but I prefer Ranch.
***Salt is a 3-yr supply for 25 people in worst-case scenario, if you’re hosting family & friends from out of town. It’s the one thing I can’t produce where I live, and I’ve often noticed the prophet saying to store “at least” a year’s supply. If I have to make my own sausage out of deer meat, etc., I’d rather err on the side of having too much salt.
****An Inca/Aztec staple banned by Cortez, amaranth is a flowering seed stalk prized in Mexico, popped and made into honey bars like rice crispies. Its starchy, yet complete protein is good for oatmeal-like porridge or rice pudding, used like rice in soups and stews. Most kids prefer its slightly sweet and nutty flavor to quinoa, which is very similar, but adapted to cooler climates where summer temperatures stay below 90°. Whereas amaranth thrives in hot summers, quinoa is heat-sensitive, although high in vitamins, just like amaranth. The young leaves in both plants can be used in salad, and can be cooked when more mature. Like the high oxalate content of spinach, it can give you a stomachache if you eat too many raw leaves. Also throw out the green water you boil it in, just like you would spinach. The amaranth root is also edible, fried with other vegetables. This food storage essential is a United Nations favorite, because communities in developing countries where it’s grown, are able to avoid the malnutrition that is prevalent elsewhere. Both plants are easy “grains” for the average gardener. With no hull, neither has gluten. Dry quinoa has to be rinsed and rubbed 4-5 times to remove its bitter resin, but it also doesn’t get eaten up by the birds because of this. Amaranth seeds are small like poppy seeds, but the Golden Giant, a non-hybrid, produces as much as a pound per flower head. It needs full sunlight, tolerates dry soil after sprouting, but is also toxic over time as an untreated seed, so don’t feed to chickens or let livestock graze on leaves, as they can also kill your cattle, due to the high oxalate and nitrate buildup over time if overgrazed, even when
deer and other wildlife safely graze on it. Seeds should be planted ¼” deep in finely worked, damp soil that’s at least 48°, 12” apart, about 28 days before the danger of late frost is over. The birds will tell you when to check for mature seeds, which will start to crack and be less doughy. It’s easiest to harvest every week or two by shaking seeds out of upside-down flower head, then spreading thinly to dry. If you wait for all the seeds to mature, they will begin falling to the ground, and there will be so many that it will be hard to find enough surfaces to dry them on. Seeds will shrink down as they dry. Sift through screens to filter out other plant matter. If your growing season is less than
100 days, consider quinoa, or heirloom Manna de Montana amaranth. Rotate crop with corn & soy beans. Store in cool, dark, airtight space for 6 months to a year (high in fat, it can go rancid more quickly than regular grain.) Also, plan your garden space carefully. Because of its many seeds, amaranth can take over and spread like mint. If you happen to buy a bag of mixed amaranth—tan seeds with a few black or purple seeds—all of the colors are just as nutritious. The black seeds may be wild amaranth, more grainy than the others, even after they are boiled, and can add a nutty flavor and consistency to your zucchini breads and pumpkin cakes.
