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FOOD

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Short cycling? Problem solved :)

1x1placeholderShort cycling, it makes me think of riding a bike a very small distance, or someone riding a really short bike…. actually it’s when a motor or compressor runs for a short period of time and is off for a short period of time. This will shorten the life of said motor or compressor.

We have had our current/new freezer to fridge conversion for a couple of months now, as the weather began warming up, I noticed the box ran more often than I thought it should, so I really started paying attention to the cycle. I didn’t officially time anything, but I estimated it was coming on for only a few minutes at a time every 5-10 minutes, that was definitely wrong. Of course this was during 100 degree days, it was also happening that way whether I opened the lid or not.

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Mom knew best – cooking from scratch

Mother’s Day passed last weekend, for me it’s a bittersweet day, I’m happy because I’m a mother, but it’s sad because my mother is gone. Be that as it may, my mother taught me many things, one of the more important things was how to cook from scratch, I can follow a recipe but I’m quite capable to straying from the recipe to improve it, or to substitute for something I don’t have. I can even cook by the seat of my pants, meaning I can take a few kitchen staples and make a dish, it’s not difficult if you learn some basics.

Knowing how to cook (and bake) from scratch has so many benefits, first off it’s going to taste better, it’s going to be cheaper, and it’s going to be healthier for you. Buying food basics rather than food products, you KNOW what is going into your dish and consequently what is going into your body.

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Community

Dollar stores for preps

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It’s been a while since I have written about cooking, food and recipes, if you follow me any at all, you know that food is very important to me. Perhaps it’s because I’m old enough to have had parents who grew up during the Great Depression. Perhaps it’s because growing up, we were on the poor side of the financial scale, while we never actually went hungry, there were times when food was scarce, my mother had to be very frugal and creative with what we had, I learned a lot from her.

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Community

How to make a frugal and festive Christmas dinner from the pantry

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Aside from the gifts under the tree, one of the big expenses of the holidays is the food.  Nearly everyone finds that their grocery bill is up this time of year.  You’re hosting parties, putting together a no-holds-barred Christmas morning breakfast, and making a gigantic feast for friends and family.

Stop!  You don’t have to go broke to enjoy the holidays!  It doesn’t matter what the neighbors are putting on their table this year.  Particularly if the money is stretched thin, there are lots of ways to make your dinner frugal, but still festive.

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Community

Could prepping become illegal here too? Venezuelan govt to detain “hoarders”

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I’ve been talking a lot lately about prepping, getting ready for whatever is coming, whether it be a personal issue (job loss, cutting hours, illness or injury), to a local problem, a national or global problem, you need to be ready. Unfortunately our governments don’t tend to agree with this, it would seem that they would rather have us unprepared, reliant on them for everything. It’s easy to make people want to leave their homes voluntarily to go to FEMA camps when there is nothing to eat or drink at home. Some countries even have laws against so called “hoarding”, and believe me, this isn’t new, they can come into your home, search and confiscate your hard earned supplies if they believe you have too much. They can even do much worse than that…

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Food

What to Eat When You’re Broke

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The lower your income is, the more difficult it is to be particular about what you feed your family.

This probably isn’t an earth-shattering revelation to anyone, but if you feel like experimenting, try to buy a week’s worth of healthy food for a family on a budget of, say, $50-75.  Food manufacturers that target lower income shoppers with more affordable products tend to include more GMOs and toxic ingredients in their offerings.

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Community

20 Ways to build a whole food kitchen on a half price budget

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Making a trip to the grocery store these days is like running a gauntlet.  From one side you are assaulted by food-like substances in brightly labeled packages, some even touting exaggerated health benefits from the toxins within.  From the other side, you are gouged and poked by cleverly marketed “natural” foods that are 4 times the price of conventional foods.  When you change directions to avoid one onslaught, you are immediately attacked by the other.

We’re at war and the grocery store is the battlefield.

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Rabbits for meat pt 1

Living more frugally can mean growing your own food, that can include more than just plants, it can mean meat. Many people who live in more rural areas grow chickens for eggs and meat, it’s just as easy to grow rabbits, this is something that has appealed to me ever since I moved off-grid, I would have no problems eating them, but it would be difficult, at least in the beginning, to dispatch one, I’m sure after it’s dead I would be able to skin it, gut it and prepare it… I did see a video of a man who invented a method of humanly dispatching the rabbit, here is the video

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Community

Food storage ideas…

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Preppers are always trying to get everyone else to at least begin stocking up on some short and long term food storage, honestly the biggest reason is because the more of you who prep, the fewer of you we have to worry about showing up on our doorsteps if/when the SHTF… of course we ALL hope that none of this is ever needed, I wouldn’t be a bit upset if 20, 30, or more years from now I get a big “I told you so…” from those who never prep… but the reality is, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

So with that said, here are a few videos showing the sorts of things that are relatively inexpensive and easy to stock up on. Things like protein, it’s something we all need in our diet, the good thing about these sources of protein is they don’t require refrigeration and most of them are relatively easy to open, they have pop-tabs or come in pouches that don’t require anything but your fingers to open.

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Community

A Peek into an Organic Prepper’s Pantry

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Having extra food put aside is something I have talked about quite a lot here, it’s a very important insurance policy for you and your family. Most lists and suggestions for what foods to store tend to be less than nutritious, of course having that is better than nothing. Here are ways to have some more nutritious foods in your pantry and in your stockpile of foods.

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Community

Keep your cool with warm weather cooking methods

thermometer-11029029I live in the high desert mountains of far western Texas, the summer days are hot, fortunately the evenings and nights tend to be cooler, I would like to have an outdoor kitchen, cooking during the day in the heat of summer is miserable at best, a kitchen out on the covered deck would make summer cooking so much better… until I get that outdoor kitchen set up, I found this article all about keeping your cool when cooking in the summer:

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As the mercury in the thermometer starts to climb, you may be looking for different ways to keep your home a bit cooler without an exponential increase in your electric bill. That battle starts in the kitchen.

The one thing that adds the most ambient heat is cooking.  Your choice of cooking methods can greatly increase the warmth that your air conditioner must then overcome.  And if you have no air conditioner, it can make your home humid, muggy and miserable.

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Community

Eggs Benedict on a mountain

Eggs_benedict

I read just the other day about some study “they” did that says people who take pictures of their food and post the pictures on social media MAY have a mental problem… well I am about to prove that I MAY have this problem, dinner tonight was special, something I haven’t made since we moved off-grid over 5 years ago now. Eggs Benedict. I used to make this at least once a month. I wondered if the altitude might be a problem, it sometimes works against me, and sometimes a dish does not work out at all.

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