How Many Different Ways Can You Cook?

Cooking will always be a way of life as long as there is food to cook and people to cook it. With the construction of the outdoor kitchen underway, I have been thinking about different ways to cook. There are many, many ways to choose from, so I thought I would see if we could get a good conversation going. Like Frank says, we're all in this together, and we always learn so much from interaction with the folks that stop by and visit here.


As I pondered this question, I came up with several possibilities. Here they are in no particular order.

We cook with propane in the house, and will be able to continue to do so until the tanks run dry. For now, it's easy to call up a company and have them come and fill the tank. When that is no longer an option, we'll have to come up with other alternatives.

We have our wood stove in the livingroom that has a flat top. It's not ideal and isn't meant to be a cookstove, but we can put a cast iron dutch oven on it and cook beans or soup. I'm not sure how well it would work for making a pot of coffee with a camping percolator, though. Yes, we really like our coffee, and until our supply runs out, we'll be having some everyday, even after the SHTF.

Now we come to the outdoor kitchen. We will have a wood cookstove there along with a grill/smoker.

Another addition for quick cooking and heating will be a Rocket stove. Once we have everything set up out here, I will practice with all three.

An option for baking we have acquired is a Coleman camp stove oven. It folds down flat, so it isn't air tight, and makes me wonder how effective it will be. It is about an internal 10 inch cube, so no 25 lb. turkeys. In one of the reviews Frank read, someone suggested putting bricks in the bottom to help hold the heat. We have firebricks to put in the wood cookstove, and will try some in the oven as well.

Another oven option is a Sun Oven, which we also have, but it hasn't made it's way out of the box yet. I've read about several people using them very successfully, including our friend Grace down the road, so it's time I learn how to use this one.  

Of course there is always a campfire with a metal grate across it, or an open pit fire that you can hang pot over or put a rotisserie on. If you have the right cookware, you can cook all sorts of meals this way.

Another possibility is a small cast iron hibachi type of system. It's small, doesn't take a lot of fuel, and will provide a small, hot fire. Again, with some cast iron cookware, this would be an easy way to cook a quick meal. 

Now that we have different ways to cook, we need to think about fuel for all of those fires. Right now we have an abundance of firewood stored, but that won't last forever, just like the propane. There will come a time when we need more wood, along with a way to cut and haul it.

There will also come a time when it may not be safe to cook because of the smell. If you are trying to keep a low profile for security reasons, the odor of cooking food would be a dead give away, especially to someone, or a bunch of someones, that are hungry. Then what do you do? Even the smell of a fire would draw attention.

On the other hand, if your retreat is your homestead then there are all sorts of noises that come with the territory. Your chickens make all kinds of noises, from crowing to singing the egg song. Your goats will holler good morning when they see you. The pigs will excitedly greet you asking for breakfast. Your dog will bark. Your radio will come to life with a greeting or message from down the road. Not to mention everyday conversation that comes with the activity of the day.

These are some of the things I think about as I go through my days. The sounds and smells of life are a rich addition to all we do. There may come a day when some of these things have to be curtailed for a while for our safety. If that happens, and you can't cook, how will you provide adequate nourishment? Let's face it, if a collapse happens in winter, it will be easy to see where the people are. There will be fires for warmth, and where there is fire, there is smoke.

So, what do you think? How many different ways can you cook, and will you be able to cook when the SHTF? Will it make a difference if it is winter or summer? Will it make a difference if safety is a concern? I have thought many times recently that two is one, and one is none. I've applied that to many things, including cooking, canning, gardening, clothing, animals, tools, radios, just about everything. That's what brought me to this article about cooking. I want to make sure I have enough options to be able to put good, nourishing food on the table when we need it the most. I'd love to hear your ideas and thoughts.

Until next time - Fern

Fern's Low Carb Meat Pie

After Frank and I changed the way we eat, I tried to dream up some new meals that were low in carbohydrates, that were filling and also taste good. It's one thing to eat low carb, it's another thing to eat low carb stuff that tastes like cardboard. So this is a meal I dreamed up that actually tastes very good. The best thing about it is the versatility of ingredients allows you to make the 'same thing' frequently by changing what you put into it. I didn't know what to call this dish, so I made that up, too.

I discovered along the way that you can make a sourdough starter with cornmeal. I'm not sure where I found the information about it, I can't find the link if I saved it. I took some of my whole wheat sourdough starter and gradually introduced cornmeal, hoping it wouldn't kill it. After a couple of weeks, I was feeding it straight cornmeal. The 'sour' smell is stronger with cornmeal than flour, but it works just fine. The fermentation process of a sourdough starter predigests the carbohydrates in the flour or cornmeal it is fed. This lowers the carbohydrate count in the final product substantially. One half cup of sourdough starter contains roughly 4 to 5 carbohydrates. I have made the Meat Pie with both types of starter, whole wheat and cornmeal, and they both taste fine. This is another way to make the same meal different.

I start off with some butter in a cast iron skillet. For a standard skillet I use about four to five tablespoons. This skillet is a little smaller and four tablespoons would have been plenty. Put the skillet in the oven for about five minutes while it is preheating to 450* and you are preparing your ingredients. Brown or cook your meat of choice. I am using ground chuck this time. I have also made this with diced ham and sausage. Use whatever sounds good.

 
Make sure the butter coats the bottom of your pan, then pour in 1/2 cup of sourdough starter. I'm using the cornmeal version this time. Spread out your starter to cover the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle the meat onto the starter, as much or as little as you desire.

Add any vegetables and toppings you like. This time I am using fresh sliced squash. I have used canned, drained squash as well and it tastes very good. Sliced mushrooms and frozen sweet peppers from last summer go great in this combination.

We also used grated homemade cheddar cheese. This is the second wheel we have opened this summer. It was waxed April 14th. It is not as dry as the first wheel, and it has a very smooth texture and not as many holes. Very good.

That's all I'm adding this time. You can see how versatile this recipe is. I can hear you thinking, "Hmmm.....I can add this and this......", and you can. It can be a pizza flavored dish, or have a Mexican flare with salsa and jalapeno peppers. The versatility is only limited by the imagination you put into it.

Depending on the ingredients you add, bake at 450* for about 20 to 30 minutes. If you add moist ingredients like salsa or ranch dressing, increase your baking time to allow for the extra moisture. Since I used fresh squash instead of canned, I had to allow 30 minutes before it softened up and was ready to serve.

The sourdough starter will come out as a crunchy crust, not as thick as pizza crust, and crunchier. Since I had more butter than I really needed this time, the crust was more of a chewy crunchy. But if that's what you prefer, you can adjust accordingly. 

This meal is really good, low carb and good for you. Of course the ingredients you choose to include will affect your carb count. If you don't need to watch your carb intake, you can still use this recipe to make a variety of meals, tailored to your family's tastes and preferences. Use your imagination, and you will be surprised what you can come up with. Frank and I have each lost almost 40 pounds in less than seven months. There isn't much you can't do if you set your mind to it. Thankfully for us, the time arrived when we decided to change our lives for the better. We're very glad we did.

Until next time - Fern

What Eating Out Does To Us

It makes us really sick, well kinda sick. You know, when you feel real yucky and just want to sit on the couch and say, "Uugghh. I don't feel good." Over the past five or six years we have noticed a growing trend in our stomachs, or maybe a growing trend in the prepared food supply. There are very few places we will eat out anymore. Not that many establishments don't serve good tasting food, it's just that there is something about the food that doesn't set well with our digestive systems. Something to ponder.

We noticed it first with fast food burger places, which we really like, we always have. Over time, it got to where we just couldn't stop there anymore without feeling bad for the rest of the day. That narrowed down the places we eat quite a bit. We have never been the kind that go to expensive restaurants just to say we did, and we seldom ate out anyway. We would rather eat at home or just grab something to tide us over until we get home. Every so often we would get something to eat just because we didn't feel like cooking, but not often. Some of this routine came from living in remote, bush Alaska where there were no places to eat at all. You fed yourself or didn't eat. Even if there were days we didn't feel like cooking, too bad. Fix it yourself or don't eat. That's when we discovered Banquet fried chicken. We could still have it flown in from the store 25 miles away. It was already frozen so it didn't matter that it was 30 degrees below zero outside. Otherwise we would just cook extra whatever - pizza, lasagna, green bean casserole - and freeze the extras in meal size portions.

What we have discovered, or our theory on it anyway, is that the additives like MSG on top of the GMO quality of most prepared foods, just don't set well with us anymore. We think one of the reasons for this is that we have very consciously tried to eliminate these items from our own food preparations. I guess we have been successful to the point that when we do consume some of these products, it upsets our 

systems. That is a good thing and a bag thing. Good that we have been able to eliminate so many things from our diets, bad that when we do need to eat somewhere else, it makes us sick. All the more reason to eat at home.

From left to right: Winter squash pie with frozen Cushaw from last summer; fresh ground wheat bread; wild cherries picked yesterday, kefir in the making; eggs for the dog; mozzarella thawing out; and a lunch of fresh picked squash, onions, carrots and potatoes. Now that the garden is producing pretty well, we tend to have meals like this. For breakfast we had scrambled eggs, a glass of goat milk with peaches and pears we canned last summer. 

We've gotten to the point where we seldom go to a grocery store, and that's really nice. We have plenty to eat here in season, and plenty canned on the shelf for out of season. I guess it just surprises me at the difference homegrown food can make in your overall health and well-being. We long dreamed of being able to produce our own food, and are now finally able to reap the benefits of that dream. One of the unexpected side effects of dreams come true, is finding out that the food we used to eat all of the time, now makes us sick. Interesting. Very interesting.

Until next time - Fern

So You Want A Day Off?

If days off are important to you, don't get a homestead, move out into the country or try to be self sufficient. This life style is a 365 day a year proposition. Don't get livestock, or chickens or milk any animals. Don't plan

to have a vacation or go somewhere overnight. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but they all involve family, neighbors or friends willing to do your numerous chores twice a day and make sure your place is secure for the time period you plan to be gone. There aren't many people to be found that are ready, willing and able to do so, and most people I know that live this lifestyle would much rather not have someone else tending their place.

This is a way of life, not a project or task to accomplish. Trying to

have a thriving, successful homestead means it is your life. And that life entails daily chores that are just that...chores. Frank and I were talking about it the other day and he compared it to the old post office saying, "Neither hail, nor snow, nor gloom of night will stop us from...." Or maybe that's how they said it in the movie Postman. Have you ever seen that movie? It's really old, but well worth watching. It's kind of about how to survive a collapse when things are really tough.

Well, back to chores. There are times that slogging out through the mud/ice/snow/dark/heat.......is no fun. No fun at all. 

There are times hauling water is a major and sometimes dangerous chore.






There are times that we're just tired and want to sleep in and be lazy. There are times that it would be nice to take just one day off.

But then there are the cats, goats, dog and chickens to feed; the goat to milk; everyone needs water; they all need to be checked on to make sure all is well. Milk animals don't usually appreciate the technique an unfamiliar person uses. And Sunday is the Lord's day, a day of rest, when there are many things we don't do. But the chores still need doin', twice a day.

There are ways to leave the farm if you have a way to leave feed out for your dogs and cats. You can even leave extra feed and water out for your

chickens if they are not laying. It isn't advisable to leave eggs in the nest boxes overnight. That may be asking for trouble if some of them break and they begin eating them. If you raise cattle it would be easier to leave them alone for a few days, as long as you weren't milking. And every so often there are a few days a year when you may not be gathering eggs, milking, watching for new babies, picking and preserving the garden, making sure the pipes don't freeze or some other time sensitive chore. Then you may be able to slip away for maybe two days. But as a standard rule, just don't plan on going anywhere overnight.
 

We can get away with not washing the dishes one day. But if we want to eat, we have to cook. Or at least heat up something we have already cooked. It's funny. As I write this you are probably thinking, "Why not just go out and eat?" Right? Well, that is something we very seldom do. That is another part of our homestead lifestyle. It's not that we are the best cooks around, it's just that we like basic simple food that doesn't have a lot of added chemicals or ingredients that you can't pronounce. We like to eat at home more than anywhere else. Besides that, if I come home from work and we do the chores before we go out to eat, we have to drive about 30 miles to eat. That isn't going to happen unless we are going somewhere for a special occasion. Once we're home, we're usually home for the evening.

And then if it's gardening season, that is a whole other set of chores to complete. From tilling to planting to weeding to watering to weeding to watering to picking to cooking to picking to canning to preserving to..........And it's a wonderful chore. It can be very relaxing and satisfying to put up your own food. I wish I could do more of it. It's just that sometimes, it would be nice to have a day off.

One of our great get aways is reading a book. No, we don't leave home physically to read it,  but it does give us a chance to 'not think or do' for a little while. Most of our reading lately deals with TEOTWAWKI  scenarios. They are all novels, and some are a little more farfetched than others, but there are at least a few ideas we run across that may increase our success and/or comfort when the time comes.

So....if you are the kind of person that really needs to have days off to be happy and function well, don't get a homestead, or livestock, or plan to garden/can/preserve. But, on the other hand, there is no place like home, and no place I would rather be, and most times, these chores are just right for me.

Until next time - Fern