Are you prepared? Trying to be more self sufficient

What you gonna make?

 

We’re just going to pickle them. We’ve been on a canning escapade for the last few years. Don’t be caught with just the food in your pantry!

 

Orange Habanero marmalade


Red grape jelly

 

Omg those all look so good

 

They are yummy! All natural, made with stuff from our garden and cane sugar.

 

How much habanero you put in for a batch?

 

12-15 per batch, which yields 8 half pint jars. Orange peel is grated into the jelly too. It’s sweet and hot, but not unbearably hot.

 

A couple of years ago a friend gave me some jalapeno cactus jelly, and I don't remember what prompted it but we tried it on summer sausage and it was awesome. It goes well with dry Italian sausage and salami too.

 

Sweet n salty, I like very much!

 

Nope. Can can can. We did piglets and tomato sauce last year. This year 31 quarts of beans so far. Just replanted part of the garden today

 

My wife makes some incredible jans and jellies. She usually only makes and gives out at Christmas and keeps some for her I can’t have it. She doesn’t bother with peaches or any of that any more cause I can’t eat it and she can’t eat it all.

 

We’ve done a lot of veggie soup, beans, tons of chicken, and all the veggies from our garden.

 

I did chilli. She did a unstuffed pepper soup and a white chicken chilli that’s real good. Last winter when we both had Covid it was great to be able to just pop some me in a pot and warm it up. We need to raw pack some more chicken and pork

 

We got white chicken chili and Santa Fe pork too. Also have pasta, rice and beans/lentils in their dried state.

Everyone has food/water, guns/ammo for security, but don’t forget about your meds, and personal hygiene. Comms is a great idea too.

We have a generator with 25 gal of fuel, but about to venture down the solar panel rabbit hole as well.

 

Our German striped and Cherokee purple tomatoes have died back. We canned the last of marinara sauce tonight, 6 more quarts. We had planted Siberean Black Prince tomatoes, but all the raina we've last 1.5 weeks is not good for them. We'll see.
Found 4 Army worms on our beni-imos today. Drowned them. Looked for more tonight (some worms glow under a red lamp), did not see anything.
Nursing eggplants along.
Groundhog ate our cucumber plants in May, before I trapped it. Need to replant them for fall.

 

So do you pressure can your soups?

 

Just got back from a little over a week in Montana in the Gallatin NF. Definitely off grid as far back as we could go. My buddy needed to do a little work though, so he took his mobile Starlink and solar Jackery. We both drove our Broncos there as we had a lot of gear. I had things like extra packs, mnt bike, spare tents, etc., but he had things like a fridge and other comfort items.

I was really impressed what he was able to do with the Starlink and Jackery. Those panels started producing power at first light and worked all the way to dusk. He had no problem running his fridge, the Starlink, and couple of laptops and charging the phones. He did several Teams and Zoom meetings with no issues. It was a pretty comfy camp compared to what I usually do. Especially watching 4K streaming in the evenings.

I came away with the desire to have something like that more for emergent use, as well as some camping use after seeing it in action. We could have ran quite a bit more off the system, and it was the smaller battery with 4 panels. Jackery has a bigger unit that runs off 8 panels that would supply a lot of power if needed. Definitely something I would be looking at if I had a real need. The solar panels were great for camp, but the Jackery battery also recharges from a vehicle as well and can be used as a battery pack to jump start a vehicle.

For those wanting to get a solar back up system, this might be what you are looking for. Not a whole house solution, but can certainly provide a lot of electricity to keep things charged, run the freezer/fridge as well as enough for some comfort items.

This was camp, with the solar panels deployed. The Starlink speeds were impressive.



This was testing the Jackery at home before we left. This was a cloudy afternoon with the phone, laptop, fridge, and computer plugged in.

 

Yes these are recipes made for canning so shelf stable for years

 

Pressure or hot bath canning? We have not gotten into pressure canning yet.